Chapter Text
Autumn was sudden and brilliant, in the mountains. One morning Davijaan left his house and found the dull red-green of the tundra had brightened into scarlet and citrine and saffron, and the teasing chill in the air had worked itself up into an icy wind. He arrived at work laughing and shivering, cheeks and lips chapped and hands stiff, and Mr. Yang had made him sit next to the heater and drink hot tea before he was allowed near Glimmer.
It had been one of Loren’s work days, and she’d sat beside him with her own cup, sighing and lamenting the fact that she hadn’t been able to go swimming that summer. Davijaan rather thought having her next to him, casually listing all the places she wanted to show him next summer and all the ideas she had for winter activities in the meantime, warmed him up better than the tea.
The Yangs were in business four days a week, with one family rest day that was all but sacred. Mrs. Maraso had arranged the schedule so that Loren did the office work the first two days and she worked the last. He thought Mrs. Maraso might have done that on purpose, since there seemed to be a lot more running back and forth between the hangar and the village office necessary on those first two days. At least, he saw a lot more of Loren than he ever had of her sister. Regardless of his suspicion of abuse of power, he wasn’t about to say anything, because the arrangement meant that his own free days always coincided with his friend’s.
***
With the arrival of freezing rain and strong winds Davijaan and Loren didn’t go hiking as much, and when they did it was on short trails close to the village. He enjoyed the slower pace and the chance to study the changing landscape, but as the cold became more intense he wished he had other activities to suggest that did not involve being outside. Loren didn’t seem bothered by the cold at all. Maybe almost freezing to death every time you stepped out the door was just something you were supposed to get used to in the mountains. Stars, he hoped not.
At least the cooking lessons had become a standing date. Once a week Loren came over with a new recipe and a bag full of supplies and they spent the whole morning in the kitchen, crowded around the hot stove, making something. More often than not Kote joined, and the three of them muddled through the instructions and divided up the results.
Usually it was at least edible, but there were some memorable disasters. Their one and only attempt at baking had ended with a mass of vaguely cookie shaped lumps, raw in the middle and burned black around the edges. Loren had fallen off the table jumping to turn the fire alarm off, and Davijaan had only just managed to catch her before she hit the stone floor. They decided to put a hold on baking lessons after that.
To Davijaan’s distinct lack of surprise, Kote was good at cooking. What was a surprise was how much he enjoyed it.
He studied every recipe with the same intensity he’d once given to tactics and strategy, laying out ingredients and supplies with precision. He insisted on following the instructions to the letter even when Loren assured him liberties could be taken with certain measurements and ingredients. Whenever the food turned out well he brightened. And he hummed as he worked, keeping time to a marching beat, and Davijaan hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Kote’s unconscious humming until he heard it again.
***
“Well boys, I think we’ve finally got the temp settings for the oven figured out.”
Davijaan snorted around a bite of perfectly-cooked casserole. “Took us long enough.”
“Took us long enough,” Loren nodded in agreement as she served herself a second helping. “But we did it!”
“We did it,” Kote echoed, a faint and fond smile appearing as he looked at the dish that’d been roughly ninety percent his creation.
It wasn’t that Davijaan and Loren hadn’t helped. They’d just been a little distracted by their conversation about the absorbent qualities of dishcloths. That turned into a conversation about blankets that turned into Davijaan demonstrating how brushing his hand over the couch changed the color of the material, and Loren fumbling through a half coherent explanation of piled fabrics and their many practical and aesthetic uses. By the time they’d stopped theorizing about how piled fabrics were manufactured and got off the couch, Kote was sliding the casserole into the oven.
“So,” said Kote, shifting in his chair and poking at his food and trying to look anything but eager. “What did you have in mind for next week?”
“I honestly have no idea.” Loren shrugged. “You’ve thoroughly exhausted my meager repertoire, I’m afraid.”
“Ah.”
Kote stared down at his bowl silently for a long moment, and then asked, “Is there a place I could buy recipe books, so I could experiment on my own?”
Davijaan looked up sharply. Opened his mouth; closed it.
Humming around another bite, Loren chewed and swallowed thoughtfully before she spoke. “I’m sure there is, I’d have to ask Pa. Actually, if you want to learn more than the basics, I could see if he’d be willing to give you lessons?”
