Scowling up at the trainer, who Boba was pretty sure was Priest and one of those damn Kyr’stad Kryze pretended to be better than despite being a part of, Boba pulled Din with him and away from the demagolka. “Don’t talk with him, he isn’t worth your air.” Boba growled faintly, smirking smugly when the shabuir turned red.

“Watch yourself, clone.” He hissed.

“Or what?” Boba sneered back, feeling Din tighten his grip on his hand. “You’d try decommissioning me? I think Buir would have something to say about that if you tried.” He mocked back, knowing he was threading a dangerous line.

His buir was very suspicious, not that Boba could blame him and he knew he owed his buir answers today.

After all, how often do impossible children just appear on Kamino after all and he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he himself must have gone through a personality change when he was pulled back through time.

Priest snarled but didn’t raise his hand to Boba, regardless how much he clearly wanted to and the man stomped away instead.

“…Was that wise?” Din whispered, wearing Boba’s clothes, though modified to have a hood. He looked cute in the blue set.

Boba shrugged a tad and pulled his… his something closer.

In the future, they had been together, shared bed, shared the throne of Tatooine, even if Din didn’t claim it officially.

But Din and he were children now, thanks to that damn Jedi artifact that someone had tried to buy Boba of with. He knew he never should have touched the damn thing, especially not with little Grogu right there.

The artifact had seemed to melt and fade and Boba had felt a yank behind his navel in the strangest of manner, as if a hook had been placed inside of him.

The next thing he had known, he woke up on Kamino, so many years in the past that most of it was faded memories without clarity outside of the big events, panicked as he tried to find his Din and instead finding his buir in the living room.

For a few hours, he thought he had lost everything he had worked so hard to gain, even Din and yet somehow he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it wholly when his buir was right there, warm and alive as he clung to him.

Then he found Din in one of the lesser used hallways of the main cloning hub, confused, Grogu in his small arms and his brow eyes so wide and shaken as he nervously tugged at his hood to pull it into his face.

Boba couldn’t bring himself to regret anything then as he pulled both into as tight a hug as possible.

“Most likely not. But Priest is an asshole, he doesn’t deserve the air to breath.” He stated seriously, watching Din twitch a bit, brown eyes quickly flickering to the rows and rows of mirroring faces down below them in the mess hall.

Both of them could feel the clones below watching them in turn, some more obviously than others. Slowly, Din nodded and shifted closer to Boba, clingy and uncertain in a place he had no knowledge of with his usual defenses stripped away.

The loss of his beskar was a hard hit for Din and Boba wished he could help the other but neither of them were even closer to gaining their armors just yet.

But decades of mental conditioning wasn’t stripped from either despite their bodies being deaged and their memories becoming blurry, so Din’s desire to hide was understandable.

Boba was barely ten though and Din was eight, though tall for his age as he was half a head taller than Boba. Still a skinny twig though and Boba had to repress the need to feed the other with how gangly and bony Din was. It didn’t help that Din looked like a helpless tooka as he looked around with large brown eyes and tugged at his hood to cover his face as Boba took him on a tour of the facility, to get him familiarized as Grogu continued sleep, likely a response to whatever Force bullshit had sent them back like this.

Glancing back to see Priest back finally disappear around a corner, Boba pursed his lips. The trainers were curious about Din and Grogu too, the longnecks also as they really were impossible beings that had literally appeared out of nowhere but Jango was the one that was owed answers first, especially about how two impossible children had just appeared.

It made Boba curious actually, if there were now two Din’s in the galaxy or if the Din that existed somewhere in the galaxy had been pulled to Kamino.

Either option seemed weird but with Force artifacts and the Force weirdness, you could never make quite sense of things.

Dred Priest, the demagolka, had been the first to try and get some answers, the asshole thinking he could get away with threatening Boba since buir didn’t interfere when he abused the clones, though he had stopped the damn fighting ring those years back.

But Priest knew better than to actually lay a hand on Boba, both knew if he anyone touched Boba, Jango Fett would rain holy fire down on them and their death would not be swift.

“…We should go back to the quarters, I’d rather not have any of the other trainers jump us.” Boba decided on, Din letting out a soft noise before leaning in and pecking him on the cheek.

The affection was welcome and reassuring honestly, despite them being children and Boba squeezed the other hand, leading the other back the way they had come to bring him back.

Only to turn a corner and almost walk smack dab into Alpha-17, the clone staring down at Boba with his arms crossed over his chest, a squad of his own behind him. “Bob’ika.” He greeted coolly, eyes flickering to Din with en edge of curiosity and fascination for a child so different from them in features.

As a child, Boba had always been slightly scared of the Alpha class.

They had been bigger than his buir and none of them had seemed to harbor any warm feelings for Boba.

It was only later Boba realized that it was simply disinterest and the other coming of as looming in his head due to their sizes.

But Boba wasn’t just a little boy anymore and when Din ducked down and clung to his hand anxiously, Boba stepped more in front of his Din, staring up at him. “17.” He greeted back, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, the message clear.

Back off.

It took the man of guard, his brows raising in curiosity before he shifted to the side, the rest of the squad doing the same, allowing Boba to pull Din with him, Din tugging his loaned blue hood down into his face as he followed Boba.

Boba still felt the eyes in his back and he gnawed on the inside of his cheek, wondering what the kark he was doing.

And what he would do when the damn Jedi showed up.

Kark.

Demagolka = someone who commits atrocities, a real-life monster, a war criminal

Shabuir = jerk but worse