Chapter Text
I serve my head up on a plate
It's only comfort, calling late
'Cause there's nothing else to do
Every me and every you
- Placebo
*
It never should have happened and he was a kriffing idiot.
His pacing continued for a few more circles around his room before Rex sank down onto the bed and rested his head in his hands. It should never have happened and he should be well over this now, surely. It had been several weeks since the - whatever the hell it was, the incident? Was it fair to call it that? - and instead of getting better he only found the confusion in his head multiplying like sex pollened rishnan rabbits.
At least Anakin was okay. Sure, for the first few days after the - thing - the General had been actively avoiding him in that unsubtle way that Skywalker always had whenever he thought he was in the wrong but refused to admit or deal with it, but he guessed he could understand that. He’d been too terrified that they’d fucked up their friendship, had fucked up him, and the relief when the embarrassment slowly died down to be replaced by the usual assignment of the day wasn’t so much a gentle touch as a solid punch to the face.
But they were better again now, their interactions recovered to almost normal, and his General’s gentle smiles and fond conversations were back again.
Please let Anakin be as okay as he looked.
Rex on the other hand .. well, a damned mess would be generous, and that state infuriated him as much as it did worry him. The session - incident - thing - whatever - hadn’t landed either of them in a med-bay, Anakin had found his relief, and what they did wasn’t even too crazy either in comparison to some of the other stuff that people did when they .. whatevered. So it hadn’t gone the way they planned, but in truth how many of General Skywalker’s plans did? They had a concept, ran with it, and then desperately tried to firefight any problems that showed up, quite often literally.
It was what they did. So why was his head so damned conflicted?
It had been fine. It had been-
-
The floor was hard on his knees as Rex tried to recover his breath, body naked and already slick with sweat as he waited for the next step to occur. The ropes had already started to bite into his wrists bound behind his back but that merely added to the low thrill building in his bones as he watched his friend and current master prowl hungrily in front of him.
Anakin’s standard black robes looked even darker tonight. Rex sucked in a lungful of air and fought his shiver as dark, intense eyes bored into him as though Rex was being accused of personally destroying the republic army by himself. But that was the game, wasn’t it. Words had barely been spoken since they started, but they didn’t need them; no force in the galaxy could stop the shudder from working down his spine as his chin was caught in Anakin’s gloved hand, an almost gentle touch along his jawline to contrast the low throbbing ache that decorated his back.
The smile was lopsided but those eyes sparkled with determination and Rex’s breath hitched again as his traitorous cock stirred between his legs.
“Still not begging, huh?” Anakin’s voice was a soft whisper, husky in the low light. “Unwise,”
No he wasn’t, because again that was the game, and Rex straightened his back defiantly as he awaited the consequences they both craved. The smile twitched higher and the hand briefly squeezed tighter, sending a small bolt of welcome pain dancing through him before he was released.
“Well,” Anakin seized the whip and turned back, and Rex’s heart was loud in his ears as the lopsided grin twitched higher. “I guess we’ll have to fix that, right?”
Fuck yes, they did. And he was ready for it.
-
Rex groaned, his hands dropping away as he leaned back on the bunk and looked upwards. It had gone so well at the start, just how they’d both imagined it. Anakin had his plan, they had a room, they had various whips and implements that worked better than Rex had hoped, and then..
Well. Yeah. Stuff happened, like it so often did, and here they were.
Rex rubbed his hands slowly, eyes distant as he chewed over it all. But they surely couldn’t have predicted what would happen. Okay, so Anakin had been a little twitchy from the start but then he had a lot on and the whole Padme situation wasn’t helping. Hell, the whole Padme situation was the damned reason it was Rex in there and not Anakin’s lover, and sure, it wasn’t so much a reasonable favour as a ‘could be worse’ favour, but Rex had done crazier things in the past to support Anakin and this was no different.
If it wasn’t Padme in that room then Rex was the next best thing, they all agreed that.
Or at least, he and Anakin had agreed it. No one else with any sanity would condone it and no doubt Kenobi would be extremely disappointed, Anakin - Rex didn’t know what the standard Jedi viewpoint would be on stuff like kink, but he was pretty damned sure they’d have a viewpoint on it. There was no point in beating yourself up when there was a whole damned galaxy waiting to do it for you.
But just because the relief he’d given to his General hadn’t exactly been standard practice didn’t mean that it was somehow bad.
Kriff, his head hurt.
