Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Trapper closes his eyes, he still sees the inside of that damn LAAT/i.

Red emergency lights, scorched walls from a lucky plasma-cannon, bodies— brothers— slumped against the wall, the floors, the seats. He can’t seem to get away from it. Not the way it looked, not the way it felt—the dry heat of Geonosis, trapped in a tin box under the suns—and not the way it started to smell. Leaking fuel. Smoke, from the blown engine. The ozone scorch of plasma against metal. 

The General. 

It’s the first way in which they ever learn to cope: touch. Nurseries on Kamino are constructed just like the flash training rooms, the endless rows of computers replaced with berthings for the tubbies. Fourteen to a row, eight rows to a nursery, one-hundred and twelve vode decanted and wriggling abouts together.

It’s the earliest thing they know. It’s the very first thing they learn.

When a vod cries, his vode reply. One hundred and twelve infants, screaming together. When a vod rolls onto their stomach for the first time, his vode follow. One hundred and twelve rolling infants, in sync like an Alderaanian ballet. When a vod is distressed—instincts screaming for the soothing balm of another's' touch—his vode answer. One hundred and twelve infants, reaching out and finding their brothers’ skin, their hands, their faces.

Vode an, their elders say. Brothers all— the immediate language for the intrinsic experience of growing up one of many. They grow up surrounded, buffeted on all sides by each other, and that support system never really goes away. It only evolves.

Cadets make a habit of sneaking into one another’s’ pods. It’s practically a right of passage to get chased out of your vod’s berthing by the security droids. Thousands of vode hit puberty at the exact same time, turning to each other for new sensory experiences—to make sense out of the madness of teenage hormones. 

Touch is more freely given than Mando’a, around Tipoca City. No trooper would want to get caught bastardizing the language of their trainers, but a hug? An arm around a shoulder? A friendly scrap in the barracks, a keldabe in the dark, an exploratory touch in the showers? Well, that’s just natural, really.

They might not be natborns but they are human.

Trapper keeps coming back to that damn LAAT/i, even days into the conflict on Geonosis, when the sheer exhaustion and demands of battle should keep his nights dreamless. His brain keeps getting stuck on the karking thing—the way it felt to sit there under the dim shadow of those red emergency lights, every brother around him dead, the General a warm line of heat against his side.

Trapper had come around, first. His whole body was a bruise with blood dried sticky to the side of his neck. It had run down from somewhere underneath his bucket, adhering his blacks to his skin. No one around him was conscious, no one was even moving.

Regs say to prioritize the highest ranking officer, in situations like that. Trapper had still turned to the vod to his right—Wicker. They had been joking together, before the ship went down.

After Wicker and his visibly-broken neck, Trapper had gotten it together— forced himself to get it together, really. He’d turned to the General, in a heap of Jedi-browns and beiges, and checked said heap carefully for a broken neck. He’d deemed it safe enough to rearrange the poor, armorless di’kut into a semi-upright position, half-slumped against Trapper’s side, and secured his superior officer there with a careful arm around the shoulders.

When the General had woken up, it had been him who started with the reassurances, with the it’ll be alright and the they’ll come for us, soon . The General reassures with words—the great Negotiator in action.

But Trapper is a vod, a brother, and his first language is the language of touch.

He kept his General secured at his side the whole time—kept him tightly against his own body, kept his arm iron-secure around his shoulders, kept him close enough to protect with his armor if their little transport was to be boarded by Geonosians.  

He remembers the LAAT/i in sensations. The lights, the distant noise of blaster fire and explosives, the smells… something herbal and warm in the General’s hair, the line of heat against his side that had become so uncomfortable as the temperature inside the LAAT climbed…

The first startled flinch of the General, waking up in contact with another body. The rigid line of tension he’d held. The way he’d finally, finally, relaxed into Trapper’s side. The little sigh of relief, hardly audible, but there all the same.

Trapper’s vode have dragged him into a cuddle pile every night since the crash, whether they were making camp on the Geonosian sand or propping one another upright with their bodies, catching furtive minutes of rest while others stood guard. He has hardly spent a moment untouched since the whole nightmare started.

Honestly, Trapper doesn’t know what he’d even do without his vode— without the comfort of them close.

Trapper stares at the Command tent and wonders.

It becomes the Question— the one every vod is talking about from the bridge of the Negotiator to her dark bowels where the laundry rooms churn and chug: who takes care of the General? 

Trapper spreads it to his batchmates who spread it to their squad who spread it to their friends, riduur, and kriff-buddies. No one gossips quite like a vod company gossips.

Trapper thinks it’s got to be Ghost. Ghost Company is… very particular about the General being their General. Not the 212th’s, not the 7th Sky’s, theirs. Just the handful of them, dogging his footsteps like a pack of nexus. And who is going to argue that claim? Ghost is all ARCs and ARCs are all banthashit insane. No one kriffs around with an ARC unless they want to lose teeth. No one challenges Ghost’s unspoken claim on their General unless they want to chew on boots for the next tenday. 

So, Trapper goes hunting for Ghost.

Heh. Ghost hunting. 

