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Sitting in the larty back to the Negotiator—sore and tired, the adrenaline high long crashed out of his body—Rex’s thoughts keep circling the same abyss.
Would fewer men have died if Cody had gone with his plan instead of overruling him and putting forward his own instead.
It’s a punishing thread to pull on, one that leads inevitably to misery, but Rex keeps tugging all the same. It hadn’t been a bad assault, in the context of far worse assaults. Cody’s plan had worked; they’d pushed the Separatists back, they’d reclaimed the land, and far more pressingly, the mines that had been taken. Casualties had been well within what they could have predicted.
There’s no guarantee that Rex’s approach would have been any better. It might even have been worse.
Patchwork might still be alive.
Someone else might be dead in his place.
They’ll never know. They’ll never know, because Cody had made the call, and Rex’s protests had been shut down. Because he was the commander and Rex only a captain.
Rex clenches his jaw, an ache that rarely fully settles building in his skull.
Sometimes the gulf built into their very existence stretches so far Rex can’t see the other side. Cody makes the decisions, he can only obey.
The tension he’s carrying blooms into a headache by the time he’s jumping down from the larty into the Negotiator’s hangar. Cody has a debrief to attend, and Rex has plenty of his own work to get through. It’s usually enough time to put this sort of resentment to settle. Because he needs it to settle. He and the 501st will be gone as soon as the resupply ships arrive. He can’t bear to waste one of the slivers of time together with Cody because he’s pissed off.
But he doesn’t want to have to deal with Cody right now.
Rex throws himself into the monotony of clean up. Nothing is enough to distract him the way he’d like, but each task bleeds into the next and he doesn’t have to come up with excuses to avoid Cody. If anything, he’d need an excuse to leave some of this behind to go see him. He’s walked miles back and forth around the ship addressing one problem, then another, before being called back to where he started.
It can’t last forever. Cody sends him a message sometime after they’ve both worked through latemeal. It blinks in the corner of his HUD. He lets it sit for almost a minute, but he can’t ignore it; there’s no way of knowing if this is an order from his superior or his partner checking in.
It’s both.
“Complications with some of the recovered intel. Can you deal with it before Mute and Proxy do something one of them will regret? Let me know if you want me to pick up something for your headache at the same time I get something for mine.”
Rex closes the message and immediately reopens it. He needs to acknowledge it.
“Copy that, sir.”
If it reads as too formal, well, they’re both tired and busy. Cody will get over it.
Mute and Proxy get their act together the moment they have an officer breathing down their necks, the problem evaporating into nothing. Sometimes his rank does more work than he does.
Sometimes Fives and Echo must feel the same way about him as he’s feeling about Cody. It’s all so fucked.
By the time he’s finished with Mute and Proxy things are finally starting to wrap up and he’s out of distractions and his mood is no better than it was before.
He showers and changes in the communal showers rather than taking advantage of Cody’s private fresher. There’s no real invitation to come to Cody’s quarters once Rex is free, but only because they’ve been long past needing to issue invitations. It’s assumed. If Rex doesn’t go, his absence will be glaring. He doesn’t want to hurt Cody’s feelings, but he also doesn’t want to start a fight. He’s not sure if both are possible.
And as much as he wants some space to cool off, that space comes at a cost. How soon until the 501st and 212th will separate and he’ll regret having not spent every minute he could with Cody?
It would be easier if he could talk about it, but everyone he could talk to about it with is under Cody’s command in some way or another. Rex can’t undermine Cody by complaining about him and he can’t drag others in that position, caught between two of their superior officers.
Rex’s feet take him to Cody’s quarters, though he’s still unhappy with his decision. Cody looks at least as tired as Rex feels, dark circles under his eyes, scuffs and bruises littering body to match the ones on Rex. It would be nice to cross the room and kiss him. They could just curl up in Cody’s bunk and Rex could put all of this aside.
It’s what he’s done before.
His stomach twists.
