Chapter Text
The Jedi Temple is an anomaly. Enormous, spatially absolutely incoherent, packed full of sentients and rowdy as all Sith hells, and boring as fuck.
Ponds looks at Cody with eyes that project you are fucking insane as clear as if he’s taken a loudspeaker to it. “You’re fucking insane,” he says it out loud as well just to make sure it gets across.
“No, listen,” Cody says.
“He’s not,” Rex interrupts him. “That’s the problem.” He swirls his atrocious sweetener-addled tea in one of the garish disposable cups he keeps picking up instead of using a mug like any sensible adults. “He’s the most boring person in this whole wide galaxy. Like, to a degree that makes him a scientific anomaly. He’s so boring that it loops back to seeming insane to other people.”
“Yeah!” Cody slaps the table. “Wait, no.”
Ponds swipes his hand down his face with force. “Rex is… correct?” He mumbles. “In the spirit of fairness, Cody, you’re the vod equivalent of a carafe of water at the bar countertop. We’re alive thanks to you, but also.” He waves his fresh-off-the-face hand. “You’re the water of beverages. And the Temple is seventy percent pure jet fuel at its sanest. Sometimes I think the only reason we survive spending this much time near jedi is because we’re the solvent. Something something, balance in the Force.”
“I resent that,” Cody says. A corner of his mind whispers at him that he sounds like Obi-Wan saying that, and on instinct he grabs that thread and spins it into an argument. “You’ve seen the shit Obi-Wan and Skywalker did. I’m nowhere near either end of that spectrum, so I’m a perfectly normal individual that’s boring a normal amount.”
Rex eyes him critically over the rim of the disposable cup. “You know, arguing with you used to be fun,” he says mournfully.
“You mean easy,” Ponds points out. “Anyways. The point isn’t to argue the level of shitfuck you’re ranked at on the Grand Board of Vod Idiosyncracies, the point is that you find jogging relaxing instead of an opportunity to spiral into an anxiety attack like the rest of us.”
“Hey, on that point,” Cody raises a hand. Ponds waves it down.
“I’m dealing with it. I caught you reading Mid-Rim Budgeting Digest while sitting with the meditating cadets the other day. Your only holonet hourly feed is from the tooka spotting group. You have opinions on flimsy textures. It’s a perfectly fine and kind of deranged way to exist, and you shouldn’t have problems with the level of activities that go on at the Temple.”
Cody crosses his arms. “Ponds,” he says, slowly, “I’m not hearing you say my problem’s not real.”
Ponds seems taken aback for a quick moment, and then he tucks his hands behind him and looks away in silence. “I, okay, that’s shitty of me.” He says after a minute. “I’m sorry, Codes. I just. Organizer brain still on. I’ve no rights to take it out on you like that.”
Cody looks at him, and ultimately he can’t really stop himself from softening. They’ve been through much worse with less stringing them together. There were no stupid novelty thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles or off-world packaged instant drinks or learning how to hem a thrifted tunic on Kamino or during the war. If he couldn’t be mad at Ponds while they were both three days off sleep shift with seventeen minor lacerations between them, there’s no way he can now, when they’ve shared actual, honest-to-Force calm and peace.
“You’re forgiven,” he still says, maybe a bit too formally, but there are things worth being imparted with gravitas no matter the size.
Rex observes Ponds with the same gaze he bestows on Cody and particularly baffling expressions of jedi chaos. He sets down his tea to give Ponds a very gentle pat on the back. “Quit your job,” he advises.
“Not every ill I experience is because of my job,” Ponds says. “’sides, all data works are like this. I’d be swapping rancor for massiff.”
“You can do resource coordination for one of the Corps,” Rex suggests. “Numbers are numbers but the people you deal with will be funnier.”
Ponds huffs. “If I show up in a Temple office to sort numbers any time in the next seven years, Mace’d weep. He promised. In public.”
“You’re not supposed to make Rex’s argument for him,” Cody points out.
“He’s trying to grow his hair out again,” Ponds says. “He’s making decent progress. I won’t be the reason he fails. Every time we meet in front of CoCo Theater he’s like, ah, fresh air, isn’t it great Ponds?” He does a passable impression of Mace Windu, posture and all. “And I’ll be like on Coruscant, Master Windu? And he’ll laugh and say, whatever gets me out of looking at the commotions for another moment, and the despair will be naked in his eyes.”
Rex stares at him for a moment. “Become an actor, actually,” he says.
“You don’t have to fluff me up,” Ponds says mournfully. “Anyways. I’ll have my weekly session with my shrink and re-check my prescription. What the fuck’s up, Cody?”
“Not a single thing,” Cody says.
Ponds raises an eyebrow at him. It seems out of his batch only Ponds and Fox know how to do that. Rex takes out a large disposable straw, puts it in his “tea”, and drinks it very loudly.
“That’s kind of what’s wrong,” Cody elaborates when the silence becomes too judging. “Nothing’s out of the ordinary at the Temple. Obi-Wan is making progress on his mental problems, but he’s no crankier than usual. Three different knights tried to slip some weird requisition past coordination, which is the basic weekly rate. The giant, man-eating flower chose a new victim from Squall clan. They found a new room full of perfectly round pink silicat balls the other day.”
“And somehow you’re bored,” Ponds says.
“And somehow I’m bored.” Cody confirms. “Well, not? Exactly?” He taps his chin, trying to find the right words. “It’s not like I have nothing to do, I have my job, and otherwise I’m easy to entertain, you know that. There’s no point in overtime or busy work, ‘cause that’s not when it gets unbearable.”
“You have a schedule for feeling boredom?” Rex asks, with genuine awe.
“No, it’s--” Cody catches himself before he actually argues that point. “Shut up. It’s… like I’ve seen nothing new. But I don’t know how I can find, for example, frequent speeder crashes boring, so it’s not boredom.”
“Maybe you need to get out of the Temple more?” Ponds suggests.
