Tip-toed Confessions (Rex x F!OC)
Pairing: Captain Rex x Peonia 'Nia' Ylandra
Genre: comfort
Prompts used: N/A (this was finished duo before the pronpt announcement was even made, and none of them worked for the piece)
Additional Characters: Cody, ALPHA ARC Commander Ace (OC)
Mentioned Characters: Fives and Echo (as Domino/Domino Twins), Ko'saam (OC), Auroa (OC), Anakin (as Skywalker)
Words: 4, 628
Summary: After Kamino was attacked, and Rex is (finally) found, it's clear he's struggling, even with self-worth. Nia only knows one way to help: honesty. But how open can shebe without risking the only job he's ever going to be allowed to have, and the only one he was told to do?
The Attraction part is more between the lines, because I did first meeting last year, but it is there, I swear.
Notes: i don't have the time to go through all the formatting today (because mobile doesn't paste over formatting for some reason), but I did re-add some of the italics!
Tagging: @clonexocweek @returnofthepineapple @clonethirstingisreal @lonewolflupe @sev-on-kamino @wings-and-beskar @dystopicjumpsuit @523rdrebel @kimiheartblade
Alarms had quietened. The corridors still ebbed and flowed with red lights in warning. Stragglers of battledroids were shown no mercy for their invasion, shredded by ALPHAS and carpeted in hollows from angered blaster fire, some of which she heard in distant hallways. One such straggler had taken her ankle, still partly fragile from slipping on wet duracrete before deployment, not long into her search for Rex.
It didn't make it to one soundbite.
It felt like an hour had come and gone since, yet her helmet's HUD had made it, if she had read the time correctly, at ten minutes. Half of that was her fixing the stabiliser over her sock and the way her foot sat in her boot. The other half of her past ten minutes was getting lost whilst going around in circles — and never the same ones.
“Lady Ylandra?”
She hummed, back sharply straightening at the voice of the clone, and it was only when she saw the orange visor that she relaxed. “You are allowed to say my name, Cody. Such a title is only used back home.”
“Sorry, Peonia. I…it feels strange calling you anything else.”
She showed a smile. “My cousin's the same — my aunt and uncle wanted her to be Ko'suum, but whoever wrote out the birth certificate put down my aunt's sleep deprived mispronunciation. She finds it weird when we say the name intended. We find it wrong, too. Gives me the weirds.”
“The weirds.”
“Yes?” A shrug. “You judging?”
“No, no.” The Marshal-Commander, for all of his better-at-lying-than-Rex talents, still wore amusement on his features clear as day that only reinforced that he was, in fact, even slightly judging her. “Just think Rex is gonna love hearing you use it. And I'm gonna enjoy it ending up in his vocabulary.”
Nia rolled her eyes with an affectionate shake of the head.
Brothers. Siblings. Family.
“I've watched you come around this platform at least five times. You okay?”
“Apart from being lost?” At Cody's nod, she moved her head in a so-so manner, side to side slowly with a considering gaze. “Compared to you lot and Ko, I'm perfect.”
“Without comparison?”
“Never gets any easier. Deliberately ignore the corridors with the dead. The thought none of them will ever have a proper burial, burial rites, protected sites to be buried in… most not ever having the chance to be a shiny it… it breaks my heart. My sister says that, in the force, you're all children. You, Rex, Wolffe, Ponds… you're ten year old children. Ace is closer to a teen,then those recruited after Geonosis? She says some are as young as seven. Some of those that died today were… were toddlers, babies, but looked like a child. You're, what, coming up eleven this year, right? When I was your age, my teachers were treating me like a fifteen year old and I'd come home to eat ice cream and jelly, or griffon shaped pasta, and I'd try to cheat a game of top trumps against my brother.”
“You… didn't have the childhood of a Mandalorian or a clone.”
