#i am in dire need of seeing echo actually having to cope with his trauma

[soft--dragon]

Brother From Another Batch

First Bad Batch fic!! I love the show sm :D This features Echo and Crosshair, and I shouldn't have to say this but I will: SHIPPERS DNI THESE GUYS ARE BROTHERS. DONT BE NASTY >:(

This is set before the official Bad Batch series, about a month after Echo joins the team!

Word Count: 2512

Warnings: Semi-detailed self deprecation, past trauma, and panic attack but it gets fluffy pretty quickly :)

This is a SFW tickle fic, if you don’t like that then don’t read :)

It was one of those tougher days. 

Echo was sitting on the edge of his rack, elbows pressed into the chilling metal of his legs, one of his heels bouncing against the floor. His hands were intertwined and resting in front of his mouth, thumbs pressed on the underside of his chin. It was a mirror image of what Tech did when he was lost in thought. Due to living with this new batch of clones for about a month and a half now, it made sense that Echo was starting to copy some of the Batch’s behaviours. The first time he did Hunter's signature 'I am too tired for this™' speech to tell off Tech and Crosshair for squabbling, Wrecker laughed so hard he almost cried, and Hunter light-heartedly accused him of being a copy-cat. 

Currently, the others were all out; "A mandatory supply run," they had said before departing. Well, everyone except Crosshair who wasn’t in the mood to deal with anybody at the moment. So that left Echo alone in the sleeping quarters, subjected to his spiralling mental health that had been a swinging pendulum as of late, never remaining stable for longer than a few days. He hated it, and he hated inconveniencing the Batch even more. They had taken him in and given him a place amongst a group of misfits, but he doubted they counted on his mental state being as terrible as it was. 

The chill of his legs was leeching the warmth from his one organic limb, making Echo bring his arms away from his knees, gripping them together against his chest. The metal prosthetics felt too cold against his scarred skin, and his thoughts were spiralling faster than he could control them. 

The Techno Union, the Citadel explosion, his lost batch mates, the regs no longer trusting him, the weird looks, the whispers, the night terrors… 

Echo gripped at his head, wincing at the feeling of the cybernetic tech piece wrapped around his skull. Wrong. It was all wrong. He wanted out. Out of the metal prosthetics, out of this body, out of this suffocating room- 

Something heavy and soft suddenly dropped over his shoulders, wrenching a startled gasp out of him as he jolted to look up. Crosshair was standing at his side with a flat expression.

“Breathe Reg, you’re going to pass out,” he sniped, crouching down beside the rack that Echo was sitting on. “I don’t want to have to catch you if you fall.”

Echo stared at the sniper, his one hand curling into the fabric draped over him, then it clicked; it was a weighted blanket. Hunter’s one specifically for when his senses overwhelmed him and he needed a way to ground himself from the harsh stimulation. His grip tightened on the material immediately and he bowed his head, forcing himself to take in air that sounded horribly wheezy. 

“Breathe in for four seconds.”

The quiet instruction made Echo look at Crosshair who had his lips set in a hard line, eyes studying the ARC trooper in an equitable manner. He huffed out a short breath when Echo still hadn’t listened and pointed his toothpick at the clone.

“Breathe in for four seconds, Reg,” he repeated in an anodyne voice. “You actually will pass out if you don’t.”

Realising how tight his chest had become, Echo choked and took in a trembling breath. Crosshair held up his fingers in time with the seconds passing, and upon reaching four, he spoke again. “Hold for seven seconds.” 

Crosshair counted down with his hands again, keeping them in Echo’s view so he could count with him. Upon reaching zero, Crosshair murmured, “breathe out for eight.” 

Echo followed the instruction, hearing the tremble of his breath as it was released and worriedly glanced at Crosshair. The sniper gave a small nod. “Repeat it.” 

Wordlessly, Echo did so, going through the breathing exercise the best he could. Crosshair kept counting on his fingers, hearing Echo’s breathing to maintain the pattern, though his gaze was on the floor to give Echo some privacy. When Echo’s breaths became smoother and lost the wheeze, Crosshair dropped his hand and lifted his gaze to the cybernetic clone. 

Echo had his eyes squeezed shut, teeth obviously clenched together. “S-Sorry for this, I don’t mean for it to happen… I don’t mean to be a b-burden.”

Crosshair was quiet at his side for a moment, watching with half lidded eyes and a toothpick between his teeth. “You’re fine.” He replied quietly. “It’s expected after what you went through. No one is mad at you for having justified reactions to trauma.” His nasally voice was an anchor for Echo to latch onto, keeping him on the Marauder and not into the pit that was his mental consciousness. “Just keep breathing, Reg, Hunter will kill me if you die.”

