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“Kriff,” Obi-Wan shuddered as he popped in his third painkiller of the day. The searing pain in his head dulled to a nice, manageable numbness; the only kind of reprieve he’s had in ten plus years since Qui-Gon died. In the days leading up to the choosing, they’d been warned that if the training bond between a master and their padawan was broken without being resolved in the proper way, there would be dire consequences. All the younglings had just laughed through that speech, including Obi-Wan himself. None of them ever thought it would happen to them. Then Qui-Gon was murdered before his very eyes, snapping the training bond and doing everything Master Yoda had warned against.
And the pain never ended.
Well, that’s not entirely true, but you can’t blame him for the flair, right? That is his thing, after all.
He heaved a sigh and laid back down on the not quite comfortable enough cot he called home on his room in the Negotiator. He wasn’t used to much nicer given the Order’s rules and regulations about – how did Anakin put it when he grew old enough to realize the rest of the world had mattresses? “Being too comfortable leads to the path of sin and Sith.” He chuckled to himself and then winced when pain shot behind his eyes.
On nights like tonight, he would have given anything for a mattress.
Obi-Wan – and everyone else, frankly – had always considered himself a rule-follower. Some of the other younglings had called him a suck up, but he didn’t care. However, the longer this war went on the less he seemed to care about the rules. He would support and follow the Order to the best of his ability, especially being a member of the council, but many of the proprietors of these rules were meditating all day in the temple while he was on a ship in the middle of the vacuum of space. They could deal with him wanting just a small form of comfort when he saw hundreds of horrible and vicious acts daily.
He huffed out one more long sigh; he wasn’t going to get any sleep.
As he was about to drag his miserable carcass off his uncomfortable cot and out of his self-pity, he felt a familiar, warm force signature at his door. Sure enough, three short and well-practiced knocks rumbled through his room. Obi-Wan winced at the sound, but got up to get the door.
“Ah, hello Cody,” he smiled as if pretending to be surprised.
“General Kenobi, sir,” Cody smiled in return, though there was a glint in his eye. “I know you knew it was me. After as many times as I have seen you use the force, you still forget that we know you have magical space powers,” he grinned as he closed the door behind him, but stopped himself to tack on a “sir,” with a nod.
Obi-Wan felt a real laugh bloom in his chest. “And Cody, after as many times as I have told you, you still forget that you can call just me Obi-Wan. There’s no one else here,” the Jedi matched his tone, losing the serious expression he was trying to maintain. The two grinned at each other until Obi-Wan realized he was staring for too long to be considered normal.
“So um, what did you need Cody?”
“Well, I asked the boys and they said that you hadn’t been down to the mess to grab anything to eat. Its 2200, si- Obi-wan,” he corrected himself and pushed a covered plate into his general’s hands. “You need to eat. Especially with those headaches.”
Ah, yes. Food is supposed to help with headaches and Cody knows about his headaches. Just another strange thing about this, whatever this was.
Nothing. It is nothing, Obi-Wan has continued telling himself over and over, though he knows it is far from nothing. The fact that he turns warm and fuzzy whenever Cody is so much as in the room or the way that the forces sings whenever he looks at Obi-Wan. It could also be the way that his headaches from his broken bond dim whenever he thinks about Cody or it could be that they completely disappear whenever he can detect Cody’s warm force signature nearby.
Alright, so it really isn’t nothing, but Obi-Wan has willpower. He thinks back on it fondly and can still remember the first time it happened.
It was the landing at Point Rain, and Obi-Wan was hurting.
Badly.
He was sprawled out in the middle of the perimeter he and the clones had set to keep the Geonosians at bay, but they were soon to get overrun. He was in so much pain everywhere and barely cognitive, but all he could remember was that his men needed him. His transport ship had crashed and there were barely any of them left. In one final push of mental endurance, he stood, one hand clutching his no-doubt broken ribcage and the other igniting his lightsaber. He knew this is where he would die and he was okay with that, as long as he could protect a few of his men. Just as he was about to leap into the fray, all hell broke loose.
He heard a few of the men shouting “Bombers, get down!” Before he knew what was happening, he was blindly pulled down into a pair of armored arms and landed hard on a chest plate. When he expected to feel his rib crash and scream at him – they didn’t.
