Chapter Text
Try as he did, Six had never been a morning person. Even though it was necessary by virtue of his existence, he resented the sound of his alarm and the smell of cooked eggs. It wasn’t so much that he hated being awake. Six wasn’t one to climb slowly from his pod and shuffle sluggishly into the showers. When he opened his eyes, he was as awake as he would be for the rest of the day, all remnants of sleep vanishing from his disposition. No, he didn’t hate being awake in the mornings. Rather, he disliked what mornings brought with them.
Mornings meant the floor of the bunk room was cold when he jumped down from the ladder that led to the pods. It seeped through his socks until his toes turned to ice and he moved as quickly as he possibly could to the refresher on the other side of the room to escape to the steamy relief of the running showers. He chose the same stall as every other day and washed himself as efficiently as possible. Mornings also meant that his time was not his own, and every second wasted indulging his sore muscles in the warm rush of water was a second owed back to the Kaminoans.
Moving with as much haste as he would allow himself, Six shut off the shower and pulled on the light green scrubs that all training medics wore to set themselves apart from the graduated medics that wore navy blue, and even more from the medical officers in their pristine white uniforms. The fabric stuck awkwardly to his still damp skin, and he pulled on the hem to force them to fall across his limbs. With a quick brush to his teeth and another to his hair, he was ready to face the rest of his day just 15 minutes after he rolled out of bed.
Kamino was busy in the early hours of the morning. The wide open halls around the bunk rooms were filled to capacity with cadets making their way to training. There were the younger ones, barely past their 5th decant day, that trailed behind an older vod in a neat little line, likely headed to their lessons based on the relaxed blue fatigues they all wore. There were the older cadets too, the ones that no longer needed to be led from every training session and meal and lesson. There was one group in particular, probably only a few batches below Six himself, making their way down the hall clad in training armor, the helmets tucked securely under their arms. They were arguing loudly and pushing at each other as they walked, debating the entire way as they passed Six going in the opposite direction.
Even the very youngest of the clones were awake. Six spotted a group of vode with CC patches on their fatigues walking with a group of infants. The five of the commanders in training held the little ones with various levels of comfort. One of them toward the back had his assigned baby held close to his chest with two hands, looking down with each step he took. Then there was the peculiar CC leading the group. He had a shock of blond hair that could have only been a fluke of genetics, and he walked with a confidence Six wished felt. He had a baby slung over either arm and was talking animatedly to his brother walking next to him. The babies themselves seemed content with their predicament and relaxed in the rocking of their older brother’s arms. Six did a mental count of the infants again and was thrilled to come up with six rather than five. A rare set of twins, likely the two content in the blond clone’s hold. Twins didn’t get separated if it could be helped, as no vod was willing to put up with the screaming of both parties when they were moved too far away from one another.
Six didn’t get creche duty very often. At just over 16 standard years old, he was at the age where he should be assigned a shift a few times a month to take care of the toddlers as they learned to stumble on their stubby little legs. He had been sent in to wake the older clones still in the creche and get them ready for their morning lessons once or twice, but he was pulled from the duty quickly in favor of dedicating more practical hours in the medbay. Six had been chosen for medical officer training, and he wore the patches sewn into the shoulders of his scrub top with pride. As much as he adored the squishy little faces smiling up at him in the morning, he was content to spend long hours in the sterile medbay with its blinding lights and biting scent. It seeped into his clothes and his skin and no amount of scrubbing ever really got rid of the smell of antiseptic, but it calmed his hands and steadied his mind and reminded him he was built to heal.
Breakfast was as boring as it always was. Some concoction of eggs and bland vegetables and whatever else was available from the farming district of Tipoca City. Despite being a world almost entirely covered in water, the Kaminoans had come an incredibly long way in their own independence. They didn’t rely on trading but rather their own technology and innovation to ensure there was always fresh food available for the cadets in the training facility. It was a nice sentiment with a nice variety of options so they were never stuck eating the same things every single day. It would have been nice if they discovered salt, though.
While the rest of the training facility was alight with life and chatter and movement, the medbay was blissfully quiet. Training hadn’t really started for the day, so the majority of the beds were empty save a few that held the cadets with injuries bad enough to warrant an overnight stay. As it was one of the rare instances when they would be allowed to sleep in, Six did his best not to disturb the still sleeping cadets in their cots as he made his was to the back of the room and the data console set into the wall outside the hall that led to the offices.
