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It started with a simple note slipped under his door. Cody has no idea how anyone on the ship managed to procure paper, or ink, but he unfolds it immediately.
‘My quarters. One hour.’ There’s a little doodle of two stick-figure heads with a tiny heart between them.
Of course. Trying to stave away the depression of war, and ever a romantic. But…how is he supposed to know when one hour from this note is? For all of his charm and wit, Obi-Wan has some moments of, for lack of a better term, being a dumbass. Cody thinks it’s General Skywalker rubbing off on him.
Thinking for a moment, Cody figures it had to have been left while he was out of his quarters, and he left an hour and a half ago, for breakfast and some target practice. Obi-Wan knows he gets food on a regular schedule, so he likely left it while he knew Cody would be eating breakfast; he couldn’t have accounted for the hour of target practice. Ergo, it’s already been at least an hour, so Cody should be leaving now. A perfect excuse not to work on reports.
Tucking the note into his waistband, Cody heads back into the hallways of the ship, greeting each of the brothers he passes. If they notice the spring in his step, they say nothing.
“You’re late,” Obi-Wan says in lieu of greeting as the door to his quarters whooshes open in front of Cody.
“Paper notes don’t have a time-stamp, general,” Cody replies with a raised eyebrow. He only ever calls Obi-Wan by his title when he’s exasperated. Although it’s usually playful.
Obi-Wan lifts a hand to lightly brush over his chin. “Oh.”
Cody steps through the door to let it close behind him, and Obi-Wan immediately closes the distance between them, bringing up both of his hands to run over the sides of Cody’s hair.
“Getting a little long, isn’t it?”
“You’re one to talk,” Cody teases, grabbing a fistful of Obi-Wan’s hair.
“Hey. It’s my look.”
Instead of replying, Cody just leans the last few inches to close the distance between them, letting himself relax into his general’s chest, brushing a soft kiss onto the side of his neck. Obi-Wan uses his grip on Cody’s head to tilt it up, pressing their mouths together with more force than normal, one leg already slipping between Cody’s. Oh, so its going to be that kind of visit.
— — —
Barely two rotations go by consecutively without Cody finding a note stashed somewhere. Often slipped under his door like the first, but sometimes slipped into pockets of his utility belt, in his boot, tucked inside his helmet. Sometimes brothers even stop him to hand him a note. Usually, they just looked confused — Cody can practically hear the questions in their heads about why the sender was using paper — but a couple times he notices a knowing gleam in the messenger’s eyes, and afterwards Obi-Wan would receive a lecture on being more discreet. He doesn’t bother to wonder where Obi-Wan is getting all of this paper.
They’re rarely just requests to meet: as general and commander they see each other often enough, can always arrange meetings through datapads or a whisper after a briefing, and it isn’t all that suspicious for one to be seen going into the other’s tent or quarters. Often the notes just contain small observations, musings from Obi-Wan’s mind, or complaints about whatever General Skywalker has done this time. Sometimes they’re incredibly specific, like ‘I passed by the mess hall when you were eating lunch. One of your men said something funny and another laughed so hard that milk shot out of his nose. I could see the sparkle in your eyes from all the way across the room. I’m so glad you can still find happiness in dark times.’
Other times, it;s less sweet: ‘:( I’m horny’ given by a brother when Cody was just about to reach his quarters to crash for the night. But he obliges, as he always does. It is incredibly hard to say no to Obi-Wan. Even to his handwriting, apparently.
It’s such a comfort: even when they’re on some strange planet, recovering from a battle, surrounded by only foreign environments and species, Cody knows that he’ll have a note waiting for him soon.
Except, when he doesn’t.
The 212th had been on Obi-Wan’s cruiser, while he took a short trip to help the 501st with a mission, so it had been a few days without a note. Cody would never admit that he worried about his general when he went off by himself, but having partaken in some of General Skywalker’s ‘plans' before…he felt he had reason to worry. So when Cody hears that Obi-Wan has docked back on their cruiser, his mind immediately jumps from thanking the stars to hoping that there’s a note waiting in his quarters with a meeting time. But, he can’t just abandon his duties, so resigns to spending his two more allotted hours working with some shinies, drilling them and checking progress. The moment he can, he speeds back to the living quarters wing. He pauses to knock at Obi-Wan’s door but heads to his own when there’s no answer — no surprise, he’s sure that Obi-Wan has much to do post-mission — already anticipating being able to see him later.
Except, there’s no note waiting inside the door, no note resting on the pillow, on the table, or anywhere in sight. Not to worry, Cody rationalizes to himself, He probably just gave it to someone to deliver.
Except, Obi-Wan always delivers them himself after he and Cody have been separated, and he never trusts any of the men to deliver notes for meeting times, which this probably would be. Ignoring the pit that’s starting to form in his chest, Cody straightens his back, sets down his blaster, and heads back out to get some food and clear his head. One of his brothers is sure to stop him in the hall to press a neatly folded paper square into his hand, or drop it on his table, or just tell him that the general is looking for him.
Except, none of them do. And come to think of it, the men are unusually hushed in the mess hall; he notices more than one taking furtive glances at him as he walks over to his usual table.
Something’s happened. He knows it as sure as he can feel the beat of his heart, the breath in his lungs — except there isn’t any breath in his lungs now, not anymore. Something’s happened to his general. Something that not even a single trooper wants to be the one to tell Cody.
— — —
The notes have taken on a new meaning. Whereas before they were just playful, romantic, and as ephemeral as their fragile paper medium, they’re now the most important thing in the universe to Cody. He’s never without one tucked into his waistband or stuck above the visor inside his helmet. The notes are what he turns to on those strange planets, rubbing his fingers gently over the well-creased folds. The gentle, looping handwriting and the scribbled doodles of Cody and Obi-Wan, or the troopers, or General Skywalker causing trouble (Obi-Wan once told Cody that’s why he used paper, besides how personal and physical they are, so he can draw those doodles) elicit equal parts happiness and tears from Cody, depending on the frame of mind when he rereads them. He curses himself for every note that was lost on the ground, every slip of paper that disappeared in the shuffle of battle, every fragment of Obi-Wan’s love that got swept away in the wind.