“I do my admin work from outside the Temple all the time,” Cody says. “And I take walks. And go for drinks with Ghosts. And run into people I have to punch.”
“Maybe you need to go even further. Like, away.”
Cody puts his chin on his hands woven together. Ponds and Rex stares at him; Rex manages to make it seem like that’s not what he’s doing, while Ponds just doesn’t really notice. Ponds has that kind of affect about him – he’s always been straightforward, to complement his frankly insane ability to will meanings out of statistics. The majority of Cody’s batch seemed to have come to the same choice after the war ended, to never walk on eggshells around anything ever again. To never mince their words, no matter the subject. Not Ponds. He just naturally cuts to the heart of his concerns, always.
Cody loves him. He also hates him so fucking much. “I’ve been thinking about that, to be honest,” he says, seething just a little bit in his own private thoughts.
Ponds has the decency (or maybe it just never even appears to him) to not look smug. Rex doesn’t care to mask his slight surprise.
“It’s not urgent,” Cody chastises Rex. He shrugs in answer.
“Doesn’t have to be, vod… I just never noticed. I know you like to stew.”
Cody sighs, not even bothering to argue for his dignity anymore. It’s not like he clams up when he has something on his mind, there’s no use clamming up against family. He’s just been… thinking.
There are words, clear, concise words for the things soldiers experience on a battlefield. Wounds, categorized by affected area, by the type of damage, by severity. Fear, despair, anticipation. Camaraderie shared between people who might die together tomorrow. Rituals, jokes, death. The world shrinks down to moments fit under footsteps, taken one at a time. I’m not dying. I’ll be survived. Mando’a is chock full of words for those things, and even with the nebulousness of Basic, moved and morphed between trillions of mouths and cultures and classes, the memories are vivid, and the task of capturing them are just that: a task. Take a hammer to the syllables, and eventually you get something passable.
Cody didn’t lie when he said he takes walks and gets out and sees places. He’s taken on the habit of wandering. There are places, in the lower floors of the Temple, where he walks and looks back and finds his bootprints have been eaten. Swallowed by the silence. He lays on his and Obi-Wan’s bed at night, staring at the speeder lights zinging across their window every other minute. It’s never the exact same. Sometimes he thinks he’s been there forever.
Cody can stand on the precipice of that state and pour all of the words he knows, in any language, into the void it seems to him, and he’ll never even see them again.
“You know what,” he says, tapping both hands on the table, “we can leave that mystery for some other fucking day. I’m not here because I’m bored. I’m messenger boy for the day, so you can hand over the stupid hat, Ponds. Plausible deniability clause in effect for me.”
“I’ll buy you a drink if you let me take a look,” Rex declares immediately. The hunger in his eyes almost makes Cody laugh – Rex, as observant as he is, is still immensely easy to distract if you hold the right cards. And Cody, as the older brother, always holds the right cards.
Ponds hasn’t stopped staring at Cody yet. “Feel free, Rex’ika,” he says, a smile slowly blooming on his face. “Look only.”
The hat’s recording bug doesn’t have any audiovisual output, so obviously Rex gets nothing from just looking. Turns out Ponds is capable of appearing smug. Extremely capable.
Obi-Wan corners Cody and himself at the communal space’s low table a few days later. He chews on his lower lips, obviously consciously vetoing the “we need to talk” opening line in his mind, and settles on, “Something’s been eating at you, Cody.”
They’re nearing the one year anniversary of the Day of Robes at this point. Obi-Wan always seems a bit embarrassed about that common name for the day the peace treaty was signed; no other jedi gets wrapped up in that nowadays, though in the Temple it’s mostly known as “the day the war ended”. But to be fair, no other jedi had been whipping senators verbally for months before walking out of the Senate Dome to find a literal gaggle of their peers at the Square, and then having to pat their backs and receive back pats in return like they just scored a mildly impressive boloball goal for their team.
Obi-Wan is… Obi-Wan. Cody’s obviously not a wordsmith, but it’s still a bit baffling how for every adjective he can conjure up to describe Obi-Wan, he can immediately consider another that means the exact opposite and, still, also describes him. Obi-Wan is graceful and clumsy. He’s immense in his presence, and also immensely easy to overlook. He’s a simple man who’s also incredibly convoluted. He’s good company and really, really annoying at the same time. He’s the most boring man alive (Cody’s extremely sure he’s right and Rex is wrong about this one) and the most insane person the galaxy can produce, in the same package.
Cody… thinks a lot about this thing between him and Obi-Wan. This relationship. Ever since the war ended. There’s a routine, of sort. They talk, a lot, which is expected for individuals who literally share the same bed every night. They work practically in the same place, still; Obi-Wan has been off the traveling mission roster ever since the Day of Robes, at first because he was genuinely needed on Coruscant for administrative work and mediation, then because he spent most of his time looming over the few senators who were still refusing to sign Organa’s Sapience Rights Amendments, and then just. Voluntarily, for no professed reasons. He runs a few ‘saber workshops a week, for Corpsmen and Sentinels coming back from Outer Rim and senior Padawans who are interested in Soresu, and he and Master Windu talk themselves and the Council into delegating the admin work every other day. Which means they do less of the actual work themselves, but they have to be present at more places in the Temple and the Corps sites throughout the day, which brings Obi-Wan through Cody’s desk at Mission Resources somewhat frequently.
Cody keeps office hours on principles mostly; knights and masters on expedient missions still sometimes call him off-shift, because he doesn’t dawdle and usually knows where to get what they require in the Temple in an instant. He also can usually wrangle GenRes into sparing something on short notice if the request is actually urgent, and Master Nu trusts him enough to pass over under-the-table documents when he comes asking for them. GenRes has been trying to poach him for months now; they gave up on Fox when the man straight up walked up a random freighter and flew off planet the moment they asked, and whenever they even glance at Ponds Master Windu starts fake coughing into his very tightly closed fist.
