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When he’d taken command of the Negotiator, he’d programmed the daily alarm in his stateroom to brighten the ambient light by increments, in an attempt to match the pattern of a normal day in the Temple. Obi-Wan regretted that now. Late night planning sessions with his command staff had a thoroughly adverse effect on his ability to face the ‘sun’ with equanimity. Beside him, Cody yawned and turned over. Obi-Wan felt Cody’s fingers smooth over the top of his head. He twitched his nose, and the fingertip trailing down between his eyebrows disappeared. The pillow sank underneath his head as he sighed and turned his face up to the ceiling. He opened his eyes and light forcibly shoved its way into his brain.
“Oh, no, that’s enough of that,” Cody said, and his cool roughened hand slipped over Obi-Wan’s eyes.
“Enough of…seeing?” Obi-Wan asked. The corner of his mouth curled, quite out of his control. “This seems a bit irregular, Commander.”
Cody’s laugh wavered in the air between them. Obi-Wan could hear the rustle of his body amongst the bedclothes, and his body rocked slightly as Cody rose up in the bed and disturbed the mattress. The run-up of his presence against the currents of the Force surrounding them played at the edges of Obi-Wan’s mind, overtopping the normal swirling current of beings on the Negotiator. Obi-Wan tilted his chin upwards and let his mouth part.
“You’re sleeping, General,” Cody said above him, and Obi-Wan shivered. “It’s not time to get up yet.”
“I do believe I saw the light from my own alarm,” he said. “We have a war to win, you know.”
Cody hummed; he rubbed Obi-Wan’s temple with his broad thumb. “Suppose that’s true,” he murmured. “But I have fresh intelligence.”
“Do you indeed?”
Obi-Wan was on his back, a not uncommon occurrence, since, despite what Cody said, he did not have a tendency to curl into the nearest body ‘like a schwarbeck in a puddle.’ Still, the mattress being what it was, two bodies did often find themselves settling against one another in the night. Cody was delightfully cool, whereas Obi-Wan often found himself throwing off the blankets within half an hour of rest.
“Direct from the front,” Cody said.
The Force lapped at Obi-Wan’s fingertips, slipping along the underside of his forearms as if Cody was a wellspring. He made to turn on his side and found his head pressed back against the pillow by the hand still covering his eyes. He could feel Cody curl his arm around the top of his head, maneuvering carefully to avoid Obi-Wan’s hair; it had to be a blasted awkward position. The mattress shook as Cody tugged the sheet out from between their bodies and dragged it on top with his free left hand. Cody pulled the plain synth-cotton up to Obi-Wan’s waist and laid his arm on Obi-Wan’s stomach. Obi-Wan swallowed and licked his bottom lip. Cody’s body, heavy and solid, settled against him; he felt Cody’s breath on his forehead.
“By all means,” Obi-Wan said. “I trust you to get to the thrust of the argument.”
Cody’s chuckle reverberated between them, and Obi-Wan grinned. He raised his right hand to clasp Cody’s wrist. Cody turned his hand upwards and their fingers tangled.
Obi-Wan felt the air move around him, heard the faint hum of the scrubbers built into the walls of his stateroom. The Negotiator was a modern ship, but sound mufflers could only do so much. Cody’s breath was like what Obi-Wan imagined a bellows might sound like when well-regulated, steady and even, calming. He stretched out in the Force, a wavelet of presence that met the crest of Cody’s thoughts and joined in their circulation. He had such clarity of focus.
Cody brought their hands up and kissed their knuckles. “See, I heard,” he remarked, and kissed him again. “I heard the Seppies were so scared of you before caf that they’ve decided to cease hostilities until you’re up for at least an hour.”
Laughter bubbled up Obi-Wan’s throat and popped in the air. “Is that—is that so?”
“Ori’haat,” Cody said. He tapped Obi-Wan’s chest with their joined hands. “Tion ni jahaati?”
“Ni gar urmankala,” Obi-Wan said, and Cody’s next tap was a little harder. He grinned. “And how did you hear about that?”