He looked up to see Cody’s face, no helmet – he would get onto him about that later, right now he was just glad they were both safe and- he wasn’t hurting.
For the first time in eleven years his head wasn’t hurting. He said something incoherent like that too, which caused Cody to become even more concerned.
“General? Sir? What do you mean you aren’t hurting anymore? General? Stay with me, please,” the clone commander looked over his shoulder, “we need a medic for the General! Hurry!” he shouted and turned his gaze back to blue eyes. “Stay with me, come on, stay with me Obi-Wan.”
It was the first time Cody had ever called him by his name and the most beautiful choir began singing in the force and the pain – there was no pain and Obi-Wan nearly cried.
Cody’s eyes went wide, “Obi-Wa- General, I’m-I didn’t mean- I’m sorry I used your-”
Obi-Wan cut him off by grabbing his hand. “Cody, if you keep doing whatever you are magically doing you can call me Obi-Wan as many times as you’d like,” he said almost blissfully.
Cody looked at him like he had grown a new head. “We really need to get you to a medic, sir.”
“Okay,” Obi-Wan had giggled – honest to force giggled, before the world went black.
It turned out the bombers were theirs and Cody learned to call him Obi-Wan in their free time when they were alone. Obi-Wan had even managed to not go crazy whenever the force started that beautiful melody whenever Cody had said his name.
“Uh, Obi-Wan?” Cody gazed at him with a knowing look.
Right. Cody had brought him dinner. It was a habit he and Cody had developed back and forth. They both got so caught up in work or training – headaches, too – that they forgot to eat. He cleared his throat and took the plate from him.
“Thank you, Cody. I appreciate it,” he settled for a warm smile which was returned. Cody was used to him zoning out.
“Anytime. Though, I hope you don’t mind company,” the clone said as he set himself up on Obi-Wan’s small couch in his quarters. “I expect to sit here and make sure you eat all of it,” he finished with a wry smirk. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes.
“Why Cody, it seems you have grown into the spitting image of my mother!”
Cody blushed, but managed to snort anyway. “You grew up in the temple, jetti. I know damn well your mother or your father never sat to watch you eat.”
Obi-Wan grinned. “Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori'wadaas'la.”
It was Cody’s turn to roll his eyes. “Di’kut.”
“But you still hang out with me anyway!”
“It’s my only job. Some would even say,” Cody leveled him with a blank face, “my purpose.”
There was a short second of silence before the both of them burst out laughing.
Obi-Wan sat his dinner down on the caf table and went to his small kitchen area to grab something to drink. “You want anything?” he asked, not even bothering to turn around and look at Cody. He grabbed his favorite tea mixture and Cody’s favorite caf from the fridge and closed the door.
“I think I’m okay, thank you though.”
Standard, Obi-Wan thought as he chuckled to himself. Cody would never ask him for anything. A pang went through his heart, but he ignored it. He placed his tea and water in the kettle to boil and walked back over to sit on the couch and handed Cody his caf cold, like he liked it. His vod always made fun of him for liking his caf cold and Obi-Wan always had to hide his grins when it happened or he would get an earful from Cody whenever they got somewhere private.
“Thank you,” Cody grinned as he took the caf from Obi-Wan’s hands.
Obi-Wan picked up his dinner and started eating; it was still warm.
“How is your head?” Cody asked, concerned.
Obi-Wan smiled, “it’s a little better.” Miraculously better, you could say.
“Have you been able to figure out why it happens?”
“I,” Obi-Wan sighed through his next sentence, stopping it on his tongue. There’s no pain when Cody’s here, but he can still see his master getting killed and the viciousness in Maul’s eyes. How he couldn’t keep him from killing Qui-Gon, or how he wasn’t fast enough to stop him from getting to Satine. He still dreams about them every night, his failures floating around in his mind even when he isn’t conscious, force forbid when he is awake enough to think about all of it.
“No, I haven’t been able to figure it out just quite yet,” he gives Cody his best reassuring smile. He hates lying to Cody; it makes his skin crawl, but he could never let him know why because if he did, then he would have to tell Cody why the clone’s presence resolved his headaches and he doesn’t think he could live with himself.
Well, it couldn’t be that bad.
Or he imagined what would happen if Cody thought that it was his duty to.. Obi-Wan had to stop bile from rising in his throat at the thought of poor Cody thinking that he had to pretend to love Obi-Wan just to stop his headaches. He’d say “it’s what I was made for, sir” and be on with it.
