Chapter Text
It was raining.
Bacara twisted around in his bed to see the storm better, still half-drowsy with sleep and half-blind from the first exotic flare of lightning, and his fingers touched the pane of his window. It felt cool against his hand, but he knew it wouldn’t last. Dawn’s storms were only rivaled by its midday sun, and the summer already felt grueling. Between the heat and humidity, everyone felt lethargic and snappish - or, at least, Bacara did.
He twisted around again.
He was laying - disgustingly, he thought, staring up at the ceiling fan and wrinkling his nose - in a pool of his own sweat. He wiggled a bit, groaning. In spite of the record-high temperatures, ba’buir had dragged him, Fox, Wolffe, and the twins outside to continue their verd’goten training. Fox and Wolffe hadn’t minded. They were both so close to actually completing their verd’goten that they got to just stand around and practice their blaster maintenance. The twins were too young to even start training and got to spend the day playing all sorts of games with ba’buir. Bacara, on the other hand, had been doomed to spend the day, on account of being just the right age and size, doing circuits of push-ups, curl-ups, and stamina sprints. By the time ba’buir had called them all back inside, Bacara felt sunbaked and half-melted, exhausted to the point of not caring how gross he felt in his own skin. He had taken a cold shower and gone to bed after, hoping to sleep off the worst of his discomfort. The heat, apparently, had other ideas. A few hours after falling asleep, Bacara woke up to his shirt sticking to his skin and his boxers chafing and his hair feeling glued to the back of his neck and -
He muffled a growl into his pillow.
He kicked, too, trying to peel the sheets off of his legs. When that failed to do anything, he sat up and grabbed the karking things, flinging them into a corner of his room and basking in the satisfying, faint thump the sheets made when they hit the floor. He settled back into bed desperately, shaking out each arm and leg and hand and foot to try and bleed the tension out before trying to fall back asleep.
He closed his eyes.
The darkness felt nice - peaceful, even - and his eyes, bloodshot and exhausted, throbbed with relief. The pain winding up his spine and into his temples receded a little, too. It wasn’t quite a migraine; it didn’t have the particular punch or maliciousness those tended to have, but it hurt and made Bacara feel three sizes too big for his body. He wanted it gone, it wanted to linger, and when the constant heat persisted for one, two, three more stifling, torturous minutes, Bacara felt like screaming. He might’ve, too, if he thought he could get away with it. His vode and ba’buir might not have the same level of hearing that he did, but they weren’t deaf. Bacara would scream, they would come running, and when they realized nothing was actually wrong, they’d round on him like starving strills.
He turned his head.
The rain seemed to have picked up, falling sideways in sporadic sheets. He pressed his knuckles against the pane again, shivering at how blissfully cold it felt against his skin. He watched the rain come down. He wondered what it would feel like to stand in the rain - fantastic and karking refreshing, probably. Bacara had the feeling that it would hurt, though, like jumping into an ice bath after a grueling spar session.
He squinted at the storm.
'Lek, it'd hurt, he figured, but it would feel jate; it would make Bacara feel balanced again, comfortable in his own skin, and maybe - Ka'ra willing, please- he'd finally be able to sleep.
Bacara pulled himself away from his bed, bending a little at the knees. The pounding in his temples rose, faded, and drifted down to an annoying twinge of pain. His body felt achy. Wolffe had told him to drink something when they'd all staggered back inside the house, but Bacara hadn't. He hadn't meant to disregard Wolffe's advice. In fact, if Bacara had been less concerned about broiling in his own skin, he would've done it. But the truth of the matter was that Bacara had been concerned, and when he got uncomfortable, things just tended to slip.
"Overstimulation," buir had once said to him. Bacara had stared at him, making the battle signs for sit-rep and description. It had been one of his bad days, the type that made his throat and chest feel thick and heavy. It didn't phase his aliit anymore, but Bacara hated those days. Hated them. It wasn't the silence that itched under his skin - it was the fact that Bacara didn't know how to overcome it.
"Overstimulation," buir had repeated, his fingers flashing through a compilation of signs: flashbang, loud, surrounded. Bacara liked the last one. He copied it, nodded, and made it again. Buir gave a slight smile, but it was strained. He blamed himself, Bacara knew. Overstimulation came from his senses, and buir had been the one to give him those.
