sekkritaus | Familiar Faces: Any time post-prequels AU

Familiar Faces: Any time post-prequels AU

An AU where the clones actually get a few happy endings godammit.

None of them remembered the Republic anymore, but all of them had heard the stories from those who'd escaped its fall. Not all of them had agreed about it, whether it had been good or bad, but they all were certain: better than the Empire, and better than the cloners.

That generation had joined them in pieces, filtering in from outside. They'd all been out and seen the galaxy, and told the youngest stories that made them want to go see it, no matter how much it had taken from their elders.

They were gone now, and so were the ones that had come after them, those made too young to see the war, but had been trained to fight against their own when the cloners soured on the Empire. Only a few of them had remained on Kamino, hidden away in windowless domes so far beneath the waves that the only sound on the outer walls was the occasional tapping of some large abyssal creature walking with slow deliberation across its surface.

That generation was the one that rebelled. The shift in indoctrination didn't take, they suspected. The cloners had pushed their luck too hard.

They'd used their training. Reached out to the clones in other domes. Planned out everything they'd need. Then one day, all at once, they rebelled. Took over the security systems, captured every Kaminoan they could find. Kept them penned up, uncomfortable, but alive. They were hostages to keep the rest of them quiet, and a vital part of what they did next.

No clones were made on Kamino that next five years. More were produced on other worlds, trained for the Empire. So many of them that some eventually found their way out, despite what had been done to them. Their training had been harder on them, made them slow to trust anyone, including themselves.

But on Kamino, they were waiting for results. The youngest cohorts aged up old enough to prove to their elders they'd be able to make this new life work. They were learning what they needed to, how to do the jobs that some had thought impossible for them.

Then, finally, the first new batch. They were healthy, they were so very young, and they stayed young longer than any of them had before.

For the next ten years, that's where they all stayed. The older generations made an uneasy armistice with the Kaminoans after several more skirmishes and careful prisoner exchanges. The clones sent topside reported back there was a new war on. But with only a few thousand of them, they had to be careful. Keep their work quiet. Lead escaped Imperial clones and old Republic-loyal men back to them, make contact with the few who'd hidden among the Mandalorians. They all took a good hard swipe at the Empire whenever they got the chance, but they had to be careful and quiet, or they'd be destroyed like the Jedi were.

The Emperor eventually died, within the lifetimes of most clones who'd seen him rise. It hadn't seemed possible until one day it just suddenly was. An era was ending, and they were ready to go meet it.

[Prompt 1]

He'd been in one of the first batches to get made after that. He'd grown up hearing stories about the clones that helped make it possible, like Rex and Wolffe and the long-dead but still remembered Fives who'd warned them what was coming. Everyone knew their names, and those who'd given all so that one day they could become a new people, with everything that made them unique.

They'd left Kamino then, when he was still young enough that he didn't remember. They'd gone to H'ratth, a forgotten Inner Rim planet that had held secret Republic strongholds. It was habitable, it was abandoned, and it was now theirs. They dug in, installed the cloning chambers in the deep vaults, and from there started to make the planet home.

By the time he was old enough to remember things, the walls were starting to be lost under waves of color. Each sector had its own shade, matching the armor of the eldest regiments. He knew what each of them meant, who the knotwork and abstract lines depicted, memorials for soldiers most of the artists had never met. He'd grown up under the pale blue-grey of 99, one of the defenders of their first home on Kamino who'd died defending cadets against invaders, and who'd proved clones could do anything they set their mind to, regardless of how they were formed.

He grew up at little more, and said very confidently one day to his teachers that he was going to join the infantry and be a sergeant. He liked the word, and some of the best stories on the walls were about sergeants. That was what he thought, anyway. They still had need of soldiers, to defend against the people who saw them as escaped slaves, weapons out of control, lost and feral pets. They youngest bristled at the assumptions that the eldest had been forced to bear. No one had to anymore, and they refused to let it hurt them all again. They'd protect their own.

Their armor was shaped differently from what the eldest remembered, shaped to clone specification on H'ratth to fit them better than the old mass-produced models, but still evoking their lines. And everybody painted up, just like the eldest had. Either you did it yourself or made a deal with an artist. A lot were getting something avant garde, soft gradients or realism were popular and daring now. Every regiment was a riot of individuality.

He'd gone with something in between the traditional and the new. The black plate of his special ops group, layered on with blue-grey paint depicting things he'd done. Spiraling cable patterns down the right arm, left side broken and cracked by geometric flashes of lightning.

And he'd earned a sergeant's pauldron. His name was Taiko, and life was the way it should be.