Overnight, the medbay was monitored by the graduated troopers and the medical officers and the random Kaminoan if there were any major concerns about the health of a vod left in their care. The few older troopers that had stayed overnight were moving about tiredly, setting up different equipment for the day shift troopers to look over. Six smiled kindly as he punched in his designation to check in for the day. He was given a few waves in acknowledgment as the night crew made their way to the door, likely to grab what they could at breakfast and then tuck into their pods for the next few hours.
The other trainees and medics trickled in shortly after, as Six was always the first one to reach the medbay in the morning. One by one, they punched in their numbers and turned to their duties of waking and discharging who they could and caring for those that were left after. Six found a table at the back of the room and settled into the hard backed chair behind it, pulling his bag into his lap as he did. He pulled out various datapads and a stylus and flipped open to the training modules he had left to memorize for his lessons the next day.
Six was never able to settle down for very long during his shift in the medbay though. He hadn’t made it a more than a few chapters into his notes before the door on the other side of the room slid open to admit a group of cadets limping in with injured knees and ankles from a training simulation gone wrong. He marked his page on his datapad and pushed away from the table to cross the room and get an arm under the cadet that was struggling to walk on an obviously broken ankle. It wouldn’t be anything he hadn’t seen before, but Six prepared himself for another long day ahead of him.
Mornings, in themselves, were not bad. But mornings meant more cadets in the medbay and more wounds to stitch and more bloody gloves to toss away. So, Six would face his day and cycle from cadet to cadet and back to his studies. But then, as the day grew longer and the simulations stopped running and cadets tucked themselves into their pods for the night, the pained cries would cease to ring in Six’s ears. By the time the moons crested above Kamino, hidden by the thick cloud cover, there would be near total peace and Six would breathe easier knowing that for at least another day, they were all safe.
***
97 knew he had karked up before he had even finished falling.
It was ridiculous really, and he was well aware of that. He had always thought that if he was going to visit the medbay for the first time for something other than a bloody nose or his yearly hormone booster, it would be for something with a cooler story. Maybe he would have broken a leg completing the Citadel challenge, or he would have gotten a concussion avoiding live fire in training. He would have even taken stitches from a training accident so he could get the scar that would come with them!
But no, that was not what 97 was fated to do. Instead, he would be going to the medbay with a dislocated shoulder. It wasn’t as if that wasn’t an interesting enough injury for him, because he would still likely get a sling for his arm and a few days off training while the bacta supplements they would give him took effect and he could move uninhibited and pain free again. The problem was that he dislocated his shoulder in the most ridiculous way possible.
It had been a long day in training and his muscles were sore from overuse. The warm water of the showers had done little to ease the tension, and he wanted nothing more than to climb into his pod and sink into the warm darkness for the next few hours. He was making his way up the ladder to his pod at the very top when Hardcase called his name from the bottom.
“What do you want, ‘Case?” He asked, pausing halfway up to glance down at his batchmate still in the floor. Unfortunately, 97 never found out what Hardcase had to say because just pivoting his head that little bit upset his footing on the ladder. A cramp shot up his calf to his thigh and his grip slipped from the rung and then he was falling.
It wasn’t a terrible distance, thankfully, but he slammed into the cold, hard floor and heard more than felt the pop of his shoulder as the joint slipped from its socket.
97’s vision flashed white with the pain of it, and he was vaguely aware that he had screamed in pain, but mostly because his throat was scratchy and hurt when he took in a deep breath.
“Kriff!” Hardcase exclaimed, dropping to his knees by 97’s side. “Are you okay, vod?”
“No!” 97 exclaimed, grasping at his wayward shoulder with his good hand. “I’m not karking okay!”
Hardcase jerked to his feet and made his way to the door. “I-I’ll go get Rylee!” He was out the door before 97 could ever protest.
Needless to say, when the door to their bunk room slid open again, Rylee did not seem very amused. He was already in his his loose fitting pajamas and it seemed like he had shoved his feet into his boots in a hurry with the way they were pushing awkwardly at the legs of his pants.
“I swear 97,” Rylee said, moving further into the room to kneel by his side where he was still sitting with his back to the wall of pods. “Nine years old and still falling from your own pod. You haven’t managed that since back when I had to carry you up there and sleep in your pod so you wouldn’t try to come climb in mine.”
97 huffed and looked down in shame, wishing he could pull his arms across his chest in a bout of childishness.
Rylee caught his chin with a gentle finger and tilted his head to look up at him. “Oh come on, kih’vod. You know I’m just joking.” He ran his thumb across one of 97’s cheeks and it came away wet with pained tears. He moved a strand of wavy auburn hair out of the boy’s eyes and leaned down further to force him to make eye contact. “That seems like it hurts so why don’t we go see the medics.”
