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unus-nauta-2407 · 22 days ago

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ohohoho *rubs hands together* this is gonna be good

"You cannot save me."

“That was unfair of you.” “All is fair in love and war, brother.” “Well, which one is it this time?” “I’ll let you decide.”

"Don't fall asleep again."

“Who the kark do you think I’m doing all this for?!”

“Kriff,” he hisses, “Kriff.”

"Wolffe, get your shebs here this instant."

For an onslaught of reasons, his heart screams within him.

“You’ll tell me what I want to know, clone.”

At last, he finds peace.

“I will not stand by and watch our brothers fall this way.”

“Just try and kriffing finish that sentence. You’ll lose that entire jaw for good.”

“You can take off your helmet, you know.”

“Do you really think leaving is going to solve anything?”

eesh all angsty

anyways, have fun and you're always welcome to mix and mash 'em up or tear 'em apartor whatever <3

Did you know. That I spent literally all day writing this

I think this wins the award for the longest and most involved fic I've ever written. Also probably the darkest. Also probably the most graphic (I mean it's not bad but like. I mostly write character studies you know? This is one of my first fics with an actual, uh. Plot)

The other deal is that this is HFSW but I didn't have it in me to do everything I just mentioned and also write it in the more archaic style that I write most of HFSW in, but since you're probably the only person who's gonna end up reading this (besides maybe Evie. oh and also @majorproblems77 cause Major I know you wanted to know what I was doing) I don't think it matters for now, and if I ever do publish this as an actual work I'll go in and edit it when I have more spoons

Happy New Year!

His back aches. So much.

He... doesn't remember much of the past few hours. Everything was hot and loud and painful and... red? But that's as much as he can gather. The only reason he's awake at all is because someone's calloused hands were trying to be gentle while massaging something creamy and cool into whatever's making his back scream.

"Nngh." (His voice is slow and slurred from sleep and the fact that he can barely raise his head from its pillow.)

"Oh, kriff. Sorry, vod, did I wake you?"

He doesn't open his eyes, but judging from the gravel and melancholy folded into the syllables, the voice and hands belong to his Captain.

"'S fine. Hurts. Where'm I?"

Rex is too quiet for two seconds too long.

"Cap'n. W'happened. Wha'sup with m'back."

"Do you not... remember?"

"Not really. 'Sa blur. Red? Hot. Loud." He pauses, considers. Furrows his brow confusedly. "M'arms hurt too? 'S bruising? Where's Kix?"

"...Kix was... forbidden from coming to see you."

This only confuses him further. "Why'd'ja do that?"

"...Fives, it wasn't me."

"But'chure th' Cap'n. Who--"

The memory that floods his senses with the force of a tsunami is enough to make him gasp. His eyes slam open and, almost of its own accord, his body launches itself off the cot and to its feet, which promptly reopens several of the scabs on his back, which in turn release a gush of blood and rip a scream from his throat as his legs turn to jelly and give out beneath him. Rex catches him before he can hit the floor and eases him back onto the medical deck cot where he was laying.

Everything is crystal clear, suddenly.

"There's a rumor on this ship that someone, somewhere, is planning a mutiny. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Legionary?"

"No, Sir." He's careful to enunciate the sir with all the thinly-veiled disdain his voice can carry. "Can't say that I do."

Krell's eyes narrow, and he bends down to come face-to-face with his least-favorite soldier. "Is that so? Because my sources also claim that 'someone' may be you."

Fives tosses an eyebrow in a half-shrug. "Oh, I'm flattered, really. But, y'know, people talk. The boys get bored. Especially on long campaigns under questionable leadership.”

The force of Krell’s slap is enough to knock him dizzy to the floor. It was stupid of him to say, he knows. Rex, or maybe Kix, gives a cry of concern.

“You’ll tell me what I want to know, Clone,” Krell growls, “and you’ll speak to me with all the respect I deserve.”

His smart mouth’s gonna get him killed one day. But he can’t resist one more shot as he stumbles to his feet and wipes the shock-tears from his eyes.

“Oh, but Sir, I am. It’s not my fault that’s none.”