Rex sighed and closed his eyes again. It had been so simple when they’d talked about it; Anakin needed to let off steam and he needed a partner to do so, and a somewhat unwise conversation in a bar had led to Rex volunteering while also in an unwise state with alcohol and they’d just .. well, agreed it further when they were sober and found that their desires were still there.
Okay, so said desires were now mixed with a healthy level of concern and embarrassment, but you couldn’t have everything.
And after all, it wasn’t that bad. It had just been a bit of Dom-Sub play, how different was that to their day to day lives? Anakin spent his whole damned day shouting orders, and Rex .. well, Rex spent his time either making him happy or keeping him alive. The Whatever wasn’t supposed to have any actual sex, just bondage and the pleasures from the occasional smack and appropriate subservient behaviour. Anakin had explained it all, confident, eager, his eyes sparkling and his voice the most animated Rex had heard in some time and .. well, it just made sense.
Easy, in fact.
And yet how quickly it turned.
-
“Sir? Sir!”
Shaking fingers gripped his shoulder before slowly sliding down his chest as Rex desperately tried to work out what was going on. It had been fine, it had all been fine, a little intense perhaps, a few hesitations when things got heavier and .… and kriff, had he done something wrong? Anakin’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, and terror gripped Rex as he tried to soothe him from whatever it was that was currently attacking him.
The dark no longer felt cosy but enclosing, a cave squeezing them as Anakin’s terrified eyes searched Rex’s for a rescue that Rex didn’t even know how to start.
“Sir. SIR. It’s me. It’s all okay. Just breathe, we can-,”
“No!” Gloved hands grabbed him when he tried to rise and Rex stopped uncertainly. Anakin’s shaky laugh wasn’t helping his paranoia either, nor the way his eyes were closed, and the full body shiver was god near terrifying. What did he do? What the kriff did he do, this wasn’t something they covered during training, was this a Jedi thing, an Anakin thing, a kink thing, what?! And Anakin was softly muttering to himself as well, low, a thought verbalised, and Rex strained to hear it.
“Should have known. Never been me. Thought it was easy,”
“S’okay, sir,” Yeah, he had no idea what the hell he was on about, Rex gently and helplessly patting him on the shoulder.
“Padme,” Anakin mumbled. “She .. it was her .. when we .. so good. I thought we could try..,”
Through further mumblings and a lot of tying things together, some vague understanding was slowly creeping through. Realising that Padme was normally on top wasn’t a surprise, but Rex still wasn’t sure that this knowledge brought him any closer to helping. So Padme was normally the Dom, Anakin was usually the Sub so .. well..
If he was struggling with this role then there were always others.
The whip was so close. But he couldn’t. This might be out-of-hours but surely the suggestion that he would take control over a Jedi was almost traitorous.
But he had to do something. Anakin’s eyes were still closed, not focusing on anything around him and his shiver visible, and what the hell happened to Jedi who lost themselves like this? Kriff, this was not his area of expertise, nowhere near.
Did he get Kenobi..? Or perhaps Cody. Cody always knew what to do with weird Jedi shit, it wasn’t as though he’d not put up with it for far too long with his own General. But he couldn’t just leave his General like this, curled up like a shiny in their first battle with the bodies surrounding them such a short time earlier and the explosions still ringing in their head.
They always needed a lifeline, and so did Anakin.
But soft words weren’t going to cut it.
“Anakin, look at me.” He waited a little, then added a little more to his voice. “LOOK AT ME,”
He hadn’t anticipated the thrill when he did it, nor the strange warmth in the way those pleading eyes begged him to offer him what he needed and hell, Rex knew that need all too well. To focus on something else other than the pains of battle or loss of others, and the strange warmth seemed to increase as he stared back at him.
He shouldn’t do it. He was a clone, Anakin was a General, there were RULES.
“..please,”
A few moments of silence before Rex’s hand curled determinedly on the whip. Yeah, there were rules. But when it was needed, rules were there to be broken
-
And broke them they did, in more ways than one.
Rex scrubbed his face with a hand and allowed it to drop again. Worse? He’d liked it, all of it, from the nervousness when they began to the defiance of the ending. But not just liked it - that was a given, his curiosity had already guaranteed that - but the type of like that whispered about second tries.