97 nodded his head and allowed Rylee to wrap an arm around his waist and boost him off the floor to stand. He forced his feet into his boots and followed Rylee out into the hall beyond.
Thankfully, the medbay wasn’t too far away from the bunk rooms, placed evenly between the living quarters and the training wing of the building. At that time of day, the halls had long since fallen quiet with most cadets away in the bunk rooms for the evening. 97 followed Rylee all the way to the medbay, holding his injured arm against his body to avoid irritating the angry joint any further.
The medbay was also very quiet, maybe even more so. The lights had been dimmed where there were a few troopers asleep in the beds that lined the walls. There was no bustling energy or sense of urgency at that hour. Aside from the random medic trainee checking vitals and moving through the room, it was all still.
At the back of the room, a young medic trainee in light green scrubs popped his head up to look at them over the edge of his datapad. He pushed away from his table, adjusting his belongings as he did, and crossed the room to meet 97 and Rylee at the door.
“What seems to be the problem?” The young medic asked them, smiling kindly.
97 glanced at Rylee over his shoulder and the older trooper took the cue. “I believe 97 here has dislocated his shoulder.”
The medic hummed low in his throat and scribbled something down on his datapad. “Alright, come with me then,” he replied, turning as he did and making his way towards a bed across the room.
“I’ll be good from here,” 97 told Rylee.
“Alright, kih’vod. Comm me if you need me,” he responded. He was out the door without another word, leaving 97 to scramble to follow the medic across the room to a free bed in the corner. The medic pulled the privacy curtain around them before directing 97 to sit on the bed.
“You can call me Six,” the medic told him, still looking down at his datapad as 97 made himself comfortable. “What’s your designation?”
“Nice to meet you, Six. I’m CT-5597, but everyone just calls me 97 for now. Wish this could’ve been under a better circumstance.”
Six snorted unattractively and tossed the datapad next to him on the bed. “I haven’t heard that one before.”
He reached out and settled his hands on either side of the injured shoulder and 97 jerked back away from him in shock. Six raised an eyebrow at him, without removing his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said soothingly. “I’m just trying to see how bad it is before deciding if you need any scans. Okay?”
97 nodded his head in confirmation and reached his good arm up to brush his unruly hair out of his eyes again.
As that was as much permissions as he was likely to get, Six started again on prodding at the joint where it hung loosely. “So, tell me 97. Is your hair actually red or did one of the trainers trade you some of that paste they get off world?”
“Did you just ask me if the carpet matches the drapes?” 97 exclaimed, doing his best to stifle his laughter so as not to disturb his joint still held in Six’s grasp.
Six stopped what he was doing to glare at him. “It’s awfully brave to say that to the medic holding your dislocated shoulder right now,” he replied.
97 wiped at the tears that had formed at the corners of his eyes. “Sorry, that was mean,” he said, although he really didn’t mean it. “No, I’m a mutie. Came out of the tube like this.”
“Hmm,” Six hummed noncommittally. “That’s uncommon. See a lot of brown and even some blond, but I don’t think I’ve seen red before. And your shoulder? How’d you manage this?”
“My batchmate distracted me and I slipped off the ladder in my bunk room.”
Six looked up again and he did not seem impressed. “Well that’s pretty karking stupid.”
“Yeah, I know,” 97 laughed again.
“Well,” Six started, adjusting his lands around the shoulder again, prodding at a new spot as he did. “It can’t stay like this.” Without so much as a warning, Six tightened his grip around 97’s upper arm and jerked it up and then back, clicking the joint back into place.
“Karking hell!” 97 exclaimed, pulling away from Six and looking at him in disbelief. “Are you out of your karking mind? That hurt!”
“I’m sure it did,” Six replied, pulling open a drawer under the bed. He popped back up with a sling in hand. “But it doesn’t, anymore, does it?”
97 sat back and took stock of everything for a second and realized it didn’t hurt at all. He was tense and a little sore, but the actual pain had stopped. “I guess not,” he answered.
Smiling bigger then, Six helped him position his arm in the sling and tightened it against his chest. “I’m just magic like that.”
Sitting with his arm strapped tight to his chest, utterly exhausted from training, 97 nodded dumbly. He listened with only half an ear as Six pulled out a packet of pills and wrote care instructions down on a little slip of flimsi. The lights above the bed were harsh and cast strange shadows about the enclosed space, but they caught the profile of Six’s face and illuminated where his lips titled up into a smile as he spoke, almost as if it were instinctual. There was no doubt he was a clone. Six’s hair was trimmed neatly into a regulation cut and was the same curly black as every other regular trooper. His eyes were the same shape and his nose sloped at the same angle, and his cheeks cut the same sharp lines across his face, even if they were still soft with youth. But he glowed in a way that 97 had never witnessed before, and he was convinced for a moment that Six really was magic. 97 didn’t know what it would take, but he would do anything to stay in Six’s orbit for as long as he was allowed.