“Maybe not, but even Mandalorian children are allowed to be children in their own ways. Your people never got a chance to get fed with 'here comes the fighter ship neeyowe' as a spoon or fork comes for you. You never get to have some cereal for breakfast and then bring it up on your handlers shirt.”
“...It sounds like experience?”
“Only memory of my mother I have is, unfortunately, connected to a dark pink polo with all the stains; my father tried to give it to me a month or two before the war started. Anyway,” Nia released a long sigh, “the point I'm trying to make is that I'm upset — deeply — despite knowing less than probably a hundredth thousandth of the men here, but my largest concern is with Rex.”
“Rex?”
Cody, at least, pretended to be surprised if his tone was anything to go by. She dared not look at him.
“Yes. I've not seen hide nor hair of him since he stepped off The Resolute, and I've not heard from him since he made contact to say the Seppies were retreating.”
“I think he jus’ … wants to be alone.”
“Doesn't mean he needs to be… it's a dangerous time to be alone in your thoughts.”
Cody leaned against a makeshift barricade. “Think he'll do something?”
“What?” Her eyes went wide for a second before deeply frowning, insulted that Cody thought she believed Rex would do something permanent like jump into only depths. “Don't be bloody ridiculous, of course not.” She huffed with a short, sharp puff of air from her nose. “I know him well enough to know he'll be blaming himself more than he should be. And I know grief like it's a friend - at some point, being alone becomes self punishment. At some point, 'I want to be alone' means 'I want company but I want silence, and I don't know how to ask for help'. Mostly it means 'people will consider me weak'. “
“Y'know,” Cody perched beside her, half on the corner “I'm sure he's fine. He's a big boy.”
“Men can not be fine, too. You're not fine. You're sluggish. Put on.”
“... I don't think he needs you to hold his hand.”
“I also don't have to be held in any capacity when I'm grieving, but I find it's a helpful addition. I don't need to have help to carry things around, but maby hands make light work.” She pinched her nose for a second. “Look, Cody, I know you're trying to protect his peace, but you know the culture your generation grew up in. Maybe, just maybe, he doesn't want loneliness. Just quiet. Maybe he doesn't know what he wants.”
“You're stubborn, did you know?”
“I'm not stubborn - not really - just want to… periodically check in with Rex. Hreða knows he'd never ask for help.”
And Cody, as if satisfied she had passed some kind of test, finally relented. “If he's going to open up to anyone, it's gonna be you. I'll show you the way to his contemplation spot.”
“Contemplation spot?” She stood gingerly, yet sure from confidence in knowing how much weight her foot could bare for now, and followed Rex's ambling older sibling. “I guess for it to be his, he's been there a lot?”
“A story you'd be better asking him about.”
“Noted.”
-
It was the sunset, casting a rose-gold glow upon the Captain of the Five-Oh-First's Torrent Company, that made her forget, for a few moments, that there had been an invasion. That there was a war. It made her forget the body bags and droid parts scattered across the base. For those moments, it was just… him, resting his elbows on the balcony, forearms folded and fingers fiddling something he clearly treasured with his thumbs running across it.
Kamino's sun, for as rarely as it turned up, painted him in golden rays, edged with the rosey tone of the clouds, and the blue stripes felt discolored to a purple tone. His skin didn't force the light to bounce back like hers (or any currently alive Ylandra) and reflect like a white shirt - it simply took on the same hue, the warmth enhancing the reddish pigment to his skin with a tender caress.
In those moments she forgot the war was reality; she could only think of him as a dashing rogue unwittingly stealing her heart. Not that he wasn't already doing so even with the war — in truth, he had already stolen it — but it felt wrong to think him as attractive when reality returned to focus once she noticed the blood stains on his chestplate, and the oil splattered across the helmet clipped his his hip.
“Gonna come over or stare?”
Despite his words, his tone carried through his smile, as tight as it was, to be good-natured. Possibly even thankful.
Not that it stopped her face from warming.