On the first week of every month, so long as they aren’t on a ground campaign, a handful of brothers set up their ink shop in medbay. Bones rules over the whole operation with a beskar thumb, providing sterile, safe materials to the artists in exchange for full administrative control. His terms are simple:

Brothers that are too rowdy will be removed. Brothers that do not have adequate bartering material will be removed. Brothers that want something fucking stupid tattooed on their ass (see, namely: any tattoo in their General’s likeness, any tattoo that is the result of a dare, and any tattoo that features tits, dick, ass, or a distateful arrow pointing to any of the aforementioned) will be removed. Brothers that question the medics or the artists will be removed.

All in all, it works pretty well.

Wooley has been talking up his next piece for a while now. Vod is loud. Trapper has no kriffin’ idea how he made it through ARC training alive, given that his mouth runs like a karking blurg to anything that holds still long enough, but maybe opsec brings out a different side of him. Who’s to say? Regardless, he’s grateful for Wooley’s constantly-running mouth because he knows exactly where to find the banthashit Ghost ARC on this fine day: in medbay, getting ink. 

Trapper plants himself down at Wooley’s side without a single word, watching Dynamite carefully push black ink under the skin of Wooley’s forearm with a lovingly-donated hypodermic. 

The simple Aurebesh script will read “go down swinging” when it’s complete, but for now, it just says: go down.

Bones is giving Trapper a significant look.

Wooley slings his free-arm over Trapper’s shoulder. “What’s up, vod’ika?” This effectively shields Trapper from the line of scowling vod’e, angry that Trapper cut in front of them. 

That’s another thing about Wooley that makes him a good target for Trapper’s questioning—he’s friendly, almost to a fault. One would think with the mohawk and the ink and the piercings and the permanent bitch-face that Wooley would be one mean motherfucker. To droids, sure, Wooley is as mean as they come. But he’s never anything but soft with his vod’ike or with the General , and Trapper intends to exploit this. 

“I’ve got a question,” Trapper begins, watching the needle go through and through and through Wooley’s skin.

Wooley hums. “Shoot, kid.”

Trapper seems to have won himself some respect, coming off of Geonosis. Even the Commander had given him a nod of approval when he’d brought the General back out safely. Not that Trapper did much, or anything. Maybe some of that respect has trickled down. This seems too welcoming, even for Wooley.

“On Geonosis,” he says, and gets a suspicious glance from Dynamite for his trouble, “in the LAAT/i with the General, he seemed…”

Wooley turns to face him fully, his brow raised. The ring through his bottom lip flashes dangerously in the sterile light of medbay. Bones has dropped all pretense of doing anything else and is just standing there, eyes drilling into the side of Trapper’s head.

“Spit it out, vod,” Wooley demands.

Well, alright then. “I think he’s skin hungry,” Trapper says. “Sure seemed like it, anyways.”

Dynamite has stopped working. All chatter has stopped, even from the line of vod’e waiting for their turn with the ink masters. Wooley just stares at him, assessing. Bones comes around the side of the bench until he stands right in front of Trapper, close enough that their boots touch. His hands—big hands, maybe that rumor about Bones’ being alpha-class is true—land on Trapper’s unarmored shoulders with a dull smack.

“Say more, vod.” Bones commands.

Trapper goes to shrug but finds he can’t—not with Bones’ hands braced on his shoulders like that.

“Well, I was the first to come around. The General was still out. I rearranged him to be more comfortable, pulled him up against my side so that I could put plastoid between us and whatever would pry open that door. When he came around, he went all stiff and spooked, like a vod that’s been isolated for too long, ya know? But I didn’t budge, and eventually he just… relaxed. All at once, too. One big slump and he shivered, too, even though it was hotter than a Tatooine Summer in that thing. Made a sound, too. Just seems like he’s skin hungry, is all.”

Trapper isn’t sure whether or not Wooley is going to beat his sorry shebs for touching the General at all, or whether Wooley’s going to plant one on him. He reaches forward, all ARC muscle, and Trapper can’t resist it when Wooley tugs him into a Keldabe this side of too-rough. 

“Good job, vod’ika,” Wooley says, shaking him a bit by the back of the neck. Like a tooka would scruff her young.

Bones has released Trapper’s shoulders and is staring balefully up at the ceiling, arms limp at his sides. “I am going to do murders,” Bones declares. “I am going to do so many murders.”

Who? Is getting murdered? How is this murder-worthy news?

Trapper does not know and he does not care to know. 

“That’s all,” he says, going to stand as soon as Wooley releases him. Every eye in that room is on Trapper and he does not care for it. Not one bit, nope.

He feels normally about the General, thank you very much. This information does not make him want to do murder, not even a little bit. He just thought it should be brought to the right people, is all.

He beats a hasty retreat and only exhales when he’s safe back in the barracks. One of his batchmates, Luey, peeks over the edge of the bunk. Luey is trans and started going by she just last week, so Trapper immediately says, “Kriff, dude,” when she startles him and then corrects it hastily to, “Uh—I mean. Dudette?”

Luey snorts. “Cute. Why do you look like you just bumped into the ghost of Fett?” 

Is Trapper really that pale?

“I told Wooley about the General-thing,” he explains, clambering up until he’s sharing her bunk with her.