It doesn’t really make a huge difference to Cody if he sits Mission Resources or goes up to General Resources either way. He just likes talking to knights and masters on their way out to missions. Having a hand on the pulse of that part of Temple life. When he mentioned the offer GenRes proposed to Obi-Wan for the first time, Obi-Wan just gently held his shoulder with the implied force of a full grab and said, “You’ll help people at either desk, Cody. Choose the one you like. Don’t let anyone push you around because it’ll be more convenient or more profitable for them especially.”
Obi-Wan’s most annoying habit is talking like a teacher to a ten-year-old when he feels strongly about a subject, but it’s also really endearing, especially when he’s actually sincere in his words, and also not talking at Cody. “I know, Obi-Wan,” Cody’s replied then, and the look in Obi-Wan’s eyes has been oddly fragile.
Those same eyes hold the same look now, at their flat’s common room’s low table. Cody pours them both some water, and Obi-Wan looks at his cup resignedly. He picks it up and spins in slowly between his hands.
“You’re getting really worked up over this,” Cody says, aiming for some levity, but maybe missing the mark a notch. He decides on the spot to follow the arrow he just shot. “It’s making me tight up too. You think I got something life-changing hidden away under my bed?”
Obi-Wan stares at his cup. Then he visibly considers how morose of a picture that paints right now, so he looks up at Cody instead. “I don’t actually know, Cody,” he says, “I needn’t remind you we jedi can’t actually read minds?”
Cody appreciates Obi-Wan’s own attempt at levity. They’re both somehow really bad at this tonight. “I… Honestly, I don’t really know what’s up myself,” he gathers the words and pushes them out. “I’m not really thinking that hard about it.”
Obi-Wan huffs a laugh. “A couple we make.”
“Yeah.” Cody laughs too. “You know, we really are the most boring people in the damn galaxy, if this is what we’re finding funny.”
“Being easy to entertain’s no bad trait to have,” Obi-Wan says. He seems less fragile than a minute ago, somehow.
Cody nods. He sips on his water, giving himself a moment to think words through. Since Ponds dragged that small revelation out of him, the thoughts haven’t grown any clearer, but they press on his mind nonetheless. A pressure like the phantom hand of a vod on his shoulder in passing, layered on itself into the eternal flow of time.
Obi-Wan just keeps looking at him, a gaze that shifts almost untraceably from the weight of waiting to the levity of a look just because. Obi-Wan, as is practically instinct by now, stills himself in idle moments, but the tranquility of the way he looks at his loved ones is still a novelty to Cody, after four years of loving the man.
“I,” the single syllable escapes before Cody can get ahold of it, breaking the moment. He swallows, and tilts his head at his cup of water, and then towards Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan shifts a bit closer. “I’ve been… walking around. A lot. A bit more than usual, maybe? I don’t really notice it, but Rex says I’ve been ‘wiggling like a baitbug’ on my seat, and apparently every free minute I have now I’m walking somewhere.” Cody scrunches his face. “You know, now that I’ve said all that out loud, it’s a bit weird how out of tune I’ve been with my own body. Existence. It’s like I’m… a piece of flimsy, that’s had a paperweight holding me down this whole time, and now someone’s moved that weight and the wind can move me. And I can feel myself sliding, just a bit. Knowing I can just be blown off the table now.”
Obi-Wan also makes a face. “A paperweight? Have someone been bearing down on you? Do you feel pressured to make a decision on something?”
“That’s not really what the paperweight,” Cody says, and then aborts the sentence to try again. “The thing is this whole… experience or feeling or whatever, I’m walking around it. When I tell you I don’t know what the hell’s even going on with that, I mean it, Obi-Wan. It’s not a bad feeling, or a premonition, or even anything urgent. I’m just aware of it now, so it comes up now and then. It’s like,” he wracks his brain to find any word that feels appropriate, “I’ve been fine, totally normal, nothing out of the ordinary, until suddenly I realize I’m not. Taking in. A lot of things anymore.” He drags a hand through his hair, feeling somewhat frustrated.
Obi-Wan makes a noise that roughly means go on.
“I told Ponds a while ago, just kinda came up while chatting,” Cody resumes his thinking out loud obligingly, “and he told me maybe I need to get off planet. Maybe in a vacation way? But I don’t think I need one. I like what I’m doing here. This is practically a really prolonged vacation comparing to all the shit that got chucked at us in the war.”
“That’s fair,” Obi-Wan palms his cup of water. He takes a sip, his whole body seemingly curled up around the gravity of the cup for one moment, and then it flows out into a controlled casual position again as he lowers the cup. “Though, the war is, frankly, a rubbish baseline for any daily occurrence.”
Cody shrugs. “I don’t know, Obi,” he says, somewhat helplessly.
“The part about ‘not taking anything new in’”, Obi-Wan says, not looking at Cody, “I feel that is of some import. Sometimes it’s simply the right thing to… move on, or just. Walk off to look at something else. You’ve heard the talk from Mace, surely.”
“I’m not the Master of the Order,” Cody says. “I talk on the comm to people who have the things the people at my desk need. They’re even funny most of the time. There’s… I’ve no reason to be bored or resentful of my current life.”
Obi-Wan holds the cup closer to his chest. “Sometimes,” he says, and then goes quiet for a moment. “Sometimes,” he starts again when his whole being’s become preternaturally still, “what we feel don’t connect directly to what we experience. The brain, like the Force, is. We’d go crazy trying to ask why.”
Cody leans back on the couch, simply looking at Obi-Wan for a moment. Jedi, as a rule, are strange people. Even unassuming ones like Obi-Wan. Especially unassuming ones, like Obi-Wan. Knowledge can spin you down that path; Cody’s gotten a taste when the Sith Lord/ex-Chancellor’s plan came to light, quietly between seven vode and three Generals, who then just had to carry on doing their normal everyday duty as if their world hadn’t just turned upside down. Mortal bodies holding acknowledgement of immense things, while still grappling with mundane nonsenses every second.