“Sorry. I… I don't want to intrude or anything, just…”
“Hey,” he looked at her then, eyes setting on hers like she was the one reprieve he had seen for months. A gentle caress. “You're not intruding.” The gesture of his head, confident in movement, encouraged her towards him.
She remained still, just out of reach of the doorway to stop it from registering her presence yet distant enough to not pry int his space. “Are you sure?”
“If I didn't want you here, you'd know.”
His gaze did not leave her. His head remained facing her, his body still toward the ocean, but he had twisted his chest enough to open his posture. It revealed blaster scorching amd residue from his deecees, but nothing that signified injury.
“I wasn't injured, Peonia.” His words stole her gaze, roving over him, to his face once more. The expression he wore, with dark eyes glinting gold and copper in the sunlight, was tender. It pulled her in like bees to nectar.
If she were less of a person — if she did not know or was too naïve — she would have thought his smile spoke of some deeper affection towards her than she thought proper. A figment of her imagination. The truth was, she didn't know. She wasn't looked at with such kindness outside of family. She was used to being forgotten about until someone wanted something of her. It would be foolish to think she knew, or even think he knew, the deeper side of such a gaze.
It was kind. It was welcoming. Inviting. Genuine. And that was all that mattered.
“Sorry. Force of habit.”
“Ah, don't be.” Once she was stood beside him, leaning on the same balcony with her hands gripping it firmly, he resettled into his original position. “You know what I'm like.”
“Unfortunately, your self-preservation instincts blow away like delicate petals in the wind after a battle, naturally. Something common between military types and Jedi.”
“Ya think?”
“Observed.”
“Your er… your sister seems to be good at that.”
“She's an outlier.” Nia allowed herself, for the first time that meeting, to chuckle- her mouth closed as always with such a sound. “There was this time probably… three or four years ago, now. She was helping the Amarantian Systems Navy with some slavers. She survived, unscathed, but her ship was in tatters. She saw Skywalker - a padawan compared to her Jedi-Knight self - do some trick and he dared her to do it better.”
“I guess he got under her skin?”
“No. Not really. But she was in a situation the trick was useful in. She says she did it better - something about being able to take out more from it.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I didn't see Skywalker's ship when he landed. Would be unfair to take her word for it, don't you think?”
“Point taken.” Rex, for what it was worth, tried to both hide away and remain as open as he usually was. His shoulders were wide, leaving his chest open on stance, but his elbows down to his wrist became closer together. He was half leaning on the balcony like it was all that stood between him. Yet he watched the ocean's waves, calm now compared to hours before, with barely knitted brows. “Didn't think I'd make it this far in the war.”
“I did.”
He didn't look at her, despite the small, wry chuckle that was half spat out like it was a true surprise to hear. “I forget you're optimisitc.”
She would have huffed in offense if she wanted to start something. She chose to quieten that urge. “Don't get me wrong, when we first met, I thought that being on your own in the hangar to install a disc to kick he Seppies out the system was… nothing short of bloody stupid, but when I got there you were doing better than most.”
“Should I… take it as a compliment?”
“Have I ever insulted you?”
It only got another smile.
She wanted something more.
“Next time there's shore leave,” she begun, allowing herself to sidle closer to him - the outside of her right hand so close to his left, she could feel the radiating heat, “I'm going to try to steal you away.”
His voice lowered, just slightly, and when she cast a glance at him, he looked at her with a raised brow and a challenging smile. One that, even now, she could not help but respond to with blissful fondness. “Is that so?”
“Hm-hm.” She affirmed.
He twisted his upper body enough to rest more on his right forearm. “And what will you do if you manage?”
“I, good Sir Rex, will take you to Soirham's most southerly beaches, where the water's clear and blue from sand instead of clay and muddy substrates. We'll have a beach hut, go swimming in the shallows, explore the food, spy the wildlife...”
“Maybe take a Hreða Tooka or two with us.” At her confusion, he cleared his throat. “I mean… maybe they'd like sand. And fresh fish.” He brought a hand to rub the back of his neck.