Sure, being on his knees at first felt a little odd, but the pain and the stubbornness had settled into his bones like the relaxation from a hard workout, shutting his brain off and letting him remember how to breathe. Simple. Effective. Pleasurable in a way he couldn’t even describe, a private sensation like the craving for a particular food.
And then there was the whip in his hand, startling at first but rapidly giving him an illicit thrill, forbidden and unlawful and kriff, he shouldn’t have done what he did but Anakin begged him and he’d naturally slipped into the role that his general craved and needed.
Anyone would have done the same with those pleading eyes and that soft, hesitant voice so different from the one leading his squads.
Yeah. Anyone.
Rex’s eyes closed again tiredly. Kriffing idiot.
Well, it wasn’t going to happen again, that was certain. Anakin might be treating him as normal but he’d refused to discuss or even refer to that night and Rex had followed his lead. Didn’t blame him, really.
Yeah, everything would be fine, as long as he never told and never thought about it again.
He didn’t want to think about why that seemed to disappoint him.
*
“You okay? You seem distracted,”
And that, Cody thought, was an understatement. Rex’s eyes snapped to his own as though coming out of a dream before it turned into a small scowl. What the hell was he thinking about? Rex had been like this for a few weeks now, to the extent that even some of the 501st were beginning to notice, and Cody’s usual philosophy to simply keep an eye on him was beginning to feel the strain.
But what the hell was it? Every subtle check on recent missions came up blank for problems, the word on the street quiet about any conflicts. As far as Kamino was concerned, Rex was fine. Or at least should have been fine, and yet here he was, conflicted and distracted and distinctly un-Rex-like.
It concerned Cody in a way he wasn’t sure he understood, but was certain that he didn’t like.
“M’fine,” Rex said, positioning himself in a typical fighting stance as he readied for the next wrestling bout. “Let’s go again,”
Was he. Cody’s frown stated his disbelief in Rex’s reassurance but complied. It didn’t take long before his disbelief was verified; they’d trained together for years and within a few minutes Cody found himself needing additional strength and energy to match Rex’s somewhat haphazard fighting technique and it was only getting rougher.
But rough wasn’t the only noticeable thing. It was hard and it was strong but it wasn’t Rex’s usual skill, and each simple mistake that Rex made increased his suspicions. Said suspicions were confirmed when Rex missed a simple parry, and that was it. Enough.
There were probably more diplomatic ways to approach the matter but then again this was Rex and diplomatic was simply a word that made mission reports sound more professional. His brother's eyes widened briefly as Cody slammed him against the floor, an arm firmly fixed across his throat to keep him there.
“What the-?!”
“Start talking,” This firm tone was the one that Rex normally listened to, but apparently today wasn’t the day for normal and Rex merely eyed him with the wary suspicion of a stray tooka watching a trap.
“What the hell are you on about?” Rex tried to push up but the weight of Cody’s body coupled with the arm successfully objected to this manoeuvre and Rex landed flat on his back again.
“Don’t treat me like an idiot,”
“Distracted, remember?” Rex bit back.
“Remember you denying that?”
At least the resulting growl finally sounded more like Rex, as did the small shove that tried to push Cody off, but it was too little too late to reassure him that this was just a momentary blip. Cody waited for a second before slamming Rex back on the floor again with a small snarl of his own to point out his growing lack of patience with the situation.
“Captain, you have an order,” His voice was as stern as he could get it and Cody still wasn’t sure it would get through Rex’s instinctive rebellious nature. “Comply with it,”
Sure enough, those familiar eyes narrowed. “Eat shit, Commander,”
Really. And Rex knew what he was doing. The stubborn determination in his eyes was betrayed by the growing tension in Rex’s body that was clearly questioning whether his current choice to be a pain had been a good idea. And it really wasn’t a good idea, nowhere near to being a good idea, and even a ‘distracted’ Rex worked that one out within ten seconds of Cody’s pointed silence aimed in Rex’s direction.
Little by little defiance slowly slipped away into sulkiness before Rex finally looked away.
“It’s nothing,”
Just like his explanation. Cody stared at him a little harder. “Uh huh,”
“Fine. I’m ..,” Rex’s attempt to find an excuse hesitated as he caught the full blast of Cody’s unimpressed expression, followed by a growl-sigh-huff that felt like it had been delivered with teeth. And that was familiar too. Their fights often resulted in a toothy push back, as though Rex was an animal caught in a trap. Previously Cody had assumed it was an act, but gradually he’d realised the snarl was what the man naturally did whenever his thinking mind shut off and his body responded.
