When Echo woke up, Fives was already awake, stepping out of the refresher with a towel around his waist, wet hair clinging to his forehead. He grinned at Echo.
“Rise and shine, vod!” Fives called cheerfully. “Today’s the day.”
Echo immediately snapped fully awake, jerking straight up in his bunk. “Kriff, am I late?”
“Not at all.” Fives answered smoothly, running his hands delicately across his brand-new ARC trooper armor, stacked proudly in the chair beside his bunk. “I couldn’t sleep, I was too excited.”
Echo chuckled, swinging out of his bunk and dropping to the floor, padding off to the refresher. “You sound like a cadet.”
Now it was Fives’s turn to laugh. “You know just as well as I do we’ve been dreaming about this day since we were cadets.” A brief pause. “Besides… think about how excited Hevy would’a been.”
Echo stopped, his blacks halfway peeled off, and turned to look at his brother. “Fives -.”
Fives waved off Echo’s delicate inquiry, shaking his head. “Sorry, shouldn’t’ve brought it up. What matters is you and I made it, and we’re going to beat this war.” He grinned at Echo. “Besides, you know how easy it is to pick up women and vode when you’ve got one of these?” He held up his pauldron triumphantly, giggling to himself. “I’ve wanted one of these babies ever since I saw Commander Colt with one on Kamino.”
Echo rolled his eyes, pulling his blacks off the rest of the way and stepped into the refresher.
When he came back out a few minutes later, Fives was nowhere to be seen. Echo stepped towards his own ARC armor, stacked carefully – albeit a little neater– next to where Fives’s armor had occupied minutes ago. He dressed quickly and efficiently, admiring the armor as he put each piece on. The handprint had been Fives’s idea – “Seems wrong not to have it, you know? After everything… that’s a part of you now, Echo.”– and Fives had been the one to carefully, painstakingly repaint it onto each new piece of armor they’d gotten since they were shinies. He smiled at the memory, carefully latching the last of his armor into place.
“Can you imagine walking into 79s with nothing but this?”
Fives’s voice carried from somewhere behind him, and Echo turned around, yelping a cry of outrage.
“Force, Fives, PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON!”
Fives stood in the middle of the room, admiring himself, completely naked save for his kama around his hips and his pauldron across his shoulders. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Echo. “I think it looks nice.”
“Doesn’t cover much.” Echo muttered back, lobbing Fives’s helmet at him. Fives caught it with ease, shaking his hips so the kama rippled around his thighs.
“Covers the back!”
“Doesn’t cover any of the front!” Echo frowned at him, shooed his brother back towards his armor. “Hurry up. You’re the one who said you were excited to get going.”
Fives snickered, picked up the rest of his armor and turned around.
Raf's rants 