“Something’s been eating at you too,” he says, small, in their quiet flat.
Obi-Wan drinks his water. “It’s,” he says, “something I feel I should think through more thoroughly.”
“Think at me, then.”
The smile Obi-Wan wears then’s soft, and sad in a private, directed-inward way. “It involves you, so I’d wager it’s a bit rude.”
Cody props an arm on the couch’s back. “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says with as much gravitas as he can muster at the moment, “you’re the most annoying person currently present in the Coruscant Jedi Temple.”
Obi-Wan sputters, for effect. “What- what’s that for?” He asks, indignant.
“I’m being rude at you. Now be rude back.”
“What? No!”
“You can sniff out a stray leaf of Alderaan Thornbrush in a tinful of Lady Green, but I swapped out rice for shrinkbean last week and you didn’t even notice. Every single morning you stretch your arms before you sit up and hit your hands on the headboard and every day you complain about it. I’m not laughing at you every day only because I’m usually too sleepy at the wretched hour that you wake up.”
“I wake up at a normal hour,” Obi-Wan harrumphs, but the corner of his mouth’s pulling up slightly.
“Every single time Vos has ‘broken in’ to attach another stupid patch to your robe it’s been me who let him in. I never even raised a finger to attempt to stop him. He just walks in and I don’t even look up.”
Obi-Wan huffs, which is the wrong move, because that breath out drags along with it a laugh, and then he can’t stop anymore. “My object of loathing and hatred,” he wheezes into Cody’s laughter, waving his cup (now empty, Cody notices with satisfaction) onto the table with the Force. Cody finishes his water, then hugs Obi-Wan around the shoulder.
“You hate me so much you can’t stand even being nice to me for a moment,” he agrees. “You’re rude to me at all time. Be rude to me right now.”
Obi-Wan exhales in a long breath. He curls up a bit into Cody’s side, a warm weight next to him, sunk into the frankly decadent give of the couch pillows. “You know, this position makes saying what I need to say a lot harder,” he speaks evenly.
Cody just squeezes his waist, squishing him into his side more. He reaches out to put his cup on the table, next to Obi-Wan’s. “It’s the starting part,” he says. “Once you’re done starting, the rest comes along.”
“You’re right.” Obi-Wan closes his eyes. “I’m… going to go on a mission next month.”
Cody turns his head to look at him, and smiles as big as he can. “Back in action?”
Obi-Wan nods. “We’re short on Consulars at the moment, and I have the training.” Funny thing for the Negotiator to say, but Cody knows Obi-Wan, and he knows he doesn’t care much for that title. It’s basically the equivalent of calling himself The Great Swindler, according to him. Just broadcast my intentions to every single adversary in a ten click radius, why not, Obi-Wan has said once, on a particularly grueling night in the middle of one of their rare campaigns that actually had to do with negotiating. He’s then apologized for the slip, and Cody’s made a point to laugh at every of those ‘slips’ from then on. Obi-Wan eventually stopped apologizing for being tired and cranky about running a literal army on no sleep. The tongue lashings he delivered at the Senate Dome quasi-daily the months preceding the peace treaty surprised a lot of people, but by that point Cody only felt thick, potent secondhand satisfaction, as well as pride.
“That’s fully signed on, right?” Cody asks. Obi-Wan nods again.
“Yes, Healer Auvin also authorized remote sessions. I’m partnering with Knight Theres for this one.”
Cody remembers Knight Ach’rai Lav Theres. “They’ll try to rob your tea stash,” he says. “They requested a frankly absurd amount of Ent brew last month as ‘peace offering’, going to an aquatic planet to talk with an underwater people who do not drink anything.”
“I’ll be careful, then,” Obi-Wan smiles.
Cody nods. He also knows that Knight Theres was bounced between battalions during the war, staying pretty firmly in the Mid to Outer Rim. He knows that they’re not a particularly subtle person, that they frequently pointed to themself as a cannon for the troops to point at the enemy rather than a commanding officer, that they’re an excellent hand at Ataru and Shii-Cho that even Jedi Battlemaster Cin Drallig commends. He knows that they once shielded an entire battalion from enemy fire, singlehandedly, letting not a single blaster bolt cross their one-person line of defense. He knows that they paid pretty dearly for that feat, courting serious Force exhaustion, and he knows that they just shrug whenever a vod brings that up, as they do at any matter not concerning leafy concoctions.
He’s not worried about Obi-Wan or Knight Theres.
“I think,” Obi-Wan says, after a moment of silence between them, “that you should travel a bit too.”
“You think so?” Cody says evenly. “Where’re you guys gonna mediate at?”
Obi-Wan shakes his head. “Not… with me. Not on a Jedi mission. You should go and see the universe, my dear.” He shifts in his seat slightly, restless. “It’s so very large, and Coruscant is only the one planet.”
He swallows, and presses himself into Cody’s hold.
“This is not… me… letting go of you,” He says. “This is, specifically, not me trying to get rid of you.”
Cody looks at him. “Obi-Wan,” he says, “I’m not at all saying or thinking that.”
Obi-Wan pulls his feet up onto the couch. “You have a life here,” his voice softens impossibly more, his gaze faraway, “and you’ll continue to have it, no matter where you go, until you actively refuse it. I love you. The sentiments, they shift and sometimes I don’t have the best grasp on them,” he blushes a bit at the confession, as if it’s something scandalous to not being able to identify what one’s feeling sometimes, “but I make a conscious decision to love you every day. As an act, as intent, as a cause. As long as we have our wits with us, that shan’t change.”
Cody just continues to hold him. “But.”
“But.” Obi-Wan echoes. “Maybe my wits are attempting to leave me, now.” He scrubs at his beard, as Cody falls still next to him. “I’ve been working on my anger, as you know.”
