Archive of Our Own

The bedroom window was open again. Set into the green stucco, the glass, tilted open, left a triangular shadow over the front of the house. It looked like the very top of a craggy mountain, or the line of a sharpened knife. Earlier in the evening, noise had seeped between the frames: murmured conversation and the gentle slide of wooden drawers. The household sounds had spilled onto the open air like a glass of wine knocked over at dinner. This was a quiet neighbourhood, tree-lined and bungalow-filled. Everything could be heard.

From his car, parked across the street, Quinlan kept his eyes fixed to the crack in the drapes. The streetlight, dim and gloomy, turned the brown window frame to silver and sank into the tresses of the airy fabric. What were they made of? Muslin? Chiffon? He had spent a summer working alongside a tailor in a dress shop. Master Sinube could set his spectacles at the very end of his hooked nose, grasp a yard of fabric with one arthritis-clawed hand, and know the thread count within seconds. Restless energy coursing suddenly through him, Quinlan scrubbed at the arms of his sweater (wool, polyester), and then tapped out a light rhythm on the knees of his jeans (denim, cotton twill weave). 

He hadn’t been listening. To the evening conversation, he hadn’t been listening. If the window of his car was rolled down a smidge that was pure coincidence. It was just… It was nice to hear someone that wasn’t himself, for once. In France, he had spent time with an architect who said that every building had a voice. Likely, if Obi-Wan’s house could speak, it would be telling him to stop being a useless, stalking idiot, and drive away .

Swearing, Quinlan fiddled with his seat-back for the fiftieth time. He swung himself up and down, in and out of view of the bedroom window. How long had he been sitting here? It felt simultaneously like mere seconds and an odd collection of days. The first night he had panicked and driven away after five minutes. On the third, he made it all the way up the sixth step of the front stoop before fleeing to the confines of his Honda CR-V. The day before yesterday, he had begged Aayla to borrow her car, suddenly paranoid that they would recognize his. He had sat through dinner, eating one of his own, hunched over the dashboard, as Obi-Wan and Cody set the table and ladled soup and scrubbed dishes in perfect tandem. 

Jostling with his seat until he was raised upright again, Quinlan turned the key in the ignition, letting the engine rumble and the clock blink blearily to life before twisting it off. Three-thirty AM. The abrupt groan of his vehicle echoed like a shout in the canyon of the empty street. When he had been hiking in the Andes it had sounded like that, the noise smacking off stone and chasing him around, his own footsteps always preceding him. He had turned every corner expecting to bounce off his reflection. 

For a moment, Quinlan longed for the view off the top of a mountain. There was an ache in his chest for the crisp air, the clarity, and the certainty that he was just one speck in the landscape, utterly tiny and insignificant in comparison to everything else. One echo amongst a thousand. 

Now, he could barely see anything but formless shadows: the dark rectangle of a dresser here, the edge of the bed there. In daylight, the room had shape and colour. Despite himself, he had already memorized the curve of the baseboards, the tangerine accent wall, and the position of the picture frames above the headboard. It was stupid - he was stupid, and fully aware that he was trespassing far past the unspoken line of appropriate conduct… but he wanted to step inside, to pore over the photographs from a reasonable distance. Quinlan wanted to drink in every detail. Who graced their frames? Was he there? He drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel thinking of ancient history. What was the criteria to be hung on the bedroom wall? Who had Obi-Wan and his husband deemed worthy expressions of their life story? The beat of his hands took on a vaguely familiar tune. Of course he wouldn’t be up there - what was he thinking?  

How long had it been? His hands itched to turn the key again; he shoved them in his pockets instead. It was hard, coming up with things for them to do besides knocking on the door. He had already sorted through his wallet twice. 

As he decided between reordering his keychains or untangling the beads that hung from the rearview mirror, Quinlan froze at the sound of a peaceful marimba. Faster than a gunshot (and he had heard a few in Azerbaijan), his heart leapt into his throat, fingers locking around the faux leather of the steering wheel like it was a chain of precious pearls in his pocket. He knew that sound intimately : a goddamn iPhone ringtone. 

The bedside light flicked on. 

Flinching away from the brightness, Quinlan thought about lying his seat flat, and then, throat dry, decided that a sudden flurry of movement would be more obvious than if he just stayed absolutely, perfectly still. 

The shadows morphed into living, breathing people. Through the crack in the drapes, a man sat up in bed, scrubbing a hand through his dark hair with his phone pressed to his ear. Murmured conversation again, Quinlan set his hand on the latch of his car door and pushed it open as inconspicuously as possible. He was a master of espionage - that spy agency in Spain definitely should have called him back. 

“-- be right there.”

It was quiet, but it was the only sound on the deserted street and that was enough to parse the words by. At this point, Quinlan’s heartbeat in his ears was loud enough to rival Cody’s voice. 

“What time is it?” Another voice, unmistakably familiar. 

Cody leaned over, the bulk of him suddenly disappearing into the honey-warm glow of the lamp. Quinlan had the odd sensation he was staring directly at a sunrise. In Wales, the sun had risen in a perfect circle over the water every morning. As he toiled away with the rest of the men in the bluffs, Quinlan would capture it in the space between his thumb and forefinger, unblinking, until his retinas shone a hazy red. Reemerging, Cody grumbled, “three forty-five.” He stood, and Quinlan immediately snapped his gaze to the pavement because oh god, oh god , those were tighty-whities.

He was an idiot, a creep, a blundering fool, who had just caught a glimpse of his oldest friend’s husband’s ass . Twisting free from its death-grip on the wheel, his right hand fluttered to rest atop the key. Stepping on the gas meant it wasn’t likely they could read his plates. Unless they had read them already, which - damn , why hadn’t he thought of that. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Quinlan was aware that he was being needlessly paranoid. But he was also being a blatant stalker, so… in all honesty he had every right. Exhaling sharp, he gripped at the cold plastic of the key -- 

“You don’t need to get up.”