A stuttered chuckle left Echo and his eyes fluttered open, tipping his head to give Crosshair a weak smile. “D-Don’t worry, I’ll save you that trouble.” 

“Appreciated,” Crosshair answered back cooly, not drawing attention to the stutter in Echo’s voice. He interlocked his hands together from where they were draped over his knees. “You dizzy at all? Any headaches?”

The ARC trooper gave a small shrug, exhaling slowly and taking a big breath in before he responded. “Not really, just kinda floaty. I’ll be okay.”

Crosshair was quiet for a moment then dipped his head to the side as he next spoke. “What spurred it this time?”

Echo’s wince was obvious. “Just a bad day.” He offered stiffly. 

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Y-Yeah. Should be.”

“...Good.”

Though he hadn’t spent very long with them yet, Echo had started to pick up on the Bad Batch’s mannerisms, and that included speech patterns. He thought he caught a slight touch of relief in the man’s voice. He glanced at the sniper, his lips perking slightly despite the mellowness of his mood. “Are you worried about me or something, Crosshair?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

His expression was as flat as ever, but Echo could see the slight concerned flicker in his eyes. Echo’s smile became more genuine and he exhaled a small laugh, looking at the floor to avoid Crosshair’s gaze that instantly turned to him at the sound. 

“Something funny, Reg?” His eyebrow lifted in question, toothpick shifting to the opposite side of his mouth when he spoke.

Echo shook his head, his grip on the weighted blanket loosening so his knuckles weren’t going white from the pressure.  “No,” he hummed, his gentle grin remaining despite his words. “Just didn’t expect you to be a big softie is all.”

Crosshair’s eyelid twitched marginally, and the toothpick went still. “Pardon?”

Where this big surge of confidence came from, Echo had no idea, but he was gonna ride it out while Crosshair was still in a good mood. “Wrecker said you were a sweetheart, but I didn’t believe him.”

The enhanced clone was silent for a moment, then he answered snidely. “...He’s wrong.” 

Oh, in the name of the Force, Crosshair couldn’t lie for shit. Echo looked him straight in the eyes, his mood taking a surprising turn into ‘chaos lane’, which he definitely preferred instead of ‘depression road’. 

Innocently, Echo inquired, “You sure? Cause I thought you hated Regs.”

“I do.”

“Then why give me Hunter’s weighted blanket and help me out of a panic attack?”

“I’m not a complete asshole I’ll have you know.”

“So I’ve realised, shocking isn’t it?”

Crosshair held his gaze for a long while. He then slipped the tooth pick out of his mouth and flicked it away. “Are you still in heavy discomfort, Reg?”

Echo arched a brow in suspicion. The concern was gone, and there was a new glint in Crosshair’s eyes, he couldn’t place what it was though. “No, not anymore,” he replied warily.

Crosshair smiled, and it sent a chill down Echo’s spine. “Good.” 

And then, without warning, he lunged forwards and tackled Echo down onto the rack. 

Ah. That glint in his eyes was for murder.

Echo immediately went on the defensive, a startled laugh bursting free as Crosshair tussled with him, trying to pin him down. The sudden playfulness was unexpected from the stoic trooper, but it wasn’t unwelcome. It threw Echo back into the old times with Fives, and it was a good distraction from his spiralling from earlier. 

“Crosshair, what the hell are you doing?!” Echo wheezed, his laughter blending with his words and making his movements weaker than they already were with the added weight of the blanket still covering him, and fatigue of his previous anxiety attack. 

“Take back what you said about me being a softie,” Crosshair hissed, a smirk lifting his lips as he tried to not let Echo’s contagious laughter spread to him. 

“I’m not wrong though!”

“Do it, Reg. I am not above using heinous methods.”

Echo grinned, locking hands with the sniper and trying to push him off, while his scomp pressed flat against the man’s chest. ”Give it your best shot, Crossy.”

Crosshair’s whole face screwed up like he’d eaten a lemon and that only made Echo laugh harder, his strength sapped further from the force of his cackles and allowing Crosshair the upper hand. 

“You’re gonna regret that, Reg,” Crosshair growled, and to Echo’s surprise and horror, the sniper’s hand holding the scomp dropped to drill into the clone’s underarm.

The sound that left Echo was downright unearthly, his startled shriek falling into a wild fit of laughter as he tried to curl into a ball and fight Crosshair off at the same time. The reaction was a surprise to the sniper, he’d expected some ticklishness, but this was about enough to rival Hunter or Tech. Echo was reduced to a state of laughter and squirming limbs, a complete mess due to his nervous system being attacked mercilessly. 

