Bait
You may read this below, or on AO3 :)
For @cyareclones
Golden hour fell over Corellia like a diving phoenix. It spread the tips of its wings across Urudyk's features, washing over his face. The left side looked like the center of a blaze, burning hot, while the orange illuminated across the rest of his face turned into lapping flames.
Locks knelt in the shadow of his partner's towering frame, determined. Even with the cold weight of Urudyk's rifle on his temple, he felt at peace.
High atop the roof of a business tower, they waited for company. The breeze blew cool, sliding past them like water over smooth stones. Locks closed his eyes, a sigh slipping from his lips.
"You're sure about this," Urudyk prodded once more.
After nearly six months of working together, Urudyk's deep timbre became a source of comfort. The same voice answered each of Locks' requests with steadfast reassurance, told clever jokes, and lulled Locks to sleep on nights when he lay awake. The same steady rhythm lurked behind Urudyk's purring slumber sounds. Each syllable was a familiar note that Locks could read as though contextualized on a datapad. Urudyk was concerned, but not about the plan. Locks knew Urudyk trusted him enough not to question his strategies. This concern was a new, foreign kind of worry that had Locks swallowing over an invisible lump in his throat.
"I am."
Silence, save for the distant whirring of traffic.
Eventually, Urudyk straightened and pressed the muzzle of his rifle harder into the side of Locks' head, signaling that the targets were approaching. Locks gave him one last, hard look.
"Do what you will to survive," someone had once advised him dryly, "this Force The Jedi speak of, it is without mercy."
"Ni cuy' ti gar," Locks said firmly.
As Urudyk pulled his face covering over his nose, he answered, "Ni cuy' ti gar."
Three silhouettes were approaching them silently, each carrying a blaster. Urudyk had done an excellent job arranging the meeting. He lured the targets into a false sense of security with tact. A renegade clone would fetch these arrogant upperclassmen a hefty sum from the Empire. Urudyk's only request had been that they arrive on short notice.
"I just want to be rid of him," he had snarled into the comm, a reassuring hand draped over Lock's shoulder.
Oh, the targets sprang at the opportunity to take advantage of such a deal. Blind fools were the best targets because they often meant that Urudyk and Locks got to return to The Crusader early.
Blind fools though they were, they still had blasters.
When they approached with haste, Uru backed away for a moment as they marveled over Locks. Natborns never seemed to get over the delight of seeing a real clone. It was as though they were desperate to verify his face's sameness, that sinister quality of one.
One of the men scoffed, "This one doesn't look like an exact copy of the rest of them. I don't know. How can we be sure this is the real deal?"
They were stepping on his fingers, grabbing his chin harshly enough to leave bruises, tugging on his hair. Locks could feel the tension radiating off of Urudyk, waiting to strike.
Not yet, not yet.
"Wonder if he'd do better as a brawler. He might make us even more money that way. They're bred for fighting, you know. That's all they're good for. What else would they do?"
Locks sat still, wondering if he would ever be regarded as anything other than an identical pawn. Tears pricked his eyes as a man slapped him, the sting shooting up his cheek.
Urudyk shifted.
Not yet, not yet.
As the chime for 18:00 sounded across the city, they painted at least a part of the town red.
That night, after a long stretch of gentle quiet, Urudyk's voice arrived in time to save Locks from his thoughts.
"You are more than a product for destruction."
“Then what am I?”
“Just... a man.”
Locks ruminated on that.
After a while, Urudyk yawned and amended, “a good man.”
Locks chose to focus on the word good, rolling it over in his mind. Did it feel better to be a good man than just a man? What made him good? He decided it didn’t matter all that much to him in the end. There was no true good or bad, after all. Locks had learned that the hard way through faith in a system that failed him and his brothers. A system supposedly founded on light turned to dust with his vod. Now, he had made his own light, for better or worse, with Urudyk. And that was enough.
“Goodnight,” Locks replied, tucking himself deeper into Urudyk’s arms.
“Goodnight, Locks’ika.”
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