-- and paused. 

Slumped over the sleep-rumpled duvet was Obi-Wan Kenobi, his copper hair on end, glaring at the lamp like he was about to take to it with a crowbar. Quinlan hadn’t spoken to him in ages - years , really, if he discounted the time Obi had butt-dialed him on a bike ride and they had FaceTimed for a few hours. He’d spent the last week camped across the street from the house where Obi-Wan lived , and he hadn’t once gone inside. He hadn’t even been able to ring the doorbell (brass plated, he’d stared at it long enough to know). 

A long time ago, when they were still university freshmen, Quinlan had kicked Obi-Wan in the shin. It was an accident; they were fooling around with a soccer ball on the school fields and got a little carried away. Over the sound of Depa’s cackling, Obi-Wan had rolled across the ground, clutching his leg and groaning in pain. When he had finally surfaced, there was grass in his hair and his teeth of all places. And even though Quinlan had half-known he was faking, milking the bit for all it was worth, it didn’t stop the viper of anxiety and guilt that lay venomous in his stomach, waiting to strike at his chest. He’d played off his breathlessness as laughter, but nothing could cover the feeling of fear: that he had actually hurt his friend, and that it was entirely possible he might do it again. Here he was, at another place and a wholly different time; the snake was stirring.

“It’s alright.” Obi-Wan yawned and stretched. “I might as well do some marking. Put the water on. How long does he need you for?”

“Only a few hours.”

“Your father needs to hire some actual employees.”

“He will when he can afford to. Besides, it’s not that early.”

Obi-Wan reached for his glasses on the nightstand. “You’ll be grumpy all day.”

Cody dropped a kiss onto the top of his head, and Quinlan’s lungs plunged to the cushion of his seat. “So no different than usual.”

Sludging off the bed, Obi-Wan wrapped a dressing gown (blue terrycloth) over his pyjamas. Cody was already dressed in a paint-stained t-shirt and a pair of dusty cargo pants. Snatching a wallet off the top of his dresser, he strode from the bedroom and out of sight, Obi-Wan on his tail.

Exhaling every ounce of air from his body, Quinlan sank boneless into the driver’s seat. Like all the other times he caught a glimpse of them, or a tidbit of their exchange, Quinlan was set adrift. Why was he here? Opening and closing his fists he stared at the sheen on his fingernails. They had been painted red less than a week ago, but he’d chipped the polish off in boredom - he just… he needed something to do with his hands. The artist he’d lived with in Italy said he had a sculptor’s hands: curious, obsessed with touch and texture. I like antiques , Quinlan had shrugged, tracing a line in the embossment on a side table. I like when you can feel that they’ve been lived in, loved and such. 

The artist had only tugged at his elbow playfully. Wise words from a buffoon, Vos . He’d had a little moustache, like a streak of coal, above his lip. Quinlan didn’t take it personally, he never did take anything like that to heart. He was surface level, always: ripples gliding over a lake that distracted from the stones lining the bottom. It wasn’t his fault that that’s what everyone else saw, too. 

Was there even blood under his skin? He felt it pounding behind his ears, but other than that, how could he know it was there? He’d never broken a bone, never twisted an ankle - Quinlan couldn’t even remember the last time he had scraped a knuckle. He studied them now with intensity. Pushing at the freckle under his left pinky with the nail of his right thumb, he felt spread out, transparent, a vapour in the wind. He felt like he was just… continuing, floating onwards with no command of himself - no proof of life, or even existence. How could he have climbed to the very top of the Trango Towers without so much as a blister? 

He could still feel the phantom of the chalky rock under his palms, the wind that buffeted crosswise over his shoulders, the bite of the harness against the inside of his legs. Each handhold had sent a million questions spinning through his mind. He was just the next, and not the last, in a long list of people to arrange their grip here, to brush their thumb against that vein of quartz there, to try for a fist jamb in that particularly large divot. Quinlan knew he had done it - he knew. So why did he have nothing to show for it besides his own untrustworthy memory?

“We can do it when I get back.” They were in the entrance way. The hallway light forced them into sight of the front door, already nudged open. It was like staring through a looking glass into another world, the colours neat and crisp and unexpected. Obi-Wan made some noncommittal, unintelligible noise that had Cody frowning. Quinlan rarely saw him with any other expression. All the scant opportunities he had ever seen Cody smile sent misrecognition sparking in his brain. 

At the door, Obi-Wan’s husband juggled his car keys and his steel-toes and tried again. “Just… wait for me, alright? You can go back to bed.”

“I’m not incapable of handling it myself.”

Cody pressed the pads of his fingers to the scar at his temple. “We don’t know what they want. It might not even be our problem.”

“If it’s bothering you,” Obi-Wan peered down at his husband with an odd expression, and Quinlan was reminded with a start, and not for the first time, that he was slightly taller than Cody. It was odd to imagine that: Obi-Wan being the tall one in the relationship. “It might as well be dealt with.”

Their argument trailed out into the quiet night, growing dimmer as Cody faded farther and farther out the door without a resolution. Yellow lights flashed through Quinlan’s window and he flinched - Cody was unlocking his truck. Together, they ambled onto the driveway, Cody swinging something off the driver’s seat and across the cab before pausing with one foot on the step bar. “No stupid ideas.” He pointed his hand in a vague threat.

Obi-Wan grabbed it and kissed it. “No promises.”