Sometimes it was sweet. Other times, like now, it was merely an irritation.
“Yes?” Short, clipped, determined. Give Rex anything else and he’d squirm out of it one way or the other. It was just what he did.
Sure enough, there was enough squirming on this situation anyway as Rex’s expression grew sulkier.
“I’m just… distracted,” he said, grudgingly. “There’s difficult situations,”
Stress, in other words, not that Cody was surprised the man couldn’t say it. Never a word to admit in the GAR, no matter how much it might apply. The strains could take over the best of troopers, and Rex had been having his fair share of complications. Still, Cody couldn’t let sympathy allow Rex to wriggle out of his current predicament, especially as he’d probably only end up in more damned trouble if he did. He was a problem magnet even when his mind was in the right place.
“I see,” Cody said. “But that doesn’t quite explain why you’re letting me win,”
Manufactured outrage was back for another performance. “I’m NOT letting you win!”
“Or lying to me,” Cody added drily.
“Oh, for Kriff sake…,” Rex’s eyes closed briefly before he turned his head to scowl toward a perfectly innocent wall. Tension had turned every muscle in Rex’s body into a rock sculpture with added snarl, and this was rapidly getting to the point where Cody was Incredibly Concerned.
“Why,” Cody emphasised the question and resisted the urge to throttle it out of him.
“Just let me go,”
They glared at each other again but there was real upset in his voice and raw hurt in Rex’s eyes. The man was one heartbeat away from properly pushing him off, only something was still stopping him. He’d known him long enough to know something was lurking in the shadows, some request that Rex just couldn’t say, but Cody had long known that any attempt to predict what that could be was pointless.
He was hiding something, he could feel it. And whatever it was was eating him alive.
Cody lowered his voice although his determination was still hard. “Anything you want to confess?”
It was a shot in the dark but he saw those eyes widen almost in fear before the jaw stubbornly tightened again and Rex looked away. Fine. Enough. Cody pushed himself up and watched as Rex slowly stood, all sweat and aches and scuff marks, and now he was looking properly he could see the occasional bruise on Rex’s bare torso. Not technically unusual, they all had marks and scars from battle, but those felt a little different somehow.
Rex normally fought without his top on but tonight he’d hesitated before taking it off. Was that something to do with it?
Not that Rex was planning to stick around to find out.
“Thanks for the training,” Clothing was grabbed and Rex marched out, Cody staring thoughtfully after him.
Yeah, that was a mystery that was going to need to be unpicked. Now to find a way to do it without the man blowing up on him and that, of course, was easier said than done.
*
No amount of pacing was going to settle his damned head but Rex was willing to give it a go as he walked up and down the limited space in his room. Idiot. Should have left it, didn’t need it, could have spoiled everything. Just like Anakin. Got into a situation he couldn’t handle, and if the General couldn’t handle it as a Jedi then what the hell hope did a clone have? Cody probably thought he was nuts
Hell, he probably WAS nuts.
The urge inside him was still there only now it was louder, vibrating through his body as though someone had rung a damned gong in his veins. Not that he could really work out what he wanted from it, the need to fight wavering in the face of Cody’s best ‘You Will Behave’ strictness that Rex really, really shouldn’t be focusing on.
And yet he was, the thoughts invading his mind like a worm burrowing into an apple. He felt torn. There was a part of him that wanted to pounce, to pin and take what he wanted from his willing target, and a little too often he’d found himself watching some of their brothers with a wistful and shameful thought in his heart. Of course no one would be insane enough to try, and he wasn’t insane enough to ask either - he was their commanding officer, there were things you didn’t do.
But this screaming desire to take control had hesitated at the thought of Cody’s words whispering into his ear, telling him to obey, to follow his instructions to the letter or else there would be consequences.
His hand had crept between his legs to stroke himself lightly without him really focusing on it.
Kriff, he wanted those consequences. Wanted the feeling of relief as his mind was forced to focus on the here and now. Wanted the satisfaction of pain no matter how strange the concept.
His hand stilled and his eyes closed again. Couldn’t do this any more. Wasn’t fair on Cody. He was his friend, this was simply using him. For kriff sake, it was just pain, pain was what they did on a regular basis.
He could find pain by himself, surely.
Rex’s eyes opened and narrowed decisively. Yeah. He could find pain and then the whole damned craving could shut up.
It would be fine.