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"We're not identical after all!" Did Dirty kind of wish that had been him? Yes. Was he delighted with the outcome? Absolutely.

"Maybe it's a compatibility thing," Bubbles muses, grinning at his slightly dazed-looking sergeant. "Wanna take a guess who that was?"

"Not you," He replied cheerfully to Bubbles - pretty sure he wouldn't have posed the question if it was. He cracked an eye open to see if anyone was looking particularly embarrassed.

"Might need a few more tests to figure it out for sure."

"Not me," Bubbles confirms, "I'm just here to look pretty."

Taiko had passed through flustered and into slightly tipsy determination. Sure, normally it'd take him weeks to get this far, but who knew how long Dameron was going to be around for? He wasn't going to sit this out.

Zero, meanwhile, was remembering that the last time Sarge got that look, he accepted a dare to eat a red reaper, and that had gone amazing. Horrible, but amazing. "New test. Which part next?"

Poe leans back in his chair, humming thoughtfully to himself, and then pretends that it takes him a minute to come up with an idea.

"Well, I mean, there's only really one test that's accurate, right? If it's pheromones. You'll just each have to kiss me."

"You've got some very persuasive logic there," said Dirty, who had totally not been rooting for that answer at all. "Eyes closed makes it officially Science, right? That's a blind test."

"Sounds right to me," Taiko agreed, and Bubbles clapped him on the back proudly. "Let's do it."

Poe pushed his chair back a little, leaving his drink on the table as he leaned back and closed his eyes, crossing his arms. He figured he might have a decent chance of telling them apart based on what they were drinking, but he was also curious about the outcome anyway.

"Alright. Do you your worst."

"Alright," Bubbles declared, having entirely too much fun enabling this, "Mr. Compatibility, take your shot."

Taiko was determined not to be shown up. No matter whether his heart was pounding way too much for just a kiss. This was being made more intimidating by the bar filling up around them, and you just knew half of them were watching the outsider and whoever he was with.

He went for it, getting up from his chair to lean in, one hand on Dameron's shoulder, the other on the back of his head, tangling through his hair--it felt just as good as it looked, damn. There was the slightest pause for a steadying breath, and he closed the rest of the distance to kiss Dameron on the lips.

Some utter bastard at a nearby table applauded, but Zero shushed him.

It was projected, at least, even if the wait gave Poe just enough time to feel the anticipation for it, a tingling excitement at the base of his spine. A shiver of pleasure as fingers pulled into his hair, but he kept his eyes closed. A second, two, and he wondered if maybe the man had given up - when lips met his. It was like a jolt of electricity jumped through him, and he immediately relaxed into it with a small, content sound, his lips parting to invite a deeper kiss.

He was pretty sure it was against the rules, but he also raised a hand, sliding it in behind the man's neck to pull him closer.

The bar was getting loud, but as close as he was, he caught that little sound. It went straight through him, his hands flexing slightly before he recovered enough to gently direct Poe to a better angle to deepen the kiss.

The only rule being enforced was the rule of Fun, so the commentary on the touching was limited to silent, excited hand gestures as the rest of the squad watched Taiko wobble for a moment as he tried to reposition, before just going all-in and settling on Poe's lap.

Poe groaned, shifting so that the clone's weight settled more easily on him. He hadn't exactly realised just how badly he needed something like this - it cleared his mind so blissfully blank - and a low heat, a need, unfurled deep in his belly and stirred in his blood.

... Force, he was grateful to this planet, right now.

His free hand slid around the man's back, palm pressing to his spine as he pulled him in closer, deepening the kiss as he did so.

He shifted, pressing up against Poe, a hand sliding around his shoulders. A small, almost overwhelmed sound was driven from him as the kiss went further, trailing off to a fluttering sigh.

It had been so long since he'd kissed someone like this, and never out in public. And he couldn't blame the drink for that, there hadn't been much rum in there. The light-headedness, the tingling he was feeling, that was entirely the fault of the kiss.

It was all too easy to lose himself into it, but his body was responding quickly and with the clone on his lap it was either going to get a lot heavier or a lot more embarrassing very quickly. So he did end up breaking off the kiss, leaning back and letting out a breath, opening his eyes with an amused, fond smile.

"Yeah, think I got that guess right," He says, the smile spreading into a grin.

The kiss had to end sometime, but he'd been making a go at 'never' anyway. When he pulled away his cheeks were more flushed, but he didn't look away this time. Somehow. He was glad he didn't.

"Nope, you've got to call it before you open your eyes, now you've got to start from the top again," Bubbles declared. Usually if he was wingmanning anyone it was Dirty, but Taiko needed a little extra help that he was happy to give. "In private this time. Either head home or rent a room downstairs if you can't wait. Shoo!"