It made Obi-Wan sick.
“You’re lying,” Cody raised an eyebrow at Obi-Wan over his cup of caf. The Jedi choked on the horrible ration bar that came with his meal.
“What?”
“You’re lying,” he shrugged back at him. “You don’t have to tell me the truth if you don’t want to, and I’m not going to push you into it. You just can’t lie to me. I know you better than that, Obi-Wan.”
And the force sang a beautiful major chord and his insides became warm and fuzzy and Obi-Wan wanted to just reach over and-
“Kriff!” Cody jumped when the kettle went off, telling them Obi-Wan’s tea was ready. He had been so immersed in his mind that he hadn’t even noticed the kettle screeching.
“So sorry about that, I’ll go get that,” Obi-Wan hurriedly got up to go grab the tea kettle.
“Saved by the bell,” Cody spoke into his drink.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and came back to the couch with his mug. “I was not saved by the bell.”
“Oh so you were going to tell me the real reason for your headaches that I assume you have finally figured out but don’t want to tell me?” He smirked at his Jedi.
Seeing Cody smirking like him at that, even if it was at his own expense, made Obi-Wan want to throw the entire code away and tell him everything. Force, he wanted to tell Cody all of it, every last detail. Cody had no idea how much he wanted to tell him.
“Cody it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, I just,” Obi-Wan looked down at his drink, “The jedi were never good at talking. If we have trouble, we just lean into the force and it clears our heads. To be honest, I don’t know what to say or how to say it and I’m worried about it-”
“Hey,” Cody cut him off and looked at him with warm, amber eyes. “I was just teasing you. You don’t have to tell me anything.” He set his hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder and the jedi leaned into his touch automatically. “I’m just concerned because you’ve been even more zoned out than usual. I know-,” he looked away, and it struck Obi-Wan as odd. “I know that losing Satine hasn’t been easy on you.”
Obi-Wan gave Cody a soft smile when the clone looked back to meet his gaze. “You’re right, Cody. Losing Satine hasn’t been easy, but it’s not the only thing that troubles me. That on top of everything else just isn’t doing me any favors,” he bemused softly and covered Cody’s hand with his own, giving it a squeeze.
“Yeah, it must have been hard with the whole no attachment thing,” Cody chuckled. Obi-Wan immediately noticed the shift in Cody’s force signature. He was… nervous? He looked over at Cody’s face and he decided he didn’t need to be a Jedi to know that. Cody was blushing furiously – you could see it prominently on his dark-tanned skin.
Oh?
Oh.
Obi-Wan let out a belly-laugh. “Oh Cody, Satine? No Satine and I are not lovers, I- well, yes, I had a crush on her when I was a padawan assigned to protect her and I had very strong feelings for her, but we were both kids. Satine and I both knew we had no chance before she,” Obi-Wan paused. Cody gripped his shoulder a little tighter and he took comfort in the small and intimate motion. He nodded at Cody in thanks. “Before she died. I miss her dearly, but for the past sixteen years we’ve only been friends,” the jedi chuckled the last part.
Satine would have come back to life and smacked him if he would have said anything different, too, pacifism damned.
Cody’s eyes went wide and he blushed even more. Though, his essence in the force sent out a mix of remorse and relief. “Oh, sir – Obi-Wan, I wasn’t trying to. I was just, I didn’t realize-”
“Cody,” Obi-Wan squeezed his hand again, “it’s okay. I appreciate your concern.”
Cody gave him a sideways smile. “Always looking out for you, aren’t I?”
“I guess you are. Thank you for dinner, Cody.”
“No problem, Obi-Wan. I’m gonna hit my bunk. I have to be up 0600,” there was a glint in his eye again.
“You? Up at 0600?” Obi-Wan attempted his best to sound natural, but his tone was incredulous at best.
Cody laughed. “Yeah, I’m taking Boil’s watch shift.” Obi-Wan just raised a brow at him. “What? I am a kind and good person!”
“What did Boil do for you in return?”
Cody blushed and looked away again. “He took my watch shift.”
“Which was?”
“Right now.”
“Oh,” Obi-Wan’s breath hitched as he chewed on that thought. Cody had given up sleep to bring him dinner. The force started humming again, but he begged it to be quiet. “That’s,” he cleared his throat and settled on honesty. “Thank you, Cody,” he said as warmly as he could.