“You best hope our enemies don’t find out about this,” Crosshair snarked, his playful smirk unable to be hidden now. “You’ll be Sarlacc food in an instant.”

“P-Pihihiss ohohoff!” Echo retorted through hysteric giggles, trying to push Crosshair back with his hand that was still locked with the sniper’s. 

“Oh? You’re trying to fight back? Trying to get away? Heh, nope.” Crosshair’s hand slipped out of Echo’s and dropped to prod quickly along the ARC trooper’s ribs, tweaking some here and there. Echo yelped loudly at the sudden attack, his free hand now torn between shoving Crosshair’s fingers away and trying to shove at the man himself.

“You’re a strategist right, Reg? This counter attack doesn't seem very tactical.” Crosshair’s dry commentary only served to make Echo more giggly, his chest lighter in a way that it hadn’t been in a long time. 

“Crohohoss! Shuhuhut ihihit!”

“You never learn do you?” 

Crosshair’s hands shifted to test out Echo’s stomach and hips, dragging up his civilian shirt to show the pale skin just before where the prosthetics started. Echo was too busy giggling to realise the fate about to befall him, which caused Crosshair to smirk wickedly before he lightly dragged his nails across the soft, exposed flesh. Instantly, Echo’s legs kicked out and he threw his head back, bright, youthful laughter bursting free. 

“Hmm. Bad spot then?”

“YEHEHES!” Echo wheezed, smacking at Crosshair’s fingers desperately to try and get rid of the horribly tingly sensations crawling all over his waistline. 

“You do have a way out of this, remember?” Crosshair reminded, scratching quickly at Echo’s hip and snickering when the ARC trooper gave a screech, bending in a way that did not seem possible to try and avoid the sniper’s nails. “You’re only trapped for long as you choose to be.”

Echo managed to get in a smack to Crosshair’s forearm, just to be a little shit. He didn’t want to admit it, but this kind of messing around, it made him feel… human. He thought the Techno Union had robbed him of his humanity and everything that came along with it. Being able to process things, feel things, the ability to exist, they had all been altered in some way or another. But this? This felt normal. It felt just like it used to with his old squad, and Echo couldn’t be happier about it. 

Although… he was reaching his limits because Crosshair wouldn’t leave his goddamn soft spot alone. He finally cracked. 

“Mercy! Mehehehercy! Cross plehehease!” He gasped out, his stamina lacking from what it used to be after all that time with the Techno Union.

Crosshair’s hummed in contemplation, though he did lighten his touch to simple tracing and pokes. “You gonna take it back?”

Echo wheezed and nodded, grinning up at the sniper through watery eyes. “Ihihi wihihill! Juhust stohop!”

Crosshair chuckled and eased up entirely, getting off of the ARC trooper and pulling the weighted blanket back so it wasn’t keeping the clone down. Though Echo remained flat on his back, trying to pull in great gulps of stolen air while giggles intertwined with his efforts.

The enhanced clone huffed another chuckle in amusement. “You’re still laughing, Echo?”

There was a gentle kick to his leg from one of Echo’s metal prosthetics. “Shut uhuhup.”

Rolling his eyes, Crosshair settled against the wall of the ship, waiting patiently for Echo to get himself under control again, though he could tell it might take the clone a while. Out of pure curiosity, he asked, “Did this kind of thing happen a lot with your old batch?”

Echo huffed a small laugh, rubbing at his eyes that had gathered moisture from the laugh attack. “All the time,” he admitted, smiling at the rack above his own with bittersweet nostalgia. “The boys would gang up on me constantly, it was completely unfair.”

Crosshair smiled. “Oh don’t worry, the others and I will make it a habit again.”

Echo slung his arm over his eyes with a protesting groan, but Crosshair saw how his smile was still there. He leaned over and prodded Echo’s side again, taking satisfaction in the high pitched yelp that burst from the clone. 

“You still haven’t said it, you know.” He didn’t really care about being called a softie if he was being honest, he knew his actions spoke more than words, but he wanted to drag this out.

Echo glared at him, and then lifted his scomp up horizontally to point at Crosshair. 

The sniper looked at it in contemplative bemusement. “What are you doing?” He asked.

“I’m flipping you off.”

That startled an incredulous laugh out of the sniper, his eyes playfully narrowing once more. “Okay you motherkriffer, apparently you need a round two.”

“Wait- wait, it was a joke- CrosshAHAHAIR! Nohohot agahahain!” 

Crosshair, who had slung an arm around Echo’s neck and yanked him against his chest, clawed at Echo’s sides and stomach again, smirking at the peals of bright laughter that spilled free of the trooper. 