Davijaan held himself very still and watched Kote’s face light up, and relief and resentment tangled into a knot in his gut.
“You’d be willing to ask for me?” Kote asked, hopeful.
“Of course!”
“And you think your Pa would say yes?”
“Well,” her lips twitched up in a brief smile. “I don’t think he would say no.”
“Thank you,” said Kote, bright and shining, and Davijaan turned his face away.
***
The morning of Kote’s first cooking lesson Davijaan shadowed him as he got ready. They didn’t really talk. Kote was stuck somewhere in his head, eyes distant and fingers tapping against his thigh as he wandered around getting dressed and collecting his shoes and jacket, and Davijaan didn’t feel like getting him unstuck. The ride over would do his work for him. Probably.
Kote left without saying goodbye. He just wandered his way out the door, taking his humming with him.
Davijaan stood in the center of the room for a long while, staring at the closed door. Eventually he wandered his own way over to the couch. He curled up and traced little patterns into the blue fabric– light blue and then dark blue and then light blue again– and hated himself for wishing Kote hadn’t left.
He’d spent the last four-ish months working and exploring and spending time with Loren while Kote had just. Existed. And he’d wanted Kote to do things but he hadn’t been sure how to include him in any of what he was doing. (And maybe some part of him hadn’t wanted to.) He’d been waiting for Kote to get himself moving. And now Kote had gotten himself moving. And he had no right to be upset.
Davijaan hated the quiet of the empty house.
But even when Kote was there he wasn’t really there. It was hard to spend time with him when he wasn’t there. Even when they were both home they usually stayed on their separate floors of the house, Kote down in the bedroom and Davijaan up in the kitchen. He was sitting in the living room alone and staring out the window like he always did on his days off, and Kote’s presence in the house– or lack thereof– made no difference.
Except it did, and he didn’t think he could stand to be alone all morning.
He and Loren both had today and tomorrow off, and they’d made plans for tomorrow. She hadn’t said she was free today, but she hadn’t said she was busy either.
No harm in asking, he decided, and got up to find his comm.
***
Loren had responded to his brief message almost immediately, and arrived before Davijaan was really ready for her. He answered the door with an awkward hello, and received a cheerful greeting in return that went a long way towards convincing him that she actually did want to be here and wasn’t just humoring him.
“So,” she said, breezing past him into the living area and setting her bag on the kitchen table. “I take it you have something planned?”
Sort of? He’d spent his time waiting for her frantically wracking his mind for normal civilian activities. He would rather not be outside and he would rather not cook and he would really rather not sit in the living room alone, but there were few other things he spent his free time on.
“I thought maybe we could play cards? Or…”
Cards weren’t a favorite pastime of his, but he’d gotten enough practice to be decent, and a well-dealt game could last hours supplemented by drinking and storytelling. Though maybe not the drinking, this time.
“Sounds good to me,” she said, smiling.
“Right,” he said, relieved. “Right. Let me just– The deck’s downstairs.”
He thundered down the stairs and into the bedroom, annoyed with himself for not having everything set up already. The cards were in the top drawer of the dresser, unless Kote had moved them, in which case they could be literally anywhere in the house and he had no hope of finding them. He pulled the drawer open and riffled through the collection of dissected comm units and tarnished medals and armor cleaning and repair supplies. Stars, please let the cards be in here.
“Is this your room?”
Davijaan flinched, and turned to find Loren hovering in the bedroom doorway. Had she tiptoed down the stairs or had he really been that distracted? He surreptitiously glanced around the room. The bed, the dresser, the two crates stacked against the wall. It wasn’t clean to barrack inspection standards, but it wasn’t terrible.
He shrugged, suddenly feeling awkward again. “It’s, um. Both our room.”
Her eyes found the single bed. “Where does Cody sleep?”
“We share.”
She looked surprised for a split second and then smoothed her expression over. Did natborns not share with family? Was sharing weird? She’d been so quick to offer to share, before, and he’d thought–
“I used to climb in with Maraso when I had a nightmare, growing up,” she said, fond and remembering.
He relaxed. “We did too.” Sort of. Depending on how you defined nightmare. “Guess we just got used to sleeping like that. Didn't make sense to buy two beds when we’d only use one.”