“Anytime. Goodnight, Obi-Wan,” he returned Obi-Wan’s smile and nudged his shoulder with his hip as he passed.
“Goodnight, Cody.”
It had to at least have been 0200, but Obi-Wan refused to roll over and look at the clock. His head had been pounding since Cody left and he was too proud to go take more painkillers. For the second time that night, he resigned himself he just wouldn’t get to sleep.
That was fine.
He would just use it as time to meditate; Obi-Wan rather liked meditating. As much time as he spent in the Living Force these days during battle, it was nice to slip into the all-encompassing Unifying Force and numb his feelings.
Obi-Wan sat cross-legged on his cot and closed his eyes. His breathing began to slow. In, two, three, four. Out, two three, four.
He was tired; all the Jedi were. This war was exhausting, draining, and to be honest – Obi-Wan didn’t quite agree with the Jedi Order spearheading it. He understood how it was necessary, but it went against some of the Order’s teachings.
Ah, another conundrum. the Order’s teachings.
At his heart, Obi-Wan was loyal to the Order; some would even say too loyal. (Anakin always called him a doormat for the Order, but that was for another time and it most certainly did not bother him. Breathe.) He was a rule follower and a member of the High Jedi Council. He couldn’t afford to break the rules.
He couldn’t afford to break, period. He couldn’t let the world gnaw at him and make him weak; he had to atone for all of the things he had allowed to happen: Qui-Gon’s death, Satine’s death, Ahsoka’s departure from the Order. All of it he could have prevented if he was faster, louder, more convincing. He had to make sure that the world kept spinning because if he took so much as one moment away for himself to meditate, it felt like he received four-hundred holocalls the moment he walked out of his room. He was pretty sure Cody had a lot to do with him not actually getting the calls while he was meditating, but he couldn’t be certain.
That’s just it – Cody.
The one thing that was simultaneously keeping him from the brink of disaster and was pushing him towards the cliff. He knew he had feelings for Cody; incredible, deeply intense, wonderful, warm feelings for Cody. Force, every time he saw him he wanted to breathe him in. And how many times had he lectured Anakin on the very same principle?
“It’s okay to have feelings, as long as you don’t act on them. They are natural.”
Force was he not acting on them. It took every ounce of training in him to not to.
Obi-Wan sighed and opened eyes; unsurprisingly, he – and several objects around him – were floating. It’s not an uncommon occurrence. In fact, one day Cody walked in on him during a particularly turbulent meditation and had to fight his way through flying teacups just to reach him. He had a bruise on his cheek forming from where he was sucker punched by a saucer and Obi-Wan had practically fawned over him.
Cody didn’t seem to mind, though.
He smiled, warm at the memory and carefully placed the various objects he had picked up during his meditation – pillows, blankets, cups, Cody’s caf mug he used for cold caf – where they were supposed to go. He brought Cody’s mug to his hands and felt twisting in his stomach. He closed his eyes and held the mug close to his heart, thinking about what it would be like if there were more of the clone commander’s things littering his room.
He needed to get to bed quickly before he did something stupid like sprint to Cody’s private quarters and wake up him before his 0600 shift. Obi-Wan put the mug back on his nightstand and looked at the clock.
- Kriff.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day. He cocooned into his blankets and found he was quite tired.
“About kriffing time,” he mumbled as he drifted off.
The first thing he noticed was the horrible cold. The second thing he registered was the darkness. Both were unrelenting; both were all encompassing. Obi-Wan shuddered.
He couldn’t see anything; it was so dark he could barely see his own hand. He fumbled for his lightsaber and ignited it, but the light vanished into the vacuum of nothingness. He was alone. He began walking forward slowly, shuffling his feet to make sure that there was still ground underneath him. Obi-Wan still didn’t know where he was, and he didn’t feel like taking any chances.
After a few minutes of stumbling, something up ahead caught his attention. It was… a cradle? A crib? He couldn’t tell the difference, if he was being honest. He never spent much time in the creches. He continued towards it and stopped, just before he could peer inside. The cold seemed to be radiating from this object. It was frigid – so much so that Obi-Wan’s teeth began to chatter, as if he wasn’t already weary enough. Steeling himself, he looked inside the cradle.