A moment, Quinlan looked pointedly away - he wasn’t a prude he just… didn’t like the feeling of his stomach in his chest. And then the engine of Cody’s truck was roaring to life, the growl of some prowling beast shaking off the leaves of the trees, and Quinlan was pulling the slight opening of the drivers side door shut and flopping back against the headrest. He waited until the tail lights were specks like lightning bugs in his rearview mirror to exhale, the breath rocking through him and filling the dead space in front of his eyes. Inhale, ribs fighting against each other for room, exhale again, shoving the air out of every pore . He was fucked. Absolutely, irrevocably fucked. And like always, it was entirely his fault. 

So, he was stalking his ex-boyfriend. Waiting for some cosmic force to deposit Obi-Wan as the answer to all his problems by mere proximity. He hadn’t even knocked on the door; he hadn’t even told anyone he was here - not Asajj, not Aayla whose car he had borrowed like a skeevy freeloader. If anything, it couldn’t get any worse than this.

The streetlight threw a sudden shadow over the dashboard.

Oh fuck, oh god, oh fuck - 

“Look, we’ve seen you across the street for a week now, and I’m afraid if you continue to sit here we’re going to have to call-- Quin? ” Leaning over the passenger’s side window, hands tucked into the pockets of his blue bathrobe, was Obi-Wan Kenobi. His tone went from shrewd to shocked in a matter of seconds, sleep-blurred eyes wide. “What are you--”

“Hey, Obi.” Well shit. Quinlan felt his mouth twist - he hoped that it at least resembled a smile. The ocean churned inside his ribcage; the faux leather on his steering wheel was compressed beneath his grip, nearly squeaking. “How you doing, man? It’s been a while.”

Spluttering, crossing his arms and drawing his robe tighter around himself, Obi-Wan recovered quickly. “I’d certainly say it has. Now what the blazes are you doing parked across from my front lawn?”

Aiming for a shrug, his shoulders as stiff as one of those vintage wooden soldiers he had appraised in Moscow, Quinlan smiled again. It was easier this time, more natural. He didn’t feel like he was grinding his teeth against stone. “Oh you know. Thought I’d stop by, see how things are.” Something acid was eating away at the lining of his stomach. 

“Right.” His friend was unimpressed. “At four in the morning?”

Heat flushed from his torso all the way to the clenched cavities of his heart. Quinlan could only pray it wouldn’t make it onto his face. “Got messed up by the time zones, man. You know how it is.” This was who he was: Quinlan Vos, relaxed, casual, happy. A man with big gestures and an even bigger positive attitude. He unlocked one hand off the steering wheel and went for an airy wave. That was a mistake; it was shaking. Obi-Wan’s glare, ever perceptive to weakness, narrowed in on it almost instantly.

“Hang on - has it been you? Have you been here all week? Lurking outside our house like some hired gunman?”

“‘Hired gunman’ is a bit harsh.”

“That’s not a no , Quinlan.”

“I’d like to think of myself as more of a gentleman’s hitman - a higher price, but you can’t argue with the quality of the results.”

“ Quin .”

He slumped forward, terrified by how easy it was to lose his false posture, and unsure which was really his true one anymore. “Surprise! You got me, man.” If Obi-Wan’s scowl was softening, it didn’t show in his eyes, fixed like ice chips onto Quinlan’s face. Looking anywhere but at them, Quinlan’s own gaze flicked from his cupholders to his glove compartment to the Honda symbol on his horn. “So, yeah, now that you’ve spotted me I’ll just be headed to the next place. Wonder how long it will take Kit to notice me - probably less time than you two… A whole week, jeez, talk about an all-time low--”

“Come inside.” There was no denying that voice - the one Obi-Wan likely used on troublemaking students: kids who talked during lectures and went on their phones during tests and dared to suggest that Wordsworth might be even a tad boring. He went without question.

It smelled like balsam and flowers. An odd combination, but it gave Quinlan the impression that he had shrunk down and sat in one of the geranium-boxes below the windows, hands fisted in the bitter soil. Everything was so different from the student-housing he most associated with Obi-Wan - he could still smell that room too: instant-noodle powder and racketball-stained socks and way, way too much sex. There had also been an aloe vera pot on the windowsill, courtesy of his father, that Obi-Wan watered every morning as it rotted away into bits of nothing over the course of the year.

“Wow, it smells great in here.” He could stand in the foyer and bask for ages. From the kitchen wafted the buttery fumes of fresh croissants - Quinlan was in heaven.

His friend shot him a startled look over his shoulder. “Thank you? I suppose I learned how to take care of my plants.” He was thinking of the aloe vera too. How could he not? A moldy clump of it had left an white stain on the cover of his favourite textbook. Quinlan remembered him cursing over it like it was yesterday - and maybe it was yesterday. Who said all those years apart had to be anything more than numbers, that they stood equivalent to the actual feeling of time. It felt like yesterday, so it was.

He left his flip-flops on the rug at the door (wool, aniline dye, already beginning to run) and followed Obi-Wan over the gleaming hardwood (hickory - it must have been the original floors of the house with all the sun bleaching). Brought to his knees by some urge outside of his control, Quinlan pressed one hand flat to the boards, tucking the nail of his middle finger between a seam. 

“What is it this time?” Obi-Wan had his arms crossed again, fidgeting with the sleeves of his robe like he always did when he was nervous. 

Shrugging, trying to seem like he had any idea how to explain any of this: the curiosity that hooked its claws into him and dragged him wherever it willed, Quinlan straightened up. “You’ve got nice floors. Warm.”

“Right.” Obi-Wan’s words were strained, his eyebrows high. “Would you care for a biscuit?”

“If you have anything chocolate.”

They settled on the couch in the sitting room, Obi-Wan perched as far to the opposite side as possible, as though, if he put enough distance between them, he might forget Quinlan was there at all. 

