“You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity."
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3
For Day 3 - Clone Rebellion of @codex-week with additional inspitation worked in from the alt prompts DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP BY PHILIP K. DICK, and BLUE BIRCH MARSH BY JEF BOURGEAU
Bonded Pair, Do Not Separate - or they might lose their colours
The Alt prompts used here:
DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP BY PHILIP K. DICK
BLUE BIRCH MARSH BY JEF BOURGEAU
I saw all these trees and I knew I had to work them into my piece!!!
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After ensuring that his and Rex's injured men were seen safely into the care of the medics, and giving comfort where he could, Cody finally let Rex take care of his own wounds.
@codex-week ALT Prompt - Forest Maze by Killian Eng
This is another scene from the fic islands by @cabezadeperro (yes, I was very inspired by this fic) where Rex and Anakin stand at the edge of a cliff looking down at the ruins of a city and the abandoned Jedi temple they can both feel reaching out to them. I loved this line in particular:
“The trees under their feet swell and drop in liquid waves, like the ocean and not at all.”
So, I’m not likely to get around to posting the full @codex-week chapter I’ve written up on AO3 today (despite my best efforts). Hoping a ‘preview’ snippet in the meantime will suffice, until I’ve properly edited everything I need to!
Pain -
A strangled cry catches on Rex’s dry throat, and he chokes on air as his body recoils from the burn at his side. Something cold brushes against his skin, and with another yelp Rex manages to scramble away, only for his arms to give out on him a moment later. His already-hazy vision whites out completely as he lands on his wound, a high-pitched whine coming from deep inside him at the contact. Stars, he hasn’t felt pain like this in a long time - not since… Saleucami?
“Stay still,” a voice commands, rough and rasping but one that Rex recognises as a brother. A fellow rebel, perhaps.
Rolling onto his back, he licks his lips and tries to breathe evenly, his ribs flaring with each inhale. “Kix?” he croaks, the last vestiges of hope kindling in his chest. They haven’t heard of any other Clones living on this planet, if there’s a chance it’s his missing medic -
“No,” the brother says, voice a little closer, and the spark gutters. It’s enough to prompt Rex to open his eyes and try and regain a sense of what is going on.
The face peering down at him is a brother’s, alright - one with a long, faded scar running from forehead to temple to the top of his cheekbone, a scar Rex has traced a thousand times with reverent fingertips and could draw with his eyes closed.
His breath deserts him, leaving barely enough in his chest for him to whisper, “Cody?”
Cody (for it has to be, there can be no other Clone with a scar like that) averts his eyes, lips pulled taught. “I need to change your covering,” he says, vaguely waving a bacta patch in Rex’s line of sight. There’s no ‘hello’, no ‘good to see you’, no ‘I’ve missed you’, and Rex just gapes up at him, confusion tainting the joy that had welled up within him.
Bacta. His wound. Right.
Rex nods his permission, and Cody focuses on the task. The old bacta patch peels off messily, tugging at Rex’s skin and the vibroknife wound in a way that makes him hiss sharply, looking down at the site in morbid curiosity.
It’s not the wound that catches his eye, though - it’s Cody’s black gloves, and the black vambraces, reminiscent of Purge Trooper armour.
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I’ve had this idea for a drawing bumping around in my head for a while, and I thought Codex week was the perfect opportunity to finally do it! It’s based on this screencap here (which I don’t know the origins of, so if anybody knows where this is from I’d definitely like to know!) 👇
And since I included a fic with another of my Codex drawings from a while ago, here’s a short fic for this one too 😁
~~~~
The Clone Wars were over. Had been for more than a year now. The Republic was slowly rebuilding itself, slowly coming to terms with the fact that all of it - all the terror, all the violence, all the death and destruction - all of it was finally, finally over.
Cody couldn’t lie - he’d been at the centre of it all when the war had finally come to a screeching, gruesome halt. It hadn’t been glorious, there hadn’t been any cheering or celebration, not like there was now at least. The war hadn’t even gone out with any sort of a bang either, more of a pitiful, agonizing wail of despair that slowly faded out as the rest of the galaxy realized what had happened.
There was one thing that had made it all worth it, and that was getting to see the face of the man he loved on the other side, the moment he had locked eyes with Rex in the sunny Naboo streets and they had instantly fallen into each other’s arms. Cody almost hadn’t been able to believe it, the war was over and they were both alive.
