author's note: Throughout the fic, the clone's Mandalorian chant, Vode An, that Jango taught them is mentioned. It's over at wookieepedia (Vode An).
POV: Gus
It would be just a matter of time, he tells himself.
A matter of time until their brothers recognized them for what they were, and not what they weren't.
Brothers, all.
The words of their song ring in his head. Jango couldn't have chosen a better song to teach them.
Prepare them, he changes.
Prepare him now as he eats with his bretheren on the eve of battle, and the four of them sit together in the mess hall, amidst a sea of hushed voices and awkward down-cast eyes.
It's never this quiet before battle, but today brothers eat in silence.
Across the table from him, Sketch pokes the yoke of his eggs and watches it run into his bacon.
Gus swallows the urge to scold him like he and Slick always did, because Sketch never ate before they went out and their helmets were filled with his voice predicting what was on the menu when they got back to the base.
He'll let Sketch gripe all he wants about food when they fight the Clankers today; he doesn't want anything in common with that chakaar who betrayed them any more.
Another line of their song crosses his mind.
Every last traitorous soul shall fall.
He stabs his own eggs. Oh, he fell, alright. He just took some of us down with him.
His eyes find Chopper sitting down next to Cut and Flip. It doesn't bother him and the guys that he does that; they saw it as a sort of therapy for Chopper. Flip lost his ear in a rocket launcher mishap, and Cut lost his eye amidst an explosion that embedded shrapnel on the left side of his body.
"Hey Cut, you finished? My, uh, gun's jammed and I gotta fix it before we head out."
"Yeah, I better check mine too."
Sketch and Punch turn around at Flip's stutter and Cut's sudden eagerness to leave; apparently, the whole mess hall does. The lack of chatter in the room allows everyone to hear them.
Chopper stared at their retreating backs, the clanking of his fork slamming into his tray echoeing in the room, then at everyone else watching him.
A sudden sweep of his arm sends his cup flying into the wall and he stands up, addressing the staring eyes.
"What are you staring at?" his voice bellows off the metal walls and tables of their dining facility. "Finish your damn food so you can check your guns too. Maybe Slick told me to jam them while you slept," he yelled angrily and violently grabbed his tray.
He stalks across the aisle to their table and drops down next to Jester, eating what food remained on his tray and wasn't scattered around it.
Gus makes eye contact with a few of his brothers across the room. He knows that behind the carbon-copy orbs averting his is the same emotion festering in every soul.
Pain.
Pain because one of their own betrayed them. Pain because while they watched his back, he stabbed theirs.
For the five of them, however, the pain ran much deeper. Slick was their friend, their brother, their leader.
And that was why their brothers couldn't eat with them at the table, or look them in the eye.
They were tainted; outcasted and avoided, as if Slick's defection was an illness they were all stricken with. Infected with the virus of deciet, the illness of treachery.
The pain was easier to deal with if someone was to blame.
That night, when the flames of the explosions were extinguished and the Commander had told everyone about who was responsible for them, the five of them had gone back to their barracks.
They didn't speak to one another as each went to his own corner of their shared barrack, passing the empty bunks of Nolan, Lefty, Bryce, and Storm; empty because their occupants placed unwavering trust in a man as slick as his name.
Gus wonders if Bryce, dying on the floor from a burning hole in his chest, ever figured the sad twist that had occured in that cramped room when they were ambushed; that the man he dove in front of to save might as well have pulled the trigger himself.
Punch and Sketch try and sleep, or maybe they just don't want to talk.
It's just as well, he thinks. He didn't feel like talking either. What was there to talk about?
Chopper lies on his bunk, admiring his twisted jewelry project. He catches him staring and turns to face away from him.
Jester is cleaning his weapon. Again.
A surge of emotion he's not sure of overtakes him and Gus grabs his weapon from the wall and thrusts it at Jester.
"Here, clean mine, too," he demands. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Punch and Sketch watching him, but he doesn't care. They should go back to sleep.
The emotion that rushed him just before vanishes, and he notices Jester more closely again. His brother's eyes are unfocused; the rag runs over spotless ebony.
Jester's spell is broken and he stares at Jester staring back at him.
"Leave him alone," Chopper's voice breaks their gaze. Gus finds him sitting up in his bunk, still fiddling with his necklace. "He can't help it if he's deficient."
He looks once more at Jester who doesn't meet his eyes, and back at Chopper who is staring at him now.
"That's what you were thinking right? Don't pretend like you weren't." His voice is even, but the words mock its target.
Gus stays silent because he's not sure what he was thinking.
"Maybe that's why Slick sold us to the Seppies," Chopper continues while he laces another droid finger. "He was tired of leading men who had problems."
The room is silent, and Gus is sure Punch and Sketch are listening.
Chopper waits until the knot is tight and looks up at Gus. "But you dont have any problems. You just figure out everyone else's."
"That's not true," he hears himself say, but he doesnt believe his own words.
Chopper springs up from his bunk. "Is it? Then why were you the first to think I was the turncoat?"
"You didn't look innocent with your contraband." He shoots back, and feels a little proud degrading Chopper's trinket with the word.
"No, you were just waiting for the opportunity to say how you really felt because I'm not good enough for you," Chopper points at Jester. "We're not good enough for you," he corrects. "Are you gonna turn on us like Slick did?"
He feels anger swell in him and his fist flies at Chopper's face. He gains the upperhand because he didn't see the punch, but it's taken from him when Chopper punches the wound in his arm; the pain makes him even more anrgy. But before he can land another hit, someone holds him back.
It's Jester. Sketch is holding Chopper and Punch stands between them all.
"Stop," Punch implores, and the irony of him stopping his namesame from being thrown is not lost on Gus. "Don't you see what Slick's done to us?"
Gus looks at Chopper. Both of his eyes glare at him, but it's the amber one that holds his gaze, still full of life even though it can't see.
"You really thought I was helping the Clankers, Gus?" Chopper asks him quietly. "I hate them; I hate that I can't hit their heads off their shoulders when they're standing right in front of me. I want to rip everyone of them apart for taking my sight. For making me...deficient."
Chopper shakes his head, and his voice is no longer laced with anger. "I can't even ride a speeder properly without worrying about crashing into one of you."
His eyes drop to the floor, at the string of battle trophies that had fallen in their scuffle, because he can't bear to look in Chopper's eyes anymore. He feels low blindsiding him with that right hook.
Just like Slick, he tells himself. Was he really like him?
The throbbing in his injured arm finally makes him understand Punch's words, and he picks the necklace off the floor, handing it to Chopper before returning to his own bunk.
Gus changes his thoughts. The five of them weren't sick, not anymore. The others were.
The same look in every eye tells him they are. It's the same look in Jester's eye while he cleans an already immaculate weapon, the same look in his own eye when he holds his gun out to Jester, and the same look in Chopper's eye when he calls him deficient.
Slick had infected them with the virus of fear.
Fear of being betrayed. Fear of being hurt. Fear that can quickly turn to anger and turn everyone against each other.
He looks over at Chopper. The purple welt from his fist is like a lesion on his brother's pale scars; a blemish predicting the onset of a malady.
We shall bear it's weight together.
"Chop," he says to grab his brother's attention; Chopper wouldn't have seen a wave from this angle.
He slides his drink down the table to him; the nod of thanks and half-smile on Chopper's face make him feel better about last night.
Gus shovels a spoonful of eggs from Sketch's tray into his mouth and tells himself the empty tables around them keep the virus away. When everyone is cured, they can join the five of them at their table again.
Brothers, all.
Yup, just a matter of time, he repeats, until their quarantine lifted.