*
“With all due respect Captain, what the kriff did you think you were doing?!”
Cody walked in to find a bare chested Rex sullen on a bench and an irate but trying not to be Kix rummaging through his supplies as Rex held a pad to his left pec. Cody stopped dead at the realisation of what the pad was trying to help.
“Are those scorch marks?!” That was extreme even for Rex. There was a huff from Kix as the medic continued his fevered rummage through his kit.
“Oh, don’t get me started on those,” Kix almost muttered to himself.
“What happened?” Cody folded his arms, but it was going to take more than a stern posture to extract anything from Rex and sure enough the stubborn look entered those eyes yet again as Rex attempted to find some random excuse for whatever the hell had just happened.
“Minor accident,”
Cody couldn’t quite hear what Kix muttered to himself under his breath but he was fairly certain he’d agree with the sentiment. He stepped back as Kix made his way back to the bench armed with his supplies.
“Head to that side, sir,” The swiftest of injections before Rex could fully object. “Okay. Remove the pad,”
The pad was grudgingly removed and Kix busied himself adding what appeared to be bacta to the various injuries that Rex had managed to obtain in such a short time that Cody was half tempted to check the date for fear he’d slept through several days. Rex was also studiously not looking at him, and that was going to stop right now as well.
“Elaborate on ‘minor accident’,” Cody folded his arms and raised his voice, noting the small tightness in Rex’s jawline as the man went through his already limited options. To lie or to underplay the severity? Which would he choose?
Apparently option B as Rex growled softly.
“It was a new procedure,” he said reluctantly. “Clearly needs tweaking,”
Like that was ever going to work. A flicker of annoyance for that little attempt, almost an insult to his intelligence.
“If I have to fetch the report to find out the details,” Cody said softly and dangerously. “I am going to be displeased,”
They stared at each other for another moment, and Cody hated to do this in front of the troopers - fine, Kix - but there was a limit that even Rex wasn’t going to push past. Another moment of side eye before Rex finally gave a small huff of irritable acceptance.
“We moved to live situations before it was fully ready,” Even more grudging. “It won’t happen again,”
“Uh huh,” Kix continued to patch him up, the words almost instinctual. Rex bristled.
“I don’t need your commentary either,”
“Looking at the state of your body I’d say the evidence suggests you do,” Kix countered immediately, then came face to face with an annoyed Rex. There was the smallest of pauses, but just because Kix was unrepentant didn’t mean he was suicidal. “Sir,”
Enough of this. The explanation was nothing remotely like an explanation but trying to extract it from Rex at this point was probably going to require torture equipment and some hefty pliers. Cody took a deeper breath and took a closer grip on his patience. Whatever Rex was going through it was clearly a problem, and the last thing he wanted was for his friend to curl away and hide it.
“Was anyone else hurt?” Cody tried.
“No,”
A quicker and clearly truthful answer but Cody didn’t like the way that Rex wasn’t looking him in the eye again, and had the whole ‘accident’ been deliberately undertaken? No. Surely not. Even Rex in one of his moods wasn’t that crazy and yet his discomfort suggested it was.
Cody eyed him for a moment longer before turning slightly.
“Kix, are you in a position to give us a minute please?”
A small glance between Cody and Rex before Kix tilted his head and gathered his kit up. “Yes, sir,”
Cody waited until the door had shut behind him before turning back to face his target. Needless to say, silence was the one that greeted him but he didn’t care about that. Rex was his friend but he had a responsibility, and if this was anyone else he’d be having more than a few words in private.
Rex had hunched a little more in preparation for the outrage, small glances in his direction whenever he thought he might not be looking, and Cody let him stew in his own juices for a moment as he worked out how to tackle the damned subject. Finally he sighed.
“Still claiming distraction?” he said, a little pointedly. Rex hunched over again, a sullen boy knowing he was in trouble, and Cody forced himself not to soften against it. This might well be a once off situation but if it wasn’t then he needed to extract the damned situation before Rex managed to complicate the matter by extreme force.
“Miscalculation,” Rex said. “Won’t happen again,”
Uh huh. And tookas could tap dance.
“So if I were to look at the recordings for that area,” Cody said slowly. “what would I see,”
At least that got him a reaction that wasn’t this sheepish, sullen nature as Rex’s eyes flashed to him in annoyance.
“Don’t trust me, huh?” His tone was bitter. And sadly the answer was very much ‘no’. Experience told him such, no matter how much Cody would prefer it stayed silent.
