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Alpha-17 had some concept of his size before the arrival of the Jedi. He's an early batch — not the first with their misaligned proteins and mismatched tempers — but early enough that Prime still had a passing interest in the bartered goods bearing his features.
Alpha-17 first meets Prime in one of the training rooms, a cramped clutch of rooms with a padded floor and the lights on the walls already flickering through damp casements. He's still shiny and new, a handful of months out of his tube and carefully third in his class, and Prime pauses in front of him.
Alpha-17 looks down at him, a pang of recognition that sours in the same instance scouring in his chest. There's no clear reflections on Kamino, the metal panels rounded, the windows smudged and algae-stricken, so Alpha-17 knows his face by his brothers, by the template by which they're made. Prime doesn't know this.
"Big, aren't they?" He says to one of the scientists, grins around the smoke balanced at the corner of his mouth and Alpha-17 hates him. No context needed or given, just a primal fury that burns a fresh causeway through his veins and keeps him upright through everything that follows.
Alpha-17 is head and shoulders and chest taller than his brothers, head and shoulders taller than the Kaminoans, and he towers above the galaxy at large, broad and solid and noticeable in a way that makes his skin crawl beneath his armour.
Even now, technically on shore leave and technically out of his armour, the gaze scuff across his shoulders and his hips. Alpha-17 doesn't shift where he stands just behind Obi-Wan's ongoing argument — comfort isn't required of a soldier of the Republic — but he straightens his spine into further exacting alignment, folds his features into blank neutrality.
"The online booking form says there are a variety of rooms available," Obi-Wan points out, his hands folded in the sleeves of his robe. It's a lighter version than his typical garb, a nod to the sticky heat of the planet, with pale gauzy fabric over his shoulders and arms and his robes falling at the edge of his hips. His leggings are made from similarily pale fabric, baggy at the ankle and gauze beneath the knee.
His hair is damp and dark with sweat, a few strands clinging to his neck where they've fallen from the bun he'd wound his hair into that morning.
The proprietor tries to draw himself upright, an instinctual flare of the spines around his neck clicking against the jewellery he's heaped against them. He's reptilian, baked dry from the heat and time, and he blinks sideways at them both, ostensibly speaking to Obi-Wan even as his gaze drifts, magnetised to Alpha-17.
"We're full," he states once more, his Basic clipped through his pride.
Alpha-17 isn't surprised.
The clones are a curiosity closer to the Core planets with enough propaganda and media coverage to plaster a destroyer with, but out here, they're little better than droids who could blink.
It requires a battle plan, divide and conquer, so Cody is watching over the troopers en mass , and Alpha-17 keeps guard on Obi-Wan so he doesn't wander into a fighting pit or a gambling den or an antique auction or just off the side of a mountain. The fact that the planet is entirely flat is irrelevant.
"You have no other bookings," Obi-Wan repeats, still pleasant, still smiling. "And I can pay the agreed price."
The proprietor scuffs out something sharp, his tongue snaking out between his teeth as he does so. He glances at Alpha-17, then away, then back once more.
Alpha-17 breathes evenly, the heat scorching his lungs clear and sapping every ounce of moisture from him until not even Kamino could replenish it, and imagines snapping the man's neck.
"They arrived after your attempt," the proprietor sniffs.
The room keys gleam on the hooks behind him, every piece accounted for except for the set resting beneath his claws, offered before he'd took in Alpha-17's face.
"It's one room," Obi-Wan insists, patience as thin as the gauze against his shoulders. There's a dark trail of freckles that follow the curve of his shoulder blade, neatly bisected in three and four by a thick scar, healed dark and slightly raised. "For one day."
Come with me today, Obi-Wan had said earlier, a request instead of an order with the space for Alpha-17 to refuse carefully carved out. There's fireworks on in the evening and we can get a room to hide away in until then, watch those strange shows the Padawans have introduced the Troopers to.
He should have refused, wanting isn't even an consideration on the regulations and Alpha-17 doesn't want. He follows his orders, the broad sweeps and the finer needlepoint, but want had never been a part of it. Until now.
Until him.
Sure, Alpha-17 answered, lances the immediare bright grin that Obi-Wan gives him with a shrug. If that's what you'd like to do, sir.
Obi-Wan, his General offers, the same space for refusal held and maintained in his outstretched hand. He didn't flinch, not when Alpha-17 stands fully, stands above him and around him, or when Alpha-17 folds as much of his fingers as he can into Obi-Wan's, battle-blunt and rough but as gentle as he can be.