Two sets of eyes, one intense blue and the other a cooling brown looked up at him from the cradle. Twins it looked like, a girl and a boy, lay swaddled into the cradle. The girl smiled up at him and reached her stubby fingers up towards him.
He smiled and reached his pointer finger for her to grab, until he heard it. A repetitive and incessant beeping drew his attention. It seemed to be coming from the cradle itself.
Odd.
He looked under the cradle, but there was nothing. He looked behind the cradle, but there wasn’t anything else there, either. It was strange, but the noise didn’t go away. In fact, it began speeding up between clicks. It was like…
A bomb.
Obi-Wan panicked and picked up the two children to find the detonation device had been under the children the whole time. He moved to get the children away from the bomb and-
A bright flash of white and then nothing for a few moments.
He blinked his eyes open, and again he felt that sense of fear. But unlike last time, he knew exactly where he was. He was on Naboo, and he was stuck behind a ray shield.
He looked over and Qui-Gon was in the middle of an intense fight with Darth Maul. Obi-Wan had seen this play out over a million times in his head. Qui-Gon was slowly losing his footing, and Maul was viciously taking every opportunity to expose the weakness he saw in Qui-Gon’s defenses.
He knew it was coming, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He held his breath, he released his breath, he tried to run into the ray shield. He tried to do anything to stop it or to get himself to do something, anything, but nothing was working. He watched motionless as Maul stabbed Qui-Gon and then the ray shield subsided.
Obi-Wan watched out of body as he saw himself charge Maul, hacking and slashing in a style – if you could even call it a style – that wasn’t his own. Eventually, he was able to best Maul and send both halves of him tumbling into the fathomless darkness below. He watched as he ran over to Qui-Gon and knelt next to him, cradling his body. It was then he felt himself sucked back into first person and it felt like he was experiencing it all over again. The pained look in Qui-Gon’s face when he told him Anakin was the chosen one. The pain he felt when Qui-Gon’s last words were meant for him. And then the-
Snap.
Searing pain shot throughout his body when Qui-Gon took his final breath. Obi-Wan screamed and shouted until his throat was raw, but the pain was unending. It’s like he had taken an electrowhip to the brain, and it never stopped shocking. He could barely breathe, the pain was so unbearable; all he could do was hold Qui-Gon’s body close to his own.
He knows how this goes; he will black out in a few minutes and wake up and it will all be over, except for the stinging headache.
Except, it doesn’t happen that way.
Qui-Gon’s head does a three-hundred sixty degree turn and it comes back and Obi-Wan is holding Satine’s face in his hands.
“Obi-Wan,” she softly stutters.
“Satine?” his eyes grow panicked. “Satine, how are you here? You are alive and safe on Mandalore right now. Satine, please,” tears welled in his bloodshot eyes.
“Remember Obi-Wan. I have loved you always,” she shuddered one final breath and went limp.
“Satine! Satine no! Please, come back to me. You aren’t dead yet, Satine!” he sobbed and buried his face into her neck.
The hair on his arms began to stand up as he felt the most unnatural slide of skin on his neck. He reared back and to his horror, Satine’s head now did a three-hundred sixty degree turn and in her place was Co-
No. No this wasn’t possible.
“Cody?” Obi-Wan’s breath hitched in the most ragged and worst way. “Cody you aren’t dead. I know you aren’t dead yet. You- you. Cody no,” he put a hand on his commander’s cheek and the clone nuzzled into it.
“It’s okay cyare,” he mumbled, his eyes beginning to glaze over. “Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum.”
“Cody? Cody no please don’t leave me, cyar’ika. Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum. I love you, Cody. I love you, I love you, ni kar'tayli gar darasuum. Please don’t leave me too,” Obi-Wan choked out a sob.
“Good soldiers follow orders,” the clone sighed and closed his eyes.
Obi-Wan screamed and tried to move but no noise came out. Nothing happened, no matter how hard he willed himself to move or make a sound. He sat there, silently cradling Cody’s dead body. Obi-Wan began to shiver. Then he heard it – the sound that always haunted him and made him sick.
It was smooth mechanical sound of a respirator slowly, distinctly, and always taunting him. He didn’t know what it was, but it was always there. An undercurrent to every bad thing that has ever happened to him.
“Leave me alone!” he shouted into the air, not knowing where the shadowy breathing came from.