She throws an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into her side, toppling them both down onto the bunk into a sprawl of limbs that makes every part of Trapper’s brain go yes, vod, good, perfect, safe.

“How’d it go?”

Trapper ponders it for a minute, nuzzling into her side. “Someone is going to die, but fuck if I know who.”

Luey laughs so loud it hurts his karking ears.

“Ghost is so fucking weird,” she says, sagely. Trapper agrees.

“Knock knock,” Crys bellows as he elbows his way past Boil and Waxer into the General’s quarters. Wooley is close behind. They’re going to be pushing it on capacity here—the General’s quarters aren’t actually all that big—since Cody and Longshot are already inside.

“Watch it,” Cody growls from his usual position at the General’s side. His ori’vod has a nasty habit of clinging so hard to his own sense of professionalism that he ends up making it everyone else’s karking problem.

Shebese needs to get over it. Most of them want to fuck the General—doesn’t mean they need all need to snort the reg manuals over it to cope. Crys has his own right hand and a sensible appreciation for the art of self-pleasure, thank you very much.

Wooley was quick to come to Crys about their General’s possible problem. Together, they then came up with a plan (or, well, at least half of one) and decided to act during Ghost’s usual meeting with the General. It’s a perfect setting to enact their half-of-a-plan given that they’ll know exactly where the slippery fucker is and he’ll be trapped there until the agenda is through. Cody is thorough, if nothing else, so it’s a fair bet that they’ll be there for awhile. 

Crys sets his kit down on the desk with a mighty thunk and takes the chair that Wooley so beautifully brandishes.

“General,” Crys drawls, batting his eyelashes. Cody is glaring at him like he could melt Crys’ flesh off if he just wants it badly enough. Kenobi, for his part, just looks vaguely amused. “Can I paint your nails?”

This, evidently, was not what the General was expecting to hear.

“He’s getting really good at it, Sir,” Wooley chimes in helpfully. He brandishes his dark-blue manicure like a practiced holomodel.

Boil scowls. “Why are they 501st blue?” 

“They don’t own the color, vod,” Wooley protests.

“I’ve got blue, gold, light green, white, and black,” Crys unpacks each color from the kit as he talks. “Please? It’s very relaxing.” 

“I don’t think—” Cody begins, no doubt gearing up for a legendary chew-out, right up until the General interrupts with a gentle, “Well, alright.”

Crys lays out a hand towel, freshly laundered for just this purpose. He pats the surface down, demanding, until Kenobi acquiesces and presents his pale, graceful hands for inspection.

His fingers are longer and thinner than a vod’s, his nails pale and chipped. Crys imagines that they’re good hands for holding. He’s on a mission to find out.

When he takes Kenobi’s right hand between his own, the General startles, like he wasn’t quite expecting it. There’s an awkwardness to him—an I don’t quite know what to do with my hands— but Cry’s doesn’t miss the slight shiver that Kenobi fails to suppress when he digs his thumbs into his palm and starts to massage out the tension there. 

He really is skin hungry. Even though Crys had expected it, part of him is still surprised to find it. The longer Cry’s touches Kenobi’s skin for, the more tired he seems to look. His eyes go vague and unfocused for moments at a time and he makes these little noises when Crys finds a particular spot of tension—a quiet ah here or a soft hum there.

Crys pulls out all the stops. He bartered some extra stim packs and some of the blue-wrapper ration bars for some sweet-smelling hand lotion, Wooley bartered for a special type of oil that is supposed to be good for cuticles—whatever the kriff that means—and he pays exquisite, careful attention to each knuckle, finger, and spot of tension wherever he finds it. 

By the end of the meeting, Kenobi is all but a puddle in Jedi-robes, completely melted to his seat and half-asleep where he sits. 

Crys has painted his nails 212th gold. 

“Thank you, Crys, they look lovely,” the General murmurs, all soft and doe-eyed and gods Crys wants to hug him, but he thinks that might be too much for Cody’s patience. “Although I’m not sure how long I can keep them looking this nice.”

Crys beams. “Don’t worry about it, Sir. I’m happy to re-do them, any time you want.” 

“Oh—well, I don’t want to trouble you—” Kenobi dithers.

“No, it’s no trouble at all. It’s relaxing, really. Any time, Sir. I mean it,” Crys insists.

He gets to ride that high for as long as it takes Cody to catch up to him outside in the hall. The Commander glowers at him, fuming. Ah, well. Good life and all. 

“What the kriff was that?” Cody demands.

“Intel suggested that the General might be skin hungry,” Crys offers. He tries to curb his own smugness. Judging by Cody’s continuing death-glare, he is failing. Oh, well. Crys has lived a good life. 

“‘Intel?’ What karking intel?”

“Trapper,” Wooley exclaims, eyes gleaming.

Cody blinks, flummoxed. “The vod you just suggested for ARC training?”    

“Yup,” Wooley chirps. “Vod’ika’s observant.”

Cody pinches at the bridge of his nose. “Go. Begone. All of you.”

“Give him a good cuddle tonight, Sir!” Wooley calls as they retreat because he has neither decorum nor self preservation.

