Archive of Our Own ^beta

CT-7567 was never supposed to be the one who lived.

His hair was lighter than anyone but ‘72’s, he had a tendency to try to do things with his left hand instead of his right, and after ‘66 was decommed he didn’t speak for close to a standard year.

CT-7567 was never going to be the one who lived.  He can’t help but think that all his brothers died covering for him.

In the end, it’s just CT-7567, and CT-7568, whose hair isn’t even a little bit brown.  They lie together in ‘67’s pod some nights, curled up so closely  that they can feel each other’s heartbeats, that they can hardly breathe.

‘68 says, ”I can’t watch you die too. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,”  over and over again.

And ‘67 says, “K’oyacyi, k’oyacyi,” because he’ll have to.

Except he doesn’t.

‘67 spends every moment of every day training. ‘67 grieves for ‘71, of course he does.  ‘67 says the remembrances every night properly, out loud in Mando’a.

But, the fact is, by the time ‘71 was decommed, ‘67 had stopped caring so much.

It’s horrible to say. ‘67 hates himself for it.  But ‘71 wasn’t his other half like ‘66 was, he was far from the first, he wasn’t someone he’d tried and failed to protect like ‘75.  

But ‘71 had been good at tactics sims and best at endurance training, and he had well above average scores in mathematics and Republic History modules.  ‘71’s hair was dark brown, just a couple shades lighter than it should have been.  If any of them were going to make it to deployment with ‘68 it was going to be ‘71.

It’s lonely with only two of them, and ‘67 feels oddly empty, like he’s over-extended somehow.  He was never supposed to get this far.  By the time ‘68 was decommed they’d all known that.  Known that most of them weren’t going to make it, and the more defective the faster they’d be discarded.  So ‘67 fills that odd emptiness with training.  He has no one left who needs protecting, just him and ‘68.  He spends all his waking hours and sometimes sneaks out when can’t sleep, shooting at the practice range, or running the training courses, until the emptiness in his mind that should be filled with his batchmates buzzes with activity.  He practices with a single hand DC-17 until his right hand cramps and blisters and he achieves perfect accuracy.  And then, because there’s no reason not to, he does it over again with his left.  CT-7567’s scores, already slightly above average across the board, go up and up, until he’s almost on par with the CCs half a year ahead.

But if any of them was going to make it to deployment with ‘68 it would have been ‘71.  By the time there were only five of them left they started whispering it.  When it was just the three of them they knew for sure.  ‘67 doesn’t think he has anything left he needs to fight for, with ‘71 dead.  ‘67 works hard and keeps his head down on autopilot, not so much because he thinks he has a chance, but simply because it’s all he knows how to do.  But ‘68 pinned all his hopes on ‘71, and ‘67 doesn’t notice him fall to pieces.

The only reason ‘67 is alive is because his brothers covered for him, spoke for him when he couldn’t, stood up for him when he couldn’t.

But ‘68 was the one who wasn’t defective.  He was always the one they never needed to worry about, the one who tried so hard to make up for the rest of them.  They’d all always known that ‘68 was going to be the one who would live on to remember them.

”K’oyacyi,” ‘67 says in the dark of night.

”I can’t,” ‘68 says.

’67 should have listened.

While ‘67 is filling all his empty spaces with hard work, ‘68 is letting the emptiness swallow him, and ‘67 doesn’t notice until it’s too late.  Doesn’t notice until ‘68 isn’t meeting his weight requirements, until he’s failing tests, until he’s failing to be presentable to regulation standards, and doesn’t care who sees.

It’s too late, but that doesn’t stop ‘67 from trying. He makes sure ‘68 eats at mealtimes, quizzes him on the modules ‘68 can’t seem to pay attention to, even dresses him in his training armor some days.  It’s nothing, really, they haven’t had to deal with before.  But before it was always a group effort, to shore up a brother from breaking, and if it had been any of the others, ‘67 would have noticed earlier.

“K’oyacyi!” ‘67 hisses, clinging desperately to ‘68 in the dead of night when neither of them can sleep, “Gar enteyor oyacyir.”

And maybe it’s the wrong thing to say.  Maybe, when ‘68 said, “I can’t watch you die, too,” ‘67 should have said, “You won’t.”

But at the time, ‘67 didn’t think that was a promise he could keep.

In the end, ‘68 keeps underperforming. And in the end ‘67 can’t make up for it, can’t keep him safe.

And then finally, one day, ‘68 talks back to Trainer Wyvern.

”Stop,” he says, standing in front of ‘67, “I won’t let you touched him again.”

Just like that, as if he has nothing to fear, because he figures he has nothing to lose.

And ‘67 can’t save him from that.

Trainer Wyvern marks ‘68 down for insubordination, and ‘68 is decommissioned the next day.