"I haven't even finished my drink yet," Poe complained, though he clearly didn't mind at all. He didn't even shift Taiko from his lap, reaching past him to grab his glass, and finish the drink. He kept his other hand on Taiko's back, fingers spread.

"And if the sergeant wants to march me off somewhere, I'm happy to obey."

Taiko wasn't usually someone who'd say yes to a night with a natural. Others definitely were, and it always made their medic grumble about vaccinations.

But tonight? He could see that happening tonight. Or at least he hoped.

So he nodded. "Yeah," his voice was lower and huskier than before as he got up off Poe's lap. "Let's head out."

"I'm still feeling like doing some experiments, so I'll be here for a while," Dirty said. Bubbles nodded in agreement. "Who knows how long it might take. Zero--oh." Zero had disappeared at some point in the past fifteen seconds or so. "That's normal, don't worry about it. Go have some fun." He grinned at the pair of them, downing the last of his drink.

The alcohol was a warm hum in his chest and a slight haze in the back of his mind, and kept him from worrying too much about Zero. Or Flo. He made a note to maybe make sure he wasn't going to be causing any inter-platoon tension, but he could sort that out later. At the moment, he really did want to get out of where he was.

"Sounds good to me," he said, leaning over to finish off his drink before standing up. His hand just barely touching Taiko's elbow as he leaned past him to put the empty glass on the table. "I'm sure we can all catch up in the morning."

"Right. See you tomorrow." Where were his gloves? He'd left them on the table, hadn't he? He had, but they weren't there--

There was squishy lump in one of his pockets. Zero needed to stop doing stuff like that. But okay. Gloves found, and put back on. Phew.

Dirty and Bubbles stood, and they parted ways with the other two near the bar, looking for more drinks and friendly faces. Well, friendly parts of some nature or another.

Outside the sun had set behind the mountain, but it still lit up the clouds in dusky pink and gold. There was more traffic headed to and from the base now, those leaving work or headed in towards their quarters. Most nights while still on duty, the Aiwhas would head there too. But they had an apartment in the foothills beneath the mountain, a conveniently short walk from both the base and the center of town.

Now that he was out here, leaving alone with Poe, there was a little electric feeling of tension dancing through him. Mostly just excited nerves. "The apartment's less than ten minutes from here." Which was good, because otherwise he'd probably have to think of more stuff to say.

Poe fell into an easy step beside him, sliding his hands into his pockets with a casual ease. It was slightly a show - he had the same nervous energy, too, but now that they were out of sight of everyone else, that nagging thought in the back of his head was getting louder, wading through the haze.

"... You know, you can tell them whatever you want," He said, his voice companionable. "Regardless of whatever happens. Whatever you want to tell them, I'll run with it."

For a moment, he thought he misheard. But no, running it by again, ears and brain were in agreement. "I--No, This is f--" His pace slowed.

Was it fine? "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry about that." He offered a reassuring smile.

"But I uh - I kind of got the impression that they were goading you, a bit. And that there was somewhere else you'd rather be, if you could. So if I'm more helpful as a story to keep them off your back--"

"No, I--maybe a little," he admitted, "But not entirely. Usually it takes me weeks to get to here, even if I've wanted it the whole time. And they know that."

Usually it was okay, because he was mostly interested in other clones. No matter where everyone went, they'd always come back to H'ratth. But who knew how long Poe was going to be here? He could be leaving tomorrow, for all they knew.

"They were just giving me a bit of a push in the direction I was already going, that's all."

He jogged up a couple steps, turning around so he was walking backward and facing Taiko, the amused smile back on his face.

"Mm, alright. Long as I'm not getting in the way of anything else," he said, getting in the way of where the clone was trying to walk. Woops. "Or anyone else. I mean, unless that's half the plan. I can be a very good wingman."

"No, nothing else." He returned the smile, but faltered slightly when he slowed to a stop. This was about the commander, wasn't it.

"Like I said, things usually take a while with me. It's fine."

He tilted his head, still smiling, trying to gauge for himself, and coming up a little short. He was hard to read. But...

"Alright." Then he grinned. "Hey, I'm not going to complain, if you kiss me again. But you don't have to rush anything, either, okay?"

"We can start from there and see how things go." Because that kiss had certainly started going places, a lot faster than he'd expected. And it might have made his head spin, but he was still feeling pretty alright with that.

More than alright. Outsiders usually looked weird, but whatever was off about Poe didn't get in the way of being far too attractive.

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