Even now, more than a year later, it was still a little hard to believe sometimes.
Cody wasn’t usually the type to get overwhelmed or nervous, but as he adjusted the collar of the pale apricot colored shirt that was part of his uniform, he found that his hands were uncharacteristically shaky.
Beside him, Lionel, who had their arm linked with Obi-Wan, immediately noticed.
“Hey. You okay, Cody?” They asked softly, lightly bumping his shoulder, and Cody cleared his throat as Obi-Wan also turned to look at him with a worried expression.
“Fine, Lionel,” he murmured with a half-forced smile, “I just feel a little… odd for doing this in public, is all.”
Lionel and Obi-Wan looked at each other and chuckled understandingly.
“You have nothing to worry about, Cody,” Obi-Wan said, “just be your usual charming self and everything will go perfectly fine.”
“You’re making it sound like I’m about to propose.” Cody snorted.
“Well, this is good practice for whenever you decide to do that.” Lionel put in, smirking.
Cody hoped the flare of anticipation and anxiety in his stomach at the prospect of ever asking Rex to marry him didn’t show on his face, but by the way Lionel winked at him, he assumed that unfortunately it had.
“If I can do it, so can you.” They added more quietly, leaning a little closer to Cody and giving him a firm, reassuring pat on the shoulder.
Cody smiled in response.
“Thanks, Nel.” He said, in an equally quiet voice.
“Um, Cody,” Obi-Wan cut in, clearly only pretending he hadn’t heard that part, “I believe someone is looking for you.”
Cody abruptly looked up and saw that Obi-Wan was right.
Across the crowded ballroom of Theed’s royal palace, Cody spotted the immediately recognizable blue and white uniforms of the 501st, with undershirts that were the pale color of the sky on the horizon.
It seemed that Anakin’s legion had just arrived at the palace based on how they were still grouped together, but Cody knew almost instinctively that Rex was among them, and wasn’t looking for anyone but him.
And, as if thinking of him had conjured him in front of Cody’s eyes, he spotted Rex at the edge of the crowd, scanning the mass of faces around him.
His eyes met Cody’s, and he immediately smiled. Cody smiled back, feeling his heart leap in his chest and his face turning just slightly warmer than before.
He shot a glance at Lionel and Obi-Wan, who both nodded, practically in sync - it really wasn’t a surprise that the two of them fit so well together as a couple.
“Go on, loverboy.” Lionel teased, giving him a nudge with their elbow.
Cody hesitated for half a second, then nodded back, setting off across the ballroom floor with his hands behind his back to conceal the surprise intended for Rex.
By the time he reached Rex’s side, Echo and Fives had appeared, and by the slightly annoyed (albeit also mildly amused) look on Rex’s face, Cody assumed the twins were up to their usual antics. Deep down, the pair of them were still the same shinies he and Rex had met at the beginning of the war, even after all this time.
“Cody.” Rex murmured, his smile widening as he saw Cody approaching.
“Rex.” Cody replied, a little more curtly than he’d intended to.
Rex just laughed, seemingly not minding (or perhaps just used to) Cody’s stoicism, and pressed a chaste kiss to the bridge of Cody’s nose.
Cody felt himself go just a little weak in the knees.
What the hell was wrong with him? He and Rex had been together for almost the entirety of the war, and yet he was still the one person that could make Cody immediately drop his usual nonchalont, standoffish demeanour.
“Hey, what’ve you got there, Cody?”
Fives’ teasing voice snapped Cody out of it.
“Mind your business.” Cody grumbled, half turning away as Fives tried to weave around him to see what he was hiding. Unfortunately, Echo went the other way and immediately managed to catch a glimpse.
“Aww, are they for us?” Fives added with a wickedly teasing grin.
“Would you two fools shut up?” Cody growled, rolling his eyes.
Rex, meanwhile, had tilted his head to the side.
“Flowers?” He asked softly. He was still fairly oblivious to what was going on despite Echo and Fives’ nosiness, and that just made him all the more endearing in Cody’s eyes.
Cody laughed shyly.
“Yeah,” he murmured, “from Mandalore. You remember these, right? When you and I stayed there not long after the war ended, you said you’d never seen anything more beautiful.”
As he said it, Cody pulled the carefully and meticulously crafted bouquet that he, along with the help of Waxer, Boil, and Numa, had spent almost an hour on before the event from behind his back.