She took a step inside, hesitated, and glanced at him. “Is it alright if I…?”
He wasn’t sure if he wanted her wandering around in here or not, but here she was, and he didn’t have a reason for his unease so it probably didn’t matter. He waved her inside and turned back to the drawer. Get the cards and then get both of them out.
Cracked radio casing, leaky tube of glue, half used roll of twine… Davijaan closed the drawer with a huff and opened the next one down. Maybe Kote had stowed them with his clothes.
“Is that… you or Cody’s armor?”
He turned again, slower this time, to see her standing in front of the stacked crates with her hands held politely behind her back. The gold-orange and white of his helmet was just visible out of the open lid of the top crate.
He swallowed. “Mine.”
“May I see?”
For a long moment he just stood there, mind racing, trying to come up with an excuse as to why she may not see, or touch, please get out of here right now–
At his continued silence she turned, concerned and apologetic. “You don’t have to show me, I was just curious.”
“No! No, it’s fine.” He smiled. “I don’t mind.”
She probably hadn’t ever seen clone armor up close. She just wanted to look, she was just curious, and he had no real reason for the discomfort he felt at the thought of her studying his armor with the same intensity she studied him. It was just armor. It wasn’t like she was going to laugh at his messy paint.
Abandoning his hunt for the cards and mentally cursing out his dumb brother– not for the first time that day and most definitely not for the last– he marched over to the crate and grabbed his helmet, holding it out stiffly for her inspection.
Kote never bothered to get his armor out, but Davijaan couldn’t just end a war-long habit overnight, and still took his own out every other evening to clean and check for damage. So at least the helmet was clean.
She didn’t try to touch. It irritated him that he was relieved.
He’d never been particularly attached to his armor, not like some of his siblings. In his mind a set of armor was like a ship. It served you as long as it was able to and when it was no longer able, oh well. Time to move on to the next set.
This helmet was from the set he’d been issued after Umbara, hastily painted with Kote’s help in the few hours between his release from medical and his first shift back on active duty. The paint job was neither detailed nor well done; the goal was more to resemble his old armor enough that everyone would be able to see it was his.
Loren studied the helmet curiously. It was a pilot’s helmet, not a trooper’s helmet, so probably different from what she’d seen on the news. She raised an eyebrow and nodded at the motif over his visor. “What’s that?”
“That?” If she’d written a whole damn article on a clone she had to know something about battalion colors and individual preferences, which meant she was probably asking about the motif itself. He grimaced. “I was trying to paint a planet, with a shooting star, you see? But the stencil slipped, so I got the alignment all wrong and now it just looks… I should re-do it.”
“I think you should keep it. It fits.”
“It– what?”
“Well, I mean,” she looked back up at him, lips curving up at the corners. “It’s an odd ball, isn’t it?”
He stared at her aghast as she burst out laughing.
“No wonder Cody told me to leave it alone,” he groaned. “I bet I was the only one not in on the joke. Figures.”
He shoved the helmet back in the crate with exaggerated displeasure, hoping she wouldn’t ask to see the rest of the set.
“The cards aren’t down here,” he said, making his way out the door and mentally urging her to follow. “We’re going to have to look upstairs.”
She did follow, and he shut the door firmly behind them and forced himself to walk instead of run up the stairs, leaving his and Kote’s unexpected sanctuary and their boxed-up past only partially disturbed.
They found the cards, eventually, in one of the drawers in the desk. Amid some rather colorful curses directed at Kote on his part and amused quips on hers he dealt the first game. By the time Kote returned home Davijaan had discovered he was a lot better at cards than he’d thought he was and that Loren was both frighteningly competitive and a sore loser, and most of the messy feelings of the morning had been soothed.
***
Kote kept going to the Yangs. Once a week, like clockwork. He always brought home the leftovers of whatever he’d made.
He still spent most of his days inside, not really doing anything. But it was easier to get him to talk, and he had more things to talk about. The people he saw in the village, the weather. The only thing he never brought up was the cooking lesson itself. Davijaan never asked.
He didn’t always arrange to have Loren over when Kote left, but he did often enough that she’d started to ask ahead of time if he was ready to get his ass kicked at cards. He always said he was ready whenever she was, and hid his grin at her indignation.