He thinks Krell might just execute him then and there, and honestly? He’d die with no regrets. Krell, too, looks for a moment as though that wouldn’t be such a bad plan, but then he straightens, smoothes his snarling visage, and announces, in a clipped tone:

"Your pride is getting tiring, Trooper. Thirty lashes.'

The scowl drops from Five’s face, and he pales.

Death he could handle. He faces it every day.

But not even the Kaminoans ever turned the lash on him.

"Sir, you can't-- you can't be serious."

"As death."

"But thirty lashes, that's-- it's sadistic!"

"Forty, then. You really do need to learn to curb your backtalk."

"Wait, please, Sir, General," Rex pipes up. His hands shake. "You don't-- don't do this. Please, he'll apologize, he--"

"--Needs to understand he must respect his superiors. As do you, apparently. I am acting General of the Five Hundred First Legion, I will discipline my soldiers as I see fit, and I will take no interference from defective-" and here he gestures with a sneer to Rex's close-cropped blond curls- "little Clones, no matter what rank they may possess. Perhaps you too would benefit from a few kisses of the whip, Seventy-Five Sixty-Seven."

Shock turns to fury, and thrusting an arm out almost protectively, Fives practically throws himself between his Captain and the usurper-general.

"Don't you dare talk to the Captain like that ever again," he spits. He doesn’t care that Rex chokes out a Fives--, he doesn’t care if this earns him a hundred more lashes. That’s his bu- his Captain.

“Ah, but I’m only following your example!” Krell smiles with all the fake cheer he’s capable of. “Though, I must say, even if it is a double standard, your loyalty to your Captain is truly admirable. So, as a reward, I’ll bump the number from forty to…” And now, his grin is real, and crazed, and dangerous:

“Oh, why not. Let’s make it fifty-five.”

Everything goes silent. The mockery hangs in the air like a noose, daring him to challenge once more, to go one more step over the line, to make any additional comment that could justify cutting his tongue right out of his mouth. But Rex’s trembling hand on his pauldron begs him silently not to speak, and the next words are not his, but Kix’s.

“Please, sir,” he pleads. There’s something thick in his voice that Fives thinks may be tears. “Please, that’s-- he’ll bleed out. He’ll die of bloodloss, and you need him alive if you want him to tell you anything.”

“You make an excellent point. Tell me, what’s the most potent medicine on the Resolute’s medical deck?”

“I-- uh, well, I have a bottle of refined Kaminoan bacta--“

“Then you’ll administer it to him after the flogging. Is it oral or topical?”

“Sir, I--“

“Answer the question.”

“It-- uh, oral, sir, but--“

“Very well, I’ll even let you give it between lashes. I think after the twentieth should be reasonable. Is it, Medic?”

Kix can’t speak, just nod his head weakly. He looks almost more terrified than Fives himself.

“Excellent!” Krell claps all four of his giant clawed hands. “You have half an hour to prepare. I want the entire legion at the mast by then.”

“Fives? Fives, are you alright?” Rex kneels by the cot to look the younger man in the eye, exhaustion and worry in his knitted brow.

“I… ugh. Yeah. ‘M fine. Just… remembered.”

The Captain grimaces and straightens, and wrings out a cloth into a barrel of what Fives suspects (and, quite frankly, can only hope) is a bucket of precious clean freshwater, before he starts to sponge away the fresh blood from the reopened lacerations. One of his hands moves to Fives’s thick curls to gently massage his scalp.

“You did so good, you know,” he whispers. “You took it so well. I’m… really proud of you.”

Fives just sighs and screws his eyes closed.

Whatever happens, he swears to himself he’s not going to give that demagolka the luxury of hearing him scream.

Umbara’s air is cold and bitter against the bare skin of his torso and arms, but really, he didn’t expect anything less from the shadow isle. His brother’s faces in the crowd range from shocked to terrified to almost in tears to stony, tight-lipped stoicism. He just squares his shoulders, straightens his backbone, keeps his chin up, and looks straight ahead.

He can’t, however, resist locking eyes with Rex when he passes, and the Captain’s face is grave and grieved and hopeless… and, as he gives his Legionary the tiniest of subtle nods, maybe just a little bit proud.