All of Cody’s men have gone insane. Every last one of the bastards. Insane.

First, Crys pulls his little manicure stunt. Then, Wooley falls asleep on the General’s shoulder during clean up on Ryloth, the shabuir. Waxer and Boil keep inviting Kenobi to join the cuddle pile, of all things, and their only saving grace is that Kenobi continues to politely refuse. Cody has caught more troopers making bantha-eyes at Kenobi than the number of shinies he catches playing lightsaber with kitchen implements. 

The whole battalion has gone karking mad.

Maybe it’s something in the water. 

Only further proving Cody’s point, Longshot throws himself down into the dirt next to their General with a heavy theatrical sigh, his still-booted feet pointed towards their campfire. He makes a show of stretching his arms high above his head before relaxing back onto his elbows and casting a far-too-inviting Look Kenobi’s way.

“I don’t know about you, Sir, but I’m fried,” Longshot drones.

Kenobi rests a hand on Longshot’s shoulder and squeezes, briefly. “Get some rest, Longshot. It’s been a long day for us all.” 

Longshot catches Kenobi’s hand gently by the wrist, turning it until his palm is facing upwards and intertwining their fingers like they’re on some sappy holodrama. “What about you, Sir? You’ve been working so hard for us…”

No. Absolutely not.

Cody crams his bucket over his head and barks, harsh through the vocoder, “TROOPER!”

Longshot yelps like a startled massif and drops Kenobi’s hand like he’s been burned. His face flushes something fierce, even in the low light of the fire, and he beats a hasty mostly-stammered out retreat.

Bones drops a hand to Cody’s shoulder and squeezes. “Aw, lighten up, vod’ika.”

“Get karked,” Cody hisses. Across the campsite, Kenobi begins to settle in for a meditation session. 

“It’s doing him good, you know,” Bones drawls.

“What? Having troopers crawling all over him like weevils?”

“Touch,” Bones says. “Connection. Do you think there’s a single vod in the whole 7th Sky who goes even a day without a gentle touch? A hug? A body to sleep next to? A hand in the showers—”

“Stop.” If Cody has to stand here and think about giving Kenobi a hand in the shower, he might actually explode.

“Still. You can’t deny that Kenobi wasn’t getting what he needed.”

“There are other Jedi,” Cody protests, but it sounds weak to his own ears. It sounds like the same points he’s rehearsed a thousand and one times in order to keep his hands to his damn self. He doesn’t need that from you, nor does he want it.

“And how often is Kenobi at the Temple, these days?” Bones asks. It’s gentle, but it still stings like a slap. 

Cody doesn’t sleep that night.

(Judging by the heavy, dark bags under Kenobi's eyes the next morning, neither does his General.)

The first sign that he might have overdone it comes when, after the battle, Obi-Wan decides to sit down for just a moment and gets black spots in his vision for the trouble. He knows, immediately, that if he does sit, he will not be getting back up.

He sways on his feet and reaches out to the Force to steady himself. Only, this time, the Force slips through his grasp with a painful throbbing of his temples and the grating unmistakable feeling of soul-deep soreness that means only one thing: Force-exhaustion.  

Some of his physical distress must show on his face, for Cody turns to him quickly and asks, sharp and brimming over with concern, “Sir? You alright?” 

Obi-Wan opens his mouth to reply and finds that his teeth are vibrating like he’s been far over-caffeinated. Which can’t be the case, considering that he hasn’t drank anything in well over a few hours (or eaten anything, for that matter). Now that he’s checked in with his body, the floodgates are open, and he can hardly stop. There’s a strong tremor in his hands and a buzzing in his brain. Every color, every light, every sound is too much —a migraine sitting behind his left eye. He’s woozy to the point of actual sickness and has to close his eyes, if only briefly, against the onslaught.

They’ve lost so many men today. Good men. His men. He can damn well deal with some discomfort in the face of that.

“Just fine, Cody,” he assures his fretting Commander. His men tend to stress and Cody has quite enough to worry about without adding Obi-Wan’s minimal discomforts to the list. 

Cody sighs, the sound rasping through the vocoder of his helmet just before he reaches up and cracks the seal, settling the scuffed up thing on his hip. His eyes are tired. Perhaps just as tired as Obi-Wan’s own must be.

“Humor me, Sir?” Cody asks, and offers a hand. When Obi-Wan does not move or respond, Cody adds, “Please?”

His Commander so rarely asks him for anything.

“Alright,” Obi-Wan acquiesces, and takes Cody’s hand only out of the fear that, if he doesn’t, he will fall right over as soon as he takes a step.

Cody leads him gently through the ship, passing brothers here and there with a small nod or a quick word or two. Obi-Wan hardly tracks the trip. The next thing he knows, they’re in his quarters and there are two trays of dinner rations sitting on the desk. Obi-Wan can’t even remember stopping by the cafeteria.

“Sit, please,” Cody coaxes.

They eat in silence, although the silence is warm, and Obi-Wan does feel much better for it. (His skin is still too tight, too cold, and the weight of his failures threatens to absolutely crush him into dust, but at least he’s no longer in danger of vomiting on an empty stomach.) By the time he registers that they’ve both finished eating, Cody is once again standing in front of him with his hand held out. His armor has been neatly stacked in the corner of Obi-Wan’s room. When did that happen? 