“Hey,” Cody says, and some of the weariness leaves his face as he smiles at Rex. Rex tries to smile back, but it tastes bitter that Cody’s decision hasn’t affected Cody like it had Rex.
“Hey,” Rex says, stiff even to his own ears.
“Were you able to sort out—”
“Yes.”
“Are they still speaking to each other?”
“Probably.” Rex needs to say more, but nothing more comes. He busies himself with his kit, putting his back to Cody sitting cross-legged on the bunk. His own blanket—because Cody is an unrepentant blanket thief—is near the top of his bag, but he digs deeper anyway.
“Any other issues?” Cody asks, and doesn’t clarify what sort of issues he’s asking about: professional or personal.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Rex says. He pulls out his blanket, laying it over the back of Cody’s chair.
Cody’s eyes are locked on him. The warmth that had greeted Cody cooling. Rex should say something, anything, to get the conversation moving. He can act normal until this mood passes. It’s what he’s always done. His foul mood is a block in the middle of his skull that his thoughts can’t move past without snagging on, dragging some of it with them.
“Do you—”
“I’m tired, Cody,” Rex interrupts. “I think I’m going to just crash.” He pauses, but Cody is still just looking at him, frowning ever so slightly. “I can go back to my quarters if you’re not ready to sleep. Or if you want to blow off some steam with someone else.”
Cody doesn’t take the hint. “No, that’s fine,” he says, ice biting at the edges of his tone.
It looks like they are going to fight. The part of Rex that has been turning over the argument in his head since he got back bares its teeth, ready to go for blood. The part of him that knows Cody’s teeth are just as sharp leads him into the fresher. The fresher is barely big enough to turn around in, and doesn’t get him out of Cody’s eye line.
Rex grabs his toothbrush, one that is always waiting for him next to Cody’s even though he’s only here a couple of nights a month. If they’re lucky. He squeezes toothpaste out onto the brush and doesn’t meet Cody’s eye in the mirror’s reflection.
Cody bores a hole in his back.
The scrape of his brush over his teeth is too loud in the thick tension of the room. He spits the toothpaste out into the sink, sticks it back under the water, but doesn’t get as far as putting it back in his mouth.
“Are you planning to tell me what crawled up your ass and died?” Cody asks.
Rex doesn’t turn around. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Cody scoffs, and Rex can feel the eyeroll even if he can’t see it. He presses his teeth together and ignores the way the ache in his jaw doubles. Cody never talks about anything he doesn’t want to. He’s stubborn and uncooperative, forcing Rex to drag confessions out like trying to separate a massiff from its bone, or wait until the storm passes and Cody will act like it never happened.
But he can’t extend the same courtesy to Rex.
“Rex,” Cody says.
Don’t. Don’t.
“Can you just leave it?” Rex asks, knowing that Cody won’t. Cody can’t leave anything alone, unable to stand not knowing something. Even things that aren’t his to know.
“It’s hard to leave it when you’ve dragged it in here and dropped it on our floor.”
He hadn’t. This isn’t mud he’s tracking all over the floor. This is something that was planted under the surface before they even met, something that will keep breaking up through the ground no matter how many times Rex cuts it back.
It’s Cody’s turn to do some of that work.
“Rex?” Cody prompts. He could order Rex to talk. He won’t, but he could.
Rex slams down his toothbrush, spinning around to face Cody. “It’s fucking aiwhashit that we aren’t equals.”
Cody's posture closes up with a straightening of his back and a lifting of his chin. In an instant Commander Cody is in the room with them. He’s always in the room. Sometimes they’re just better at pretending.
“Meaning what, exactly?” It’s recon; putting down nothing while he gets a lay of the terrain. Only once he knows where he stands will Cody decide if he’s going for blood.
Rex will decide it for him. “This morning. The fucking plan.”
Cody’s eyes narrow for the briefest second when Rex swears at him. Rex swallows down the triumphant bitterness that he’s right; Cody can’t keep it straight either. He can’t always remember if Rex is a subordinate not showing him due respect, or his partner who can say and do whatever he damn well likes.