He says nothing as he’s tied to the mast, he says nothing as Krell makes a speech to his assembled brethren about loyalty and obedience and how ‘good soldiers follow orders’ or some rot like that, and he says nothing as Krell leans over to growl in his ear about how much he’s going to enjoy teaching him this lesson.

The first lash hits and, though his clenched fists spasm open and his vision goes white with agony, he doesn’t make a sound.

Rex, after managing to staunch the bleeding, has quickly gone back to smoothing bacta over Fives’s mangled back. He finishes with a final rub of the shoulders and then reaches over to the supplies he’s gathered to grab a length of clean white bandages.

“Come on, Fives, I need you to sit up for me,” he murmurs. Fives peels his eyes open with a vague garbled murmur before he finds the Captain’s strong hands so gently helping ease him into an upwards position without disturbing any of the fragile lacerations. Rex very carefully starts wrapping the bandages around Fives’s torso.

“Gah.”

The older man pauses. “Are you alright?”

“Mmmh. Yeah. I…” Fives takes a deep breath. When he speaks again, his voice is very strained and heartbreakingly young-sounding. “It aches so much, can I lean on you, please?”

“I… yeah. Yeah, of course.”

He does. It feels so much better.

“Sorry,” he mumbles from where his face is smushed into the juncture of Rex’s neck and shoulder. “I’m not makin’ it any easier’ta bandage, ‘m I?”

“It’s okay. You’re good. Don’t… don’t worry about it, kid.”

True to his word, Krell lets Kix to the mast after the first twenty strokes. Fives can barely see through the pain-blindness and the tears that stream silently down his face, but he hears a yelp of surprise and a stumbling of feet and winces at the thought that his poor brother is slipping in the pool of his blood that seeps ever outward from the foot of the post. Yet despite the near-disaster, Kix draws up next to him and gently reaches a guiding hand to carefully tip his head back before lifting something cool and glassy to his lips.

“Drink it. Please,” the medic softly whispers. It’s so bitter that Fives nearly chokes, but he manages to take a few sips of it before Kix withdraws the bottle. In the motion, he tips their foreheads together for a brief moment and murmurs, “I’m so sorry I can’t do more. You’re doing so well.” One of his thumbs gently sweeps under his brother’s drenched lower lashes to catch any more tears from rolling off his face for now.

“Medic! Get back here, you’re wasting time!” comes the bark from across the deck, and though Kix’s entire body tenses and there’s a jumpy glint in his eye, he takes one final second to clandestinely press a kiss to Fives’s brow before scurrying off with his half-full bottle of bacta.

“There you go.”

Fives can’t pull himself off of Rex’s shoulder. His whole body feels cast of lead; if anything, he sags more heavily into the Captain now that his bandage is tied off.

“Thanks.”

“Any time.” Rex’s hand finds its way to stroke his young trooper’s hair. “You need any help laying back down?”

“Mmmh. Can I… stay here? For a little bit?”

“Wh-- I… of course. Of course, Fives.”

The thirtieth lash is where he finally breaks.

He doesn’t know if it’s that the torment that mounts with each fresh stroke has finally become too much to bear, or if by a fluke the flail traces itself in just the right way along his spine, but the whip leaves its thirtieth kiss and finally manages to tear something ragged and wet and raw from his throat.

It’s such a little gasp of pain.

It chokes him.

He tries to pull himself back together.

Thirty-One. He’s silent.

Thirty-Two. New, thick tears drip down his cheekbones and run their fingers down his neck, but he’s silent.

Thirty-Three. His head snaps back when the tail grazes a rib it hasn’t touched before, but he’s silent.

Thirty-Four. His hands spasm and shake and his fingers twitch in distress, but he’s silent.

Thirty-Fi— Fi— Oh, Force help him, he can’t take it anymore.

He gasps again.

He doesn’t even register that he was falling asleep until he jolts himself awake.

“Easy!” Rex exclaims, catching him by the shoulders. “Hey, kid, if you’re dropping off we should probably lay you down, yeah?”

Fives just softly groans in response.

Fifty.

He can’t check his gasps anymore; by now, they come with every stroke, and they’re only growing more and more desperate. But, true to his promise, he still hasn’t screamed. He’s held out this long and, thank the stars above and sea below, it’s almost over.

