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If not for the fact that Fives was himself desperate to make the apartment as clean and welcoming for Omega as possible, he would have made fun of Rex the entire time he spent vacuuming and dusting. Every surface got dusted (and, yeesh did they need to dust), every floor got swept, the toilet and shower stall were scrubbed within an inch of their lives, and they even futzed around with figuring out what setting on the wash was good for their couch cushions and pillow cases.
In the end, Rex’s loft apartment above his gym was as clean as it had ever been, and the two of them were only a little exhausted and lightheaded from cleaning fumes when the first of their guests arrived.
“You two look nervous,” Wolffe barked as he shouldered inside.
“Nice to see you, too,” Fives replied—Rex was used to his adopted brother’s caustic edges and was more interested in investigating the bag of food and snacks Wolffe brought with him. Fives trailed along after him, making small talk. They hadn’t framed the afternoon’s entertainments as being a big cultural event, but without needing to be asked it looked like Wolffe had brought some Mandalorian classics, snippets of jerky in pepper dust, sesame seed dough balls, and a six pack of tihaar-flavored soda.
Rex picked up a dough ball, fingers squishing into the sphere. “You make these?” he asked, and popped it in his mouth.
“The ones in the shops are too gluey.” Wolffe smartly smacked Fives’s hand away as he reached for a treat of his own. Wolffe always did make the best beviki’alayi, sticky cake. “Save some for the game.”
“But Rex just had one!” Fives pouted. “You like Rex more than me.”
“Yes,” Wolffe agreed, and Fives’s rejoinder, if he had one, was lost as there was another knock on the door. He left Rex and Wolffe to catch up and went to the door.
“Hi, Fives!” Omega announced, standing beside Echo and carrying several bags. She was wearing soccer shorts and her purple Izru Kantos jersey, which made Fives smile as he took some of the bags out of her hands.
“Hiya, kid. Rex and Wolffe are in the—”
“Wolffe! Rex!” Like a shot, Omega was off.
Echo chuckled. “Looks like we’re old news.”
“I guess,” Fives agreed, shaking his head and laughing. “How was the busride?”
“Not bad.” They made their own way into the apartment. In the kitchen, Omega was hopping around, telling Rex and Wolffe about everything that had happened in her life since the last time she saw them. The two men stood there, twin masks of intense and dedicated observation, occasionally nodding when Omega told them something particularly interesting.
It always made Fives feel all happy and giddy to see how the other men in the family accepted and welcomed his little sister. Sure, Fives adored Omega, but she was his little sister, his immediate flesh and blood, a part of himself he’d never realized he’d been missing and all other sorts of platitudes he whipped out when he wanted to see her squirm and blush and complain. He would have understood if Rex or Wolffe felt out of place when including a little girl in their free time, but to the contrary, they cherished her just as much as Fives did, and Fives loved them all the more for it.
They unpacked the foodstuffs and tools Echo had brought along—the plan was for him to make dinner in a few hours, and they stowed everything ready and away. The last piece of the puzzle finally arrived, and Cody accepted his ribbing in good grace, placating with a smug I know, I know while Rex herded them all with their snacks to the couch and his frankly very nice television and entertainment set.
There was a mild shuffle as they all fought to see who got to sit next to Omega without making it seem like that was what they were doing. Echo counted himself out of the running with an eyeroll, claiming Fives’s battered old garage-sale armchair. Whatever, he got to have Omega all to himself way more often than the rest of them, living in the same house as her. Fives understood why it was better for him to live with Rex—he even loved the freedom of living with only one roommate as opposed to five—but he was always a little jealous of how Echo and the batch got to spend as much time as they could with Omega.
Cody got elbowed out of the running early, both for being the last one there and because Omega’s cherished soccer jersey had been a gift from him, a fact he looked perfectly smug and pleased by as he took Rex’s desk chair, wheeled out for the occasion.
“Jersey's holding up a treat,” he told her.