“C’mere, di’kut,” Cody says, unaccountably fond. 

The world tilts when Cody pulls him to his feet and the rush of his Commander’s emotions so close, invoked by the skin-on-skin contact of Cody’s hand to Obi-Wan’s own, has him gasping for breath he cannot find. 

A fierce protective instinct, a breathtakingly sincere care, admiration, affection, love as clear as a bell— 

Cody backs him up until Obi-Wan’s knees hit the edge of his bed and he’s embarrassed to say that he does not have the fine motor control to prevent toppling onto his back. Carefully, Cody crawls over him, though there is very little seduction to the act, no sense of sensuality to be found.

“Tell me if this is alright?” Cody asks, voice soft, and then, oh-so-carefully, he lowers his body weight gradually down until he is sprawled atop Obi-Wan’s body, every inch of hard-packed muscle pressing down, down, down—

Obi-Wan gasps, beside himself with the sheer sensation of it, and when Cody’s hands begin to brush up and down across his ribs over his thin undertunic, Obi-Wan is gone.

“‘S alright,” Cody murmurs as Obi-Wan trembles, shakes, and cries. “Let it out.”

It’s been so long— far, far too long—since he’s been held like this, since he’s simply felt another body against his own without the complications of sex (and even those occasions have been sparse). Perhaps not since Anakin decided he was too grown to need to share Obi-Wan’s bed to chase away his nightmares.

When the tears have dried up and the shaking has stopped, Obi-Wan brushes his hands over his wet eyes and tries to dredge up an apology for how awfully inappropriate he’s been.

“We carry a lot of stress in our bodies,” Cody interrupts, not even letting him breathe the first syllable of his apology. “It’s alright to ask for what you need.”

Obi-Wan laughs, perhaps more to cope with the awkward sense that he has karked up beyond belief with such an embarrassing display of vulnerability and weakness rather than any genuine sense of humor. “That’s very wise of you, Cody,” he offers. 

“I’m a very wise man,” his Commander huffs, teasing.

Eventually, Cody rolls off, but Obi-Wan is pleased to note that he does not go far. Instead, he stays right there, close enough to touch, throughout the long night.

(And many more nights after.)

Chapter Text

There aren’t any birds on Coruscant. Why would there be? Coruscant is a planet of duracrete, steel, and neon. Its airways are so congested with traffic that there’d be no place for a bird to fly, even if it could somehow survive on a diet of nothing but city garbage. 

They start calling CT-3133 Bird not because there are any, but because he’s flighty—easily distractible—and light on his feet. A bit thin, where the standard clone-trooper model is concerned, but that’s never bothered Bird one bit. (It used to get him shit from the Longnecks and the trainers back on Kamino, but his grades were always just good enough that he escaped any repercussions.) He can be jumpy, too, under the right circumstances. Flighty little birdie, his squad would joke. 

His LT back at the Dome had served a tour somewhere where these little prey birds would peep their way through the underbrush, scurrying furtively on stick-thin feet around the edges of camp, looking for scraps. He described them as hyperactive little things, just as quick to leap into your hand for a crumbled-up ration bar as they were to bolt away at the slightest shift in the wind.

“You’re just like those damn birds, kid,” his LT had said, with a crucial addendum: “but you’re rooting around for a fuck instead of a bite to eat.” 

“Well,” Bird had said, unaccountably pleased by this description of his character, “I wouldn’t be opposed to a good meal, after.” 

It hadn’t been a surprise to anyone that he’d gotten himself into trouble—nor was the illicit nature of his predicament. Not even a full year into his deployment and he’d gone searching for a fuck up the wrong skirt, landing himself a permanent spot on a Senator’s Aide’s blacklist and a one-way ticket back to Kamino for reconditioning before he could even stutter out, “but I didn’t know she was his niece!” 

Lucky for Bird, apparently the good Commander Fox and the Marshal Commander Cody went way back—batchmates, or rivals, or perhaps some bittersweet mix of the both—and Bird’s LT was fond of him, which meant Commander Fox was fond of Bird, too. His hasty transfer to the 212th and rescue from what most assuredly would have been his utter demise—here lies Bird, horny as a strill, Manda save his soul—was a favor called in from one commander to another. 

All it took to seal the deal was a raise of Commander Fox’s eyebrow and a drawled, “Cody”, that somehow managed to sound like Fox was issuing an order instead of just annoying the holo-rendered vod into submission. Bird would have been ecstatic about his continued survival if the subsequent Look that Commander Fox had turned on him hadn't sent him questioning the longevity of his recently-rescued life. 

“Make better choices,” the Commander had ordered him. 

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again, sir.” 

And thirty hours later, Bird was being ushered onto the Negotiator by a bald-headed sarge with the most diminutive patch of facial hair he has ever laid eyes on. 

“So you’re Bird! Welcome aboard,” the bald-headed vod beams. He latches immediately onto Bird’s neck, scruffing him like a disobedient tooka, and steers him by the shoulder towards the yawning bay of the docked battleship. “I’m Sergeant Waxer.” 