“Give me an explanation for why you seem to be looking for injuries. I know you’re not trying to get out of work,” Cody tried for humour but that failed as Rex looked away again.
“It’s nothing,”
And this was getting irritating, and Cody folded his arms even tighter against his chest to stop himself from simply trying to shake some sense out of one of his oldest friends.
“Nothing? There are scorch marks on your chest!”
“Accidental,” Rex added stubbornly, and really, really?! There was a small flicker of satisfaction as he moved closer and Rex straightened, a warier look entering his eyes as stubborn defiance met up with self preservation.
“You know damned well I should be reporting this, both for your sake and the welfare of the men you command,” Cody said in a low voice before allowing his frustration to enter his tone. “Give me a kriffing reason why it happened!”
The sullenness hesitated to allow a flicker of confusion and uncertainty to fill the gap.
“I .. ,” it died off again, a man staggering after a fatal injury.
Then there was one. He knew it.
Cody rubbed his chin then glanced at the door where Kix had very rightly interpreted ‘a minute’ as ‘we’ll call you’. Sensible man. Another look back at Rex confirmed a clearly miserable expression that was barely being covered, but sympathy wasn’t exactly going to assist in this situation. He knew Rex. The man was a fighter, regardless of whether that was clankers or himself, and softness would be dismissed almost as quickly as the offer. Still, he wasn’t going to leave him alone with this. Risk mitigation, perhaps.
“Let me help.” His brisk voice suggested everything was perfectly normal despite reality’s opinion on the matter. Miserable hesitated before a small smile crept to his lips as Rex shook his head.
“This isn’t something you can help with,” Rueful but clearly an honest opinion, despite being entirely wrong. There was always a way. Sometimes it was messy, sometimes it was uncomfortable, sometimes it was faintly bizarre, but there was always some option and Cody drew himself up to his full height as though Kenobi was questioning one of his plans.
“I’m adaptable,” he said.
Rex huffed a small bitter laugh. “Not for this. Everyone’s got a limit,”
And now he was genuinely curious what the hell Rex had got himself into. Skywalker had seemed perfectly normal - for him - and there hadn’t been a problem assignment for some time. It was almost suspiciously quiet, which went to confirm the benefits of keeping people busy before they found further chaos to distract themselves with.
“Go on,” he said calmly.
“I .. ,”
Silence again but he wasn’t going to push it. Rex looked confused, young, like a shiny facing their first breath of battle, and Cody watched Rex’s tongue run over his bottom lip as he tried to find words that apparently were impossible to pin down.
Eventually the softest of breaths exhaled and Rex closed his eyes briefly.
“The pain helps,”
And that would have sounded crazy if Cody hadn’t come to that conclusion a while ago. So he was actively looking for it. Not that he understood the purpose of course, and based on the confusion still hovering over Rex’s face there was a good chance he didn’t either.
“Helps what?” Cody queried, as idly as he could make any statement following that type of admission, and Rex’s shrug was helpless and clearly accurate.
“I don’t know. It’s relaxing. No, that’s not the right word. It’s ..,” he ran his hand over his head and closed his eyes in despair as language failed him again. Cody, however, was beginning to see the glimmer of understanding around the edges.
“Cathartic?”
“What?”
“Strong emotions released through an activity,” Cody expanded in the face of utter confusion.
“Oh,” said Rex. “Then, yeah, I guess so,”
“I see,”
Silence again and Rex hunched down a little, waiting. There was a small pause before he finally looked up slightly when shouting failed to occur, and the confusion had multiplied.
“So it won’t happen again,” Rex tried in a clear attempt to get the conversation back onto a track he understood, but Cody was already thinking it over. He couldn’t say he understood the why but Rex clearly couldn’t carry on without it, and if he left him to his own devices then they’d probably be soon back here and with an even worse injury.
And .. well, fine, it was odd, but most of their lives revolved around odd in some way.
“You got what you needed from the injuries?” Cody asked finally, and the shifty expression that instantly crossed Rex’s face answered that one without words. “Mm,”
“I can control it,” Rex said immediately. “I just needed a distraction. Nothing more complicated than that,”
The complication wasn’t anywhere near finished but the attempt was sweet.
“I guess I should be thankful you’re not slamming your hand in a door,” Cody replied drily.