“They try to take in too much information at once, and it gets jumbled around in your mind," buir had explained. "It happens to all of us, Ba'ika. It just happens to you more often."
Defeat, Bacara signed, frowning because naas, that wasn't right. He wasn't defeated. He was…well, Bacara didn't know what he was.
"Frustrated?" Fox had offered once. Bacara had been listening to his vod read aloud, tucked up against Fox's side. Bacara had shaken his head because naas, frustrated didn’t begin to cover everything rushing around in his chest and head. Fox hummed in response, opening his mouth to say something, to try another word, but Bacara placed two fingers up to his lips and then pointed back at the pad. Fox had acquiesced even though Bacara knew he didn’t want to. Fox liked putting names to things. He liked order. More importantly, he liked words. He knew words. Lots of them. Listening to Fox read, to his voice and the constant stream of words, always made something burn in Bacara’s chest.
“It’ll get better when you’re older,” Wolffe had suddenly said one day. When Bacara had given him a look, Wolffe had gestured at his eyes and ears with one hand while signing surrounded with the other. “The whole overstimulation thing. It’ll get better. You’ll be able to filter more things out, especially when you’re wearing beskar’gam, so it won’t happen as often.”
“What about now?”
Wolffe had given him a dry look.
“Tell us,” he had said. “We’ll help.”
Bacara had. He still did. His aliit got better at spotting the signs, but there were still moments when he’d have to tug at Wolffe’s hand, tap Fox’s shoulder, or steer the twins into some secluded corner to regroup. But little things, like drinking something after being cooked alive by the sun, were more prone to be forgotten than not.
Bacara waited for the dizzy spell to pass. When it did, he crept out of his room.
The house was dark and quiet in a heavy, stifling way. The darkness didn’t bother Bacara - his eyes had been able to dilate and constrict on their own since his birth - but the silence made him crouch and shuffle forward, stepping with the outer sides of his feet before his heel. It was technically morning, but he doubted that any of his aliit would be happy with being woken up. The twins would probably think it was some kind of adventure - and if Ponds was up then everybody was up - Wolffe and Fox tended to get pissy if their sleep was interrupted.
Bacara didn’t particularly like pissy ori’vode. There were only so many times someone could get their legs swept out from under them and half-smothered before they considered fratricide - fratricide, Bacara thought, ha. Fox would be proud.
He moved down the hall.
Everyone’s doors were propped open in an effort to drain the heat out of their room. He peered into a few of them. Wolffe was flat on his stomach, an icepack melting in the middle of his back. Fox was tilted on his side under the sheets - the sheets! Bacara felt hot just looking at him. The twins were sleeping separately for once. Ponds was splayed out on the top of his bed while Bly was so stiff and still on his that Bacara lingered at the door for a while, only moving away when he saw Bly’s chest rise and fall. Ba’buir was sleeping on the other side of the house, in buir’s room, but right next to Bacara’s room was -
He paused, cocking his head.
The room next to his was Kote’s and, underneath the noise of overworked fans, the rainstorm outside, and the sounds of everyone else sleeping, Bacara heard something strange. He poked his head into the room and glanced around. He didn’t see anything at first. Kote’s meager pile of stuffies, which contained only a Mythosaur and a Loth wolf that he hardly touched, were huddled into a corner, the play area was barren, and the bathroom connecting their rooms together was dark and empty. The room looked like it always did, calm and soothing, and Bacara nearly turned around and kept going.
Nearly.
Right before he moved away to continue towards the backdoor, the noise came again. The hair on his neck stood up, and his whole body prickled. It was louder now, clearly coming from Kote’s room, and it sounded unhappy. It wasn’t quite a scream. Bacara had heard Kote scream before - haran, Bacara was pretty sure that the whole planet heard Kote when he was screeching his head off - and it didn’t sound like that. Whatever he was hearing was softer, sadder. Almost melancholic.
Bacara frowned.