And Quinlan was alright with that, he was fine. If his friend didn’t want to talk, wanted to avoid the obvious What The Fuck scenario playing out in front of them, that was fine too. Except -- Obi-Wan kept sending him a dangerously pitying side-eye: his eyes darting to the right with every crunch of Quinlan’s hazelnut wafer. The talk was coming. It simmered on the air between them like a fog blowing in before a storm. In Ireland, Quinlan had watched whole buildings swallowed by mist, even in the heat of the day. The grey smog had curled forward, cupping entire houses and streets into its grasp, swallowing the light as easily as a man would lap up water in a desert. 

“Quin.” Obi’s voice sounded far away, like he was calling at him from across a ravine. “Are you doing alright?”

“I’m fine. Can’t complain. Been busy with work, and everything.” The chocolate sank onto his tongue like a promise, rich and sweet. It was tacky in his teeth.

Huffing, Obi-Wan broke off a bit of his own cookie, some digestive that looked like it tasted of garden mulch. “People who are fine don’t sit around in their car outside their ex-boyfriend’s house.” He changed tracks, “When was the last time you slept?”

Cut off mid-yawn, Quinlan let himself feel his exhaustion, dragging him downwards, only for a moment. If he focused on it, it would pull him under. Besides, he was fairly certain he’d had a nap somewhere around one AM. “I could ask you the same thing. Are you always up this early?” He wasn’t; Quinlan had been watching through the windows. Yet, sometimes Obi-Wan did stay up this late: hunched over the kitchen table with a stack of papers in front of him, tapping a red pen against his teeth. Not that different from their own time in university, really. Polishing off his snack, Quinlan descended deeper into the cushions, his head a bag of stones.

“You look like shit,” said Obi-Wan, not unkindly. “Seriously, dear, you’re falling asleep sitting up.” And then, he lunged across the couch for Quinlan’s plate, which had very nearly slipped out of his grasp. He hadn’t even noticed; his hands felt numb, arms heavy.

“What did you put in that biscuit?” Quinlan laughed, and then he blinked and his eyes stayed closed until he rubbed at them, the back of his spine tingling with panic. “No, actually -- what the hell?”

Eyeing him sadly, Obi-Wan stacked both plates on the side table. “I haven’t done a thing. Have you been awake all night? Let me grab you a pillow.”

“No, it’s okay,” said Quinlan, the pillow (linen case, fiber-reactive dye) already bundled in his arms. His shoulders curled against it, feather-light and pleasantly soft. For a moment, he was standing amongst the yards of fabric with Master Sinube, watching as his cane tapped at the floor while he mused over colour palettes. Quinlan was always temperate, always in a good mood, but when was the last time he had felt that at peace ? “On second thought, I think I just need to lie down for a while.”

His friend tugged a knitted blanket from the back of the couch and tossed it to him. “We can talk after you’ve gotten a few hours’ rest.” It was reassuring to know that Obi-Wan was just as good at avoiding confrontation as always. There wasn’t an uncomfortable conversation he couldn’t shut down or wheedle his way out of. He had never argued with his friends so much as ignored them completely until things boiled over. 

In the end, he only slept for around forty-five minutes, rising groggily to the sound of pen scratched against page. The fact that he had slept at all was a testament to his fatigue, or possibly, to the comfort of Obi-Wan’s couch.

There was a clock somewhere in the sitting-room, and it ticked forlornly in an almost irregular rhythm. His eyes squeezed shut, Quinlan tried to use the pitch of the sound to assess the cogs and gears. It was hopeless, he would need to see it, to touch it, to understand its materials and inner workings. Was it an antique? A hand me down? A wedding gift? 

Did he and Asajj even own a clock?

Obi-Wan was slouched in the armchair across from him, his glasses nestled in his hair. He still hadn’t changed out of his pyjamas and bathrobe, and Quinlan couldn’t decide whether he found that endearing or concerning. “You still snore like a rhinoceros.” Marking the booklet on his lap with a fat circle of red ink, Obi-Wan gestured for him to turn on the lamp closest to the side of the couch.

Obliging, Quinlan winced at the amber glow, the light poking him like nettles. Before his brain had the chance to catch up to his mouth, words were spilling out. “What’s your clock made out of?”

Lowering the booklet slowly, Obi-Wan kept his eyes on his lap. “Do you not… have a clock at the moment? Or,” he winced, “floors?”

Quinlan punched a quick laugh, biting it swiftly before it turned into one of the booming chuckles he knew would wake up the neighbourhood. “What?”

His pen twisted in his grip, Obi-Wan gave a half shrug. “You just seem fixated on certain… elements of my house, and I was wondering if there was any particular reason. Anything you wanted to talk about.”

God, his friend was awful at this. The words were stiff and paper thin - Quinlan had nearly forgotten how out of touch they all were with their emotions. 

“Well I didn’t spend a month with a clock-collector in Prague just to forget everything I learned. C’mon, I like clocks and floors and antiques and things. You know this.”

Nodding along, but not listening, Obi-Wan went to push his hair from his face before remembering his glasses were still pinning it back, askew. “What I’m trying to say is that… I know things are quite different when you’re travelling. But you’re back home now and I was wondering whether you had… permanent accomodation in Coruscant. Or whether, financially --”

“You’re asking if I’m homeless.”

“Listen, dear, there’s no need for that tone -- you were in your car across the street for a week .”

“Yeah,” said Quinlan, aware that he was being defensive, aware that he should stop twisting Obi’s concern into an uppity attitude. “I don’t think it’s your place to ask, Obi-Wan.”

“Well I never know with you.” The hurt must have shown on his face, somehow, because his friend sighed, the tension draining from his shoulders as he raised a half-hearted hand. “I didn’t… mean it like that. I’m only trying to assess what the problem is.” At Quinlan’s glower Obi-Wan tried for some trademark Kenobi charm, something he hadn’t realized he was missing. “Stalking shouldn’t be done lightly, you know.”