Cody does. A depressing number of jedi have been doing the same. Anger is sometimes the right emotional reaction to an event, especially an unjust one that can be remedied. But wars just happen to be an endless string of unjust events, and anger becomes chronic when you choose it repeatedly in the face of apathy. A lot of jedi have slipped up in the war, and the majority of that number eventually found out how exhausting it is to be angry all the time, even if to sustain the amount of power the Dark gave them.
Cody finds his chest warms at Obi-Wan’s ready acknowledgement of his anger issue. He’s gone through the same with the other end of the scale. “Yeah,” he says. “You’ve been doing well.”
“I’ve been trying my best,” Obi-Wan says, “but. It takes up a lot of my brain, while I get used to accommodating the… workarounds. And, I’ve been realising,” he swallows, “that it’s very hard now to understand myself. I’m not who I know I am. Was.”
Cody keeps silently holding him.
“I don’t think I’m much of a lover as I am right now,” Obi-Wan says, eventually.
“You’re plenty of a lover for me,” Cody amends immediately. Obi-Wan laughs.
“Thank you, that’s really sweet. But I just… I feel like I can’t offer anything right now. We hold each other in bed, and we talk, and we share things, and. It’s all the same as when we were still in the war.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” Obi-Wan shakes his head again, but then stops abruptly. “Yes? The war was… It saw an abysmal version of me, Cody. We barely had time to enjoy each other’s presence. And now we do the same things, just more.”
Cody scrunches his brows. “Do you want… something new in the relationship?” There are plenty of new things on the potential list. Sex. Another partner. A different flat. Sharing chores differently. Going to an art class together.
Obi-Wan chews on his lower lips. Cody lightly taps on his cheek to stop him from doing that. “In a way,” he says. “This… runs parallel with the previous… issue.”
“That I need to travel a bit?”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan nods. “I’ve just realised too, recently, that I’ve been… dominating a lot of your time.”
“We live in the same flat.”
Obi-Wan blows at the lock of hair that has fallen onto his brows. “I’m getting there. We promised, yes? Two years ago. That when the war ends, we will put our heart into figuring this relationship out. That we won’t give up on it. And that has been on my mind for a while. You know that one part of why I could not enter a relationship then was because I was your superior officer.”
Cody nods. He’s not really seeing where this is going yet, but Obi-Wan seems to have sussed out a way through. He just also seems to not really like it.
“This… figuring it out, on my part.” Obi-Wan intones very carefully. There’s no Negotiator smoothness in his wording. “I feel like… I’m still that. Your commanding officer. It still feels like you’re in my presence sixteen hours a day on an order.”
Cody lets go of Obi-Wan’s waist. He shifts himself on the couch so that he’s fully facing towards Obi-Wan. “You intellectually know that’s not the case, yeah?” He asks.
Obi-Wan swallows roughly, and when he looks at Cody, his gaze isn’t fragile as much as it’s already crumbled. “That’s the thing though,” he says, light as a breeze. Cody squeezes his shoulders, suddenly afraid. “We literally live together, and I… The other day, I went to the commissary to pick up some lunch for both of us, and I caught myself choosing food for you based on nutritional value.”
The anecdote seems to shatter Obi-Wan.
“I don’t even know what meat you enjoy, Cody.” The words are coming out faster now. “I don’t know what holomovie you genuinely like, I don’t know if you care for gossips, I don’t.” He brings up a hand, slowly, to Cody’s face, but it never lands anywhere. It stays a few milimeters away from his skin, still, before Obi-Wan balls it up into a fist and puts it down in his lap. “It seems I barely know you at all,” he says.
“I’m ambivalent on many things,” Cody says. “Food is food. Holomovies are good background noises. Gossips are fun depends on the people I’m sitting with. What’s this about, Obi?”
“Other than work, we just talk about what I like. I shove new things at you as if you’re an afterthought to me.” Obi-Wan breathes out another long, controlled breath. “Now that I’ve noticed all of that, it makes me reevaluate some things. I haven’t been doing my share of ‘figuring us out’, and now there’s just. A lot to figure out.”
“We’ve got time,” Cody promises. To himself, too.
“We do,” Obi-Wan agrees. “We have the time, now, to take us as slow or fast as we want. And I… I need this chance. To know myself again. And to be the person who can know you, in a way that’s… not weighed with my own presence.”
Cody slowly puzzles that one out in his head.
“So, a break,” he says, when he’s figured out there’s really no other conclusion to come to.
Obi-Wan finally gives in and puts his face in his hands. “I hate using that expression,” he laments, “it always implies such torrid endings.”
It’s Cody’s turn to take a slow, controlled breath in and out. “Okay,” He says. “We need time away from each other.”
“Do you?” Obi-Wan peers up.
“As I said, I’m ambivalent on many things,” Cody replies, a bit petulantly. He sighs and leans on the couch’s back again. “No, that’s unfair, I’m sorry. It’s… I don’t really know what I’m feeling right now. I…” He turns his head to look at Obi-Wan again. “I would really hate it if you’re doing this out of guilt, however.”
Obi-Wan immediately shakes his head. “I’m not. Promise on my honor.” He holds up his right hand solemnly. “I take my oath to work on this relationship seriously, Cody, and loving you is still a decision I make every day. This, too, is a part of that decision.” He lowers his hand, and looks into Cody’s eyes instead of just his general face for the first time this evening. “It’s not communication blackout or strict quarantine or, or anything like that. We just need to see new things, without the other person being there to immediately comment on it.”
Cody untenses his shoulders, which have raised against his will. Obi-Wan puts a hand on his arm, and when he doesn’t push it off, pulls him into a hug. Cody finds he puts a bit too much force into it once he starts reciprocating. Obi-Wan presses his lips firmly on Cody’s jaw, and then pushes his forehead agains that spot. “Let’s sleep on this one,” Cody says. “My boyfriend’s gonna kick me out of the flat soon, I need a good night sleep.”
