Chapter Text
–Ima-Gun–
“Sirs,” Mint says, looking at both Ima-Gun and Keeli. Ima-Gun thinks that he almost has a look of mischief on his face. “You two both need to take a break. I may not be a medic, but I know Patches would want you both to take a turn to rest.”
They’ve just finished dissecting one of Keeli’s vod. It took hours and with everything before that… Mint is not wrong and Keeli will be the first to acknowledge if a trooper under his command knows better than him.
Sighing heavily next to him Keeli says, “I absolutely want to argue with you, trooper, but I can’t because you are right. Ima-Gun… General–” Keeli says and Ima-Gun does his best to level an unimpressed look at him for using the title. He gives the same look right back and Ima-Gun tries to hold back the laugh ready to bubble out. “I’m going to check on Patches and our shiny. Looks like Error is already out,” Keeli continues and Ima-Gun follows his gaze toward the trooper lying sprawled out on the opposite side of their little camp.
It’s going to get cold, sooner rather than later. Everyone is going to be huddled together trying to keep warm now that the sun has set again.
Busying himself with setting out the bed rolls as close as they can to each other, Ima-Gun makes sure water is in the canteens and sealed from the dust that permeates everything. Finally running out of things to keep himself busy he relieves himself in the furthest corner of the cave having previously been dubbed the ‘latrine’ and settles himself down on a bedroll.
They have all paired off. Cepheid and Mint will be awake and on watch, himself and Keeli, and then Error will be between Patches and the still unconscious trooper. Ima-Gun can feel that Keeli is getting worried that the trooper has not yet woken. He is most likely dehydrated, but Ima-Gun still feels no pain from him–or any emotions or feelings at all. For a brief moment of lucidity from Patches–he had suggested that perhaps he is suffering from the effects of oxygen deprivation, but without more in depth scanners, the medic was unsure.
Wishing he was more talented in the healing arts, Ima-Gun accepts his limitations reluctantly and lets the feeling go in the Force. He will always hope to preserve life if he can, but with so many injured troopers and no way of securing a quicker rescue, they need to stay put and wait for the Twi’lek resistance to arrive.
After meditating again, Ima-Gun lies down on the mat, leaving enough room for his bunkmate, Keeli, to slide in on the outside edge of the group. He wishes that he could insist that he stay on the outer edge, but he knows that he will be of no use to anyone if he gets too cold. Finally finding a comfortable enough spot lying on his back, Ima-Gun lets his eyes close and tries to relax.
A little while later, but not so long that he falls asleep, Ima-Gun feels Keeli settle down next to him on his own bedroll. Keeli lies down with a few inches of space between them and tosses a crinkly emergency blanket across the two of them. The ratty, but thicker blankets they found in the cave earlier go to Error and the two injured vod. Cepheid and Mint are huddled together on a rock with one wrapped around their shoulders, weapons at the ready.
“So how do we uhh… want to do this?” Keeli asks. Ima-Gun can feel his mirth and a little embarrassment through the Force. When he smiles, a genuine one, Ima-Gun thinks it lights up the room.
“However you are comfortable, Keeli. I do not mind, but I am significantly taller than you. It may be easier if you are, oh what do they call it, the little spoon?”
Keeli barks out a laugh that he quickly muffles with a hand, turning onto his side to face Ima-Gun.
“We call it ship to ship, but that also might be something some vod came up with while on painkillers,” he says with a chuckle.
“It very well could be. But also you and your vode have your own culture being raised on Kamino the way you were. You get to call it whatever you choose.”
“Do we? I guess I never thought about that. We don’t really fit in with most natborns, erm, sorry sir, natural born beings,” Keeli says a little shyly.
“No harm. You are correct however. I just wish you all would not dismiss yourselves so readily. You are people just as I am or Master Yoda. We are all part of the Force and how you come to be does not make one being better than another.”
Keeli is silent, but Ima-Gun can see in his face and feel in the Force that his mind is mulling it over.
“But back to your previous question, it may be more comfortable for me to be the ‘big ship’ as you say.”
Letting out a little snorting laugh, Keeli turns over and pillows his head on his arm. Ima-Gun curls himself around Keeli’s shorter frame and pulls the crinkly blanket over them both.