What comes out of Cody’s mouth is all the careful precision of the commander. “I’m not in a position to disregard my own judgement in favour of yours simply because of our relationship.”
Rex steps out of the fresher, back into the cramped room, made smaller by Cody refusing to keep them tidy. So carefully chosen and it’s the most insulting thing he could have said. “Is that what you think I want? Do you think that little of me?”
“I think incredibly highly of you.” He hesitates, just for a second, and Rex sees him win the battle with the same nasty part of himself Rex is at risk of losing his own battle against. It won’t last. With that same officer calm, Cody continues, “Your plan was a gamble. Mine was more resistant to unexpected—”
“It’s not about the plan. It’s not about—” He’s not interested in rehashing the discussion from this morning. He knows why Cody made the choice he did. Both plans had merit, and Cody had given Rex’s the consideration it was due. He just had decided his was better and Rex could protest, but ultimately his protests didn’t mean anything when they were up against Cody’s rank.
The massiff in him tugs at its chain, snapping and snarling. If Rex wants to be cruel he can be, he knows where to hurt Cody the most. He jerks it back into line. As much as he can. This isn’t Cody’s fault. It feels a little like Cody’s fault.
“It’s so frustrating when you overrule me.” It sounds childish, a captain whining to his captain. It’s not about that. It doesn’t fester the way it does with Cody. “You overrule me, and I fall into line. Every time. And then, even when it blows up in our faces, I have to pretend I’m not pissed.”
Cody is still holding himself too straight. If he were just Rex’s commander he’d give Rex the dressing down of his life. He’s not just Rex’s commander.
“We agreed we would keep this separate,” he says, voice low. It’s almost as calm as the rest of it. Almost. The part that isn’t feels like an accusation.
They had agreed. It had felt so easy at the time to promise not to let the war and their ranks bleed into their relationship. It had been pathetically naive. But they’d wanted it so badly for it to work.
“That’s easier for you to say when separate requires more of a sacrifice from me than from you.” When keeping it separate means Cody makes the decision and Rex has to pretend to be okay with them. When keeping it separate means that some of the time they’re equal partners, but the rest of the time every word that leaves Cody’s mouth is valued more than every word from Rex’s. “And what does that even mean? Separate.” Rex spits out the word. “There is no separate, Cody. This is what we are.”
They’re soldiers. Cody is a commander. Rex is a captain. Cody is Rex’s commanding officer. These aren’t parts of them that can be boxed up when they aren’t needed so they can be just Cody and Rex. They mix together until there’s no telling one from the other.
Cody’s private quarters are proof of it. Some of Rex’s things linger here, his toothbrush, some candy he likes that Cody doesn’t, a bottle of fancy wine they’d promised not to drink without the other. Cody had swiped it from some soiree that he’d been expected to appear at and make bland, polite conversation for the war effect—one Cody had been ordered to attend but Rex hadn’t.
But the wine is in the same locker that Cody’s armour lives in. Cody’s multiple datapads—some of which he darkens the screen on when Rex is behind him—are on his desk, his contraband personal one—the one Rex uses to watch limmie when he’s staying here—sitting next to the four GAR issue ones.
They’ve fucked in that bed, but it’s a bed owned by the GAR on a battleship.
They were given life by the same force that sent them to war.
Cody sits on the bunk in his private quarters earned by his rank and clenches his jaw. “What do you expect me to do?” Cody asks.
It’s the question that has stopped Rex from letting this happen before. “Nothing,” he says. “There’s nothing either of us can do.”
Cody can’t promise he’ll always listen to Rex, not when his duty demands he trust his own judgement. Not when he’s earned the rank of marshal commander and Rex hasn’t.
Rex can’t promise to take it with grace. There’s no fixing this. It just is.
The only way forward is for Rex to learn to live with it or to walk away.
The silence stretches until it festers, turning into something visceral and nasty that Rex doesn’t know how to end. He stands in the doorway to the fresher and Cody sits on the bunk. They look at each other because neither of them want to look away first.