All the same, eventually he hopped down to the floor and smiled and thanked the young medic. He crossed the medbay to the doors and found his way back to his bunk room. Hardcase helped him up the ladder to his bunk at the top and he slid the pod closed and encased himself in darkness. Even with so much distance between them, 97 would have sworn he could still feel the warmth of that smile.
***
Before that evening in the medbay, Six had never met a trooper with red hair. In the days after, it was everywhere he turned. Specifically, 97 was suddenly a fixture in his life.
It started innocently enough. Six was walking through the mess hall early one morning piling a mess of oatmeal and fruit into his bowl when out of the corner of his eye, he caught the distinct auburn color moving across the sprawling room. 97 was gone before Six ever had the opportunity to say hello. After that, they passed each other in the halls and during meals and leisure time, constantly near each other but never close enough to touch.
Everything changed two weeks after they met in the medbay. Six was making his way through the living quarters towards his bunk room to shower off substances he was trying his best not to think about. The halls were mostly clear, and Six was grateful because he was fairly confident he smelled of something unspeakable mixed with the sickly sweet scent of bacta; the kind of cocktail that could only be found in the medbay.
As he was slogging his way to the ‘fresher calling his name, he heard laughing coming up behind him and he sighed. He stepped towards the wall to clear the path as best as he could, but when he turned, he found himself again face to face with 97.
“Hey there, Six,” the older boy called, making his way closer. He was clad in training armor with his helmet held loosely in his grip. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat but he smiled brightly, ignoring the playful jab in his side from his batchmate. “What are you doing up here midday?”
Resisting the urge to run his hands through his hair lest he make his problems that much worse, Six grasped them in front of him. “Accident in the medbay,” he responded. “Best I not go into detail, but all of the showers there are full of other medics and patients and I wasn’t willing to wait any longer.”
97 stepped closer to him and waved his batchmate on down the hall with a shove to the back. As he came closer to Six’s personal space, his nose crinkled in disgust before he forced his features to even out again. “That’s absolutely disgusting,” he laughed. “It’s good to see you though.”
“Oh?” Six asked. “Is everything okay with your shoulder?”
“Yeah! I just meant,” 97 glanced away and rubbed at the back of his neck, “it’s nice to see you.”
“Oh,” Six breathed dumbly. “Why?” As far as Six was concerned, he was another clone medic doing his best to get to the good rations in the morning.
97 stared at him without speaking, but his breathing was uneven and his helmet slipped in his grip so he had to scramble to catch it.
Six slapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing and instantly regretted it when the smell of bacta nearly made him gag.
“Serves you right for laughing at me,” 97 snickered, resettling the helmet under his arm.
“No one deserves this,” Six exclaimed, rubbing the palms of his hands against his thighs, although the thick layer of bacta just peeled away in little sticky globs and stuck to the fabric. “Not that I don’t appreciate watching you make a fool of yourself with your helmet, but I think I need to go shower now.”
“Yeah, you probably should,” 97 replied with a straight face.
Six huffed indignantly and turned to make his way down the hall away from 97 again.
“It’s your smile!” 97 yelled as he walked away. Six turned on his heel to face him where he stood at the other end of the hall.
“What?”
“Your smile. It’s nice,” he explained.
Six shook his head and couldn’t help but to laugh again. “You know we’re all clones, right?”
“Of course I do,” 97 replied. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no other clone that smiles like you do.”
“Then you should know I like your hair. It makes it easier to see you in a crowd,” Six’s face flushed as he spoke and the words felt stupid as he said them, but he couldn’t have stopped them if he had tried. “I like that. Being able to see you, I mean.”
“Will you have breakfast with me tomorrow morning then?”
Six couldn’t have dreamed of saying no.
***
After that, 97 and Six began to revolve around each other.
Breakfast turned into midday meal and midday meal turned into dinner and the next thing he knew, Six shared every meal with 97 and his batchmates. Six had his own batchmates of course, but they had long since been split up into different fields and specialties rather than a training squad, and he rarely saw them. So, he plopped down across from 97 whenever he got the chance and he smiled as often as he could and he felt his heart flutter every time he met 97’s eyes. Sometimes, it physically hurt his lungs to breathe past the catch in his throat when he caught 97’s dopey grin in return. Not the one he fixed on his face when he had to be polite, but the one that lit up his eyes and deepened the laugh lines around his mouth he had developed from growing too fast. One day, Six realized he no longer resented mornings because 97 would be waiting for him outside the door of his bunk room. Three months after meeting 97 in the medbay, Six decided his favorite color was red.
