AUTHORS NOTES

I was having too many feelings about my clone ocs, so I wrote this to get them out and somehow wound up giving myself more feelings. That plan didn't work out very well for me, but it did get the creative juices flowing, or whatever the kids are saying nowadays. This fic does centre around my original characters, so you can check out this post I made if you want a bit of background info going in, although I don't think it's really necessary for you to understand the story. This was also based off a prompt from this list. So, like, enjoy or whatever I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


"Do you wanna talk about it?" Kach settles in beside Binder where he's sitting on a catwalk overlooking the hangar bay, troopers from the 212th running around below them and preparing the cruiser for takeoff. Their squad had joined with the 212th for this mission, and while Kach would have liked to stay with his squad, they went where they were needed. This wouldn't be a problem, except that Kach wasn't with Binder when whatever happened, happened, and now he doesn't know how to help his brother.

The team medic just shrugs in response.

"Do you want me to leave?" Kach asks next, and Binder hesitates a moment before shaking his head. "Well, that's good, because I wouldn't have left even if you asked." Kach continues, and he sees his brother's mouth twitch slightly at the words. It's not a complete smile, not nearly, but it's something other than the glazed look Binder's had for the past twelve hours so Kach counts it as a victory.

"You know it wasn't your fault, right?" Binder's head turns away from him at the words so Kach can no longer see his face, and what he says next is so quiet Kach almost misses it.

"It was, though." Binder's voice is rough from disuse, even as quiet as it is. "I should've been faster, or trained harder, or at least seen the blasted droid, or—"

Kach grabs his brother's shoulder, stopping him mid sentence. "Binder, whoa, hey. Look at me. Binder, come on." When he finally has his attention, Kach can see the tears forming in Binder's eyes. "Don't do this to yourself, Binder, please."

"I deserve it though," Binder says, and the tears are getting worse and are threatening to spill over now as the medic becomes more distressed with every word. "It's my fault."

"What's your fault?" Maverick drops down on Binder's other side, setting down his helmet beside the other two on the ground. Kach sends a silent thank you up to whatever deity is watching over them, because Kach is completely at a loss with how to help his friend and Mav couldn't have shown up at a better time. When Binder only stares blankly at the pilot, Maverick asks the question again. And then Binder curls in on himself, leg drawn up to his chest and face pressed into his knee, and he really does start crying. It's sudden, and Maverick looks about as lost as Kach feels when the medic starts shaking due to the silent sobs wracking his frame.

Kach decides he wants to take back the thank you, because he knew Maverick did not deal with crying well. The man had a very strict sergeant when he first started serving, and because his sergeant did not allow things like crying, Maverick had never had to deal with it.

However, it seemed that none of that mattered here, because as soon as Maverick was over his shock he wrapped his arm around Binder and drew him into his side. Kach didn't know what to do—he dealt with crying about as well as Mav, although for entirely different reasons—but it seemed like the physical contact was helping Binder to calm down, so Kach reached out and grabbed the hand that was currently locked in a death grip around Binder's shin.

They sat like that for a while, the three of them oblivious to the chaos below them of a starship that had just taken off, suspended in their own world. The metal he was sitting on was cold, a side effect of being in space, but Binder was warm beside him and for now that was enough.

When Binder had finally started to breath normally again, Maverick was the first to speak up. He asked the question that Kach himself had been wondering, and the quiet words asking "Who was it?" were such a deviation from Maverick's usual boisterous tone that Kach snapped his head up to look at the pilot over Binder's still hunched back. What he saw surprised him even further, because the look in Maverick's eyes was so sad, and Kach suddenly remembered that Maverick was older than most of the clones on their squad. Hell, he was older than most clones period, and that also meant that he had probably lost more brothers than most of them, too. Kach barely has time to think about how he's probably lucky, he hasn't lost all that many people close to him, when Binder finally speaks up.

"Crux," is all he says at first, and at a prompting look from Maverick he continues, stammering. "He, uh, he was one of my batchers." Maverick pulls Binder closer at that same time Kach squeezes his hand, and neither of them say sorry because they've both lost enough friends to know the words don't really mean anything. Neither of them are really expecting Binder to continue, but he does anyways.

"It was a droid, and his back was turned. I'm a medic, I should have been able to save him." Binder shakes his head and gives a brief, humourless laugh. "It just isn't fair." His voice cracks, and the pain he hears is almost more than Kach can handle.

"No, it really isn't." Is all Maverick responds. They're all silent for a moment more before Binder speaks again.

"He was all I had left. Everyone from my batch is gone now. I'm alone." The medic starts to curl in on himself again after saying that, and Kach decides he's had enough.

"You're not alone, though," Kach says, and there's vehemence in his voice. When Binder looks confused, he continues, his voice softened. "You have us." And he says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Yeah, I guess I do." And Binder finally smiles. It's small and still kind of watery, but it's a smile nonetheless.

"Besides, as long as you remember your brothers, they're never really gone." Kach had overheard someone say something like that once, in some backwater smuggler's haven, and he liked the way it sounded.

Maverick snorts and stands up. "That was the cheesiest damn thing I've ever heard." His voice is back at it's normal volume and tone, and Kach wonders if it was the right thing to say. Binder is still smiling, though, so it must have been at least somewhat okay. Kach is pulled out of his thoughts when Mav suggests that they go somewhere else.

"Like where?" Binder asks.

"I'm pretty sure I heard Cannon say he could do more push-ups than Push," Maverick says, and the usual gleam is back in his eyes.

"Doesn't the idiot know where Push got his name?" Kach says, incredulous.

"If he didn't then he's about to find out, now let's go." Kach knows when Mav is getting impatient, so he and Binder both drag themselves up beside him.

"Now this I've gotta see," Binder says. His eyes are still red and his voice is kind of hoarse, but Kach figures that he'll be fine, eventually, especially after seeing Cannon have his ass handed to him. That would brighten anyone's day.

They walk through the ship's hallways to the gym, Maverick talking nonstop about whatever the topic of the hour happens to be, and Kach never letting go of Binder's hand. Yeah, he thinks to himself, We'll be just fine.


AUTHORS NOTES

Okay so that was A Thing that happened. I fully intend to write more about these kids and the rest of the Killjoys squad, and my goal in life is to make people feel things about characters for which they would otherwise feel nothing, so if I managed to do that maybe hmu in the comments section or smth. I'm also going to do a bit of shameless self-promotion for my blog, so you can find me on tumblr at ahsokaas, although that does tend to change pretty frequently. Thanks for reading! (okay that sounded rlly cheesy but its also way to late to care) Title was lifted from a Softer World comic.

Cross posted from AO3, and all my hyperlinks broke when I did it. I've got a test tomorrow and I'm way to tired to fix it right now so I'm just gonna go to bed. You can find me on AO3 under the same name if you really want to click the links.