And maybe, just maybe, he started to look forward to the mornings when Kote was gone and it was just him and Loren sitting at the kitchen table, arguing over sabacc rules and drinking tea and getting distracted by the view out the window.
***
“That is. Not a real rule.”
“Says who?”
“Says every sabacc playing clone in the GAR! No, stop–” He slammed a hand down on the draw stack before she could get her grimy fingers on new cards. “You’re just making things up so you can finally win!”
Loren gasped in horror, clutching her scant remaining cards to her chest. “You dare accuse me of such underhanded tactics–”
“I absolutely dare! Cheating is all well and good, but you have to be sneaky about it, damn it, you can’t just–”
“Well I don’t see why GAR rules should apply outside the GAR, so there.”
He leaned back in his chair with a groan. “How many times do I have to– This is torture, is what it is. You’re torturing me.”
She looked up from her cards, sharp. “That is not funny.”
Hm. The corner of his mouth curved up against his will. “I think it’s hilarious. You just don’t appreciate my sense of humor.”
“I’d appreciate it if it was actually funny.” She crossed her arms over her chest with a huff. “If you make me laugh about torture I will never forgive you.”
He smirked. “Challenge accepted.”
“No! That’s not a challenge, that’s a warning!”
And Davijaan laughed, because she looked so unbelievably offended, like it was just the principle of the thing, and because they were sitting in his kitchen arguing about the right way to play sabacc.
When he focused back on the game, on Loren, she was looking at him strangely, mouth half open like she’d been about to say something and forgotten what it was.
“Yes?” He tilted his head, trying to mimic her own disconcerting gaze and knowing he was falling to hide his amusement.
She flushed indigo and snapped her mouth shut. “I–”
The front door creaked open, and they both startled as Kote fumbled his way inside. Davijaan was the first out of his seat, taking the heavy box from his brother. Loren was close behind him and quickly divested a bemused Kote of his scarf and jacket.
“Welcome home!” she said, shaking them out and hanging them over the back of the couch with the rest of the winter gear. “Your brother is the worst cards player I’ve ever met.”
Davijaan sputtered, standing in the middle of the room with the box, and Kote shot a puzzled look between the two of them and the remains of the game laid out on the table. “I– Thanks? And. I was not aware he was that bad.”
“Well, he is,” she said, decisive, picking leaves out of the tangled tassels of his scarf.
He thumped the box down on the kitchen counter. “Lies and slander!” he hollered. “Cody, come– look at this!” He flailed in the direction of the table. “Look! Look at those cards and tell me who was winning!”
Hiding a smile, Kote dutifully inspected Davijaan’s cards and then Loren’s, and shook his head. “Too close to tell, I’m afraid.”
“You bastard–”
“I knew it! I–”
“You’re just going to have to go another round,” Kote announced, loud and ringing, cutting off their protests at the pass.
Davijaan glared at Loren’s mockingly innocent and unfairly beautiful face– why did her cheeks have to scrunch up like that when she smiled, damn it– before giving in and sitting heavily back in his seat to reshuffle and re-deal. “Dumb brother,” he grumbled as Loren joined him, prim. “Dumb friend. Dumb cards.”
If that noise behind him was Kote snickering he might have to commit violence in his clean kitchen.
Thankfully the choked off sounds of amusement were quickly drowned out by the creak of the box opening and the clatter of heavy dishes being placed on the counter. “Brought home the rest of this for you,” Kote said, opening cupboards and the conservator and generally making a racket.
Davijaan was sick and tired of new foods.
He finished dealing the game in silence, and ignored the plate of bread… something Kote put on the table in reach of him and Loren. Bread rolls? With berries and stuff baked in? Whatever. He wasn’t hungry.
Kote went back to the cupboard, blessedly quiet, and Loren cautiously took a roll. “Do you want me to stay for another game?” she asked, soft, cards in one hand and roll in the other. Davijaan glanced up at her and back down to his own cards.
She was usually gone by the time Kote came back. Gone or getting ready to go. But he wasn’t ready for her to leave yet– to leave him and Kote to their empty house and whatever tension existed between them these days– so he shrugged. “Stay as long as you want.”
“Hm. Well, in that case, I hope you’re ready to get your ass kicked.”