Half a standard year after meeting, 97 and Six existed together, and everyone around them was aware of it.
It wasn’t all that uncommon for clones to form relationships on Kamino. The older cadets kept a careful eye on the younger ones and gave advice where they could and slipped little tubes of artificial slick into their hands whenever they were able to buy it off the trainers that went off world. 97 nearly melted into a puddle of embarrassed goo when Rylee pulled him aside one day with a tube of the stuff in hand. Try as he did to say they didn’t need it yet, his ori’vod was insistent, and 97 was sure to hide it under his mattress in his pod where Six wouldn’t find it. Maybe for another day.
They weren’t granted many days to just exist on Kamino, but 97 and Six were grateful for the the ones where they could. They were laying together in 97’s pod with a trainer approved holo going on one of their holopads, although they weren’t paying it a lot of attention. Six was laughing at 97 and tossing ration wrappers at his face in his hysterics.
“I’m serious!” 97 exclaimed. “That’s how Hardcase got his name!”
Six shook his head and took a deep breath. “There’s no way you’re serious.”
“I couldn’t make this osik up if I tried. I watched him do it too! He ran directly into Alpha-17. Landed on his shebs too, I don’t think anything can take Alpha-17 down. Anyway he looked up at the man and goes, ‘Sorry about that, sir. I’m all good though. I’ve got a hard karking head.’”
“And somehow he lived,” Six said in disbelief.
“I don’t know how,” 97 replied. “Any other cadet would be dead for that. Started going by Hardcase after that though. I don’t think a name has ever fit a vod better.”
“No, I don’t think so. He’s just lucking he wasn’t called Hardhead. At least Hardcase has a ring to it.”
“He would’ve taken it either way,” 97 said. “Have you ever though about a name for yourself?”
Six’s laughing tapered off and he stared at 97 in thought. “Sometimes. I’m not really sure what else I would go by though. I’ve been Six for so long I can’t imagine what something else might sound like.”
“Have you thought about changing a letter maybe? Get something similar but it would be your own.”
“Just a letter?” Six asked.
97 threw his arm out in a sweeping motion that didn’t fit the small space they were sharing, and Six dodged out of the way. “Yeah! There’s Bix. Probably not Cix, still so close to Six. I wouldn’t recommend Dix personally, but to each their own-“ Six reached out and placed a hand on either of 97’s cheeks, and pushed with both palms to force his face to contort. At nearly 19 standard, there wasn’t much baby fat left on 97’s face, but there was enough for his lips to pucker out ridiculously.
“You’re awful, you know that?” Six asked.
97 nodded his head. “Gib me a kix,” he responded.
Six pulled back and looked down at him where he was laid out on the rough sheets. “What did you say?” he asked.
Propping himself up on an elbow, 97 reached out to cup Six’s cheek. “I said Kix, I think. Do you like that?”
“I do,” he said. “I like even more that it came from you.”
97 wrapped his arms around Kix’s waist and pulled him in close until their foreheads touched. “How about this then. Be my Kix, and I will be whoever you want me to be.”
“Okay.” Their lips met then and Six squeezed his eyes closed until he saw stars and felt nothing but 97.
***
It took Kix longer than he would have liked to name 97. He wouldn’t call himself the funny one and there were no goofy accidents or jokes that helped him along. Weeks passed and they were 97 and Kix. That was, until they weren’t anymore.
“I’ve picked your name,” Kix announced one day.
It had been a long day in the medbay and he was tired but he had decided what he wanted to call 97 and he rushed to his bunk room the moment his shift ended. Most of 97’s batch was tucked away in their pods, so Six had pulled him down to sit at a bench by the lockers that lined the room.
“Oh?” 97 questioned, perking up as he did.
“Yeah,” Kix replied. “I didn’t know how to go about it at first. I’m not creative and I couldn’t just come up with something that worked. So, I searched and I found books loaded into my holopad about naming traditions in the galaxy and I’ve looked through a lot and really, I just hope you like it. If you don’t, well-"
97 reached out and grabbed Kix by his shoulders. “I’m going to love it. What’s my name, cyare?”
“You’re my Jesse.”
Jesse leaned in and kissed him soundly, only pulling away when the smile on his face grew too big. “Kix and Jesse,” he breathed.
“Jesse and Kix.”