It takes them both a few minutes to get comfortable, but after a little negotiation, Ima-Gun wraps one arm around Keeli’s middle and pulls him in close, tucking his knees up behind the Captain’s own and pressing them together from the crown of Ima-Gun’s head to Keeli’s still booted feet. Ima-Gun can immediately feel the minute warmth radiating off of Keeli’s undersuit covered skin, but just faintly. The trooper’s undersuits are very good at thermoregulation, great at keeping them at an optimal temperature. Despite that, Ima-Gun thinks it will be enough to keep him from going into a groggy state of torpor.
Nikto naturally enter a state of torpor or lethargy when the temperatures get slow enough, which is typically at night, but they also tend to stay on planets where the temperatures don’t get low enough that it lasts more than a few groggy minutes when they wake. The key word there being generally. In the past, when Ima-Gun was a Padawan, his Master and he ended up on a bitterly cold planet. It wasn’t his first cold planet, he had been to Ilum to get his first crystal as an initiate afterall, but it was the first one where he wasn’t prepared for quite how cold it would be.
The whole situation had ended well, but they had been abducted by Pirates who threatened the lives of a group of traveling traders. The whole mission hadn’t involved any of that, but such is the way of the Force. Sometimes it pushes you into situations where you have no idea where it will lead.
Those sorts of situations seem to occur quite often in Ima-Gun Di’s life. In the past he has rescued Senators and those to be sold into slavery, become lost in a humid filled jungle on Felucia only to nearly stumble into a poaching trap for Force sensitives, and once he was nearly given a harem of very willing beings after rescuing an heir to a wealthy family. He declined the marriage proposal and the beings willing to warm his bed, but more often than not it’s uneventful, but fulfilling work nonetheless.
The beginning of the war changed all that. Now everything seems to be constant pain, fear, and more death than Ima-Gun has ever felt. It takes a toll on all of them, but anyone who is Force Sensitive, moreso. He’s not trying to make the suffering that any civilians or the clones have experienced any less, but without good shields Jedi can feel it all. And those feelings can drive someone to extremes they otherwise never would have considered. Much like himself.
Finally letting his mind settle, Ima-Gun relaxes against Keeli even more and gently presses his forehead against the base of his neck. He has to be careful of his horns, but he manages. With other Nikto, this position is considered to be rather familiar as one is leaving themselves vulnerable. Ima-Gun is unsure if Keeli and his vode feel the same about it.
With one last deep and settling breath, Ima-Gun lets himself drift off, the warm nape of Keeli’s neck pressed to his forehead and the smooth texture of his undersuit under his palms.
–Keeli–
Hours later, Keeli wakes with a start. He’s up and standing within seconds, pushing off the blanket and a heavy weight in one go. It’s not until after he surveys the area that he realizes that no one is shooting at them and that the heavy weight is–Ima-Gun, his General, their jetii. –and he’s not moving, not reacting to the commotion around them or the rough push of him away from Keeli.
As the ranking trooper, who is not injured, Keeli looks to Error. “Error, report. What’s the commotion?” Kneeling down, Keeli shakes Ima-Gun to try to wake him again.
“Our shiny is awake, and–” a grunting noise and a quick intake of breath has Keeli turning his head to survey the scene on the opposite side of their camp. “--let’s just say he’s pretty feisty and he’s got pointy elbows. Think he got me in the spleen,” Error says as he grapples with the flailing trooper.
“Y’don’t even know where your spleen is,” Patches mutters from nearby. Keeli assumes Cepheid helped move him over while Mint and Error tried to subdue their shiny. Mint is now sporting a bloody nose and Error is curled in on himself trying to guard his torso from another blow.
“Mmm, well now I do– oof!” Error says with another grunt. He and Mint have finally restrained the trooper. He’s no longer struggling, but Keeli can hear the gulping sobs coming from him as he is held down to prevent him from hurting himself or anyone else more.
“Let him go, boys, I think he’s done,” Keeli says. He watches for a second as the young trooper curls in on himself and sobs. Mint hesitantly places a hand on his back, the one not pinching his nose to staunch the flow of blood. Seeing that the trooper allows the touch, Keeli focuses on his General, still unmoving in front of him.