“There's a much deeper reason at play here…” Nia nudged him, her shoulder against the bottom of his pauldron, in gentle play. “Pray tell?”
He stuttered for a moment, multiple attempts to explain through fumbled words, before he released a long sigh. “Remember the fortnight me and the domino twins had to protect you?”
“Yes. I do.”
“You always spoke about your countryside with… hope. A kind of joy us Clones weren't allowed to have.”
Her cheeks warmed. “I… thought I was boring you.”
"That why you stopped?”
“Yes? I mean,” she tilted her head, “might as well save my vocal chords for something that gets listened to.”
“I was listening…” He was quiet, like the words were only for her to hear above the waves against the platform's support. “Jus’... didn't know how to respond.”
“I get that. Sometimes I don't know how to join conversations — never got the chance to learn before the kids at school made sure to other me.”
“Must've been tough.”
“Well,” silver eyes cast their gaze across the water, “I wasn't threatened with decommission for being different, so I guess it was easy compared to what you guys got. Left its marks and scars though.”
For a moment, she let the silence that followed grow — not that it was something she didn't want to talk about, but it was something she was hardly going to force a conversation out of if she had touched on as much as she needed to — yet when she looked at Rex again, seeking out if she had overstayed her welcome, his eyes remained on her as if he still couldn't accept that anyone could treat another so dreadfully when they had all the time in the world to be children.
“Anyway, why the cats specifically?”
The sun cast golds and ambers into his irises of deep brown, unwavering against its lowering rays whilst hers squinted to a near close, only seeing him through her lashes. She could still make out his hand rubbing the top of his head.
“You like them?”
“I like you, too, you know.”
His bashfulness increased, the heat she could feel coming off from him, standing shoulder to shoulder now, rose, and he struggled to find a spot for his hand.
“You… You do?”
“Yes.” She couldn't help her amusement, born from bewilderment. “Why wouldn't I?”
And just like that, Rex lost all the straightness in his back and closed on himself again. “I'm a clone. We weren't… taught how to be people. How to live. Just how to fight. How to survive… How to die… You're immortal compared to me. I don't know how it'd be—”
Her hand enclosed his, her fingers weaving around the sides of his hands, and she gently squeezed. “You're also immortal to many mortal creatures such as cats and dogs, but mortality and immortality do not matter - I don't know how to live for myself, being born to serve my people, billions I will never meet. We are both duty bound to those we do not know, but it does not mean I cannot enjoy your company, Rex: we all die one day, and I'd rather die knowing I spent most of my free time in this dark galaxy with you.”
The Captain, usually so confident and sure, opened and closed his mouth more than once before rubbing the back of his head and neck. "You sure 'bout that idea, mesh'la?"
"Do you think yourself unworthy of my presence?"
"No." His response was swift - too swift. "Yes. No? Yes?"
"Whatever for?"
He looked at her, unimpressed and as if to say really?. "I'm not a person to most of the galaxy."
"Nor are Jedi to most. You don't see me shoving my sister under a speeder, do you?"
"No..."
"Do you think I'd do that to you?"
"What? No. Course not."
"Think Aurora undeserving of my sisterly affection?" He shook his head. "So why you, again?"
"We're just... killing machines."
"No. You aren't." Nia took Rex's hands in hers. Hands that held weapons and fingers that pulled triggers, but deep within the fibres was the blood of his brothers. Brothers he comforted as they died. Brothers he grieved with. Brothers he loved. Brothers he hated. Brothers he knew all his life. Brothers he never met. The brothers he protected.
"Not to me."
And the ones he had no chance to try to protect, because they protected him first.
She gestured him close, arms open in offerance, and the moment he stepped into her space, as uncertain as he was at the newness, she enveloped him with her arms. As much of him as she could. As tightly as she could. Desperate, beyond all else — before all else — to flood him with the feelings her words would never be able to entirely convey.