“It is!” she exclaimed, going pink with happiness. She held the hem and pulled the front taught. The Mythosaur symbol on the front was a little crackly at the edges from washing, but the purple color of the jersey was still clear and bright. “Next season I want to see if Kiba would switch numbers with me so I can be seventy-five.”
Using her little speech as a distraction, Fives swooped in, getting her around the middle with one arm and crashing the two of them onto the couch together. Omega put up a token fight, play-wrestling for a second while Fives laughed. When Wolffe imperiously lowered himself down to sit on her other side, they both settled down.
Rex was left shaking his head and shooting a patented I-know-what-you-just-did look at Fives. Fives slung one arm around Omega’s shoulders, and with that hand, rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together where only Rex could see. The world’s smallest violin sang its sweet song for Rex as he rolled his eyes and got the first VHS tape loaded into his treasured combination tape-and-disc player.
With him sitting on the other side of Wolffe, the main entertainment of the day began.
Grainy texture bloomed across the screen as the tape started to run. Somehow both bright and washed out, the color of the sky was warm and yellow—the summer of ‘87 was a record one in Mandalore, Fives knew, and it was like he could feel the heat through the screen as the recorded sports television station began coverage of the annual National Football Cup.
A friend of Rex’s had bought the tapes online. The Mandalorian National Football Club had always been a revered favorite of his, and like any bred-in-the-rough mandos, Fives and the rest of the boys in the family ranged from naturally positive to massive fans like Wolffe, Rex, and Cody. They dominated on the soccer field, but were barred from competing in most international soccer competitions like the World Cup because as a true Mandalorian institution, it saw no distinction between genders and fielded a mixed-gender team. Thus, the National Cup—where all thirty-two regional teams battled it out—was their sacred yearly competition.
When Omega had first been getting into soccer, Rex had told her about the MNFC, and she almost instantly became as hooked as he was, partially because her club team was also a mix of boys and girls. She watched old games online, and followed the ongoing season along with him as the teams all duked it out for the Cup.
Part of getting into the MNFC recently was that Omega was hungry to learn all she could about the legacy of the game, the history that long-time and multi-generational fans like Rex knew almost as well as they knew their own clan histories. They’d taken to watching recordings of old games together, and many sports historians agreed that the original golden age of the team had been the eighties and nineties—recordings of those games were hard to come by, as the urban warfare of the Clan Wars devastated a lot of archives.
Fans everywhere cherished old family tape recordings of televised games. A lot got copied and cut together, stitching dozens of different private recordings and then sold online. A good investment, for fans like Rex. Just as good, for guys like Fives, who smiled down at Omega, watching as her face transformed with wonder as the opening anthem played over a massive crowd of cheering mandos.
It was easy to get into a competitive mood. The first recorded games were the northern province prelims, so they picked teams at random to cheer for—and consistently booed for Keldabe, still beloathed to this day by everyone not their own home county supporters. Gnoshing on snacks and sipping tihaar soda, Fives was giddy, buoyed along as Omega leaned forward in her seat with intense focus, tracing the path of the bright red soccer ball.
The recorded games were hobbled together from old recorded newscasts, some from the central sports provider in Keldabe, and some by smaller local stations. On the upside, that meant getting to watch some truly old-school commercials, all for products and places they’d never heard of, Mando-only brands and car salesmen slicing through sheet metal with a wicked curve kad to illustrate how they would slash their prices. On the downside, that meant everything was in mando’a and there were no subtitles.
Wolffe, Cody, and Rex were the most fluent out of all of them, so they popped in here and there with a translation when they thought it would be useful or interesting to know. Cody, in particular, made sure to run a quick translation of the Mandalorian New font on the back of the player’s jerseys so Omega could catch their names when the newscaster started yelling them.
The northern conference was a frustrating sweep. A few games were missing, but Keldabe emerged victorious, as they always did. Fives took the opportunity of everyone booing to snag the last sticky cake, squishing into the sweet fruit paste filled ball of glutinous dough with a hum of appreciation lost in the wash of sound.