“Sir? General? Are you okay?” No answer and no movement other than the slow and shallow movement of his chest. “You need to wake up! Sir! Ima-gun, please!” Keeli pleads. He still does not stir.
“Patches, you awake? I need a medic. The General isn’t waking up!”
“What? Sss’he cold? Keels, check t’see if he’s cold. What does his skin feel like?” Patches says groggily.
“Uhhh–” Keeli’s brain supplies sunhelpfully. He reaches out to touch Ima-Gun’s face. It feels cool, much cooler than he is, but that’s not saying much because the clones tend to run warm anyway. Pulling the equally chilly fabric away from his neck, Keeli presses the backs of his fingers to his skin there and is slightly shocked to feel that he is nearly as cool there as well. “His neck is cold, but I’m not sure how cold is too cold.”
“I would say you need to feel how warm the core of his body is, but I don’t think you are quite ready to stick your hand down his pants just yet. Is his chest cold too?” Patches inquires. He attempts to sit up, but winces when he puts pressure on his pelvis.
Pressing his fingers down beneath the layers of fabric, Keeli runs his hands down the rough skin along Ima-Gun’s chest. It feels cool on his fingertips and then palm. Diverting and resolutely avoiding going further down his torso, Keeli feels up into his General's armpit. He's cool there as well and that ratchets up his worry. Keeli is no medic and a novice at Nikto biology, but he's sure this isn't good.
“Yeah, he’s much colder than he normally is.”
“Okay–” Patches says, finally leaning up with a grunt of pain. He is propped on one elbow to take the pressure off of his still healing hip. “I need you to strip him and yourself. NO,” he says before Keeli can even think of protesting. “You need to do it now. It must have gotten a lot colder than we thought and I didn’t think… I didn’t think his body temperature would get so low. He’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t get any colder, but if we want him awake and functional to open the tunnel up again, you need to get him warm with your own body heat. So get that body suit off and wrap him up right away. We have the shiny, just help our General.”
With a nod, Keeli removes his bracers and then begins to strip off Ima-Gun Di’s tabards, the ones Keeli was wrapped in earlier, his tunics and then his under tunic. Trying his best not to hesitate, Keeli tugs off his General’s boots and then his pants and undershorts in one go. He’s working efficiently enough that he doesn’t let his eyes linger on any specific part of his General’s body. He’s trying to be professional because this is about the health of his superior officer and not… not anything else. Not his feelings. Definitely not. Those are held firmly behind blast doors.
Finally able to pull his own undersuit off in quick order, Keeli lies down on the bedroll and pulls the unconscious Nikto over his own body so they are lying chest to chest. Keeli is very aware of the friction that Ima-Gun’s skin is adding to his own and he tries his best not to think about how it would feel repeatedly rubbing along his own skin.
Letting out a breath, Keeli reaches over to pull up the blanket they were using earlier. During the night, he hadn’t realized that his undersuit was only retaining heat within his own body, but now that his General is pressed to him from the sides of their heads to the tips of Keeli’s toes, he can feel the heat being leached from his skin. He shivers a little at the coldness and a little at the friction that again rubs over some sensitive parts of his own body. Reaching down, he moves said parts out of the way of the rougher patches.
“Here, use this,” Cepheid says as he lays another blanket over the both of them. “We’ll share for now.”
“Thanks, Ceph.” Keeli says, still trying to lower his own heart rate with deep even breaths. It takes him a bit, but eventually he calms his heart and his kad both. He runs his hands up and down Ima-Gun’s back, trying to generate more heat through the friction. Keeli hopes it’s working. He can tell that Ima-Gun’s heart rate has increased a little from the firm press of their bodies together, but without a scanner he’s not sure how much good he is actually doing.
“Hey, Ceph,” Keeli asks after he notices that their shiny, who they learn doesn’t even have a name yet and just goes by 94, is finally calm. He’s not asleep, but he’s at least no longer crying. Cepheid walks over, still holding zir injured arm tightly to zir chest and kneels down next to Keeli.
“Everything okay, sir? Need another blanket?” Ze asks.