He didn’t have a lot of experience with ik’aad. He was old enough to remember when the twins had been born but hadn’t been old enough to do much with them. Those responsibilities mainly stayed with buir, ba’buir, or, if the situation called for drastic measures, the combined powers of Wolffe and Fox. When they had gotten older, Bacara became their de facto playmate. He didn’t mind. The twins were fun in an overexcited tooka kit way. Besides, it was better to be designated as their roughhousing vod than the one they had to listen to when buir or ba’buir left them alone - Bacara certainly, completely, absolutely didn’t envy Wolffe for having to deal with that level of responsibility. Ultimately, Bacara’s experience with small children went from knowing how to hold the fragile bundles buir placed into his arms to knowing exactly how long and fast he could swing them around in circles by their ankles until they got too sick.
Which wasn’t, he had to admit, the level of information one should approach an ik’aad with.
He did it anyway.
Kote sounded unhappy, and when a kih’vod was unhappy, it was up to the ori’vod to get to the bottom of it. Period.
Besides, Bacara had never heard Kote make a sound like that before. Kot’ika certainly screamed. The twins had, too, but Kote’s were different. The twins cried because they were hungry or scared, but Kote didn’t cry. When he screamed, there weren’t any tears. Kote yelled and hollered because - because he could, maybe. Or because he wanted to. At least, that’s what Wolffe and Fox thought. They’d always mention it when Kote had another tantrum, muttering under their breath as they wandered to a different place in the house to escape the noise. Bacara didn’t like how loud Kote could be, either, but he wasn’t so sure that Kote was noisy to be noisy. Sometimes, as strange as it sounded, Bacara would catch Kote’s eyes and be struck with an odd sense of frustration. Kote would always stare back at him when that happened, his little jaig eyes narrowed and searching, searching, searching for something Bacara wasn’t sure he had inside of him.
Sometimes, Bacara had to admit, Kote scared him.
It seemed silly to be scared of Kote - he was barely one for Ka’ra’s sake - but there was something off about him. Naas, not off. Kote wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t even that odd by Fett standards. He didn’t smile or laugh often, but neither did Wolffe. Normal ik’aade things didn’t interest him either, but buir said that Fox had been that way, too. The only thing strange about Kote was the way he looked at things. There was the staring and searching of course, but it was more than that. Kote looked at the world as if he had already seen it. Kote looked at the world as if he had already conquered it.
Maybe he had.
Like the rest of his vode, Bacara had faint memories of who he and everyone else used to be back when they had numbers instead of names. The Kote that lived in those fragments had a sharp, wide smile and ve’vut dripping from his fingers. He seemed ferocious, the type who took the galaxy in both hands and tried to bend it by his will alone. If that Kote - Cody, Baraca remembered, he had called himself Cody - was the same Kote currently sequestered away in a nursery and crib while surrounded by toys, well, Bacara could understand the frustration.
In fact, it didn’t seem so different from his own.
“Kote?” Bacara whispered, coming up to the crib. “Kot’ika?”
The noise stopped. There was some shuffling around, and Bacara watched as two tiny hands wiggled their way between the crib’s slats. They dug into the wood. There was more shuffling. A creak. The top of Kote’s head appeared over the rim - just a pile of dark curls, scrunched eyebrows, and unhappy jaig eyes.
“Su’cuy,” Bacara said, moving closer. He stretched a few fingers out in greeting. Kote’s eyes dilated in the dark, pupils growing, growing, growing, but didn’t reach back. From the hazy starlight of his window, Bacara could see something shiny on his cheeks. He brushed against one.
“Are you - were you crying?”
Kote gave a little sniffle.
“Was that the noise I heard? Were you crying?” Bacara asked, still wiping away the tears. “But you don’t cry, Kote. You never cry.”
Kote’s eyes flickered. He pouted. He let go of the slats and fell back into his crib, bouncing a little. He glanced back up at Bacara as if to see if he was still there, and then looked away. Bacara stared down at him.
“Kot’ika?”
Kote didn’t look up. Bacara slowly - carefully - crouched. He could only just make out the sight of Kote’s face through the slats.
“Did I say something?”
Jaig eyes. Big and accusing.
“N'eparavu takisit,” Bacara said. He paused. “It’s okay to cry, you know. ‘S just surprising is all. You aren’t much of a crier.”
The jaig eyes softened. Which was - it was ridiculous, really. Kote was an ik’aad. He should hardly know what Bacara was talking about, let alone react to it in a way that Bacara could understand. Where were the strange, formless attempts at noise? Where was the babbling? The twins had never been like this. Haran, Bacara wasn’t sure if anyone besides Kote was like this.