And now they're here and Alpha-17 is trying but there's nothing about diplomacy in the regulations, in his gene sequence, only obedience and the rage he's fitted himself with. Nothing that would equip him for the battlefield of bastards who take one look at him and decide he's worthless.
"We're full," the proprietor insists, starting to drag the keys back along the countertop.
Obi-Wan's hand snaps out to stop him, faster than Alpha-17 can track even with his training, his finger crooked in the ring of keys as he pulls them closer. "You have an active investigation case for fraud in three different planetary jurisdictions, and one furious ex-husband who also has an open court case for missed payments against you. You are in financial ruin and I am offering a more than generous rate for a single room for the day and a promise that I won't alert the authorities to your location."
The man swallows, blinks sideways, and retracts his hand with a shudder. "The room is yours. Second floor."
"My greatest pleasure doing business with you." Obi-Wan's grin is sharp, reflected in the pale reflection of the proprietor's eyes, and he reaches behind for Alpha-17's hand once more, draws him forward.
There's a single narrow corridor before it branches into a narrower curving staircase. It's a slow torture, moving through most natborn buildings, a deliberate crush of Alpha-17's elbows against his ribs as he constricts his breathing, plaster dust decorating his shoulders, his hair, his eyelashes with every wavering blink. He doesn't think a complaint, braids his fresh score of bruises with the gentle tap of Obi-Wan's footsteps — two for every one Alpha-17 takes — and he keeps moving, keeps climbing up the stairs that creak beneath his weight and doesn't remember the gutted homes of the last planet, the smoking ruins they picked through.
"Here we are," Obi-Wan murmurs, nudging the door open and stepping back to allow Alpha-17 to surge forward, professional instincts burning in the base of his skull.
The room is small, cramped like most things are by Alpha-17's standards, with a bed wedged into the main section of the room alongside a low slung chest of drawers. A holoscreen hangs on the wall opposite, the corner already cracked and sending pixels spilling across the surface. The window is high on the wall, a thin screen haphazardly leaning against it with the dark specks of insects splattered across the surface, and Alpha-17 corrects it as he peers out into the empty sky beyond. "Clear, sir."
"My thanks, Alpha-17," Obi-Wan answers as he moves forward. He peers carefully into the corners of the room, his mouth moving silently as he runs through some calculations.
Alpha-17 watches him, the pale sweep of his lashes and the bright spot of colour high on his cheeks, a retaliatory sunburn beginning to darken the rough edge of his spine where his fingers would miss the centre of it. There's a single dark freckle on Obi-Wan's face against the scattered constellation on his shoulders, his arms, and Alpha-17 begins to trace patterns amongst the noise. It's a curved reflection of his training and never intended to be used like this, but Alpha-17 would continue all the same, wanting and waiting and listening to the rush of blood in his ears and his heart thumping in his chest. He's a good soldier. He's never thought to expect anything more than this, never considered asking even with the cherry hot brand burning against his tongue, the weight of an atmosphere that had never bargained with his size.
He is a good soldier.
"You prefer to be next to the door, yes?"
Alpha-17 catches the question between his teeth, bites down until his jaw aches. "Yes, sir."
He's already shelled out of his armour, slightly sticky with sweat that drips down his spine and pools beneath his arms, so there's nothing for him to spend time removing as Obi-Wan picks up the remote and scrambles onto the bed. He can only watch beneath his lashes, feigning at a propriety he's never sure fully covers him int he first place, peeking at the curve of Obi-Wan's spine, framed as his tunic rides up at one side and gets caught beneath him as he turns onto his back.
"Sit."
"I'm too big." Alpha-17 doesn't shy away from the reality of his build, of his batch. Big is how Prime described them, and big they are. Solidly built and broad and wide and entirely too much. Made for combat and then inflicted upon the galaxy at large to try and find a hollow that could hold them in the moments between.
"Not too big," Obi-Wan says, gentle as if he thinks Alpha-17 would break his restraint and bolt for the door, for the scant barrier of the window. "You're just you."
"If you say so, sir."
"I do."
Alpha-17 steps carefully, braces his palm on the ground before he turns over his hips to recline onto the bed next to Obi-Wan. It creaks beneath his weight, his breath snarled beneath his ribs, but he settles in a line next to Obi-Wan with his feet extended off the edge.
"Now, then," Obi-Wan shifts to sit up slightly and draws Alpha-17's arm behind his head, tugging Alpha-17 closer in fragments. "First episode."
Alpha-17 hums, not trusting his voice not to tremble and crack, the singular fragile thing about him.
"Good." Obi-Wan reclines back against him with a sigh, tips his head onto Alpha-17's shoulder. "Now, let's see what the fuss is about."