‘You’re gonna be just fine with us, Echo,’ he thought, fondness bleeding through no matter how much he tried to ignore it. ‘You’ll never have to be afraid again.’

[moiraineswife]

Ep 55 Caleb Meta

Warning: This post will contain a)- Spoilers for episode 55. If you haven’t seen it yet BEGONE. b)- Angst. Bc. Caleb. c)- yelling. if u haven’t worked out already: these posts are not planned. these posts are not thought-through. these posts are not edited. these posts are a stream of consciousness shrieking at the void that is u lot. Enjoy. 

So. Uh. That episode was like..................A lot. Lots to unpack. LOTS. So I’m just going to touch on Caleb and the very specific niche deliciousness of him being completely and utterly retraumatised in that episode and how it may or may not pan out in future. 

Meta under the cut bc it got Long. 

So, DIVING IN: the nature of trauma in itself is repetition. Nightmares, flashbacks (of all their various forms) are ways in which the trauma itself repeats. Basically your brain Cannot Cope with what’s happened so it tries to just put you through the same thing over and over again like process this please. 

Caleb has been dealing with that for at least a decade since the original trauma took place. Then we pile on the (highly symbolic and super-interesting in a really fucked up way bit of magic that is Modify Memory (i assume) which I have to meta on more in future) which is effectively a false memory that was removed (that his parents were guilty/in his twisted-logic mind deserved what they got) which makes a very interesting mirror for suppressed memories (again: big trauma thing. In which your brain Cannot Cope so hard it just blots the bad memory out of existence entirely) so he’s a whole mess of being trapped in an endless cycle of his horrible past (PTSD is a Trip, y’all). 

This is...An echo of that but it’s something new. It’s very much the same KIND of thing, so it plays in to the trauma-repetition, but it’s a new incarnation of it. History repeating itself, etc, etc, delicious irony, all that great stuff fiction-creators live for.  

It’s going to be deeply upsetting for Caleb. (No shit, Taryn). But it so beautifully, and terribly, feeds in to his deep-rooted fears that he is a toxic person, and that those around him are destined to get hurt (by him, not by him, it doesn’t really matter to the guilt brain, it’s all just fuel for that fire). 

For example: Liam spoke on Talks about how, regarding Molly’s death, Caleb almost expected it because yup, that seems about right, par for the course. It’s one of the big reasons he’s been extremely reluctant to let the Mighty Nein get close to him (he’s directly said this in canon at this point, in his conversation with Beau). 

He feels dangerous. He sees himself as dangerous. Partly because he sees himself as being constantly in danger, and by extension, those around him are also in danger. That’s external. 

The internal part of him has been screaming ‘you killed the two people who loved you the most in the world in an unprovoked attack because you’re a monster’ for over a decade at this point. Not only does he not deserve any of these people, he feels like he’s destined to hurt them, no matter what he does, or how hard he tries. 

This, uh, reinforces that in a very deep, obvious, and painful way. Not to mention the fact that, not only did he hurt them he hurt them with fire. Again. So it’s almost exactly the same pattern of shit coming back to haunt him for a second time: 

Trent: Mental manipulation magic - fire - dead loved ones  Demon: mental manipulation magic - fire - nearly dead loved ones. 

It’s Bad. It’s Real Bad. That boy is going to have the panic attack of his life when he recovers from the immediate adrenaline rush of the fight. It’s not going to be pretty. 

It’s going to drive home everything that little voice inside his head that sounds like Trent has been telling him since he joined these people. It’s going to undo all the struggle it’s taken to ignore that voice up to this point because don’t you see what happens when you get close to people? They can be used against you. You can be used against them. They become your weakness and you become weak because you care. Because this hurts. And if you were stronger, and smarter, then it wouldn’t... etc etc etc. *insert emotionally manipulative bullshit here* 

BUT! 

I actually think this could actually be good for him in a really weird way? 

Hear me out: 

Caleb has been living in a trauma loop for over ten years at this point. He’s been going over the same memories again and again and again, but he hasn’t done anything with them. He hasn’t actually fully processed what happened to him. And, and this is the biggest part: he hasn’t had anyone to push against. 

It takes a lot to recognise abuse. It takes a lot in the modern world when there are phones, helplines, the internet and, let’s be honest: awareness. There are words for these experiences and there’s more chance of, accidentally or deliberately, stumbling across help out there that can look at a situation from an outside perspective and go: this is fucked up. 

This is what Caleb needs. 