Or maybe, he thought, maybe he had never tried with the twins.
So much of Bacara’s life was centered around communicating - centered around the ways he could and couldn’t talk to people. When those bouts of silence hit him, he wasn’t much better than Kote. He had battle signs, sure, but he didn’t have words. If he went to anyone outside of his aliit and tried to sign, it would be a miracle to get what he wanted. In those moments, he can’t articulate, can’t explain, can’t talk about all the things he wants to, all the experiences and emotions and opinions that he has.
Kote couldn’t either - and if there was an ik’aad out there with things to say, it would be Kot’ika.
Bacara took a breath. He swiped his palms against his legs.
“Kote,” he said. Something must’ve been in his voice - a new sense of understanding, maybe. A new level of empathy - because Kote’s head lifted a little higher. His ears perked up. “Kote, was there a reason you were crying?”
Kote cocked his head.
“Are you…do you feel hot? Is it the heat?”
Shaking. Kote’s head was shaking. Bacara fought down the sudden urge to laugh.
“Okay,” he said, sucking on his teeth. “Ok-ay. Not the heat then.”
Kote nodded.
“Were you lonely?”
More shaking, but Kote rose back up anyway, stretching his torso out to press his hands into Bacara’s hair. Bacara stood. The small hands followed, purposeful and wanting. Bacara found a grip under Kote’s arms and hefted, holding him in the crook of his elbow and against his chest. Kote was a warm bundle of weight in his arms, still and oh-so trusting. Bacara let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and took leisurely little steps around the room in a way he had seen buir do once. Kote swayed to the rhythm.
“Are you hungry?”
Buir had started weaning Kote off of formula a few months ago, but Fett ade grew like weeds, fast and tough and searching. They rarely stayed full, and bottles were quick fixes. Before he had left for Manda’yaim - ba’vodu Bo-Katan had apparently given birth to a son - buir had taught them all how to make a bottle. Bacara wasn’t sure how well he could replicate it, but if Kote wanted one -
“Ow,” Bacara hissed, flashing his teeth. Kote flashed his own back, tiny rows of needle-sharp milk teeth, and huffed. Bacara pointed at him. “We don’t bite, Kote.”
Kote gave a half-hearted snap at his finger.
“Naas,” Bacara said, poking Kote in the stomach and drawing an affronted squeak out of the ik’aad. “Don’t be a Wolffe. You could do so much better. Besides, if buir catches you doing it when you’re older, he’ll make you gargle something foul. You don’t want that.”
Kote stared up at him. Bacara didn’t trust the look in his eyes.
“You’re very dangerous, aren’t you?”
Kote smiled far too slowly and innocently to be real. Bacara snorted, bounced him a little, and felt himself smiling back. He wondered if buir knew what he had brought into the world. Probably not. Bacara doubted even Kote - with his odd, knowing looks and frustration - knew. Staring at Kote’s smile, Bacara thought that might be for the best. There didn’t seem to be much room for joy in the Kote - Cody - Bacara remembered, and it felt wrong. It didn’t sit right. Ik’aade were supposed to be happy. They were supposed to be carefree. Kote didn’t seem like he was either. In fact, it seemed like Kote didn’t have the chance to be either as if he had been dropped into the world to complete a mission, not a life.
Bacara held Kote close. He ran one of his hands through Kote’s curls, untangling all the ones that had knotted together from sleep and heat.
“Why were you crying?”
Kote’s smile fell.
“It’s okay, Kote. You can tell me. I swear I won’t laugh or anything. I just want to help you. That’s what ori’vode do, you know. We help.”
Kote reached out and touched Bacara’s chin and cheek and the loose strands of hair that hung around his face. Bacara let him. There was something gentle in Kote’s touch. Something empowering.
Kote pointed. Bacara followed his hand.
“The rain? That’s what made you cry?”
Kote nodded. He shoved his fingers into his mouth immediately after, chewing on them. The teething thing was an anxiety response. It was a mixture of some long-gone instinct and restless energy - Wolffe still did it occasionally. Bacara caught him gnawing on his datapad stylus when doing particularly hard physics problems.