“Yeah I was…” Waiting to talk to you . Because that’s what all this was about, right? That’s what Quinlan was here for. But after all the waiting, all the deliberating, his stomach writhing with snakes, wondering whether he was doing the right thing, whether he was being a bastard, whether he had any right at all to ask for his friend’s help -- he still didn’t know how to take it. He was stuck at the precipice, trying to make a leap into uncharted waters. He was night-swimming without a headlight, bushwacking without a knife. 

Squirming in his seat, Quinlan turned to look out the window behind him, his jaw tense. Outside, the night was still as blank and as still as it had been almost an hour ago. The trees were fighting with the streetlights for space, dull leafy shadows spread over the pavement. The collection of perfectly-manicured lawns streaked grey in the darkness. It didn’t look much different from this side of the glass 

“I’m just going to ask once more,” said Obi, and Quinlan could see his mouth move in his reflection on the pane, warped and strange looking in its opposites. All the colour from the lamps seemed to shrink into the mirror-world he faced, too bright and too far away. “Are you doing alright?”

“I’m,” said Quinlan, and then stopped, all the air rushing out of him in one go. “I’m not, no. I mean, I don’t think I am. I don’t think I’m alright.”  

When Quinlan swivelled back around to face his friend, Obi-Wan’s eyebrows were bunched together. “Okay, let’s start there.” Quinlan was reminded, fiercely, of the psych lectures they had both attended in first year. “Why do you think you feel like that? Is it work? Your living situation? Your friends?”

Feeling like some of the life was returning to his arms, Quinlan waved. He even managed to inject some pep into his voice when he said, “No, I mean, work is fine, still bouncing around, doing whatever, you know. I haven’t seen Depa and Kit and the rest of them in ages but we keep in touch at least. And the apartment is great actually --”

“Apartment?” Obi-Wan was a good actor, but he couldn’t keep the relief out of the sag in his shoulders. 

“Yeah, you know the maisonettes on the corner of 1313th street? Me and Asajj have been renting for a while now. We just redecorated the guest bedroom, actually. Now it’s snake-themed --”

“Stop there,” Obi-Wan had to snatch at the papers that were sliding off of his lap. “You’re living with Asajj? Asajj Ventress ?”

“I mean… it would kind of make sense if I was living with my girlfriend, right?”

“You mean,” his friend choked, his voice going high and tight, “you’re dating Asajj Ventress?”

“For two years, man,” Quinlan laughed. The room seemed brighter somehow, now that he had some form of edge over Kenobi. But talking about Asajj always had that effect - if he tried he could turn a bad day into a good one with just the memory of her touch. He was a fool in love, that was certain. The one poem he’d ever written her she had ripped to pieces in front of his eyes, and he’d nearly pissed himself laughing when he found her kneeling in front of the wastebasket an hour later, trying regretfully to tape them back together. Now that he knew Kenobi was unaware of all of that, every sweet and affectionate moment, it felt like an ace tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, like something he could wave proudly with a: see? I’m not so much of a screw-up as you thought . “Where have you been?”

“Another planet, evidently.” There was a blush high on the tips of Obi-Wan’s ears. “Last time I saw you, didn’t you say she was, and I quote, an ‘irredeemable demoness with claws like an evil badger’?”

“Metaphorical claws, man. And she’s a reformed demoness now. Way different from uni.”

Finally giving up on marking, his friend slotted his pile of booklets against the arm of his chair. The clock was still working away, and outside, there were the starting notes of an early morning bird call: chirps and trills punctuated by long stretches of silence. “I’ve heard she’s changed quite a bit since I saw her last. Her and Ahsoka have become friends now, did you know? After Ahsoka and her previous girlfriend broke up Asajj took her for ice cream and then to the shooting range. I suppose she of all people would understand how to take care of a little sister.” He paused, horror flitting across his freckled face. “I - I never thanked her.”

Quinlan shrugged. “She might punch you if you tried.”

“So, that’s going well, then?”

“I mean, yeah, it’s been good, really good. She’s been, um, guiding me a lot. Like, we go on runs all the time,” slowly, he was running out of air, “and she whips my ass every time. And I guess it took a lot for us to open up to each other, but now that we have no secrets or anything it just feels, I don’t know, safe. Permanent. I love her and everything, it’s just, I--” His mouth opened and closed around empty words. No sound came out.

Sitting with one hand on his chin, Obi-Wan didn’t approach the silence, he didn’t even poke at it. A statue, he was as still as the kouros Quinlan had sketched in Greece. Floundering, Quinlan heaved a sigh, picking at the corner of the blanket (alpaca) which he had thrown over the couch cushions. He toyed with the sleeves of his sweater, spun the bracelets on his wrists, kicked his socks against the rug, before finally accepting that Obi-Wan wasn’t going to say a fucking word. 

“I feel like I need her more than I should.” A go on gesture wasn’t needed, the look in Obi-Wan’s eyes was enough. “I’m just worried that I’m gonna, like, put too much on her, you know? I don’t want to, like, let this eat me up. I don’t want to become too much of her and I don’t want her to become too much of me. Especially because…” because I don’t know who I am . 

“What do you mean by this ? What’s eating you up?”

Shaking his head, Quinlan began to roll up the sleeves of his sweater, pushing his dreadlocks back from his forehead; he was done letting Obi-Wan control the conversation. Finally standing, he padded across the sitting-room floor until he was face-to-face with the clock, nestled inside one of the bookshelves. It was grey, primarily plastic - which explained the unsteady rhythm - with a painted ceramic face. A minute’s inspection informed him it belonged to one of those paint-your-own-pottery shops in the downtown core. Lifting it carefully with both hands, the edge digging into the wooden rings on his fingers, Quinlan flipped it to peer at the gasket. “Did you paint this?”

