Written for Sleepy_fan the 2024 Anakin-Clone Appreciation Exchange!

After being knighted and promoted to general of his own G.A.R. Legion, the 501st, Anakin meets his assigned captain.

Rating: Mature

Chapters: 1/1

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: M/M

Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types

Relationship: Alpha-17/Anakin Skywalker, CT-7567 | Rex/Anakin Skywalker

Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Alpha-17 (Star Wars), CT-7567 | Rex

Additional Tags: Identity, CT-7567 | Rex is Alpha-17, Developing Relationship, hey fellas is it gay to hope your situationship became your captain because he wants to kiss you, Hair-pulling, Anakin gets all worked up with nowhere to go

Words: 2542

@svartalfheimr

The captain is—befuddled, by his legs.

Maul notices it, eventually; after the euphoria of finally having found his One again, he notices it.

He is never unaware of Maul's presence, yet every time the captain turns to face him, it is as if, somehow, he is struck all over again by the difference. Maul is still taller than him but only just. His legs are still metal but in a more familiar shape. One of the first things One, and Rex, had said to him after finally finding himself was that he looks good, healthier.

Yet the legs seem to give him trouble.

Even his name for Maul, from their very first meeting, spider, has gained a wistful quality when One or Rex says it. Wistful, like his recollections of his gevod, back at the start of things.

Maul finds himself wondering if this single change is insurmountable, that it continues to catch his captain off-guard; his horns are not so overgrown and his skin is no longer veined with Darkness and he has regained as much fat as he believes he ever will, and these changes are ones of which One approves.

But he is his spider—a spider without its legs.

He cradles One-and-Rex close to his chest and contemplates for hours at a time.

During one such stretch, while calloused brown fingers trace the markings across his shoulders, the captain speaks. "I'm afraid to forget your name," Rex says, mild as he admits to the fear. This is one way for Maul to tell them apart, when even holding them tightly to his body gives no indication.

It serves as a needed reminder that Maul is not the only one changed, in strange ways both visible and not.

(The hairs dusted across his captain's chest and down his belly are golden, after all.)

Maul turns the confession over in his mind for many minutes before replying. "If you are stolen from me again, I will take you back," he proposes. "And if they make you forget me again, then I will remind you. I am no longer a creature of fear and pain; I will remind you of us both."

He feels the curve of the captain's mouth against his throat, and vividly remembers the first instance of such.

"Good, I'm glad. Still my spider, though."

“How did you know that would happen?”

“How did you know that would happen?”

The Anacondan cackles at One-Seven's question and curls tighter around his—master's?—shoulders. "Oh, he always gets like this, when someone new is in his den." He nuzzles his master's—friend's?—jaw and One-Seven watches the Zabrak absentmindedly run a hand over his head and down his body. "That's why I send people down here: they always try to kill him, so he kills them, and then I get his leftovers!"

He seems very pleased with their arrangement until he catches sight of One-Seven's unimpressed face.

"Oh, uh, no... hard feelings about that, right? You're alive, and it looks like you hurt my master more than he hurt you. So... water... under the bridge?"

One-Seven eyes the blaster graze on red and black skin and considers holding onto his offense. He could kill the Anacondan, could kill the twisted and broken and clanking Zabrak, but—hells. At least if he had to crash on this junkyard of a planet, he found the two most interesting beings around.

"I've got a bacta patch for that," he says, tapping the affected spot on his own chest. "Think you can convince him to let me use it?"

The Anacondan blinks and cackles again, shaking his head.

"Master," he croons into the Zabrak's ear, "the clone wants to help you. Heal you. Would you like that, master?"

It's odd; One-Seven is sure the Zabrak is as intelligent as any other being, yet he hisses and growls and says nothing, completely feral. Like the combination of isolation and whatever mortal wound he had apparently refused to let kill him has just—flipped a switch. He understands words and concepts, enough to coordinate with his Anacondan friend, but he's still ruled by animal instinct.

One-Seven watches him take in the information and narrow his bloody, sickly yellow eyes.

Settling his helmet firmly on the ground, he gets back to his feet and approaches. The Zabrak's spider-like legs click and jangle as he watches One-Seven's approach with mounting suspicion, mounting panic. When One-Seven crosses an unseen line, he snarls another threat display.

With an internal shrug, One-Seven snarls right back.

It startles both the Zabrak and Anacondan; One-Seven watches those eyes roll wildly as he tries to literally back them up the wall to get away, and sighs.

He holds up the bacta-patch demonstratively.

The... captain appears to be much more complacent than he used to be; if Maul were someone else, he would have previously defined him as 'rude'—a trait that he seems to lack now.

The... captain appears to be much more complacent than he used to be; if Maul were someone else, he would have previously defined him as 'rude'—a trait that he seems to lack now.