“That wouldn’t help,” Rex replied without thinking, before looking appalled at the words that had escaped. Still, at least he was speaking and it was moving into something faintly resembling honesty. Slightly disturbing honesty, but you couldn’t have everything.
“So what would help?” Cody watched as faintly honest swiftly turned into a guilty and uncomfortable silence, Rex immediately looking away as though eye contact might in some way condemn him into some form of doom. “Rex. Talk to me,”
The slightly stricter tone was a slip of the tongue but at least Rex wasn’t looking to take offence. There was another small side glance at him as though Cody was planning a dark mission in his spare time, before Rex growled and looked away again.
“It’s complicated,”
“I like complicated,”
“Not this type of complicated,” Rex argued. “This is unofficial complicated,”
He had no idea what that meant, but Rex’s voice was serious enough that it clearly made a difference. His lips pursed, Cody ran his mind through potential subjects that might turn the usually stubborn and strong willed Rex into a cautionary tale.
“Is it sexual?” he asked finally.
“Is it what?” Rex looked like he’d just been slapped around the face, and that was almost too shocked. Cody’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. That sounded like a ‘yes’ to him, which was surprising. He wouldn’t be the first person to get sexually confused but Rex normally sorted himself out easily enough.
Curious.
“Sexual,” Cody continued in the same, faintly bored tones as though this type of thing happened every day. “Don’t make me define it, you damn well know what it means,”
Rex eyed him for a moment before closing his eyes and sighing in defeat. The corner of Cody’s mouth twitched upwards in amusement. Wise decision.
It took a few moments for Rex to speak, and even then it was clear he was desperately trying to find words to say.
“No. Not really. I ..,” Rex trailed off yet again, but Cody was willing to give him some leeway given the topic. Finally a soft sigh. “.. well. It’s just playing with pain. Making my body do things to relax,”
There was another small pause and Rex glanced cautiously at him, as though about to provide some type of secret. Perhaps he was. “You ever heard of masochism? Dominance?”
Cody pursed his lips in concentration. Vaguely, now he came to think about it. Jokes here and there made by the troops. The occasional references that didn’t need much discussion, often accompanied by some unspeakable or bizarre gesture. Even Wolffe had made a passing comment once but swiftly altered it when Cody had queried, but he’d never really had a reason to dig around too much. If people did it then they did it quietly in the background without him having any need to get involved. They spent enough of their time following procedures and the guys needed some time to relax.
“Occasional rumours but nothing in any detail,” he said finally. “Is that what you’re doing?”
The guilty silence of an ashamed man answered that one swiftly, and Cody’s sudden urge to squeeze his shoulder in comfort was almost painful in its intensity. Not that Rex would appreciate it. He had the look of someone who would instinctively snarl at any touch, sympathetic or not.
“I see,” Cody paused and reviewed his limited options. “Is there a safe way to do it?”
“It?” Genuine confusion looked at him.
“This dominance-pain play,”
The suspicion on Rex’s face suggested he felt he was being played with, and it was damned hard to keep a neutral expression in the face of such scrutiny. The test must have been passed however, as Rex looked away again.
“Yeah,” Rex said carefully. “but it’s harder to do solo,”
Well, that was easy enough to resolve. “If you need a partner then I can do it,”
The silence that followed was technically one long one but Cody could sense the different stages as it flowed from shock to confusion to deep thought back to wariness again.
“ … what?” said Rex finally, carefully, a man who wasn’t sure whether to trust his ears.
“I said I can do it,”
His brother was clearly waiting for the joke’s punchline. Finally there was a soft and almost nervous laugh and Rex ran his hand through his short blond hair.
“Appreciate the support, but I don’t think this is your thing,”
“Then tell me about it so I can make a judgement call,” Cody said patiently. “I’m a fast learner,”
He was also deadly serious and from the way that Rex looked at him Cody was pretty damned sure his brother knew that as well. Still, if Rex thought a hard stare was going to get him to avoid the subject then he was in for a rude awakening as Cody waited him out. Finally Rex closed his eyes with another long sigh-huff, clicked his neck and then grudgingly pulled a datapad closer.
A series of furious tapping ensued before those familiar eyes turned to him again carefully.
“Still sure about this?”
“Of course,”
Fingers curled tighter on the datapad as Rex looked down at it wordlessly. For a few seconds Cody thought that Rex might well have had a change of heart but there was another sigh-huff that was almost aggressive in nature before the datapad was thrust toward him.