Obi-Wan laughs, quietly. His grey eyes are still unbearably sad, which is honestly just a notch over how they are normally, but Cody looks into them and sees the ember of hope, too. “If anything, I’m the one moving out,” he points out. “My old suite’s still vacant. Or you can move there, if you fancy wading through mechanical knick-knacks with various sharp edges.”
“Rock-paper-scissors it out in the morning,” Cody suggests, only half-jokingly. It still wins a laugh from Obi-Wan, so Cody doesn’t mind it much.
“Or maybe duel to the death. To the victor goes Anakin Skywalker’s world’s worst reverse heirloom.”
“Awarded upon divorce, too.”
Obi-Wan thumps Cody lightly on the shoulder for that.
They stay on the couch for a moment longer. “You know I love you, right, Obi?” Cody says, hearing his own words too loud in their shared space.
“I do,” Obi-Wan says, equally quietly, equally loud.
“It’s a matter of choice for me as well. Always has been. Ever since the first day I cared for you, I’ve resolved to make the choices to love you.” Cody’s words slowly drops to a murmur, his face still pressed to Obi-Wan’s. “I do it with all my wits by me.”
Obi-Wan nods against Cody’s jaws, and Cody feels something in him settle. The paper of his being flutters, and he closes his eyes, acknowledging the winds.
When Cody wakes up the next day, the bed’s already vacant and cold on Obi-Wan’s side. Cody wipes at his face, a bit morosely, and checks the chrono. It’s a bit later than his usual time up.
He sidles into the kitchen to find a stack of honey cakes on the hot plate to keep warm and a note on actual flimsy from Obi-Wan. Early Council session, it says, in a very economical version of Obi-Wan’s usual handwriting, Nara brought cakes. It’s from her hometown. I saved you some, call Bant if allergic reaction, call Quin if not. Love you.
Cody sits at the table for a while, just holding the note. It feels like he’s had a dream last night he doesn’t remember, and if he thinks harder about it he’ll recall tidbits here and there, and it’ll turn out to be about the conversation he had with Obi-Wan before bed. In many ways it doesn’t really feel real, but in many others… not much can reach the hazy embarrassment of real life vulnerability. Or the awkwardness of fumbling through just the task of talking. Or the lull of the after-conversation, where you fall back together, and you decide if that’ll mean anything.
Cody eats one of the cakes, slowly. When he doesn’t die after the third bite, he shoots a text to Quinlan Vos, just the word Alive. in plain text. Vos sends back seven lines of party poppers and Republic credit symbols ten seconds later, followed by a drinks on me tonight in bold text, and then a we’re survivors.
How’s the cake though, Luminara Unduli messages him next.
I like it, thank you, he texts back.
grees allergic to banli pollen, Vos tattles at the same time in his text conversation. they got laid flat for two days. Then a recording is sent, and Cody knows it’s of Gree cursing him for a full minute, but he opens it anyway.
He finishes his breakfast of honey cakes and caf with the melody of Gree’s tirade on repeat in the background. He saves one, for Rex; a confirmation holo gets Rex’s full consent in a matter of seconds. Rex would know all the intricacies of the dish’s appeal, he’s sure. He looks forward to it.
Left one for Rex, he texts Obi-Wan. Don’t eat it. I’ll get us lunch.
He cleans up the dishes, put Rex’s honey cake away, and goes off to sort the queue at the MisRes office.
When lunch time comes, he spends a while at the refectory’s savoury table, just looking at the choices of meat. In the end, he doubles Obi-Wan’s portion, and resolves to just pick off of that. It’s really all the same to him.
“Master Vos,” Cody greets from the door, to a resounding “Cody!” from the aforementioned individual, followed quickly by a “Don’t call me that!”
Obi-Wan’s invited to a grass-growing event that evening. Cody’s thought that’s a folk name for a ceremony or something, but Obi-Wan’s looked extremely amused at his guess when they talked about it at lunch. “Oh, no, Cody,” he’s said, “they’re growing grass in that building I’ll be at. Literally, by the exact meaning of every word, yes. The people at CIAD have finally found the ideal growing conditions for their satellite colony’s soon-to-be major covering green.”
“The Corellian farmers?” Cody’s furrowed his brows at the name. He could recall them being brought up in a few MisRes forms, a while ago. The AgriCorps and ExploraCorps have been working with them on and off, storing and carting bio samples to places with some apparently very high end, very expensive Corellian ships, and some protection details were requested from the Temple a few times. For the ships. “It’s just grass,” the CIAD liaison had answered when a knight on those missions asked about the samples themselves. “We have the work an’ the tech, we can make grass again. These babies though,” (referring to the ships), “they’re in hibernation, but they need their engines hot once in a while, or they’d freeze over an’ that’s no good. The ladies need their beauty tour.”
Someone did shoot at the ships, so it all makes sense, in a cruel, twisted, travelling circus kind of way.
Obi-Wan nodded, amusement still clear on his lips. “Yes, them. The ideal conditions to grow this specific grass, however, involve specific, low lighting, near-freezing temperature, frost, and complete silence. Apparently they grow so fast in such conditions that they make audible sounds.”
“So,” Cody said, tearing the bread roll he’s holding into the individual layers it’s made of, “you’ll be spending the evening in a wet freezer with some candles, standing around some grass, listening to them scream.”
“Groan,” Obi-Wan corrected, his smile growing.
“Oh, yeah, that makes it a lot more enticing, thank you,” Cody said. “You have anyone to hold your hand through that harrowing experience yet?”
The smile was very large by then. “If all goes well, by the time the evening ends, the grass.”
Cody has thrown the bread in his hand at Obi-Wan’s head, and then politely opted out of going to the grass-growing event. Obi-Wan’s accepted that with a twinkle in his eyes.
