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“There is absolutely no way in haran I’m wearing that.”
Echo muttered under his breath as Hevy and Cutup snickered while Droidbait pulled at the collar of a large, fluffy sweater Fives had forced him to wear and was now trying to get the rest of Domino squad to join suit. Cutup smirked as he slipped into his own sweater and spun around and tapped Echo on the head.
“Aw c’mon vod they’re pretty comfy Yknow!”
“I am not wearing that!”
“You’d look all pretty, nothing in your precious protocols say anything against wearing other things sometimes y’know!”
Hevy chimed in while rustling Echo’s hair, Echo quickly squirmed away from Cutup and Hevy while he hugged himself as he trotted away, leaving the rest of his squad looking amongst themselves confused. After a few moments Fives furrowed his brows and shrugged.
“I’ll go find him. I’m sure he’s just pouting over training or something. When I get back, I better see the rest of you in those sweaters.”
But before he walked off, he gave Cutup and Hevy a look.
“Don’t tease him so hard here, I’m trying to get us to pond, not to pirimpir him off, okay?”
He then walked off to find Echo, leaving the rest of Domino squad to rummage through the box he had bought. He had asked one of the other clones to bring it back from Coruscant.
It was getting colder and their blacks, while insulating, weren’t very… cozy. So, Fives had scrounged some spare credits and placed an order for five fluffy, cozy bantha fur sweaters; however, he didn’t account for how incredibly… decorated they would be. While the rest of Domino squad didn’t mind too horribly much, Echo was refusing to wear his due to the large pink and blue snowflake on the chest of the one he was given. Fives sighed and quietly kicked himself for not triple checking the designs before he paid for them. After a bit of searching, Fives finally found Echo curled into a ball in his half open bunk. Fives climbed his way up, poking his head up and startling his squadmate -almost making him fall.
“Wanna tell me why you ran off in a huff?”
“That karkin’ thing looks like it was made for a youngling.”
“Well, I did tell the designer that we’re nine when they asked our ages.”
This earned Fives a pillow to the face, almost knocking him off the bunk and onto the floor. However, he was able to save himself before he fell. He popped back up.
“Rude, anyway. You could just exchange it for a different one if it bothers you that much.”
“Augh, Fives its not.. that. It’s just…”
Echo curled into a smaller ball, unintentionally giving Fives the opening he was searching for. Fives hopped into the bunk with him, almost flipping them both over the edge but saving it in time, making both clones cackle some. Fives gave Echo a small smile before patting his shoulder.
“Alright, talk to me vod, why don’t you like the cozy sweaters? I know you get cold; you’ve got the lowest bunk out of all of us and heat rises. Haran, it’s cold right now and it isn’t even lights out.”
“Just… swear you’re not gonna laugh at me?”
“Typically, I’d make a joke here, but this time I’ll be serious. I swear I won’t laugh this time.”
Echo sighed and sat up, Fives following suit, both sitting cross-legged on the parroting clone’s bunk. Echo took in a sharp breath before talking in a low, embarrassed tone close to Fives’ ear.
“The other clones already don’t take us seriously, and they all osik on us, and we don’t fit in hardly at all. I don’t want to give them more bait to use against us.”
Fives nodded and gave Echo an awkward hug, mouthing ‘do not tell a soul’, before hopping off the bunk and skittering out of the sleeping barracks,
“I know what to do to help! I’ll be back Echo, don’t wait up!!”
“Don’t call me that! Ah forget it.”
Echo cried out before giving up upon realizing Fives had already left, leaving Echo alone and looking around horribly confused, before he finally dozed off to sleep.
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The next morning, Echo woke up to the bunks shivering. The barracks were freezing cold, as they always seemed to these days. He shivered a bit as he slid his bunk out, he assumed that Cutup or Droidbait had closed it for him to help try to keep him warmer. When the air hit his nose, it carried an odd, sweet smell, unlike anything he had ever smelled before. As he climbed down he noticed the classic sterile white environment he had seen his whole life looked vastly different. The pristine white walls had red, pink, green and blue linked paper circles draping as far up as he could see. The helmet stands he had never paid much attention to was now adorned with shiny paint that was certainly NOT in code. And most shockingly of all, any clone he saw was wearing one of those hideous sweaters he had just yesterday rejected out of fear all other clones would poke fun at him.
As he made his way down the halls of Kamino, he was shocked to find the whole planet seemed to be decorated, including the water, which had a strange white sheen to it and small dots that he simply assumed were just animals moving on it. He finally made his way to the cafeteria and ran into Fives, who was surprisingly chatting it up with more clones, all wearing those sweaters and drinking some sort of warm drink. Echo made his way to him and gestured around.
“What… happened?”
“You said you didn’t want us to wear the sweaters because you were afraid we’d be made fun of, yeah?”
“Well… yeah?”
“So! I convinced everyone to wear em’! In fact, Mistress Ti loved the idea of us all getting ‘festive’ that she got all the janitor clones to put up these decorations, the cadets made em.”
Echo found himself blown away. Had Fives seriously done all of this, just because he wouldn’t wear a sweater?
“And don’t think I did this just for you either. Turns out Mistress Ti didn’t like us and the cadets getting all ‘gloomy’ during the winter months. So, we clones are celebrating a Wookie holiday called ‘Life Day’ this year, hence the decorations.”
He plopped Echo’s sweater in his hands along with a small poorly wrapped gift box, and a cup of very sweet-smelling hot brown liquid,
“Happy life day my friend, now wear your karkin’ sweater. You’ve got no reason not to now.”
And with that, Echo smiled and shook his head as he put on the oversized, silly looking sweater and took a sip of his drink. He looked around to see cadets shredding open boxes, Mistress Ti handing out more to anyone who walked near her- janitor clones assisting with already broken toys and trinkets, a few clones around his own age down on the frozen water hurling white balls at one another, and even a Kaminoan or two engaging in the festivities.
Echo smiled as he sat next to Fives as his squadmate started singing what he could only assume was a poorly translated Wookie Life Day song. He snorted while he watched Cutup laugh about Droidbait getting foam from his drink on his lip, and as Hevy cheered when he opened his gift from Fives to find new attachments for his DC-17. Soon, all of Domino Squad had joined in Fives’ horrible singing while laughing and swaying with one another, warm, happy, and well.