“That’s it. Give into your anger,” a distorted, mechanical voice replied. “Embrace the dark. Hate.”
“I will never hate you,” Obi-Wan grit his teeth.
“Then you will die a fool.” There was a flash of red, and Obi-Wan put his hands up to defend himself.
Obi-Wan shot out of bed, taking shallow, gasping breaths.
He ran a hand through his damp hair and heaved out a sigh. It was a dream; it was all a dream. He was okay, the force was just playing tricks on him again. One – he just wanted one night of rest. Qui-Gon and Satine were still dead and there was nothing he could do about that, but Cody was alive and okay.
His pulse finally began to slow down. Cody was alive and okay and for some reason, Obi-Wan knew exactly where he was on the ship. He had always been able to track Cody’s force signature rather well, but being able to sense him through all of the metal walls and bodies in The Negotiator was – new, to say the least.
The only way he could logically be able to do this was if he had made a force bond but he knows he hadn’t done that. He specifically made sure not to when he and Cody began getting close because he knew that if he did he wouldn’t be able to control himself and-
His headache was gone.
Not numb. Not weak. Gone.
He almost cried. His headache was actually non-existent and he hadn’t taken any painkillers. He was so excited; he had to go tell Cody and celebrate the joyous news! He would be so excited to know that the headaches he had been helping Obi-Wan with were gone. Obi-Wan smiled happily and felt warmth radiate in him. Huh, that was strange. It was almost like someone had sensed he was happy, and he felt it sent it back to him twofold.
Kriff. Force. Fuck.
He had a bond with Cody.
Obi-Wan guessed he made it in his sleep, out of pure terror of losing Cody, but kriff this was not good. He had never had Cody die in his dreams before – always Qui-Gon and sometimes Satine, but never his commander. He didn’t know what to do.
On one hand, he was so over joyously happy. His headache was gone and this no doubt had something to do with the bond he now shared with Cody. On the other hand, if he began to act on this bond, he would be directly going against the Jedi Code and everything he has worked towards for his entire life. He would go meditate, but he has been meditating on this matter for the past two years at large. Meditating would probably only make things worse, especially if Cody could feel every emotion he was having now.
Obi-Wan was weary from years and years of losing: people, battles, happiness, more people. He knew about Anakin and Padmé’s marriage, and he kept covering up when his old padawan would slip, unbeknownst to the two love birds. As horrible as he felt for breaking the Code, he was always so much happier at the end of the day knowing he had preserved Anakin’s happiness. The small bit of satisfaction that came from pulling one over on Mace had always helped.
The Jedi were peacekeepers, preserving happiness all over the galaxy. He deserved to have it to, dammit.
Force, Obi-Wan was so tired of denying himself the only thing that kept him from falling off the edge. He was so tired of it.
Kriff.
He needed to find Cody.
Obi-Wan took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He wanted to do this. He needed to do this. He opened his eyes and knocked the same three series pattern Cody knocks on his door before he enters.
There was some rumbling around behind the door and if Obi-Wan heard correctly, a few misplaced “kriffs” after a loud bang. He tried to cover his grin and found he couldn’t, so when Cody opened the door and looked at him like he was a crazy person it just made him laugh harder.
“Obi-Wan?” he wondered, barely awake.
“Hello there,” the jedi quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Obi-Wan!” Cody’s eyes shot open and his posture changed immediately to attention. “I mean, uh, general, sir,” he coughed. “Are you okay? It’s,” he checked over his shoulder. “Kriff, it’s 0415,” the commander had to stifle a yawn.
“Cody, Obi-Wan is fine,” he smiled at him. He took a breath. “May I come in? I-I have something I need to tell you.”
“Of course, come in,” he stepped aside to let Obi-Wan in, full of concern. It made Obi-Wan feel as warm and amber as Cody’s eyes. He sat down on Cody’s cot and looked at the ground for a few moments. It wasn’t until he felt the makeshift bed divot, that he realized Cody had sat next to him. “Are you okay Obi-Wan?”
“Your cot is soft.”
“Uh,” Cody blinked at him. “Yeah, I have a mattress.”
“Hmm,” he said, staring forward seeming not to look at anything. “The Order doesn’t allow us to have mattresses,” he turned to look at Cody. “I think I might break the rules and get one.”