So: here Cody is, after delivering the honey cake to Rex and listening to the crash course on every honey pastry stand on the West side of the Temple, back in his-and-currently-still-Obi-Wan’s flat, which Quinlan Vos has once again broken into. Cody walks to where he’s sitting, at the kitchen table, and stands in front of him with arms crossed.
“I see greasy food,” he says.
“This is for later,” Vos picks up the bag of wrapped-up stuffed flatbreads and puts it on the other side of the table. He then starts pulling out skewers of spiced bowfins from the other bag. “This is for now. Do you think I fuck around when I say drinks on me, Cody?”
Cody pulls out a chair for himself. “I’m gonna be wrong about a buncha stuff either way,” he says, as Vos pulls out a bottle of Alderaani Whiskey and thunks it on the table.
“Good man,” Vos comments. He calls over two glasses from a cabinet with the Force, and pours them each a finger. “You know, I honestly thought you’d be all over that grass growing event,” he says conversationally while dipping a skewer in Cody’s glass and pushing it towards Cody.
Cody pretends both the skewer and the glass isn’t in front of him. “Literally only Obi-Wan Kenobi would be excited about whatever the hells that is,” he says.
“’tis the evening of being wrong about things, I guess,” Vos cheers. He dips another skewer of fish in his own glass, and tears a strip off the top of it with his fingers. “Thought it’s the supportive partner thing to, you know, go watch some grass together. Holding hands and stuff.”
Cody carefully considers the spot on the table next to the neglected glass-and-skewer situation. “Yes,” he says slowly, “that’d be one of those things.”
Vos scrunches his nose. “You sound so much like Kenobi sometimes,” he says.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Depends on the criterias,” Vos shrugs. He finishes chewing and swallows the piece of fish. He then takes a sip of the whiskey. “I’m gonna be perfectly candid with you, Cody, one is the perfect number of Obi-Wan Kenobi around. If there’s another of him popping up I’d start crying, and nobody wants that.” He raises an eyebrow at Cody, which reminds him sharply for one second of Fox’s own version of eyebrow chastisement.
Cody tilts his head a little bit, mostly to try to dislodge that mental image. “I don’t control the Kenobi Spawn Rate, Master Vos.”
Vos claps his hands. “Clever! Putting both an innuendo and an insult on the table, neither touching the actual answer despite circling it, and whichever I choose I get distracted. Especially effective for juvenile, immature people who can’t let innuendos or insults go. High five?”
He extends a hand, and Cody remarks absently at the back of his head that it’s ungloved. Cody contemplates for a short, ill-fated second to tuck his hands under his arms like a youngling caught not washing them after playing in the mud, but then sighs internally and reaches for the glass instead. The bowfin has gone a bit soggy and spiceless at the top, so he bites on the other end and tears a bit of that off instead. He chews carefully, letting the spices warm the roof of his mouth, as well as his thoughts.
Vos casually drops his hand back onto the table. “Now, you don’t have to be so rude to me,” he says, his fake indignance so close to Obi-Wan’s that Cody’s breath catches for a moment. Cody swallows the bit of fish roughly.
“I’m a very rude man now,” the words leave his mouth before he can fully think them through. “Obi didn’t tell you that part?”
Vos laughs. He puts his skewer down to wipe at his mouth with the back of his hand, and when that doesn’t calm him down enough, he snatches Cody’s glass back to pour a bit more whiskey into it. “You really think Obi-Wan Kenobi tells me shit,” he wheezes, pushes the glass back towards Cody.
Cody shrugs. “He’s been working on that.”
“Oh, that’s so damn cute, I’m gonna choke on this fucking fish,” Vos says passionately. “Alright, to be fair to Kenobi, and if you tell him I’m doing this you’ll find out about a great many things,” he wags a finger at Cody, “he has been genuinely trying. He’s just also the logical idiot conclusion of the cracks that run through the whole system, and if he’s ever straightforward about a single thing in his life his immune system would fail or something. We’ve both seen the schedule he made for confiding in his friends.”
Cody takes a sip from his glass. This whiskey doesn’t contain enough glaze, he decides, and starts pulling bits of bowfin off the skewer to dump into the glass. “Gotta do what you gotta do,” he says, absentmindedly.
Vos’ eyes soften in a curious way. “Yeah, whatever works,” he agrees, passing the sentiment off as an afterthought and almost succeeding. “But yeah, no, Ser Cody of Mission Resources fames, me and Kenobi, we’ve got a method. It involves not telling each other shit, and making it fun and enticing to snoop on each other, and trying to goad each other into quality improv comedy moments on the spot. It’s our personal sport, for two chronically bored, perpetually enraged, disastrously brilliant and scandalous and devastatingly handsome individuals. So, no, Kenobi doesn’t tell me things. It’s not how it works.”
Cody tries another sip of the whiskey. It’s finally adequately spicy. He keeps the glass on his lips for a moment, obscuring half of his face. “Gotta say, Master Vos,” he says, “you have the GenRes people beat on recruitment speeches.”
Vos slaps the table. “Force-blessed banthashit, I didn’t even think of that,” he says. “How are you better at my job than me? That’s so unfair. It’s really unfair that Kenobi snatched you of all the brothers, actually.”
“We alternated between who snatched who off the floor to cart to bed,” Cody mumbles. “Anyway. I will not spy on my own boyfriend for you, even if you pay me. Especially if you pay me.”
“You will in fact punch me if I try to pay you to do that, got it,” Vos nods. “Noble and reasonable reaction. Do you realize we’ve been talking about that son of a bantha since the moment we saw each other this evening? And he’s not even here?”
Cody’s ears catch those questions midway through a sip, and when he’s done processing them, the glass has left his lips. Well, Cody thinks, noticing that he should probably feel some fear, but distinctly doesn’t, you’re on your own now, brave son of endless rain.
“We’ve got him in common,” he says, to test the water, kind of.
