#HI REQUESTS IM SORRY IM BEHIND ㅠㅠ I WILL GRIND SOME OUT TMR

[aenaxes]

dogma was the friend with the camera—you know the one, snapping candids in between shots of good sunsets and particularly good bits of vandalism (because hey, it’s objectively funny, even if it’s not exactly legal). wherever he went, the camera went too, clipped securely to his hip.

fives and jesse like to give him a hard time about it: what, you think we’re gonna disappear overnight? put the camera down!

but they’re grateful, too. because even if no one remembers them in the grand scheme of the war, dogma’s little camera would. so they all scrap their credits together and manage to buy him a nice one with a holopixel and frame rate quality miles above his normal run of the mill reusable.

miraculously, it’s one of the few things that survives dogma’s defection. and it’s a good thing it does—that tiny camera has been his lifeline more than once, when giving in seemed easier than pushing back and fighting, fighting, fighting. it’s something to keep his brothers alive, to make him feel a little less alone.

so dogma doesn’t know what to do when he finds out face-to-face that “the other clone” wandering through the galaxy is rex. neither of them knows what to say for a few days (is it shame? guilt? how do you say sorry for something that was neither of your faults?)

but eventually, they break the ice when dogma seeks him out one night and wordlessly extends the same camera rex and the boys had gifted him. dusty, a little scuffed, but the light blinks on, and the memory’s intact. still good. (a little bit like them, huh.)

they sit under the shadow of rex’s y-wing, and they huddle close as dogma silently clicks through snapshot by snapshot:

tup strumming over an old guitar; a cringey selfie of dogma’s fresh tattoo when he thought lip biting was sexy; a shot of fives pretending to saber battle jesse with mop handles; out-of-focus pictures of hardcase and kix sake-bombing at 79’s; rex at dawn, looking tired and old but full of hope. overexposed and poorly timed outtakes—everything’s there.

(there’s a conspicuous gap after umbara. if rex notices, he says nothing.)

every now and then, they come across fake vlogs and snippets of inside jokes where dogma and a digital ghost of one of their brothers pretended that they were twenty-something year-old civvies enjoying youth and life instead of brothers aged too fast and lost too soon. (tup grins into the camera lens, “welcome back to our channel!” dogma’s vision blurs.)

photo by photo, conversation returns to them, awkward and rusty from unuse but no less warm than they remember.

they both laugh harder than they have in years as they watch echo and dogma’s blurry smack cam compilation on fives and jesse, poor imitations of wookiee cries, perfectly cut screams right as rex came into the frame.

and they tell themselves that their tears are because they’re laughing the kind of laughter that aches in your stomach and doubles you over. the haggard sob that leaves dogma’s chest is just him gasping for air. they tell themselves that they’re hugging each other so so tight because it’s good to be brothers in arms again. (they’re all that’s left.)

they’ve mourned somber for too long.

they’ll do away with the grieving for tonight.

#HI REQUESTS IM SORRY IM BEHIND ㅠㅠ I WILL GRIND SOME OUT TMR #i developed a soft spot for dogma almost overnight #i also hc that dogma was the Way he was on umbara bc echo wasn’t there #as in he felt that pressure to step into echo’s role without having properly grieved the loss of one of his closest brothers #dogma #dogma headcanons #the clone wars headcanons #tcw headcanons #yaej.metas