The arrangement was made solely of vormur flowers, but was far from boring, with a vibrant assortment of fuchsia, coquelicot, cerulean, apricot, pale magenta, fulvous, and light turquoise blooms, all complimented by rich viridian leaves and the quercitron colored paper they were wrapped in. Along with that, the flowers’ fragrance - a sweet and powerful aroma - only magnified its beauty that much more.
Rex’s eyes lit up when he saw it, but he still looked a little perplexed as he almost tentatively reached out to take the flowers from Cody, who had to bite the inside of his mouth to keep an affectionate chuckle at bay.
“For me?” Rex asked, even though he already had the bouquet in his arms.
Cody lost the battle against his laughter.
“Of course they’re for you.” He murmured, unable to keep the grin off his face.
Rex finally smiled too.
“Thank you, Codes.” He said softly, before grabbing Cody’s arm and pulling him in for a proper kiss, one that caught Cody completely by surprise and left him blushing more than he’d have liked to admit.
Echo and Fives were snickering, but for once Cody didn’t feel even the slightest inclination to snap at them for it.
The Clone Wars were over. Had been for more than a year now. And Cody and Rex had the rest of their lives to be happy, together.
- Post-Zygerrian arc, Cody shares an intimate moment of comfort with Rex when he returns to Coruscant. Cody is not a physical-touch person, but Rex is the one exception.
Room for One More
Marshal Commander Cody was not a person who enjoyed physical touch. He never had been, and he was fairly certain he never would be.
A hand shake or a high-five (or the alternative fist-bump, which Lionel had taught him on that one Naboo mission) was more than enough skin-to-skin contact, and trying for a hug was liable to get you kicked - not that it stopped Echo and Fives, mind, but those two fools would do just about anything to rile Cody up.
However, all of that being said, and all of it running through Cody’s mind as he lay there with a frighteningly thin, trembling Rex in his arms - which only served to confuse him even more about his current position - it seemed as if there were at least some times when being chest-to-chest, belly-to-belly, his limbs tangled with another person didn’t bother him. Or, more precisely, there were some people he didn’t mind being like this with.
Or really, truthfully, maybe just one person.
Growing up on Kamino, Cody had always felt like there was something wrong with him for being so averse to touch, as it wasn’t uncommon for Clone batches to all cuddle up in a pile when they were no more than tubies - and even as they got older. It was just a fact of life for a Clone that there would always, always be someone else touching you, or at least close enough to touch you, at all times.
Cody didn’t understand. Being all squashed together made him feel like he was suffocating. Or at least it usually did.
Not now, though. Not when it was Rex.
The captain in question shifted slightly in Cody’s embrace where they lay together in their bunker, one that was meant to only be for Cody, and really only had room for Cody, but that they shared so often it may as well have been for both of them.
“I’m sorry,” Rex mumbled, his lips against the crook of Cody’s shoulder, “I know… I-I know you don’t like this kinda thing, but… I just… I just needed you to hold me.”
His voice wavered, and Cody felt something warm and wet drip onto his bare chest. He realized with a jolt that Rex was crying - it wasn’t like Cody had never seen him cry before, but knowing he felt awful enough to do so now… it made Cody’s stomach tighten with rage.
“What happened to you?” He whispered, just now registering the fact that he’d been lightly rubbing his hands over Rex’s back and shoulders to comfort him - he wasn’t sure how long he’d been doing it, though, “what happened on Kavado?”
A shudder ran through Rex’s body, more violent than before, and Cody winced internally as he realized that might have been the wrong thing to say.
“Never mind, Rex,” he whispered, “don’t tell me. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
That was enough for Rex to give in, curling a little tighter into Cody’s arms and lapsing into great, agonized sobs, hard enough to make both of them shake.
The anger Cody had felt before melted away as his heart shattered into pieces.
On instinct, he wrapped himself around Rex, pulling him in even closer than they had been before - if that were possible, which apparently it was. He wished he could look into Rex’s face, but he couldn’t, his head was tucked into Cody’s neck, his tears and frantic, shuddering breaths hot on his skin.
Even through the whirlwind of emotions in Cody’s mind, he still found himself oddly surprised that none of this bothered him. If it was Echo or Fives or just about anybody else clinging to him like this, Cody’s skin would be crawling, and he’d be pushing and squirming to get free.