"You are a person. You are all a people — a culture, an ethnicity — and you're all human. Even Mandalorians are as flawed as the next human race... species... whatever you want to call them." She felt his body shift in a short chuckle, even as he gradually released tension and allowed more of the ground to carry him than his feet. "And all species in this galaxy are as imperfect as one another. But the only things that are nothing but killers are the droids made specifically to be just that. You may have been trained to do it, but you can choose to stop. You have emotions that droids have an understanding of through cybernetic roadmaps in the programming, but ask them to paint or write? There will not, and never will be, that connection. A connection you would have."
"Mesh'la..."
Nia's face warmed. Beautiful. One of the few Mando'a words she could remember. Probably one of the few Rex and his brothers were taught. It was a word that was tender as its meaning. A feeling Rex's whisper above her head matched. If he knew, he made no show of it. And if he didn't know, he did not tense from realising.
He only kept her closer.
As close as plastoid against Amarantinite Beskar'gaam would ever allow.
"I just want you to know that I'm here for you, whenever you need me, whatever you need me for, and I like you. Just as much as I like fluff-ball gremlins like tookas." She leaned back just enough to press her forehead against his, arms trailing up to his elbows before she settled her left palm against the captain's cheek. He did not react with surprise or fear, yet brown eyes looked at her dully in grief. And when he took her wrist, it was not to move it away. "I promise."
But to keep her touch there.
"You are... too kind to someone who'll be replaced by twenty more when he dies."
"None of those twenty will be you, Rex. Not one."
"It's almost easy to believe when you say it." The Captain of Torrent Company lowered her hand, slow, steady, not knowing what he was going to do, but she knew he had little want to let go. His fingers didn't budge from their place, only lightly tightening. "To believe that I'm more than a soldier... it's..."
"Scary?"
"Yeah. I don't know how natborns do it, Peonia..."
"I've not figured out how to be a person. Kinda wish I didn't make myself non-working in my family's leadership work... I wouldn't have to worry about not fitting in anywhere. Everything would be scheduled for me to do, what neetings to go to, when I need to use my soft power to get something done."
"You work well in military life. I can see why your people want you to lead them one day..."
"That's just because I'm confident around Torrent Company... think I'd be a decent hermit, though. Feel like one enough of the time "
"You like our company too much."
"Well, you can come along if you get decommed. The hermit duo, you know?" Nia laughed a short breath "But, well, thank you. For being in my life. You might jsut see a soldier in yourself, but I see a man with a kind heart. A loving heart. And you need to have those hours in a day where you can be... just that." She tapped his chest with her free hand. "Well, I guess I should let you get back to your quiet."
And yet, he did not let go.
"Wait, Peonia..."
"Yeah?"
"I, uh..." he cleared his throat. "I like... love... you being around."
"Oh aye?"
"Yeah. Gives perspective."
"Nah. Just didn't want you to be alone to be sad. It's better grieving with others grieving, too."
"Can I... find you on The Resolute later?"
"Of course. No need to ask."
"Your cousin didn't raise a disrepectful soldier. I'll always ask."
"And I'll always say that, for you? You never need to knock." Nia's eyes fell to his chest plate, covered in scrstches old and new, the scent of singed plastoid from the Seppie blasters (and, maybe, as much as it hurt, accidental friendly fire in allied hallways) was made subtle by the salty air of the Kaminoan ocean. He gaze moved to her hand, settled with her fingers resting in the gap between his pauldron and the flexible shoulder-tops of his armour. "I enjoy you being around me, too."
"Me, too." And then "I-I mean, I, um—"
"Don't hurt yourself, Rex, I know what you mean." Her gaze flickered upward towards his thriugh her lashes, the sun fanning between the fine hairs that kept the worst of dust and debris from mammalian eyes, and she gave a smile. Tender and tranquil. Affectionate. "It makes me happy to know it's mutual. But now I should find Kix. Help woth the dead and injured."