She winked, and he flashed her a grin, and then Kote was sitting down at the table between them with three mugs of tea and some kind of spread for the rolls and asking if it was too late to be dealt in.
***
Early the next morning, Kote came upstairs.
He did that sometimes, on the days after cooking lessons. Came upstairs, bothered Davijaan into helping him, and made something other than good old reliable porridge for firstmeal. It was like he still had a bit of life left in him from the day before, and had to use it up on something before it faded away again.
As much as Kote’s sporadic and confusing moments of being fine and normal frustrated him, it was Davijaan’s second day off and he would much rather have something other than porridge, so he stuck around and allowed himself to be bullied into peeling vegetables and cracking eggs. He wasn’t sure what exactly the end result was supposed to be, and he wasn’t about to ask. It was going to be better than porridge, that was for sure.
Kote was humming again. Davijaan picked little bits of shell out of his bowl of eggs, shoulders stiff and jaw set. He’d missed the sound so much he’d forgotten how annoying it was.
When the scrambled-fried-whatever food was done, they sat and ate in silence. They’d never had to talk, before– and a lot of the time Kote needed quiet anyway– but something about these silences was different. They both knew it. They both refused to bring it up. It’d been like that since the end of the war and at this point Davijaan didn’t know how to bring it up. He tried to just be happy that Kote was here and alive and starting to go out more, but some days it was a lot harder than others.
He did the cleaning afterwards, since he figured it was only fair. And when left to his own devices Kote could take hours to do the dishes. He was putting the plates away when Kote, still sitting at the table, said, “Mr. Yang wants you to come with me next week.”
Davijaan froze. “He… what?”
“He asked me to ask you to come to the lesson next week.”
“Ah.” Davijaan slowly unfroze. “Why?”
When he looked back at Kote his brother had already turned away. “I don’t know. Ask him.”
Davijaan closed the cupboard. “What do you two even do?”
“Cook. Talk.”
Davijaan grit his teeth. “Wouldn’t want to disrupt your routine.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Kote, so quiet Davijaan almost didn’t hear.
“What’s so great about cooking, anyway? There’s got to be a limit on new foods.”
“Probably. I don’t know. The cooking is fun, but that’s not... I like the talking part.”
“The talking part.”
“Yes,” he said, firm and with an edge of warning. “I like talking with Mr. Yang. It’s nice sometimes to just… Be Cody.”
Everything in his head shut down abruptly, and all Davijaan could do was turn and gape at his brother.
He’d hated that name during the war; wouldn’t let Davijaan call him by it even as a joke. Said it was a name for the civilians and the Jedi and the paperwork.
“It’s nice?” He finally managed to choke out. “It’s nice to– to be Cody?”
He wouldn’t look at Davijaan; just stared blankly at the wall, shoulders set. “That’s what I said.”
“But… You’re not Cody.”
His jaw tightened. Chin tipped up.
“You’re– You’re not– You are Kote. That’s who you’ve always been, you–”
“Maybe I’m not anymore,” he interrupted, hard and bruising as stone. “Maybe I don’t want to be. Maybe it’s easier to become someone new than to keep trying to be someone I’m not!”
“Trying to be–” And then Davijaan was angry.
“No!” he shouted, hands curling into fists. “No! Nothing– Nothing has changed!” His voice cracked, he didn’t yell like this, he never had, he didn’t want–
He forced himself to lower his voice into something sharp and vicious, more angry than he could ever remember being, fury focusing his attention until the kitchen faded away and all he saw was the familiar defiance and self-righteousness in his brother's gaze.
“Nothing about you has changed,” he spat. “Whatever ever the fuck is wrong with you now was wrong with you then; you’ve just stopped trying to hide it. Trying was during the war. Trying was on Kamino. Don't you fucking dare tell me this is trying. Now that I’m the only one– Now that no one needs you, to– to win their war or be their brother– you’re done trying. You’re ready to lay down and die. But that’s not– You can’t– We’re not dead yet! We are not dead yet, damn it! We are not dead yet, and that has to mean something!”
His last cry echoed around the kitchen as it slowly came back into focus. Davijaan stood in the middle of the floor, panting and shaking and terrified.
Kote opened his mouth.
Davijaan turned on his heel and walked out the door.