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Tup never really drank much, not even when he was on shore leave on Coruscant or celebrating another victory aboard the Resolute. Unlike some of the other troopers, who found it funny to get each other drunk, Tup didn´t like the loss of control the alcohol brought with it, heck, he didn´t even like the taste of it. Most alcohol, especially the moonshine some of the 501st engineers were brewing below deck, tasted utterly disgusting and the one which didn´t taste absolutely abysmal was so sweet it nearly made his teeth hurt.
Therefore Tup didn´t really know what it was like to really have a hangover, but the way he was feeling as he started to come back to his senses came pretty close to it. His head hurt, he felt nauseous, every little movement made him terribly dizzy and when he carefully cracked open an eyelid and light hit his eye he immediately scrunched it shut again, the light only making his symptoms worse.
Instinctively he tried to move away from the light shining down on him, only to notice that he couldn´t as he had been fixated to whatever object he was sitting on with some sort of… rope?!
How… when… just last night they´d set up camp next to a village. The people living here had seemed nice, had even helped them to fight against the droids, that had invaded the rather rural world. They´d celebrated their victory together with food and drinks and then, after that, he and his friends had went back to their tent and…
Shit, now Tup remembered! He´d told them to go ahead because he´d needed to relieve himself and just when he´d wanted to go back to them there had been a sound behind him, something had hit him in the back of the head and then the world had went black.
And then he´d woken up here. Wherever here was.
Carefully Tup cracked his eyelids open again, swallowing against the nausea as he forced his eyes to remain open and to get used to the flickering light of the… fire. There was a fire burning in a small fireplace just opposite to where he was sitting, illuminating the small, windowless hut he was inside. Despite the fire the room was quiet cold, the cool air making goosebumps appear on his bare upper body. Where were his armor and upper blacks?
A quick look around told him that he was alone, but his feeling was telling him that it wouldn´t remain like that for long and after seeing the long knives laying lined up on a small table next to the fireplace Tup was sure that he didn´t wanted to stay until the owner of said knives returned.
He experimentally tugged at the rope that was binding him to the chair he was sitting on, but the coarse material offered little to no give and tipping the chair over also wasn´t an option since the damn thing had been bolted to the floor.
Tup swallowed. Seemed like who ever had abducted it hadn´t done something like that for the first time. And that made his chances of getting out of here alive even slimmer.
Taking a few breaths, Tup tried to calm himself down, which only worked mediocre but his hands weren´t shaking as badly as they´d been before. And so he started to use the little give the rope offered, using his fingers to feel up and down the backposts of the chair, to which his hands were bound.
A small hiss escaped him, when his right index finger caught on a nail, peeking out of the wood, but the pain was quickly forgotten when he realized he´d just found his ticket out of here.
Moving his right arm up towards the nail was difficult as the coarse rope didn´t offer much give and when he finally reached the nail, the rope was so tight around his wrist that it nearly cut of the blood flow, but that was something Tup could deal with for now.
In small up and down motions he began to rub the rope against the nail, putting as much pressure on it as he could.
He felt the little strings of the rope catch and rip on the sharp metal tip, but the progress was slow going and the up and down motions didn´t only made the rope rub against the nail, but also against the sensitive skin of his wrist. And by the stars, that was far from a pleasant sensation.
On the contrary, after only a minute or two the skin on his wrist was already burning, the skin bright red and irritated from the friction of the rope´s harsh material.
But Tup only allowed himself a few seconds of rest before he continued, biting down on his lower lip to distract himself from the pain as his motions didn´t only fray the rope bit after bit, but also rubbed of layer after layer of skin.
The farther he got, the more intense the pain in his wrist became and soon he could feel thin lines of blood trickling down from his rubbed raw skin. And he still wasn´t free yet. He was still here, bound to a chair in the lair of what Tup could only describe as a maniac. A maniac, who could return at any given moment.
Fear fueled his muscles and Tup doubled his efforts, his motions growing more and more frantic. He needed to get out, he needed to get out now. Had there been a sound outside? Was that maniac coming back?
Come on, come on! Just a little more, just a little…
With one last motion the rope around his right wrist gave away, but before he could use his now free hand to loosen his bindings the door to the hut flew open an…
“Tup! Thank kark!”, Fives yelled, rushing into the room, being followed by no other than a pretty worried looking Rex and very pissed looking Kix.
“Fives, how… ?”, Tup began, but the ARC didn´t let him answer.
“The people, they help us find you. They told us about this myth of a creature living in the forest, that ate humans and that every now and then people just disappeared to be never found again and… kark, Tup! What did he do to you!”, Fives rambled quickly cutting through the remaining ropes, his eyes roaming over his vod´ika´s body, checking for injuries.
“Ate them?”, Tup whispered, his eyes flitting over to the collection of knives on the table, “He… ate them?!”
“Easy, vod´ika.”, Fives murmured, grabbing the back of Tup´s neck and squeezing it in a grounding manner, “Rex killed this demagolka. He can´t hurt you anymore.”
Tup just nodded, pressing his forehead against Fives´ as as small sob escaped him and he let himself lean forward against the ARC´s broad chest.
“Hey, it´s okay. It´s okay, Tup´ika.”, Fives murmured, gently ruffling though Tup´s long hair before he moved a little to the side, allowing Kix to kneel down next to the younger trooper to take care of the injured wrist.
Tup hissed when Kix carefully began to remove little pieces of the rope, that were still sticking to the wound. The cool air flowing into the room from the outside was already nearly too much to bear, the skin rubbed so raw that Tup thought he was able to see his underlying muscles, so every remnant of rope Kix removed felt like the medic was stabbing him with a rather long and thick needle.
“Kix.”, it was Rex, who´d stepped behind Tup and had put a warm hand on the shaking trooper´s shoulder to comfort him, looking at the medic with pleading eyes as he was unable to see his little brother suffering so much.
“Sorry, kid.”, Kix murmured, pulling free an especially large piece, eliciting a small groan from Tup “I can´t give you any painkillers yet. First I´ll have to take out the debris and then check for nerve damage.”
“Okay.”, Tup whispered, not caring about the tears of exhaustion running down his face, “As long as Rex and Fives stay.”
“Not going anywhere, kiddo.”, Fives whispered, wrapping his arms around Tup, hugging him to never let go again.