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[ninefox]

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Backdated: After visiting Selina in the infirmary

[callmefives]

Fives is tired, as usual, and angry when he comes in late in the morning and drops onto the edge of the low bed. He's missed his maintenance shift in the infirmary, and now he needs to cool off somewhere away from everyone before he has to deal with the barge for his dinner shift.

"Hux ambushed Selina on the deck last night," he informs Jedao flatly without preamble. "Filthy Sithfucking shabuir shot her in the knee from cover so he could loom over her and gloat while he finished her off. His voice takes on an edge of vicious satisfaction as he looks up at Jedao and continues, though. "And then she nearly killed the hut'uun for his arrogance."

[ninefox]

Jedao is already scrambling up from his desk at the new, vicious tension threading through Fives, curling over him and going tense himself when he hears the beginning of what happened, then cracks into a wide, toothy smile that seems almost not to fit on his face, savagery hiding uncertain relief.

"Oh, good girl."

[callmefives]

"She only had a knife, and they had to pull it out of him in the infirmary." He doesn't even mind so much that Hux didn't bleed out, though he might give Selina some knife-fighting lessons, particularly on aiming for arteries.

He is ridiculously, brutally proud of her.

[ninefox]

Jedao kisses him, hard and sweet.

"What a little firecracker. Do you think she'd like a gun?"

[callmefives]

Fives hums into the kiss, pleased and unsurprised that Jedao appreciates her courage and resourcefulness as much as he does. "I was thinking a phaser. Nice and light and easy to carry and hide."

[ninefox]

"And a stun setting she can totally use, on people who aren't Hux, if it's a flood or something," Jedao agrees, with utterly failed solemnity. "Do you want to train her or could I?" Jedao has a little more practice with the phaser in particular - besides being a truly ridiculously good shot - but there's benefits to more warden-inmate bonding.

[callmefives]

Fives presses his lips together as he considers the question. "I'd like to if she'll let me, but if not then you offering would be good. Or we could tag-team her on it. Let's see what she's comfortable with." He doesn't want to push too hard, but he also doesn't want to miss a chance to get closer to her. Then again, expanding the circle of people she feels like she can rely on is never going to be a bad thing.

"I'm definitely going to make sure she knows how to go for the arteries with a knife, though." Because as satisfying as it is knowing that Hux is stuck in the infirmary slowly and miserably recovering from her retaliation against him, it's not worth the possibility that he might have done more harm to her because she hadn't taken him out quickly enough.

[ninefox]

"Of course," Jedao agrees. He reaches for one of Fives' hands and threads his fingers with it.

"I don't think I have to tell you to be careful about your temper." Fives knows what's at stake. But. "But I will tell you, if you're shaky, you come to me any moment of the day or night, remember that. Because we're in it together."

[callmefives]

Fives wishes he could even pretend to be indignant about Jedao's not so oblique warning, but he knows he has no right to be, not after Alec, and he hangs his head and draws in a slow breath.

"Thank you, cyar'ika," he murmurs solemnly after a moment, and squeezes his hand. "I won't risk getting demoted, nothing's worth that." He'd walked away from Ren after he mind-fucked him, and he'd stand and let Hux kill him before he'd do anything to jeopardize his deal.

[ninefox]

Jedao believes him. But with all the upheavals - he needed it said out loud, needed it reaffirmed. He thinks that might help Fives, too: the memory of having promised him, when even thought is hard.

"Good." He squeezes their joined hands, leaning in for another kiss.

"Is she hurt, aside from the knee?"

[callmefives]

Fives lives his free hand up to curve around the nape of Jedao's neck for a moment as he kisses him back, slow and sweet. He's still not steady, nowhere near, but he's so much better and it's all due to Jedao's help and support. Which doesn't feel fair to him when he's been having so many troubles and losses of his own.

"A concussion. Nothing she won't recover from completely with a week of bacta, though I know she's still worried about her knee not healing fully. I don't think that's going to change until it actually has." And he knows what it's like to fear being irreparable crippled.

[ninefox]

"She'll get there," Jedao reaffirms. "If she wants company, I'm happy to take a shift."

Both because Fives has duties, and so he doesn't have to be in the infirmary quite so much.