“Please,” his friend scoffed, notably devoid of a comment on their sudden change in conversation. “Boba painted that for Cody’s fortieth birthday.”

“He’s good. I can tell what part of the skyline it’s supposed to be. Ha, do you remember when Bant wanted us to take that watercolour course with her?”

“Barely.” Obi-Wan was standing too, busy folding the blanket and fluffing the pillow Quinlan had left behind. It was like any evidence of his visit was being erased, right before his eyes: traces of him swept under the rug and wiped off the side table and scrubbed off the plates until there was nothing left. 

Quinlan swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Do you remember how we were in university?”

“Studying? Going to class?”

“Not like that…” Quinlan hesitated, placing the clock back with a delicate thunk . “I mean how we were. Us. Together.”

His back straight, like a soldier, Obi-Wan gave the blanket one final flick of the wrist. “Well… I vaguely recall two insatiable assholes who took their friends for granted, yes.”

“What else?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say… We were self-absorbed. Busy. Always arguing.”

“ You argued,” said Quinlan, “because I was always right.”

Crossing the room with an unreadable twist to his mouth, Obi-Wan stacked his abandoned booklets in the crook of his elbow. “Fine. We were always disagreeing .” He tucked his pen behind his ear. 

Following Obi-Wan into the kitchen like he was tracking a bird through the forest, binoculars pressed to his eyes, Quinlan leaned back against the doorframe. His friend fumbled for the lightswitch, and suddenly everything was reflective, all the stainless steel appliances sparking bronze, the backsplash spinning with a million stars. Once his eyes adjusted to the new brightness, he started again. “Why didn’t we work out?”

Obi-Wan’s laugh was tight and uncomfortable, as though Quinlan had managed to ask the very question he was dreading. And maybe he had - maybe his friend assumed that this was the reason he had stopped by, had waited outside his front lawn all those days - an assumption that in itself was an entirely different bag of problems - but Quinlan couldn’t bring himself to offer any premature denials. Swimming through the dark space of his mind was Obi-Wan’s admission: self-absorbed . He tried his very best to imagine the shape of Asajj’s smile. “What are you talking about?” Obi-Wan slammed the dishwasher open. “You know why. We were never anything serious.”

“We could have been.” 

“But we weren’t.” His tone brooked no argument. And then he sighed, slipping the plates waiting on the counter - Quinlan’s decorated with a smear of chocolate - into the racks with a clang . “You were too confident, I was too tentative. And we were much too arrogant for each other - we still would be. Everyone, all our friends, knew we were a horrifying combination. Apart we were competent enough, but when we were together we would operate in a string of adverse reactions. We would drag each other down in these spirals of unproductivity, like...” he struggled for a moment, waving his hand through empty words. 

“Like fire and ice?” Quinlan supplied, amused.

“Like baking soda and vinegar,” Obi-Wan laughed. “Non-compatible. Or like the odd end of a pair of magnets: always meant to go in the opposite direction.” 

“I get it.” Quinlan raised both palms in a pacifying gesture as the dishwasher began to rumble. “And I’m not here to argue that, or try and change anything. Just so you know.” It stung. Maybe more than he wanted to admit. He could picture Obi-Wan when they were kids: too-big ears and a funny accent he had never heard before, coursing through mud and sword-fighting with tree branches in his father’s garden. He could picture Obi-Wan when they were teenagers: eyes bright, brandishing the page of some book in his face while he rambled on about history or philosophy or the quality of raspberry scones. He could picture Obi-Wan in university: the crinkle in his forehead he used to get when he was sleeping, the first person to whom Quinlan had ever said I love you . But that wasn’t why he was here. He crossed his arms, fingers tingling “But with Cody… it works?”

Midway through rinsing out the sink, Obi-Wan leaned his head forward until it was resting against one of the cabinet doors (plywood, green paint). “Are you seriously asking me that?”

The kitchen somehow looked softer from the inside, all warm browns and emeralds and golds. Quinlan fixed his gaze to a knot in the table. Overhead, the bulbs were amber, hooded in copper, and they washed every surface in a tangerine glow. Squinting his eyes made him think of the casino in Seoul, where the cigar-light had been the only way to see the cards on the table. He had an empty hand, now - and there was no telling if his bluff was good enough.    

“You’re my oldest friend, and we’ve never talked about it. What’s he like?” The, and how is he different from me? hung unspoken in the air. But Quinlan knew without asking Obi-Wan would catch onto it, somehow. He would sniff out his true question like the professor he was, like chasing some poor idiot’s thesis through a mangled paper.

Biting his lip, his friend pulled a pair of frying pans from under the stove before sifting around in the fridge for a carton of eggs. “He cooks. And he communicates - much better than I do. And he cares, genuinely, about everyone he meets. He loves his brothers.” The gas burner flickered into flame. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“You don’t have to make me anything.”

“One biscuit isn’t enough.” Obi-Wan was pulling food out of the fridge with total abandon, the combination of his ingredients making Quinlan wince. Ginger and Tabasco with date loaf? He had at least twelve chef-friends who would shoot him for even suggesting such a meal. No wonder Cody cooked. 

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” said Quinlan as he kicked himself off the wall. “And let me help.” 

“Alright, you can, um,” Obi-Wan stroked at his beard and Quinlan was appallingly reminded of the time a ten-year old Anakin was determined to prepare them lunch, and the afternoon had ended with Obi-Wan’s father smothering a grease-fire with his favourite sandal. “Help me chop the cucumber?”