“Fair,” Vos says, but his dark eyes are trained on Cody’s face now. Cody’s not really fazed; Quinlan Vos certainly has a way to amp up the intensity of his being to his preferred level on a chip’s flip, but he has stared at Cody before. Tension was high after the Sith plan’s discovery, and Vos was looped in on accident, which made things both very dangerous and really, really awkward. Cody had found himself slipping into apathy a lot easier in those days, partly just to not have to figure out what in the nine Sith hells was even up with how Vos was staring at him every time he checked. Finding out that wasn’t even really about the chips was hysterical to Cody, in a kind of deranged way.
Quinlan Vos cares a lot about the people in his life, even if the way he shows it gets a bit lost in the cacophony of how he is.
His gaze on Cody now’s not the same as the almost caustic curiosity back then, however. Quinlan Vos’ eyes will probably always be the bit of body language that gives away his laid-back, easygoing act; like any other seasoned investigators, the path of finding out more, more, more is hard to leave well enough alone for him, and one can always see in his eyes the way the dots connect. They’ll never be tranquil, but having known how intense they could get before, Cody recognizes now the ginger touch of someone who’s also figuring it out and not willing to mess things up. It leaves him a bit wrong-footed, in a new and fresh way he’s not been before, and is really not in the mood to figure out right now.
“Obi-Wan and I don’t talk about Obi-Wan,” Vos says, after a moment of silence, “but he does talk. About you. A lot. It’d be cute if Aayla doesn’t also do the same thing about Bly, and I’ve grown to associate that specific behavior with my own padawan, and if I even think about Obi-Wan Kenobi in a lightyear radius of that framing my brain will grow hair and explode.”
“If you want him to stop, you’re gonna have to tell him yourself,” Cody shrugs. He looks at his decimated skewer and reaches into the bag between him and Vos to get another one. Vos snorts.
“You’re a good man, you know that, Cody? But first of all I enjoy when Kenobi’s a little pathetic about his oversized heart, so no I will never stop him for love or money, and second, it’s.” He picks his glass up, swirls the bit of alcohol left in it around. “It’s nice hearing about how you’re doing.”
Cody considers his new skewer of fish carefully. “Half the bullshit req forms coming through my desk are from some dares you put the knights up to,” he says. “You can just pass me a note along with those like a normal person.”
“I regret so much to be the one to tell you this,” Vos says in a tone that directly contradicts his words, “but around this part what you do’s considered boring as fuck. Drink your fuel, Cody.”
Cody dutifully takes a sip of his whiskey.
“Besides, I wouldn’t get to hear about your heartsickness from your own mouth, now would I?” Vos says into the silence, with a casualness that’s probably Force-bolstered.
Cody almost laughs, and he definitely can’t suppress an eye roll. “What it’s called is clinical depression, thank you very much,” he says, and then tears into the bowfin, the glaze on which has now dried a bit and won’t make the task messier than it needs to be. “I take pills for that, and I don’t bring it up in every conversation ‘cause, in case you haven’t noticed, every other poor fuck’s dealing with the exact same thing, ‘cause we’re fresh off an intergalactic war.”
Vos crosses his legs and tilts his head. “That’s shrink talk,” he says, “and I’m not your shrink.”
“Yeah,” Cody snaps, “my shrink’d ask me what I want.” He immediately feels bad about snapping, but before he can apologize, Vos has already waved his hand.
“And I’m a Jedi, brother. It’s kind of the description of the job to want people to have a good time, then do something about it.”
That gets a huff that’s close to a laugh from Cody. “Top ten sentences to get you an ass-whooping from the crèchemaster if said in the crèche,” he says, and takes another bite of fish.
“They’re just better at making it child-appropriate,” Vos waves his hand. He picks up the bottle and offers it to Cody. Cody holds out his glass for a refill.
They sit in hazy silence for a minute or so, before Vos sighs and drops his glass back onto the table.
“I know how it is, you know.”
“How what is?”
“Sliding into apathy.” Vos taps one finger on the side of the glass, soundlessly. “I burned out on anger a lot earlier than my peers. Was swinging like crazy between either end for a while, drove my late Master to drink probably. Not that it’d help him, I’m pretty sure that man was immune to every poison ever.” His smile turns somber. “I know the early signs too fucking well for how I’m managing now. It feels really unfair sometimes.”
“Brains just are.”
“That they sure fucking do.” Vos turns to look at Cody again. “You do what you must, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Everyone loves you, Cody. They want you to be happy.”
Cody presses two fingers to his forehead, still holding the skewer in the same hand. “Does it hurt saying that out loud, Quinlan?”
“You laugh and jeer at my heartfelt sentiments,” Vos clutches at his chest in mock offense. “But yes, that was like pulling teeth. I’m so glad I’m drinking right now.”
Cody can say the same thing, but he opts to raise his glass to cheer instead. “You know like seventeen ways to never have to look me in the eye again immediately comes tomorrow,” he says, amiably. “Give me a destination, I’ll be off your hair.”
Vos grins. “Oh, brother, I thought you’d never ask.”
Obi-Wan comes home that night with frost still in his hair and palms green like he’s really been holding hands with grass. When he lays his head on Cody’s chest in bed, he still smells like rain.
“You don’t have to move out,” Cody tells him, as he looks out through the window of their bedroom, catching the lights of a speeder passing by. “I got a freighter to run away on this weekend.”
Obi-Wan squeezes his arm a bit tighter. “Where to, my dear?”
“Vos’ ticket says Eirfolt.”
Cody’s shoulder shakes as Obi-Wan laughs onto his chest, a bit hysterically. “The Galaxy’s Biggest Boloball?”
“Yeah, it says that on the ticket too.”
“Congratulations on your once-in-a-lifetime chance, dear. You should pack your mud boots.”
Cody smiles. Obi-Wan’s a warm weight, and his being’s quiet for the night. He finds he’s not afraid of the eventual flight, but it doesn’t unsettle him anymore either. He’ll take it. “We’ll see about that.”