no order 66, post war codywan but make it really complex because cody is a former slave and has never been given the right to choose ANYTHING, even as the highest ranking clone of the GAR. And Obi-wan was his direct superior, and despite Obi-wan's best efforts, they could not have a different relationship, at least not on Cody's end, not that Obi-wan was aware of this. He thought they were friends. Cody was just trying to keep his brothers alive and win the war. The war he never thought he'd see the end of. But now it's over and he's... a person who needs to exist and act as if he does. He's never even gotten to choose his own sheets. He doesn't know what it means to be in love.
And now he stands in the apartment he was supposed to decorate, the one given to him by a Republic that had only recently decided the men who died for it, were men, that Kote was a man. A person. But Cody doesn't know what Kote liked. Cody never thought he would have to have an opinion on the texture of a couch or the color of his walls. But now Kote can.
His first thought was yellow. Yellow like his armour paint. Yellow like the 212th. Yellow like sunlight in fall. It's the only color paint he had ever used. In all his 13 years of life, he had only ever touched that warm yellow paint. Used it to cover up the cold impersonal white of his armour because it was the only available thing to make his armour his. The only thing that sapped away the serility of its mass-produced sheen. It didn't hide the blood any better than the white, but at least he knew who had made it and who didn't after battles. Yellow like the war. Yellow like dead brothers littered across a battlefield like flowers sprouting. Except all there was, was death. Death Cody ordered.
Kote blinked away from his thoughts, still staring at the beige walls. He tried not to let himself think about it all too much. It only made it harder to exist. But he did. And now he needed to choose a color for the living room. And his bedroom. And the kitchen. And the bathroom. All he could think about was the color yellow.
"I hate the color yellow..." he whispered to the empty apartment. He had never been allowed to hate anything. Not for real. Not in a way that he was allowed to change. The war didn't count. Nothing he chose then was his choice.
"I hate the color yellow," he said. His voice stuttered as he began to giggle. Cody never giggled. But Kote used to. Maybe he could again. His body certainly thought he could, as it began to shake.
"I hate the color yellow!" He shouted, the empty house filled with unrestrained giggling. No one answered, but they didn't have to. Kote hated the colour yellow, and he was allowed to go out and pick whatever color he wanted to paint his bare, soulless walls. He was allowed to shout about his opinion and make choices based on his opinions.
Because Kote was a person. And people got to choose.
edit: i have published it on my ao3!