“Sir,” Bird greets back, stiffly. 

He gets the full tour. It’s honestly far more hands-on than Bird would have expected for what basically amounts to a last-ditch attempt to get his ass out of the fire. Bird spends most of his time dogging the Sarge’s steps, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

It drops in the medbay. 

Perhaps the biggest vod Bird has ever seen—biceps as thick around as his entire head, by the Ka’ra what are they feeding him?—turns when they enter, his eyes practically lighting up like neon signs with unholy glee. 

“Perfect,” the behemoth wearing a vod’s face marvels. “You found me a twink.” 

“What,” Bird croaks. 

Another trooper chimes in with a cooing noise from a nearby medbed. There’s a thick bandage wrapped around his shoulder and a bacta patch on his swollen right cheek. What may have once been a mohawk is now a limp and deflated tangle of hair, half in the trooper’s eyes. 

“General’s gonna melt,” he declares, grinning through a split lip. 

There will be no melting, Bird wants to protest. He’s learned his lesson, honest. Besides, he’s fairly sure there are no skirts for him to drop on board the Negotiator and he doesn’t swing any other way. 

Any words he could utter are lost to Waxer’s laugh. The Sergeant claps him gently on the shoulder. “No worries, vod’ika. Nothing untoward.” 

The bigger trooper—the one that could probably throw Bird clear across the Senate Dome if he wanted—brandishes a pointing finger like a weapon of war. “You,” he points at—targets—Bird, “Thoughts on mental health, go.” 

Bird opens his mouth and fails to make anything that even approximates language come out. 

“Any recent traumas you’re reeling from?” the vod continues. “When was the last time you got a hug? Any aversions to prolonged physical contact?” 

“Hello,” Bird rasps, because he’s gotten so, so very lost during this conversation and backtracking to some semblance of normalcy—Senate Etiquette dictates that polite conversations begin with an appropriately deferential greeting—is his one and only hope. 

“Oh,” the vod in the bed murmurs, awed, “He’ll do beautifully.” 

“Welcome to General-Sitting Duty, vod’ika,” the Sergeant adds, nonsensically. 

This is Bird’s introduction to the 212th attack battalion. 

The West-flanking break room has become a haven of sorts in the intervening months. Each time the Negotiator docks planetside, the space acquires new little luxuries, such as the old paisley-patterned sofa that is currently making a bid at swallowing Obi-Wan whole. On a bookshelf built into the opposite wall, volumes of self-help books and psychology texts glare at him with judgement—a book on coping with loss, a weighty diagnostic manual for psychological disorders, and a title that Bones had procured with particular glee: Un-fuck Yourself. There’s even a plant in the corner, its verdant, speckled leaves tucked under the careful beam of a UV lamp. 

Obi-Wan had returned to the Negotiator after a quick stop off at the Temple for a meeting, carrying triumphantly with him his bounty—his own donation to the break room: a box of artisanal caf pods from the Jedi Commissary and three whole boxes of his favorite Alderaanian rooibos. The hideous yet comfortable sofa had called to him, as it often does, and two hours later here he still was, steadily plowing through an unholy pile of paperwork and swirling the dregs of his beloved tea blend idly when he manages to recall that the long-cooled cup was still in his hand. 

Obi-Wan could have spent the rest of his leave in the Temple. Maybe a year ago, he would have. But the Negotiator and its crew is not what it was to him at the beginning of this war. Thanks to the efforts of his men, and in part the creation of this little safe-haven, the Negotiator has started to feel more like a home than his Jedi quarters ever have. 

Not that the Temple no longer feels like home, but it’s home in the way that a childhood home is home. The person for whom that place was home is inaccessible—changed so much by the wider world that the shape of them now is hardly compatible with the shape of them then. The Temple is the home of a much younger Obi-Wan Kenobi and its halls are haunted both with the echoes of his own naivety and the ghost of his Master and the others who have fallen since that first fateful battle of Geonosis.   

In any case, there’s something uniquely soothing about being buffeted in the Force by the minds of his men—something right about being in the space they’ve carved out here for healing and peace.

Since his breakdown a handful of months ago, Cody and the rest of Ghost had taken up a merciless campaign of self-care, hence the adoption of a small library’s worth of texts on mental wellness. There is even a battalion-wide roster for communal sleeping arrangements and a buddy-system in place for those struggling with trauma or loss. 

Obi-Wan had thought he’d been doing better, is the thing. With the vocal—often forceful, but no less welcome—encouragement of his men, he’d begun to accept their attempts at comfort without subterfuge. Over the weeks, a clap of the hand here, a knock of the shoulders there, even the occasional manicure from Crys have all become simple facts of life—things passed between him and his men just as easily as a requisition form. Last week, Longshot had slumped right against Obi-Wan’s side as their transport shuddered choppily though atmo back to the Negotiator and fell straight into a light doze. 

And Obi-Wan can admit that the steadying touches are good for him. Even if Bones had not shoved about a decade’s worth of research on the various benefits of casual touch—if Obi-Wan never again reads the word oxytocin, it would still be too soon—he is self-aware enough to notice the changes himself. Since they began this… project, it’s easier to find his center in meditation. He is less exhausted at the end of a campaign—less world-weary in general. Sleep, while still elusive, is a much more restful thing when it comes. 