Cody’s leg slid between Obi-Wan’s knees. He shivered as Obi-Wan turned his head to his left, closer to Cody’s body. His fingers slipped down to the bridge of Obi-Wan’s nose; Obi-Wan peeked out with one eye cracked open. Cody grinned at him.
“Back channels,” he said.
Obi-Wan groaned and Cody laughed out loud. He detangled their hands and rolled on top of Obi-wan, pressing him down against the mattress. The sheet slid down Cody’s back and fell to brush against Obi-Wan’s hands. He tangled his fingers into the cloth and pulled it tightly. The Force swirled about them, eddies of warmth and peace like waves folding against each other. Obi-Wan shuddered; his hips lifted from the bed under Cody’s weight.
Cody kissed him with soft lips and a hum in the back of his throat. He took Obi-Wan’s bottom lip between his teeth, gently, gently, and slipped the tip of his tongue into his mouth. Obi-Wan tugged on the sheet, pressing them more tightly together. The Force didn’t sing to Obi-Wan, like he’d been told it did to others. Nor did it bark or hum, turn ragged like the wind in a hurricane, or stretch tendrils of power like roots from a vine. To Obi-Wan the Force was like sitting on a raft in the middle of the open sea, calm and coaxing or deep and drowning by turns. The crush depth of the Universe lurking just beneath the slats of his control. Cody above him was solid and unwavering, the current that carried him forward.
“So you see,” Cody said as he drew back. “You need to go back to sleep. In the name of peace.”
Obi-Wan lifted his head from the pillow and held his mouth just below Cody’s. Cody’s hands cupped his head at the nape of his neck and slid into his hair, taking away the strain. It was shocking how much Obi-Wan want—not wanted, but felt around this man. How dangerously, wonderfully necessary he was. It wasn’t—
Cody kissed him, then, deeply and slowly, like a sneaker wave, and Obi-Wan lost his train of thought. He stuttered a breath inward as Cody pulled away and looked down at him. His eyes were so dark.
Obi-Wan chuckled with more air than noise. “For peace?” he asked.
The dips and whorls of Cody’s scar stretched when he smiled, and Obi-Wan risked letting go of the sheet to raise his right hand to touch the nearest furrow. Around them the lights brightened again. Cody rocked down against him, the weight of his body holding Obi-Wan in place in his own mysteriously addictive manner.
“The longer you’re in bed,” Cody said, solemn but for the indent at the corner of his mouth, “the longer the Seppies will stay in their bases.”
“Until I’ve had my morning caf.”
Cody nodded. “Exactly.”
“And this has been confirmed by our own intelligence?”
Cody’s knees dug in between Obi-Wan’s thighs, and Obi-Wan found himself relaxing, as if his body could float, spreading them wider to accommodate. Their cocks brushed as Cody slipped lower. Cody was soft but thick against him; his hair tickled.
“I checked it out personally,” Cody said.
“Well,” Obi-Wan said. He nodded. “I can’t refute the logic.”
Cody shook his head and laughed softly. “No, you really can’t.”
Obi-Wan could smell caf from the kitchen area bubbling in the automatic timed maker. He sighed and wrapped his arm around Cody’s back. Cody lay against him and kissed his ear.
“Just a little longer, then,” Obi-Wan said, shutting his eyes.
The Force flowed along them and within them, splashing up to envelope their bodies, slippery but calm. Cody’s body lay heavy on top of him, with no sense of urgency or want, just the relief of his skin against Obi-Wan’s heat and the tidal rush of his breath. He rolled to his side, and Obi-Wan shuddered in the sudden looseness of freedom, but Cody only pulled him close again.
“Sleep, but also breathing,” he muttered into the top of Obi-Wan’s head.
Obi-Wan set his forehead against Cody’s chest. “I’m sure that’s not how it goes,” he muttered.
Cody squeezed the nape of Obi-Wan’s neck. “Obi’ka.”
Obi-Wan laughed and felt Cody’s own body shake. “Fine, fine,” he said. “I’ll sleep.”
“Lights, twenty-five percent,” Cody said.
The room dimmed.