“It’s because of Sal Serridan,” Rex opined to Omega. “He’s inhuman.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s not only the goalkeeper,” she retorted. “They have to score points, too.”
While they bickered lightly, Cody got up and switched the tapes. The western prelims were lost, and Mandalore really had no ‘east,’ to speak of, the steep mountains on that side of the country sparsely populated, so the southern conference remained. It was a breath of fresh air, as the accents of the local newscasters and small business commercials were no longer the nasal, lilting timbre of Keldabe but the more guttural, throaty cadence of Concord Dawn, the province where Ninety-nine’s family had hailed from—and hence, where he got his own accent from. Fives started to be able to catch every other word of his own power, and started elbowing in to cut Cody off when he tried to translate, just because.
Halfway through the prelims, Echo got up and started making noise in the kitchen. While he hadn’t asked, Wolffe saw it as his duty to go mind what Echo was doing, and so Rex was able to slide in next to Omega. One of the players from Concord Dawn, Heturr N’Dali, was currently the aging coach of the team, so they were very invested in her rookie performance, going toe to toe against some of the greatest midfielders to ever take the green. When she missed out on a final tie-clinching goal late in the final game of the prelims due to interference, Rex and Omega both threw themselves back into the cushions with twin groans of frustration.
“She had it! She had it!” Omega exclaimed.
“Shashok tripped her!” Rex said, frustrated enough that color was rising in his cheeks, “the ref is blind, fucking blind—”
“Hey!” Echo called chastisingly from the kitchen. “Language!”
When the food was done, they paused to take turns using the restroom to wash up. Fives shot off a quick text to confirm with Hunter that everything was going well, Omega still in one piece.
Dinner was a big platter full of chicken wings with buffalo sauce and side dishes of carrot sticks and garlic knots. Hardly traditional fare, but no one was complaining as they dug in, too engrossed in the food to even bother switching to the final tape. Omega babbled in between wings to Rex and Cody about the game, player names she recognized, tricks she wanted to try and implement in her own game.
Everyone was grinning as they ate, fingers and mouths stained red with sauce. Fives felt a bubbling sense of contentment start up in his throat, threatening to choke him. As kids, they’d never had the cash to afford one dinner each after Rex’s high school soccer games, and would cram into booths in diners, splitting plates and knocking elbows together.
And now they got to do this with Omega; even better, they got to do that without worrying about being able to afford the busride home, or whether they’d be able to afford to do it again a week later. Fives caught Echo’s eyes and read there the same depth of feeling; like being able to reach back through time and tell himself everything is gonna be okay, kid.
“Alright, everyone sit together,” Echo orchestrated. He was grinning, mouth a mess of red sauce, holding his phone in hand. “For Ninety-nine, come on, squish together.”
Omega ended up having to sit on Fives’s lap so they could all squish together and smile (well, in Wolffe’s case more of a grimace) as Echo took a selfie to send to the old man. All of them a mess of wing eating, eyes bright, Omega and Rex in soccer gear.
“Send me that,” Fives ordered once Echo had taken the picture.
“Say please,” Echo replied, eyes on his phone.
“Pretty please,” he wheedled.
Echo pretended to think about it, so Fives threw a crumbled-up napkin at him.
“Now, now, boys, don’t fight,” Wolffe said, fighting back a grin. “Set a good example for the kid.”
“Echo could kick Fives’s butt,” Omega declared. Fives mocked heart pains, clutching his chest.
“I dunno,” Rex drawled, eyes shining, “it might be close…”
Omega opened her mouth—whether in support of him or decrying his weakness, Fives didn’t know—and Fives pounced. “Take it back!” he ordered, getting her in a headlock as she shrieked with laughter. “Rex, help me out!”
As much as he liked to stand with Omega as a united front of the family’s only blondes, Rex threw in with Fives, tickling Omega around her ribs and then grabbing her around the legs when she tried to kick free.