He tracks him through Sundari, watching him through his Mandalorians, avaricious.

His captain—One, his mind insists; Rex, the captain had insisted; Maul wants to obey and yet cannot—his captain watches the Jedi young woman with soft eyes and protective posture. He guards her; he misses her.

Maul can see it, can feel it, though he has muffled their bond. It was ragged and poorly-formed at the outset, but when Maul finally found One who calls himself Rex, it became—a distraction.

Distractions killed Savage, his brother, his anchor with One out of reach. Maul cannot allow himself to be distracted with the galaxy about to upheave.

And then, One-who-is-now-Rex, in the sewers and fighting Maul alongside the Jedi woman—girl? She is younger than Maul had thought, and One-Rex protects her like she is precious to him, getad'ika.

He had spoken of a lad, with too-long limbs and too-pale skin but with fire in his belly. Gevod, One had called the lad.

There had been a wistfulness to One as he'd spoken of this gevod. And how he has getad'ika. Maul wonders what One-who-is-now-Rex would call him. There is a word that Maul had learned from his Mandalorians, who sometimes remind him painfully of his One, which he dares not speak.

But he looks at One-who-is-now-Rex and curls around the word, and feels—gevercopaani.

So many almosts.

There is a stranger in his den.

His Serpent feeds him and fears him and giggles before they feed and wraps himself around his skin when they are full. He hears the angry, snarling arrival of the interloper and feels the glee of his Serpent, but the stranger feels no fear, only an aggressive calm. This stranger curses his Serpent but their mind feels cool and steady.

A balm to the searing, burning, scorching landscape of his mind.

He stalks them through the tunnels of his home, following the moon-white glow of their carapace. They pick their way through with caution and confidence, not an ounce of fear.

They are aware of him, his presence, the threat of him, but still no fear.

He charges them and there is a loud noise and a bright flash and he retreats, whimpering at a new point of searing, burning, scorching pain. They follow with something like interest, predatory but not hungry, unsure if this is territory they want to challenge him for.

The den is his—his den, his territory, his place—and he will fight them, drive them away, tear them apart and feast on them if they try.

They follow him at a sedate pace, creeping along until they reach where he sleeps. Where he eats. Where he keeps his fire. Where he lets his Serpent curl around him and croon into his ear. They follow and watch and do not challenge; they remove part of their carapace to reveal a face.

Brown skin that smells like sweat and frustration; black hair that is short and curled and stiff with something that makes him wrinkle his nose and growl, deep in his chest; a wide nose and flat cheeks and deep brown eyes and a curved mouth, all that set his hearts thumping in a baffling rhythm. He hisses at them and retreats further, though they make no moves to attack.

"I didn't know they made spiders that big," the interloper says, mouth curling further, eyes glittering. "Do you know the way out, little spider?"

Their mind sparks with something that is aggressive but not cruel, heat without burning, a bite that draws no blood.

He snarls, trying in vain to frighten them away, but that spark grows.

"Are you going to hurt me, spider?" They sound intrigued, amused, by the notion. "Gonna try to pin me down again and gobble me up?"

He retreats up the wall, retreats into the shadows, hoping the predator does not follow. To fight, yes, he is strong enough to fight but this strange new thing does not react the way they should. He growls and it does nothing at all to make the predator leave.

"If you want me to leave, spider, you're going to have to show me the way out," they say, strolling closer and closer. Their voice curls around their words strangely.

Where are you, captain?

He mutters it over and over again, scouring the tunnels for his captain, his One. Where has he gone? He was not meant to leave. Not his One.

His One said he would stay, called him spider and gave him food, gave him touch, a hand on his cheek, fingers on his horns, no pain. There is no pain when One touches him, calloused brown fingers firm but not unkind, tracing his marks and the dark veins on his skin.

One called him broken, unbalanced, dangerous, and touched him gently still.

Maul calls out for him, again and again. Where are you, captain? Where did you go? Why did you leave me? Why do you not speak? Why do you hide from me?

His captain said he would not leave Maul, would not leave his spider. But he is gone. Maul is alone again.

Maul has always been alone.

One is gone.

Perhaps One is not real.

Another figment of his broken mind. No round chin tilted in challenge. No brown skin hidden by white plastoid. No rumbling chest and lilted voice. No fathomless brown eyes to bore into his own.

But Maul can feel him still, he is sure of it. And when he sleeps, he falls into nightmares not his own, he is sure of it. But he does not find One; the young man has One's face but yellow hair that does not smell of darkening dye.

He calls out to Maul in the shadows of their minds, asks Maul where he has gone, croons that Maul is safe with him. But he is a stranger. He is not One.

When Maul wakes from these nightmares of another broken mind, he resumes his search.