How he’s still this lucid is beyond him. It must be Kix’s high-potency bacta, because in addition to the strange coherency of his thoughts, he can also feel his flesh trying to stitch itself back together between lashes. If he’s being honest… it makes it that much more painful, but there’s no way his poor brother could have known that. He was just trying to help. Force bless him.

Fifty-One. He lost the ability to see at all around the twenty-third lash, but it’s still jarring to watch the black spots dancing in the white fog that’s replaced his vision.

Fifty-Two. Just three more, he tells himself. It might have been mingled with his latest strangled choke. At this point he almost doesn’t care. Almost.

Fifty-Three. He can gasp and choke and fight for his every breath, but he’s not going to scream. He’s not going to scream. He promised himself. Krell is not going to hear him scream.

Fifty-Four. Krell is NOT going to hear him scream.

Fifty-Five.

It’s too much.

He can’t tell if the sound is a swear or someone’s name or just one long shriek of agony, but it’s horrible and loud and broken and his. It arches his spine and throws back his head and splays out his fingers and he shakes, and then his voice gives out and he slumps heavily against the mast.

He screamed.

He failed.

He hates himself.

He thinks he hears someone say, somewhere, Cut him down. His wrists come loose and there’s warm arms gingerly easing him to the ground, careful not to jostle his flayed-open back as they guide him to rest in their owner’s lap.

There’s distant sounds of what might be an argument. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He wants to sleep.

The arms very gently hoist him into a fireman’s carry, and he leans- as much as he can, with his weeping back- against his supporter, but it’s no use. He blacks out after three steps.

Rex, after gently maneuvering Fives into a sleeping position on the cot, facedown and back up so as to not disturb his slowly healing back, had knelt down beside the cot to hold his limp hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers after an indeterminate amount of time. “You didn’t deserve this.”

“‘S not… your fault.”

“I’m the Captain. This is my ship. You’re a member of my crew. I should be able to stand up to Krell. If I had a stronger backbone, this never would have happened.”

“Cap… tain. Listen t’ me. You’re a good man. You’re a good Captain. ‘S just tha’ Krell… isn’t. He hates me. ‘S not your fault.”

Rex hums noncommittally and strokes Fives’s hair with his free hand.

“I… promise, Cap. Not’chure fau–”

“Shhh. You should sleep. I doubt Krell’s going to give you much of a recovery leave.”

“But--“

“Shhh.”

Fives sighs and begrudgingly closes his eyes. He’d love to argue with the Captain for another hour, but the fact of the matter is he’s spent. He can barely keep himself conscious.

Still, with as much strength as he can muster, he gently squeezes Rex’s hand in his slackening grasp. He’s met, in turn, with an infinitely soft kiss to the temple, and then he slips away into sleep.

#YES THIS IS REVENGE FOR ALL YOUR PAIN TO POOR LITTLE MEGS. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW MAY #okay in all seriousness. i don't know when exactly in the arc this takes place #all i know is it's before the “we're gonna steal these umbaran ships” deal #why yes this DOES mean he goes through the rest of the arc with a kriffed up back!#why yes this DOES mean he has a kriffed-up back for the rest of his life (in HFSW canon)!#and some context we don't get cause this is from fives's pov:#kix wasn't allowed to treat him afterwards purely as an arbitrary punishment. i mean this may have been physical torture for fives but #the whole thing was arranged as maximum torment for everyone involved #kix cause he wasn't allowed to help which is what he just wants to do so badly #rex cause. that's his boy! that's his son! that's his beloved ARC protege and what do you MEAN he can't protect him?#what do you MEAN he can't do anything but watch?#and then of course the rest of the legion cause i mean that's their brother. and it was also a “you stay in line or this will be you” deal #now back to plot points: rex had to bargain his way into being able to take care of fives afterwards #and kix snuck him all the supplies he needed or told him where to find them #and how to apply them #anyway. this has been brewing evilly in my mind for a very long time which is how i was able to write this in one day #and even though i kind of (really) hate the ending. you know. c'est la vie #star wars #hfsw

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