“I’ve got you, ‘mega!” Cody shouted, and took Rex in a flying tackle honed by years of living together as children—knocking them both into Wolffe, who took it upon himself to secure both of their necks under both arms, squeezing.
Echo stood back from the fray and laughed, taking photographs.
Without Rex for support, Fives allowed himself to be defeated, Omega twisting free and then pinning him and trying to give him a noogie. Her technique was all Crosshair, so Fives knew how to escape the worst of it.
“Alright,” Cody laughed, “alright, I fold! Get off me, Wolffe, I’m too old for this.”
They all mutually agreed to settle down, Wolffe sweeping away the dirty dishes and barking out refusals for help from Rex as he set to cleaning with methodical precision. Another round of washing got rid of all the smeared sauce (Omega’s precious jersey escaped the wrestling unharmed), and they settled in for the lead up to the central, final games of the season.
It was back to coverage from northern newscasts, Keldabe favored to win, to Rex and Omega’s displeasure. Veshokii got knocked out in the first round, small comfort for Heturr N’Dali and the Concord Dawn regional team, but comeuppance enough to sate Rex and Omega’s bloodlust.
The mood suddenly and drastically shifted between games. The speakers were somber, and rather than the usual run-up to game time, cheers and action shots, the camera panned by serious crowds, not wearing team jerseys or fanwear but black, white, and gold, some people wearing full military parade dress.
They all sat there, silent and frozen on Rex and Fives’s couch, as the two teams arrived in formal march to share the pitch. Rather than face off against each other for the traditional verda, the two teams mingled, and together began to chant, sing, and step together in formation.
“What’s going on?” Omega asked.
“Shit.” Wolffe, standing behind the couch, was looking down at his phone. “Eighty-seven. Game two. They had to postpone it because of the July Offensive.”
Fives didn’t recognize the battle name specifically, but he recalled, now, that the late eighties was the final burnout of the Clan Wars that led to the New Mandalorians taking control under the then-young Duchess Satine. Mandalore hadn’t been all soccer and cultural joy, when these newscasts were first being made. Cut the way they were, these tapes probably skipped all manner of horrifying casualty reports as the cities of Mandalore found themselves under siege from within.
On the screen, the camera cut wide. The people in the stands were singing and chanting, too, moving their arms in the gestures of the verda. Men and women clung to each other. Defiant, as Mandalorians always were, here to celebrate their national game together in the midst of such tragedy. The colors: black, for justice, gold, for vengeance, white, for a new start.
By his side, Omega leaned against his arm, and Fives lifted it to drape it around her shoulders and pull her closer.
The reason the lot of them were all here, crammed into Rex’s couch, safe and well-fed, was because their great-grandparents had seen the violence of the old Civil Wars and chosen to leave their homes behind. The original plan had been to wait out the possibility of returning, but as the decades slipped past, they stayed put. Let down roots. And watched as Mandalore tried to eat itself alive once more, the Clan Wars now being memorialized before them in grainy, reclaimed film.
The verda ended with the grand, final call of “OYA!” thousands and thousands of voices calling out together through time.
“Oya!” Cody called back, and like stirring from a dream, all of them found their voices, a sudden rush of heat and conviction ripping through Fives like a shot. “Oya!” they all shouted together, breaking into whoops and cheers matching the faces on the screen.
“Let’s go, Enceri!” Cody called as the game started. The players were just as fierce as ever, their eyes bright and faces flush with exertion as they ran. Rather than somber and hesitant, the verda had cleared everything raw out of the way to make room for the fire of the national sport. Jatnese be te jatnese! was the national team’s call, when they could find another international team willing to field against them despite being mixed gender— the best of the best!-- and it equally applied to every regional team. Chanting that was rooting not for an individual team, but all the Mandalorians together.
It got later and later. Wolffe stood up in between some of the last games and bemoaned having to be up early the next morning. Always the consummate professional, he heard no pleas to stick around for the rest of the season and packed up his empty containers with the disaffected air of a king.