Fiddling with one of his nose rings (gold-plated), he shook his head, reaching for the knife. “Cucumbers in omelettes? No way. But I’ll tell you what, you whisk the eggs and I’ll cut up some mushrooms and tomatoes.” 

“This was my kitchen, last I checked,” Obi-Wan sniffed, still managing to look dignified even with an egg in one hand and a bottle of relish in the other. 

“What the hell were you gonna do with relish ?”

“That’s quite enough from you.” Sorting through the shelves on the fridge door, Obi-Wan was scowling. Yet the next second he was reaching for a bowl and a whisk all the same.

Once the eggs were simmering and the bread was lined up for the toaster and they had grated enough cheese to feed an entire family of mice, Obi-Wan spun a glass of ice water across the counter to Quinlan before nodding at the kitchen table. The entire kitchen smelled buttery - Cody’s leftover croissants warming in the oven - and the toast crackled in sync with the sizzle of the pan. Tucked behind the bungalows that lined the other side of the street, Quinlan could see a swatch of light grey sitting above the dewy grass: the first weak touches of the sun. The light over the table was flicked on, its bright amber glow drowning out the meager sunrise with its reflection on the window. 

Sighing, Obi-Wan kicked his slippered-feet onto the opposite chair. His bathrobe sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, his glasses slipping down his nose. Quinlan nudged a toe into the grout between the floor tiles. Under his palms, the grain of the table (walnut) felt smoother than velvet, the scuffs and scars scattered along its surface worn to rounded edges by years of use. 

“You want to know what makes it work?” Obi-Wan was staring determinedly somewhere in the direction of the metallic fruit bowl poised on the table between them. “You can never admit when you’re wrong. Cody doesn’t shy away from his mistakes. He admits them - and he apologizes.” 

Quinlan slipped a hand around his glass, the condensation wet against his fingers - he should grab a coaster. The touch was cold, but it was necessary: he needed something to hold on to. “And I don’t?”

Screwing up his mouth into his signature thinking frown, Obi-Wan brought a hand to his beard. His shoulders were still tight; he still wouldn’t meet Quinlan’s eye. In the pit of Quinlan’s stomach, the all-too familiar viper was stirring. Treacherously, it seemed to extend itself into his veins. He clenched the muscles in his arms and his chest almost unconsciously - there was no use in trying to appear nonchalant. He’d lost that card the minute he decided to set his car in park across the street a week ago.

Starting off quiet, his friend gave his beard one last, musing stroke. “Sometimes, you wouldn’t even realize you had made one, or that someone else had. You were always positive, Quin, but not necessarily optimistic. It was more like you were sheltering yourself and everyone else from ever being sad, or discouraged, or even frustrated. It’s alright to suffer occasionally, you see. It’s not something to be ashamed of - don’t.” He held up a hand at Quinlan’s irrevocable denial. “I need you to say you understand.” 

Clamping his mouth shut, Quinlan opted for a brusque nod that seemed to satisfy Obi-Wan. He continued, “Sometimes you couldn’t offer me, nor any of our friends, any support because in your view, there was nothing wrong.” That wasn’t true - was it? “And sometimes, when things were bad, you wouldn’t let yourself feel them. You would push on and convince yourself, impossibly, that everything was absolutely fine.”

It stung, but his heart still skipped a beat as their conversation edged closer and closer to the reason he had wanted one at all. Is this who he was? Quinlan Vos, beacon of false hope and faux optimism? He tried to imagine any of his other friends agreeing with Obi-Wan; Depa, Kit, Bant, even Asajj - was this what they saw too? Across the street, the white glow of headlights swept over the sidewalk. Quinlan watched them out of the corner of his eye, listening to gravel crunch under tires like the crackling sound might overpower their conversation.

“But who am I to make any sort of evaluation,” Obi-Wan was still talking, his voice growing hoarse. “As you’ve said, I’ve hardly been in your life these past few years. A lot can change.”

“That’s true.” Quinlan’s deflection to humour was immediate, and unnecessary, but it still gave him untold relief to crack his face into what he knew was a winning smile. “I have a joint chequing account now.” Was his friend right? Had things changed? Had he changed? Surely the fact that he was here at all, that he had admitted to needing some sort of support proved Obi-Wan’s characterization to be outdated. Whose mistake was he ignoring now? Was there one?

He hadn’t realized that Obi-Wan had felt their unintended separation that keenly - that he had felt anything at all. Maybe, just maybe, it didn’t feel like yesterday. Maybe all those years apart meant something after all. 

Before Obi-Wan could roll his eyes or kick at his shin or pinch at the bridge of his nose, the timer for their omelettes went off, the toast popped, and a key scratched against the front door.

Scraping his chair back across the tile, his friend stood with a panic - eyes flicking from the entrance-way to their left, to the eggs, to the toaster, to finally Quinlan himself, sitting amicably and very obviously at the table like the world’s worst-kept secret. A fish in a barrel. A fly hovering beneath a swatter. Well shit. He wasn’t worried for himself, but one glance at Obi-Wan, who looked as though he had just attempted to eat a live muskrat, was enough to send his heartbeat to his ears. 

“I’ll tell him you’re here.” Obi-Wan sounded resolute, at least. Quinlan followed him across the kitchen. “Could you -” He didn’t say another word before Quinlan had flipped the omelettes effortlessly and perfectly, sending silent thanks to the woman in Ryloth that had taught him how to maneuver a pan in exchange for an antique silver fish and a pair of sapphire earrings. Obi-Wan blinked at him, his mouth parted. “Thank you?”

“No worries.” The toast was flung onto a plate and scraped with butter as Obi-Wan turned the corner to face the front door. Taking his seat once more, Quinlan watched in the full-length mirror that hung on the entranceway wall as a shadow moved from stoop to the doormat. Brushing his steel-toed boots all over the wool, Cody stood with a casserole dish in one hand and a disgruntled expression on his face. 