“All good, Ceph. I was just thinking it might be a good idea to take the General’s temperature to see if this is actually helping.”
“Let me go ask Patches. He’s still awake after all the commotion. Sure he’ll let me borrow his scanner,” ze says and walks back to the clustered together troopers. Ze brings the scanner back after a brief conversation with their medic and scans their unconscious General.
Even with one hand, Cepheid is able to scan and arrange the pad to read the results, bracing it on his hip.
“Looks like he’s still well under the ideal temp for Nikto, according to Patches anyway. Be right back.”
Cepheid shows Patches the results and comes back with a furrow in zir brow.
“Patches says that we need to start a fire to warm him and the rest of us up. I think we should send Error and myself out to get wood–respectfully, sir.”
Keeli can’t help the little smile that flits over his face. “Noted trooper, but I disagree. You still only have use of one arm. Send Mint with Error and you can keep an eye on Patches and 94. Don’t think you can get up the ascension cables right now anyway.”
“Cables, sir?”
“With the General out, the passage we came in is still blocked off. The only way out of here is up,” he says with a tip of his chin.
“Oh… uh, I didn’t think about that.”
“Understandable, because you were unconscious when we brought you in here.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on everyone. You included,” Ze says and walks off to let the rest know what the plan is.
Letting himself settle a little more, Keeli adjusts himself slightly, so that the pressure of the body on top of him doesn’t cut off the blood flow to anything. Also, just because he is completely naked doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be able to defend himself if the need arises. No one likes the pins and needles feeling… almost no one likes it besides Howzer and Keeli’s batcher has always been a bit odd.
“Sir, we’re ready. We’ll be back before first light,” Error says as he and Mint shoot repel lines into the opening at the top of the cave and hoist themselves up. Making the climb in just your undersuit is not easy, but fully kitted out, it’s going to be tough. They were made for this though and none of them are about to give up. Keeli appreciates his troops more every day.
A few minutes later both troopers are out of sight. Keeli relaxes again as much as he can with a being lying on him that is almost half a head taller than him. Ima-Gun is also not as slight as he looks. The way he and the rest of the Jedi flip and spin around, one would expect them to be lean and lighter, but not him. Ima-Gun is very solid. Keeli’s unsure if it’s being a Nikto or maybe it takes a considerable amount of muscle to actually use the Force. He’ll have to ask him when he wakes back up. Which Keeli hopes is sooner rather than later.
The cave quiets after that and Keeli floats in that state where you’re not quite awake and not yet asleep. He’s jolted out of his doze when something crashes to the cave floor near them.
“Sorry, sir,” Error shouts down. “I wanted to give you the wood before I go and grab Mint. Gotta bring him back because he fell down a cliff and hurt his knee. Big rock landed with him and can’t walk, but I’ll get him. You just sit tight.”
“Kriff, give me a minute and I can hel-”
“You absolutely will not, Keeli. If we want out of here, we need him awake,” Patches says firmly from across the camp.
Remembering the giant boulder blocking the only easily passable way into and out of this cave, Keeli lets himself relax, knowing that he has very capable and highly trained troops with him. His vode are capable and will pull through, he knows it.
“Make sure that both of you get back here trooper,” Keeli says to Error, still pinned to the ground by his naked General. “Ceph, can you work on starting a fire?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll have 94, the lucky guy, help me hold anything if I need it,” Cepheid says.
Keeli is happy to see that 94 seems to perk up a little when Cepheid addresses him. He’s not entirely sure how the kid is miraculously awake and alert when he should be brain-dead, but Keeli’s not going to look a gift-eopie in the snout. It’s been a miserable campaign and Keeli is again grateful that there is some good news in this kriff-show.
It takes Cepheid and 94 only a couple minutes to set up the firewood, kindling, and then to light the fire. In a few minutes more, Keeli can feel the heat from the fire start to warm his face. He really hopes the heat helps to warm up their General soon because Keeli is feeling antsy and not just because of the feel of naked skin against his own. He wants to help Mint, help get them out of here and to the relative safety of the GAR. Instead he starts to run his hands over Ima-Gun’s back from shoulder to just before his shebs, back and forth trying to again generate more heat. The repetitive motions soothes his frayed nerves slightly.