On his own it’s almost impossible for him to recognise what was done to him and fully process it and begin to heal from it in a healthy way. Caleb has not actually started the process of recovery for anything that happened to him yet because Caleb does not yet recognise/understand what there is to process/recover from. 

In Caleb’s mind, he is a monster. He did an unforgivable thing because he believed his parents deserved it as they were traitors. He broke because he was not strong enough to handle what he’d done. He was sent to an asylum and since escaping he’s just been afraid. That’s the only emotion he’s got towards Trent right now: fear. And it’s suppressing all logic, self-awareness, and the ability to think rationally about what went on. 

Caleb was abused. Caleb was manipulated, mentally, emotionally, and magically. Caleb was a vulnerable kid who was deliberately chosen, carefully groomed, and then skilfully brainwashed by a figure with an enormous amount of literal and emotional power over him. Caleb was abused. 

Caleb does not see this. 

Caleb does not recognise that he was abused. 

And I think this is where a lot of issues with Caleb kinda stem from in fandom? Because people look at him and just...How can he NOT understand that he was manipulated. Huh. Maybe he wasn’t. Because it’s just that damned obvious how could he not understand this? 

Abusers rely on that. Abusers rely on their victims not understanding what they’re doing to them. Particularly when their victims are young, with relatively little real-world experience, and absolutely no grounding/preparation to recognise or combat any of this, in a society that is more accepting of the kind of teaching that radicalised Caleb than most are. 

Caleb needs an outside perspective to look at what he went through and go ‘you know that’s fucked up, right?’ He’s kind of had that from Beau and Nott but not enough. Someone has to sit him down and go through every piece of what happened and be like ‘this is not okay’ ‘what he did to you was not okay’ ‘this is called abuse’ and then consistently validate those experiences until he understands. 

Caleb has over ten years of trauma to process and unlearn. That...That does not happen overnight. That does not happen because your new friend looks at you and goes ‘yeah that was fucked up, dude’ and suddenly it all crystallises in your mind and becomes clear. That takes work. And effort. And a willingness to feel something beyond fear for your abuser and Caleb is Not There yet. 

What this last fight does, though, is open up the possibility of Caleb starting to accept this a little bit. 

Jester: “What the fuck, Caleb?” 

Caleb: “I am sorry...They got inside my head.” 

This is actually....Kinda huge for Caleb? Actually it’s kinda massive. This is Caleb experiencing a trauma incredibly similar to what he went through when he was younger (but on a much smaller scale, with far less dire outcomes) and being able to look at it and, still apologise, but explain that he was not in control of himself, and that ‘they got inside his head’. 

This is the step he needs to take with Trent, too, this is the same admission that he needs to make to himself, and this is the first step that has to happen before he can even begin to start processing and healing his trauma. And he needs help with that. 

This is not the part where I say I expect the mighty nein to become Caleb’s therapists. But they can be friends, they can be a support network, but most importantly: they can be an outside perspective. 

They can’t process his trauma for him. They can’t work through his issues for him. They can’t take away any of his grief, or his guilt, or his pain, or his PTSD. They can’t make what Trent did go away. But they can point it out. 

They can raise a red flag. They can point it out and say ‘this is not okay’. They can put a name to it. They can validate it. They can do the things that Caleb cannot do himself, which is look at what happened and be able to acknowledge, without the burden of guilt, and the fact that it’s so much easier to blame, and hurt, and punish himself than a figure he’s terrified of, and say that it was not okay, and explain to him what happened. 

They can help him acknowledge his abuse and then he can start to help himself heal from it. 

But this fight is, essentially, a microcosm of Caleb’s past. And I hope that if (when, please god when) the mighty nein, who were all either a)- directly charmed themselves, or b)- resisted the effect but were aware of its intentions and capabilities, do not react the way Caleb expects them to react (ie: the way he reacted to himself) with anger, and hatred, and blame, that’s going to start unlocking things. 

I don’t expect a massive breakthrough next episode, don’t get me wrong, this is going to be a long, careful, painful process. But I think even the acknowledgement that someone affected that way by magic, or by emotional abuse, is not themselves, and is not, ultimately, to blame for what they may have done (or weak/somehow complicit in ‘allowing’ themselves to be targeted/victimised) is going to prove a really big thing for Caleb in the future. 

Just that acknowledgement that they don’t blame him for what happened, that they understand he wasn’t himself, and that it wasn’t within his control to stop what was happening could, I think, prove huge in terms of his recovery further down the line... 

TL;DR: Caleb experienced his past again on a much smaller scale with this fight, but having the party around him to react to him/it and reach out to him, and tell him it’s okay and that they don’t blame him will do A Lot for unlocking his potential recognition of abuse and recovery down the line.