Surely it was more than just the fact that Rex was hurt and vulnerable. Even when someone Cody cared about needed to be held, he still did so with trepidation (and what Rex had once described, through affectionate chuckles, as a “severely constipated look” on his face), but when Rex had arrived a few hours ago and simply melted into Cody without a word, there had been no hesitation or distaste at all. Just understanding.
“There was… just… s-so much pain,” Rex gasped out finally, snapping Cody from his thoughts, “a-and I was scared and cold, and hungry, I didn’t… I had to kill him, Codes.”
Cody didn’t need to ask who ‘he’ was, he’d read over the debrief of the mission to Kavado, seen the haunted look in General Kenobi’s eyes. He didn’t see anything wrong with Rex killing Agruss - in fact, he couldn’t help feeling almost happy about it - but he and Rex both knew, better than anyone, how killing even the most wicked people weighed on the mind.
Even so, Cody still felt the same spark of rage as before forming in him, though this time it was directed at the Jedi for putting Rex - his Rex - through all of this.
“Codes?” Rex’s soft, weak voice broke through Cody’s angry thoughts, “could you… could you keep rubbing my back like you were? It… feels nice.”
Cody realized that in his moment of anger, his hands had fallen still on Rex’s skin. He resumed the gentle caresses on Rex’s back, and he felt Rex start to relax again.
That is, until his comlink that he’d left in the crumbled heap of armor, discarded in a pile by the door the moment he’d stepped inside, beeped quietly.
Neither of them moved for a long moment.
“If anyone’s asking you to leave Coruscant, or even this room for that matter-” Cody began in a low growl.
“No, Codes, it’s fine,” Rex cut him off tiredly, slowly and reluctantly pulling out of Cody’s embrace and rising to his feet, “I’ve got to see who it is, it might be important.”
Cody noticed, as he bent over to rummage for the still-beeping comlink, that Rex’s limbs were trembling. He quickly sat up as well and moved to Rex’s side to steady him.
“General Skywalker?” Rex asked, voice still ragged and raspy from crying, when he finally unearthed the comlink.
“Rex,” Anakin’s voice came through, “are you alright?”
Rex cleared his throat.
“Doing just fine, Sir.”
He and Cody both knew that was a lie, and Cody wouldn’t be surprised if Anakin knew it too - although, to his credit, the general did sound genuinely concerned for Rex, and his tone implied that this was more of a check-in than anything else.
There was a short silence.
“Well…” Anakin said finally, “if you’re up for it, Nel invited Ahsoka and I down to their place for dinner. You remember them, right?”
Miraculously, Rex let out a weak chuckle.
“How could I forget, Sir?” He replied.
“They said there’s more than enough room for one more person at the table, and I figured a home-cooked meal might help with your recovery from…”
He trailed off, but he didn’t need to say anything more.
“What about General Kenobi?” Rex asked, “he had it just as bad as I did on Kavado.”
“I already asked,” Anakin murmured, with a slight sigh of irritation, “he politely declined, said he was going to mediate instead.”
Cody suppressed a laugh - that sounded like General Kenobi.
Rex hummed quietly, staring off into space, and Cody could tell he was considering whether or not to take General Skywalker up on the offer.
“When are you leaving for the Underworld?” He asked finally.
“Soon,” Anakin replied, “but we can wait for you. Like I said, plenty of room for one more.”
Rex smiled for the first time that evening and turned to look at Cody with sparkling eyes before asking;
Also on AO3 [230w]
@codex-week - day 5: intimate vulnerability
“Congratulations, Commander Rex! So General Skywalker finally got his head out of his ass and promoted you to the rank you’ve been acting as for the last two and a half years.”
“I mean, it only happened because I prodded him into submitting the formwork. The delay was getting ridiculous, really.”
“Oh. In that case… is that all you came to a decision about?”
“...No, that too. As you say, I decided it was past time. Cody, back at the start of everything, you said that you hoped we could be colleagues, friends, brothers… but that so long as there was such a rank gap between us, particularly within the chain of command, we could never be anything more. And that was reassuring, in it’s way. Because I had so many emotions that I didn’t know what to do with, but then I didn’t have to take the risk, because you took the decision and set the boundaries for me.
“But this is war. And it’s honestly something of a miracle that we’ve both made it this far. Something big is coming, and I don’t want either of us to be left with the regret of any more missed chances. That is, if… if you still want me?”
“Rex. I love you in whatever ways you will have me. And I am so proud of you. Now c’mere.”