His farewell to Omega was less so—he turned towards her and gruffly demanded, “Well, better come give me a hug.” She darted forward, squeezing him tightly around the middle. If Fives wasn’t mistaken—and he wasn’t—Wolffe melted, just a little bit, patting her smartly on the back. Yeah, they were all of them suckers.
With Wolffe gone, and night come on, it got chilly enough that blankets were distributed; it got super cold in Rex’s loft at night, as it would cost an arm and a leg to run the heater enough to fill the high-vaulted rooms. Omega snuggled up to Fives, her legs draped across Rex’s lap. Although the final few games of the season were as high octane as they came, it had been a long day, and with Keldabe definitely set up to win, they let the lethargy of night come on and settle, warm and familiar.
“Hooray,” Omega cheered, listless and unenthusiastic, as Keldabe secured yet another win. They held a record by a long mile for most National Cups, to the point plenty of regional teams saw clinching second as the greater honor. An old joke was that the reason the capital got moved to Sindari at the end of the War was because Keldabe couldn't be the capital of football and the country.
The tape ran out in the middle of the celebratory partying of the Keldabe team, so whoever recorded the tapes was in Omega's camp.
"Alright," Rex groaned, and moved Omega's legs off his lap. "Good game, everyone."
"Clean up time," Echo said, standing up as well.
"Oh no," Fives said, clinging to Omega. "Omega's laying on me, I can't get up."
"Oh no," Omega echoed in the same voice, "Fives is holding me hostage. I definitely can't get up."
"You're both horrible," Cody told them, but fondly.
The two of them, horrible people through and through, stayed cuddling on the couch while Cody, Echo, and Rex got to re-folding blankets, finishing up the last of the dishes, just chatting.
"If you wanna go hang out, I can move," Omega muttered to him when his arms fell slack; Fives immediately re-tightened his grip.
"You are my favorite person here," Fives whispered back. "Don't tell Rex. Or Echo. But mainly Rex."
"What about Rex?" the man himself shouted from the kitchen.
"Nothing!" Omega and Fives shouted back in unison, dissolving into giggles together.
"And I thought you were his twin," Cody muttered.
"He's my twin, thank you very much," was Echo's prim reply, voice brimming with warmth and affection.
When everything was cleaned up, they decided to part ways. Fives volunteered to drive Echo and Omega home, and they said their farewells to Rex and Cody, who headed back to his place on his motorcycle. The evening drive was clear and dark and sweet. Fives rolled down the windows and smiled at Omega in the rearview as she tilted her face into the breeze.
"Always a good time, having you two over," Fives said, mainly to Echo.
"Ah, you're just saying that." He reached over to pat his arm with his good hand, smartly.
"Next time, you'll have to talk the boys into showing up. Get Crossy out of his cave."
"You know he hates it--"
"--when I call him Crossy, I know," Fives laughed while Omega ruefully shook her head in the rearview.
"He's big enough to kick your butt now, too," Echo warned him.
"What is it with you two thinking anyone can just kick my butt?"
They chattered until Fives pulled up against the curb of the batch's house. The lights were off, but the porch light was on. It really was late.
Before hopping out of the car, Omega leaned over the console and bonked her forehead against Fives's in keldabe. "Love you, kiddo!" he shouted after her as she made for the front door. Her you too! was faint and made him chuckle. "Guess I love you too, nerd," Fives said to Echo, more sedately getting himself out of the car.
"I guess that means I love you too," Echo said. "Freak," he added, and he and Fives lightly tapped their fists together.
"We should do this again soon!" Fives shouted after Echo as he went towards the house.
"Oh, we are!" Echo replied over his shoulder, grinning and waving his arm. "Tell Rex you guys did good on cleaning, but next time, don't use so much product! I could smell it in the hallway!"
"Bye, Echo!" Fives shouted back.
"Bye, Fives!" Echo laughed.
Shaking his head, grinning like an idiot, Fives got waited until Echo was inside before driving off, back home to enjoy a day well spent.