[callmefives]

Fives sighs in relief at the offer, though- "Does she know you, really?" He hasn't asked either of them, because... well, he doesn't want to stick his nose into either of their relationships in any way that might be intrusive.

[ninefox]

"Not really. I didn't want to push. But we've talked a few times, and we could bond over how great she is and what an assless waste of nitrogen Hux is."

Jedao would like to know her better.

[callmefives]

Fives huffs a laugh and wraps his free arm around Jedao's waist. "I love you, and that would be perfect." He lifts their joined hands and kisses Jedao's knuckles lightly. "Is it inappropriate that I'm so kriffing proud of her for this?" he asks. Because maybe as a warden he shouldn't be, but he absolutely can't help it.

[ninefox]

"No," Jedao insists. "If she goes after him like I want to and cuts his fingers off, then you might have a professional obligation to some token disapproval. But she was hunted by a lilyfucking brute who couldn't handle being laughed at by a kid. She fought to defend herself and she did a damn fine job of it. Of course you should be proud."

[callmefives]

"Good." He's never quite sure where the lines are for regular people, it's good to have Jedao as a sounding board for it. "Because I really can't stop." He presses his grin into Jedao's shoulder and holds him tight then adds, more quietly. "She asked for me. After. She asked Shiro to get me." And maybe that shouldn't feel like a triumph, but it does.

[ninefox]

At the exact moment someone thinks of Jedao as a reliable representative or normal morality, elsewhere on the ship, Mikodez walks into one of the roving patches of inchoate anxiety, and is overcome by nameless, creeping horror.

Jedao pulls back a little to look Fives in the eyes, a bright smile lighting up his face.

"Fives, that's great." He may not know Selina personally, but he has seen how skittish she can be, how she skulks and lurks, how she holds people at arms' length with shrugs and sneers.

[callmefives]

"Yeah," he agrees, and this time his smile is smaller and warmer. "It is. I was afraid, after the breach, that she was going to shut me out even harder." She was definitely not happy with the parental association, or hadn't seemed to be. But now- "I mean, she could still decide she hates me and not talk to me again for weeks, but for right now-" He shrugs, still smiling. "I'll take it."

[ninefox]

"For now, you did good," Jedao says warmly. "And even if she backtracks later, it's still a good step. It's the beginning of a path you can keep inviting her on, that she can take when she's ready."

[callmefives]

Fives lets out a breath and nods. "Yeah. That... it's a good way to look at it. She knows the options there now, hopefully she'll keep coming back, even if there are setbacks." He's gotten more realistic about the process since he arrived, at least, he doesn't expect miracles, just hopes for progress.

He leans into Jedao and rests his head on his shoulder. "But Force I still kriffing hate the infirmary," he admits quietly, glad for his space where he can admit it, let the weight of his fear go just a little.

[ninefox]

Jedao hugs him tight, proud of him too for how he can say it now.

"I know, love. But you didn't let it stop you being there for her, and she'll be out soon." Maybe, Jedao hopes, in some tiny way that will even be healing for Fives, for someone he cares about to come out of the damn place assisted and alive.

[callmefives]

He huffs quietly against Jedao's shoulder. "It's a lot easier walking in on my own two feet than waking up there after being killed," he points out quietly. Especially with Tup and his death and everything else that led to it and came after at the forefront of his mind. "At least Clark was there, and Selina will be fine." He says that last like it's an order, like he has to force it to be so.

[ninefox]

"Just because it wasn't the worst possible thing doesn't mean it wasn't hard."

Jedao is derailed for just a moment, because Clark was there is actually new information for him. Why wouldn't he have taken Fives somewhere else first? How could he possibly not know -

Clark's basically an Andan, Jedao reminds himself. Only so much can be expected.

"And of course she will be."

[callmefives]

He just leans against Jedao for a little while, breathing slowly in and out, making sure he's settled in his skin. He'd come back here because it's the place he's least likely to have to confront his ghosts unannounced, and Jedao being here is just an added comfort.

"Lie with me for a bit?" he asks quietly once he's settled. It's... still hard, to ask, but he's learning. Jedao is teaching him that it's all right to take time, or to ask for things for himself. It's all right to not always be working or training or serving somehow. But it's still so kriffing hard to be the one who asks.