But all that knowing doesn’t do much to dispel the feeling he’s already identified as irrational: he should be better than this. 

Perhaps it’s a carry-over from his days as an initiate—too afraid of seeming too needy. Hesitant to ask for anything. Always fretting that his imposition on others’ kindness is always bound to run out, that he’ll prove too much—too angry, too uncontrolled, too much work—and, well. 

He’d thought he’d been hiding this insecurity well enough. Judging by the nervously shuffling, baby-faced shiny hovering in the door, Obi-Wan was clearly mistaken. 

“So I’ve earned another minder, my dear Captain?” Obi-Wan asks, setting aside his tea. He feels a little embarrassed, projecting haughty indignation with his bare feet folded up under him on the ugly—fuck-ugly, as Wooley calls it—couch like a crecheling gathered around for story time. 

At first, after the initial Incident that drove Cody to spend a night bunked with Obi-Wan, Ghost Company had resorted to throwing shinies at him, knowing that Obi-Wan hardly had it in him to refuse a kind touch from a grieving, wide-eyed soldier. Eventually, he had caught on, but it did take a truly embarrassing amount of time to realize that he was being minded by a rotating squad of particularly young, particularly innocent-looking clone troopers. 

Bones, who is holding the shiny firm in the doorway with a grip on their shoulder, grins as wide as a tooka and lies, “I have no idea what you mean, General. Just showing Bird here around.” 

“Hello, Bird,” Obi-Wan greets with a sigh. There’s really no need to be rude to the poor dear. It’s hardly Bird’s fault that he has become a pawn in Bones’ scheming. 

“Bird here,” Bones begins, frog-marching the poor thing into the middle of the room as Waxer trails behind, snickering, “has been transferred over from the Senate Dome after an incident.” 

“Incident?” He sits up as straight as the old, sagging sofa allows. 

Obi-Wan has some idea of what the Vode stationed on Coruscant go through, sourced both from rumors and what little detail Cody has felt comfortable enough to relay. Apparently, attitudes on Coruscant towards the clones can swing towards discomfort if not outright bigotry—and though Obi-Wan has tried to pry more information out of his men, he’ll never go so far as to order them to tell him; he values their trust too much for that—although nothing concrete as far as discrimination has ever been recorded.  

Bird winces. 

“Go on, vod’ika, tell the General,” Bones encourages. 

“Well—” Bird shifts on his feet, looking for all the world like he would really rather be anywhere else even as Bones prods him forward. “I’m not sure that I should—uh… it’s not an… appropriate? Story?” 

Even Bones blinks at this, some of the charade disappearing. Waxer, too, goes on protective alert. 

“Oh kriff—nothing like that,” Bird stutters out, going pale and then, all at once turning scarlet, “It’s just that I—uh. Sleptwithasenator’sniece?” 

Obi-Wan blinks. Bones makes a deep, rattling sound in his chest. 

“You what?” Waxer asks. 

Bird, the poor thing, is red up to the tips of his ears. “I… had illicit relations with a senator’s niece.” And, under his breath, he adds all in a rush, “Who happened to be engaged. But she didn’t mention that!” 

Bones blinks up at the ceiling, deeply aggrieved. Waxer is trying very hard not to giggle while frantically typing away at his comm, no doubt telling the whole battalion. 

“Well,” Obi-Wan drawls, and pats the cushion beside him, “I believe you have a rather entertaining story you’re all but obliged to tell us, now.” 

Cody had rushed back to the Negotiator in a very dignified manner befitting his rank when Waxer’s message had come through. 

He’d been out in the city with some of Ghost and a few of the vod soft-shells dredging up little luxuries from some clone-friendly contacts—buttery hand-lotion, non-standard blankets, energy drinks that will make a man go blind, and even some hormones from a clinic that specializes in “gender affirming care”, which is apparently something that natborns are able to just get—because his men tend to get into less trouble when Cody is there. 

Still, the sight that greets him in their breakroom-turned-lounge is not the one he was anticipating. 

“But why Senator Hy’ullin’s niece? Hy’ullin is the worst,”  Wooley asks. Cody is surprised he’s out of the medbay with that concussion he managed to earn on Ryloth, but it’s probably safe to say he’s fine to be here, given that he’s draped half-over Bones and that Bones hasn’t dragged him back to the medbay, yet. 

“Well, Ruo isn’t!” a vod Cody doesn’t recognize protests. He’s sat right next to the General, close enough that their arms brush when the vod gets particularly animated in their storytelling. “She wasn’t anything like a politician—I wouldn’t have had anything to do with her if she was! And it’s not like we were talking politics.”  

Boil leers, “Yeah, I bet you weren’t.” 

“Bet you weren’t doing much talking at all,” someone else jeers. 

And Obi-Wan, looking relaxed and amused and ridiculously inviting, swallowed by the couch and surrounded by about a dozen or so men, all relaxed and socializing themselves, places a consoling hand on the vod’s arm. “Now, now, let the poor man continue,” he admonishes. 