“Hey, hey,” Bacara said, carefully catching Kote’s delicate wrist and drawing the fingers out, holding the slobbery little hand in his. “It’s okay. I get it. Is it the noise? The thunder can get pretty loud. I used to be scared of it, too. But it’s only rain, Kote. It’s good for us. It even feels good to stand in.”
Bacara spun around on his heel.
“Here,” he said, “I’ll show you.”
Kote’s eyes went outrageously wide - as if he already knew where Bacara was taking him - but he didn’t complain past that. He didn’t growl or bare his teeth, didn’t bite Bacara again, and didn’t even try to squirm or wiggle out of Bacara’s arms. Instead, Kote let Bacara walk him through the house and out the backdoor, onto the porch.
Bacara shivered when he shut the door behind him, the porch wet and slippery underneath his feet. The house was still unbearably hot and muggy, but the rain had chilled Dawn’s surface down to almost be enjoyable. Bacara walked over to the edge and placed his back against the railing. He started giggling when the rain hit his skin - it burned, a little, and the shock of it all made his stomach flutter with adrenaline - and curled around Kote.
“See?” He said, blowing the hair out of his face and staring into Kote’s too-serious jaig eyes. “It’s not that bad. It won’t hurt you.”
Kote searched his face and then - after seeing whatever he needed to see - tentatively raised his hand out. Bacara complied with the request, turning around a little to let Kote swipe his hand through the rain. Kote snatched it back almost as soon as he put it out there, but Bacara gave an assuring chirp from the back of his throat. It was a weird sound to make, and Bacara wasn’t sure why he made it, but he felt some of the tension drain out of Kote.
Bacara stuck his own hand into the rain. He wiggled his fingers.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I promise.”
Kote’s fingers twitched.
“It’s not going to hurt you, Kote. I won’t let it.”
Kote stared up at him. His tiny nose was scrunched up in thought, his eyes bright and serious, and when his hand started to move back into the rain, Bacara’s throat grew tight. It wasn’t the same choking feeling he got when he couldn’t talk - this one was better. Sweeter.
“There we go,” Bacara said, moving his hand closer so that Kote could hold onto it. “There we go. Not so bad, huh? I bet it even feels nice after being cooped up in the house all day.”
Kote gave a little hum. He wiggled, paused, and wiggled a bit more. When Bacara didn’t immediately move him closer, Kote turned those jaig eyes on him and made grabby hands in the direction of the rain. Bacara propped him up on the top of the railing, angling his shoulder and arm to take most of the downpour, and shook his head.
“You’re really going to have to work on your patience, kih’vod,” Bacara said, knowing somewhere deep down inside of himself that Kote wouldn’t. Kote didn’t seem the type to wait around for things to happen. Naas, Kote was the type of person to make things happen, the type to push and carve ahead while telling everyone else to catch up. Bacara trailed his hand up and down Kote’s back. “It’s okay to take your time, Kote. You don’t always have to jump into things all at once. I know it’s hard. I know it’s hard to not be able to say or do the things you want to do. I get it. But it’s a process, you know? It takes time. You’ve got to give yourself time.”
Kote leaned into Bacara. Bacara dropped his head to rest his cheek against Kote’s damp curls. They’d be frizzy when they dried - frizzy and uncontrollable and wild, wild, wild like Kote - but they felt soft to the touch now.
“Besides,” Bacara muttered, “I understand you just fine, don’t I?”
Kote tilted back. He stared up at Bacara - seeing him, really seeing him - and his eyes didn’t seem so intense, didn’t seem so cruel. They were kinder, all honey and warmth and the syrupy feeling of love. He made those grabby hands again. Impatient. Wanting. Bacara tipped his head to press his forehead against his vod ’s.
“'Lek,” Bacara said, breathing in the scent of rain and fresh soil and feeling Kote’s eyelashes flutter against his cheeks. “I understand you.”
Kote’s lips pursed.
“'Lek? What is it, Kot’ika?”
Kote’s mouth worked and, underneath the distant sound of crashing thunder and their own breathing, he let out a tiny, lovely little noise. Bacara closed his eyes. His throat went tight again - the good tight, the kind that Bacara was beginning to like - and when he spoke it came out croaky.
“Say that again, Kot’ika?”
Kote smiled. Bacara could feel his grin against his face.
“‘Cara,” Kote said, whispery and hoarse. “‘Cara.”