"I'll come with." Nia tilted her head at Rex, who akready reached for the helmet magnetised to his hip. "Never know what clankers are there. I don't want you to get hurt."
"I'll be fine, Cap. Take this time to yourself, okay? Shed some tears. Scream out at the sea. Wonder how far the siund travelled but never ask. Listen to the echo and it's fading journey. " She allowed her free hand to hold his cheek. To trace the line of tears that had dried upon his skin. To offer what little solace she could. "I'll be okay. Promise."
"Alright." Only then, satisfied with her wishes, did he lower her hand to hisbside and loosen his hold. "Wait for me before we board?"
She allowed herself a laugh. "Wouldn't dream of getting on before you."
"Then I'll see you on the other side, Lieutenant."
She gave a salute, playful but sincere. "Yessir."
Her first steps were backwards, keeping her eyes on him, and she only turned when their fingers had slipped apart from distance, their indexesbat full stretch for the touch to last even a millionth of a second longer.
A touch far warmer in comfort and setenity than the gooden hour over the mass grave thst surrounded them.
—
"You should tell her."
Rex didn't look over his shoulder. He didn't need to. The dusty, vintage pink of Ace's armour entered his peripheral, with the ALPHA leaning upon the same balcony. "That's vague."
"Jus' tell her you like her, old bean."
"Bean?"
"Sorry. Slip of the tongue." Ae's usually neat, half-up low ponytail had seen hundreds of better, bloodyless days. Side pieces had escaped, and were kept in place by hair grip that had strands of tawny blonde stuck in the teeth in the rush. Aurora's. "Admiral Seen'ahna and General Ylandra call each other thst to loosen a tight mood. Anyway, you should let Peony know you like her."
"She knows I like her "
"Not like her, Rex. But like-like her." The hundred-and-fourth oldest of his millions of brothers shimmied closer. "Tell her how your hesrt beats for her, aching when she leaves like the moon aches for the stars to join her. Or how summer flowers yearn for the spring's warmth to help them breathe again. Ylandra like flower talk. Bit of floriography."
Rex slumped forward, the roll of his eyes masking the sleight sigh. "Not all of us can afford to fratanise, Ace."
"Says the man who's been staring at Peonia every day for over a year, looking like a lovelorn puppy who's tail wags whenever she cokes into the room."
"I'm not that bad."
"I'll keep finding the most embarrassing likenesses to you until you grow a pair."
"Now you're being ridiculous." Rex looked at his hands. "She deserves better."
"We all think those we love deserve better than us, old boy." Ace's hand gradped Rex's shoulder. "We want what we think is best for them, and it's never ourselves. I'm not telling you to take her to an abandoned museum pin her to the wall, and kiss her senseless then make sweet love to her whilst calling her a masterpiecem" Rex choked on his own saliva at the bluntness. The slapping to his back barely helped. "I just want you to have the weight of keeping it secret from her off your shoulder but putting it out there to her."
"I'm not..." Rex's sigh bordered on irritated, and his frown was so deep it hurt. "I'm not good for her, Ace. She has a future — decades worth — back home. Her people want her to lead them further into progressive prosperity. It's a future I can't be part of."
"Says who?"
"What?"
"Says who?" It felt like Ace wasn't taking it as seriously as he should have been, casually looking at the ocean with a held back smile on his face. "Society? Because theobly one you shoukd be concerned with is Amarantine's, and in Soirham Clones are given the same rights as everyone else. Thwy can get byried there, get married, have kids, own a house, get a job, get an edication... be people. Kamino?" He scoffed. "Only in it for the paycheck. Other clones? You're living in blissful ignorance if you honestly believe thousands are still single or inactive."
"Ori'vod..."
"Look, I'm just saying, you clearly like her. Even Skywalker knows, so you aren't hiding it well. There's no harm in telling her you love her."
"But ... she's a friend... I don't want to ruin that."
And Ace only softened. "You're allowed to be both. She wants to be both. One isn't above the other. Just different."