It clicks, then, just who this vod might be. He’s one of Fox’s—the one who got mixed up in some nonsense political scandal and needed a save. Cody would have given it regardless of Fox’s I-knew-you-when-you-were-small-and-full-of-evil blackmail, but it always is such a delight to watch Fox puff up and strut around like a very clever bird performing some sort of territorial dance. And, conveniently, Fox always seems to forget that the fact that they grew up together means that they grew up together, and Cody has embarrassing stories about him in spades, too. 

Obi-Wan is grinning as Bird’s tale of woe continues to unravel, and when he glances up, he notices Cody awkwardly hovering in the doorway. 

Wordless communication occurs just as flawlessly here as it does on the battlefield. The vod on the opposite end of the three-seater sofa, Crys, gives a wave and stands, settling on the floor with Wooley and Bones. Obi-Wan gives the vod beside him—their newest “not-so-shiny shiny”, as Waxer had put it—a little nudge and, thoughtless, he budges over into Crys’ vacated spot, still prattling on about some unlucky lay, if Cody is hearing this right. Obi-Wan himself settles into the middle, just looking at Cody and it’s— 

Well, it’s easier than it probably should be for him to slide into the space like it has his name on it and let Obi-Wan settle into his side. Little gods. 

It’s like every terrible romantic movie Waxer or Bly has ever made him sit through. Clone Commander sits down next to beautiful Jedi, throws an arm casually over the back of the seat, and beautiful Jedi General folds into his side, easy as that. 

Well. Not exactly like the holos. 

Maybe this is why Alpha-17 assigned Cody to the 212th—to Obi-Wan. Maybe those months together under Ventress’ brutal thumb had peeled back this Jedi’s outer shell. Maybe in those dungeons, 17 had seen Kenobi’s vulnerabilities, seen him beyond the veneer of Jedi, of General, and thought that Cody would fit into the shape that lies beneath. 

Maybe he was always here to break the regs, just enough. 

Obi-Wan is warm against his side. They may be of a height, but Cody is broader in the shoulders than Obi-Wan is, and he fits so perfectly under Cody’s arm that it’s hard to think of anything other than how right it is to have him there. In his dress greys, Cody can feel so much of him—his warmth, the jut of his ribs, the density of muscle—and it brings him back to that night where Obi-Wan had laid beneath him and had just fallen apart. 

Cody did that. There’s honor, there, honor just as potent as honor in battle. He needed someone, and I was his someone. The ferocity of it is unexpected, but not unwelcome. 

It’s unreasonable, maybe, to feel so strongly that Obi-Wan is Cody’s just as much as Cody is his. A clone and a Jedi. A soldier and his commanding officer. A non-sentient and… well, his owner. But they aren’t those things—they haven’t fit that mold since the day they met and Obi-Wan made a face like Cody had just killed an infant in front of him when he’d introduced himself as CC-2224, and not since Obi-Wan had dropped his fucking lightsaber and Cody had all but flung the thing at his di’kulta head. 

It sounds like a cheap novel—the kind of pulp-fiction that the 501st passes around like the most coveted of contraband with swooning Twilek maidens and traditional Mando warriors—falling for the first natborn to treat him like a person instead of a product, but it isn’t like that. It couldn’t ever be like that because Obi-Wan is Obi-Wan—Cody doesn’t know how it’s possible to fight at this man’s side and not love him. 

Besides, Cody is no swooning maiden. (Or, at least he’s the exciting kind that can crush clanker heads between his thighs.) 

There’s a lot of ways to have someone you love and Cody isn’t looking for reciprocation. Not like this, not when there’s a war to be fought and won. Besides, he already has Obi-Wan where it matters. He has his back in a fight. He has it here. Isn’t that worth more?

As more vode drift into their make-shift lounge, some no doubt drawn in by the promise of laughter and others by the promise of a good cuddle—practically a given with this many of them in a single room—comfortable real-estate is rapidly vanishing. By the time Bird’s story has finished and the conversation has evolved into a general round-robin on embarrassing escapades, Cody and Obi-Wan are almost spooning. 

And Obi-Wan… hasn’t so much as blinked about it. For kriff’s sake—Cody’s got an arm around his waist, when did that happen? 

As if acknowledging it has broken a spell, Obi-Wan twists just enough that their eyes meet and that his voice can pass quietly, privately, between the two of them. 

“Is this…?” Words, it seems, have failed the famed Negotiator. “I can move,” Obi-Wan offers, stutteringly. 

Cody’s hand spasms—entirely involuntary, if anyone is asking—and it ends in a motion that could be something just a shade more intimate. He is smoothing down the fabric of Obi-Wan’s robes across his side, feeling muscle and warm skin underneath the slightly rough, thick-spun cloth. 

“No,” he replies, immediately. “Stay.” And, finally, softer, “If you’d like.” There are birds in his chest, trapped fluttering beneath the cage of Cody’s ribs.  

Obi-Wan smiles and settles again, his back to Cody’s chest, comfortable and safe and right. 

Yeah, Cody thinks, and lets the wash of it diffuse through his bones, into every atom of his being. I’ve got you.