He doesn’t want Cody to agree with him because Cody loves him, he wants Commander Cody to agree with him, because he always believes that Rex’s approach is the right one. It’s a pathetic thought, one of a small cadet who still hopes their sergeant will pat them on the head and tell them their average scores are great.
But he can’t walk away. Having to swallow it down is so bitterly unfair.
Cody manages to find a way through the heavy silence first.
“It wasn’t a bad plan,” Cody says. It might be an attempt at a peace offering.
“Don’t fucking patronise me.”
“I don’t.” Cody’s eyes flash. “Not ever. I respect you enough to overrule you when I disagree. I’ve never once gone against my judgement, because I thought you needed your feelings spared. It’s not fair to punish me for doing my job.”
“I’m not punishing you!”
“But you are angry with me!” Cody finally raises his voice, finally lets his own frustration boil over. It shouldn’t feel good.
Cody doesn’t get it. He doesn’t want to get it. Cody who is stubbornly immovable when a general disagrees with him. Cody can push back against them, and not have to worry about how it makes them look like Rex has to worry.
“I am,” Rex says, “but that doesn’t make this a punishment. You didn’t do anything wrong.” It would be better if he had, if there was blame to be laid at Cody’s feet for him to answer to. No one did anything wrong. Rex feels wronged. “I’m pissed the same way I would be with any commanding officer overruling me. Like you are when Kenobi or Skywalker don’t listen to you.
“I’m not them,” Cody says, and means it all the ways he possibly can. Rex doesn’t love them like he loves Cody. They didn’t earn their superiority over Cody in the same level playing field Cody earned over Rex. When Cody and Rex are angry with them they don't have to feel guilty.
“You mean when you overrule me, you’re right, but when they overrule you, they’re wrong?” he says. “Because you think you’re smarter than me, but also smarter than them.”
It’s putting words into Cody’s mouth, but now they’re out of Rex’s he can’t undo them.
Cody’s lip curls in disgust. “I trust your opinion, Rex,” he says, and it manages to be the coldest thing he’s said all evening. “You’ve swayed me from lines of action I was certain of, changed my mind more often than anyone else ever has…” Cody doesn’t say that there’s a reason he’s a commander and Rex isn’t, but it boils between them. Would there be any coming back from it if he did put that into words? “Sometimes I think you focus too much on the small picture. I’m responsible for the bigger picture.”
“Don’t.” Rex says.
Cody keeps going anyway. “Your faith in your men is admirable, but sometimes you’re unwilling to plan around potential inadequacies.”
“I’m not interested in a performance review,” Rex snaps. The words burn a pit in his chest, snagging on faults he already knew he had, but had pretended that Cody wouldn’t be able to see.
“I’m not particularly interested in giving one,” Cody says coldly, “but here we both are. I warned you. When this started, I told you I couldn’t give you preferential treatment. You promised me you wouldn’t hold that against me.”
He had promised. He’d meant it when he said it too. It’s not any fairer for Cody to have to balance his decision making against Rex’s feelings than it is for Cody to expect his decisions to never piss Rex off.
It’s why these sort of relationships aren’t allowed. If they were natborns they’d be ripped a new one for this, but with clones, either no one has looked hard enough to notice, or no one has put together that there might be anything worth noticing.
“I’m not trying to hold it against you,” Rex says. “But I can’t pretend that I don’t.”
Cody looks down. He clenches his jaw, glares at his hands, and then looks back up at Rex. He’s tucked some of the anger away, but that only makes the hurt more obvious.
“Then I’m not sure what you want to happen here,” he says, with the same precision that cuts through his professional and personal life.
Rex doesn’t know. He’s asking for reality to rewrite itself. He’s asking to be allowed to be annoyed at Cody for things that are Cody’s fault and not have things that neither of them wanted built between them.
“This isn’t fair,” Rex says.
“It’s not,” Cody agrees. “Can you live with it?”
He loves Cody so much.
“I guess we have to.”
“I guess we do.”