Cody burst out into a full belly laugh. “They don’t allow you to have mattresses?”
“Unfortunately for my back,” he grinned at Cody.
“All due respect, si- Obi-Wan,” he said with that glint in his eye, “but the Order has some dumb rules.”
Obi-Wan tried to lose his grin, but couldn’t. “No offense taken. I find that I rather agree with you.”
“You do?”
“Yes, as much as you lot may think, I’m not that strict.”
“You know we don’t think that you-”
“Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum.”
A moment of silence.
“Obi-Wan?” Cody risked a whisper.
“I love you, Cody.”
“Obi-Wan, I,” the commander inhaled a sharp breath.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. For two years, in fact,” he chuckled shakily. Cody took another sharp breath at that. “I disagree with a lot of what the Order has to say. I will stand by them until the day I day or the day they kick me out, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love you and that will not change. I have willed it away and meditated; I have tried releasing you into the force, but every time you come back.”
Cody was being very quiet and Obi-Wan was silently wishing he had kept his big mouth shut.
“We are in a war, Obi-Wan,” Cody started quietly. “We are in a horrible war and I have watched so many of my brothers die and every day I wonder who will be next and I thought I was a horrible person. Because every day, I wished that it wouldn’t be you,” he met Obi-Wan’s gaze. “You are my Jedi, and I love you. And I will love you until the day I die.”
Obi-Wan’s heart sank. “Cody, oh Cody. I was afraid of this. You don’t have to love me just because I’m your general and this isn’t your duty to-”
He was cut off by Cody grabbing him by the back of his head and kissing him fervently. There was an overwhelming feeling of love, happiness, peace, joy, contentment that shot straight through the force into his brain. It was nothing like the pain he had felt for years on end. It was – quite honestly – bliss.
Cody broke off the kiss to set his forehead on Obi-Wan’s. “You don’t get it, do you, you di’kut?” he smiled softly. “Ner’jetti. MY Jedi.”
Oh.
Obi-Wan gave him a soft kiss. “Cody I don’t know how this is going to work, but I want it to work. I want it to work so bad,” his voice broke. Cody sent him a wave of comfort through their force bond, and he immediately felt his body relax. “How did you do that?” he questioned, genuinely.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, but smiled wide. “I just… felt it?”
“That’s. Wow,” the jedi was cut off by a yawn escaping him. Cody grinned at him and Obi-Wan blushed. “Sorry. It is after 0400,” he grinned sheepishly. Cody pulled him down into his arms and Obi-Wan settled onto his side, wrapping a leg in between the commanders’.
“Nightmares?” Cody asked after a comfortable silence settled over them.
“How did you know?” he quipped an eyebrow at him.
“Felt it.”
“Ridiculous,” Obi-Wan muttered fondly. “How long have you been doing that?”
“Feeling things?” he moved his head to look down at Obi-Wan. “About six months. I didn’t know what it was, but when I found out about your headaches I figured it had something to do with that.”
“Oh!” Obi-Wan lit up. “My headaches are gone!”
“Oh?” it was Cody’s turn to raise his eyebrow. “When did that happen?”
“About thirty minutes ago.” Cody snorted in response. “What? I think it got absolved when this,” he touched his temple and then touched Cody’s, “happened.”
“Interesting.”
“Quite,” Obi-Wan smiled. He snuggled back into Cody, getting used to the feel of it. It was nicer than he imagined it would be.
Just when he and Cody’s breathing began to even out, his eyes went wide. “Cody, you have a watch shift at 0600.”
“I know,” he replied without opening his eyes.
Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Well, what are we going to do?”
“Sleep?” he still didn’t open his eyes, but a lopsided grin began to spread across his face.
“Cody,” Obi-Wan groaned.
“The moment you showed up here at 0415 I sent Waxer a comm telling him that I need him to cover my shift because I’m throwing up in the fresher.”
“Cody!”
He felt the clone’s chest begin to shake with laughter.
“That is a direct violation of power!”
Cody looked down at him, mischievously. “Do you want me leaving at 0600?”
“Fair enough,” Obi-Wan grumbled and burrowed back into his – well. He didn’t quite know what he and Cody were.
They would have to talk about that in the morning.
“Ner’jetti,” Cody mumbled and nuzzled into auburn hair.
But whatever happened, they were going to be okay. Force, it felt good to say that and mean it.