Cody studied the images carefully, slowly moving from one to the other.
Well, they were … yes.
“I see,” he said neutrally. Half of him suspected that Rex had chosen the more dramatic images he could find for his examples, perhaps wanting to scare him off, but then Rex wouldn’t be this embarrassed if it was merely a light tap on the bottom and a sexually ambiguous activity. Cody had never investigated too far into the more elaborate setups that occurred around Kamino, the natural result of a large group of youngsters with nothing much to do outside of battle, but certainly Rex wasn’t the first for this type of thing and he wouldn’t be the last either.
Still, the images raised a mental eyebrow. Flogging. Beating. Figures pressed against the wall, their hands tied above their heads and their backs arched invitingly. Blindfolds, gags and ropes. Whips and crops and naked bodies shining in the light. It all looked sexual to him, but then he could only look at the surface image rather than anything deeper.
A little too hard at the surface image for that matter, and his imagination was already beginning to whisper at him in a way that was a little disturbing. Thankfully Rex was there to pull him out.
“Yeah,” Rex’s voice was both tired and faintly triumphant, as though he’d won some type of battle. “So I’ll do what I can and-,”
“So you want me to beat you?” Cody broke through with a casual voice, still unable to look away from the datapad. “I can do that,”
Rex was speechless.
“In fact,” Cody added, squinting at one of the pictures. “I have a crop that looks very similar to one of these vids, and probably would be perfect for this situation,”
Rex’s speechlessness continued, a two for one sale.
“It was a souvenir, something that the General purchased for me,” Cody continued as though Rex was actively part of the conversation. “A very nice item, I’d be pleased to give it some use. I’m assuming you wish for the impact to be back only, from waistband to shoulders?”
Speechlessness added a small dazed nod of agreement, Rex still staring at him with the wide eyes of one not certain whether the oncoming lights were going to squash him flat. But of course at some point Rex was going to have to make a noise, and they both knew that. Finally Rex got his throat under control.
“Oh,” he said, which wasn’t quite a shining speech but it was better than the stunned silence that had filled the room previously. It was probably best to give him something to talk about, and at this point Cody had a lot of information to gather.
“So have you done it before?” he asked idly. Wide eyes grew a little more guarded, answering that question without so much as a word.
“A little,” Rex allowed. And what, Cody wondered briefly, did that mean. Simple solo activities, or fantasising about it for months on end, or had he actually tried it with a partner? So many questions he would never find the answers to, because trying to get an answer out of Rex when he didn’t want to give it was going to need more than a crop or any other physical implement.
“Good. So it sounds like we can work this out together,” Cody said, and Rex was still giving him that funny look as though expecting some loud joke. Not that he was in the mood for joking right at this stage and Cody merely watched him steadily until Rex slowly got used to the concept.
“Are you sure about this?” he said, and the voice very clearly stated that Cody should rethink the whole damned calculation. Still, it wasn’t just Rex who was stubborn as hell. It was, after all, a family trait.
“We’ve done crazier things together,” Cody pointed out mildly.
“Not comforting,”
Cody sighed. “Rex, you’re my friend. It’s a simple act that makes you happy. Why wouldn’t I?”
“You DID look at the data pad, right?”
“I did, and again, why wouldn’t I do it?” Cody’s eyebrow rose in the manner it normally did whenever he was punctuating a remark to one of the generals.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rex said, more than a little frustrated. “Because you’re not fucked up in the head?”
Was that really the way he thought about himself? Cody was taken aback for a moment but pushed on.
“Well, that’s debatable,” But Rex’s expression was still haunted and Cody finally dropped the blunter tones for softer. “No judgement, Rex. We do what we can to survive, right?”
“Yeah, but..,” Rex trailed off before sighing again, a man who had finally admitted defeat. He didn’t blame him. Out of all the possibilities that Rex had been playing with this was almost certainly one that was a full on surprise, and Rex had never liked admitting he needed help at the best of times despite the fact he would be the first one to offer if the places were switched.
“Rex. Calm. I mean it,” Cody watched him. “People do a whole range of things to relax or let off steam. If this is what gets your heart beating then that’s what can be done. Think it over,”
“Yes, sir,”
Cody hesitated at that defeated voice but decided to press on. All Rex needed was a bit of time and space to get into the idea and then..
.. well, then things got even more interesting. But what type of friend would he be if he wasn’t with him for the ride?