“Hello darling,” Obi-Wan spoke first; in the mirror Quinlan could see a blush spreading along his cheekbones. It struck him as odd, suddenly, that he’d been an unknown witness to their domesticity for however many days, and now he was closer to it than ever and it still wasn’t familiar. 

“You didn’t go back to bed, did you?.” Cody yanked his cap off his head. There was a sweat line on his brow. One-handed, he untied the laces of one shoe and then the next, sprinkling the rug with the soil that was coated up his arms all the way to the elbow. Even as his husband balanced the glass casserole dish against his chin to deposit his keys on a side table (teak, Quinlan had knocked on it when he passed), Obi-Wan was too distracted to offer any help, chewing absently on his bottom lip.

“I thought I might grade some papers.”

“Just as I expected,” said Cody, and his face broke into a rare, almost wolfish smile that wasn’t in any way diminished by the bleak daylight or the glass of the mirror. He brandished the casserole dish before setting it down next to his hat: “Haddock casserole, from Dad. He still wants you to send him your father’s recipe for rumbledethumps.”

“I’ll text it to him,” Obi-Wan promised, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “listen -”

“Are you really not tired?” Cody was drawing closer to his husband - Quinlan had the sudden urge to turn away from the mirror - but any movement might draw Cody’s attention and Obi still hadn’t said anything, and --

Cody slid one hand up Obi-Wan’s back, the other came to rest much lower.

“ Cody .” Obi-Wan admonished, in a way Quinlan was sure he wouldn’t have if his ex-boyfriend and oldest friend wasn’t currently sitting ten feet away chugging a glass of ice-water in an attempt to clear his head. 

“What?”

Obi-Wan floundered, gesturing to his husband’s soil-stained arms. “Your hands are dirty.”

“Not like you ever minded getting dirty before.”

Quinlan choked on his water.

At the sound, Cody took a small step back, eyes narrowed at the kitchen doorway. Sidestepping into the path of the mirror, Obi-Wan placed both hands on his husbands shoulders. “I, uh, might have done something as well as catch up on my marking.”

“Right… ” Cody had more grey in his hair than Quinlan remembered. When he looked up at Obi-Wan, his eyebrows pinched together.

Swiping at the droplets dribbling down his chin, Quinlan watched as Obi-Wan’s genuine smile turned plastic. “I found out who was parked across the street.”

“ Obi -”

“It’s quite alright actually -”

“I told you to wait -”

“And I might have ignored that, but really it’s all turned out fine in the end -”

“What if they were dangerous? Or, or crazy? Or you got yourself kidnapped?”

“Well, then you’d get to say I told you so, but really, it’s alright. He wasn’t. He’s actually right inside -”

If Quinlan thought Cody’s expression could get any more appalled he was wrong. “ What ?” With a start he shouldered past Obi-Wan, the casserole dish abandoned. Quinlan braced himself for impact, watching the last, brief reprieve before the crash in the reflection as Obi-Wan’s shoulders dipped while he finished his sentence: “the kitchen.”

Cody rounded the corner to the kitchen and his eyebrows shot into his hair. “Vos.”

As though he had lifted the blinds expecting a thunderstorm and found sunshine instead, Quinlan couldn’t contain his excitement. “Codes! Dude, how have you been?” Before he even knew what he was doing he was leaping from his seat and gathering the shorter man in a body-crunching hug that lifted his toes from the ground. “I haven’t seen you in ages - how’s the family? How’s your dad?”

Cody, it seemed, glossed over everything he said, his hands coming to rest loosely at Quinlan’s elbows like he didn’t know what to do with them. Seeing as Quinlan currently had his arms pinned to his sides, he couldn’t really fault the awkward touch. Cody wheezed, “You were sitting out there this whole time ?”

Caught in his impromptu embrace, Quinlan couldn’t exactly rub, abashed, at the back of his head. He set Cody down and then did just that, marvelling at how the copper-hooded lights turned his eyes from brown to amber. God , he looked just like Rex. Their only differences were a few lines here and there, the colour of their hair, and the corkscrew of Cody’s scar down his temple and onto his cheek. As he stepped back, Quinlan gave a half-shrug. “Well… yeah.”

To his credit, Cody didn’t immediately burst into flame. Instead, he nodded once, his jaw set. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

While the grounds distilled with a warm, earthy smell that made his stomach grumble in anticipation, Obi-Wan disappeared into the bedroom to change out of his bathrobe and Cody took residence at the kitchen sink, scrubbing off his hands as he passed Quinlan a damp dish-towel to wipe at his elbows. 

“What did you do for work?”

Cody shrugged, bending at the knees to check on his croissants in the oven; Quinlan winced sympathetically as one of them popped. “Dug holes.”

“Tough work. I did that once in Fiji, man. This guy I was working for heard from someone else that this huge shipment of gold had been snatched coming out of Australia in the seventeen-hundreds, and -”

“You didn’t come to our wedding.” Cody straightened up, leaning back against the counter. “Was that when you were there?”

“Oh,” Quinlan watched over Cody’s shoulder as the coffee-maker began a more forceful drip, “no, for that I was in Amsterdam. The eggs are ready.”

“Great,” returned from his closet, Obi-Wan was standing barefoot on the tile, the legs of his khakis pressed and the wool of his green-knit sweater completely lintless. “Let’s set the table.”

As they arranged placemats and cups and cutlery around the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, Cody skewed his gaze towards Quinlan. “So you were travelling. There wasn’t any other reason?”

“Nah,” Quinlan assured him, trying to look as casual and uninterested as possible - mostly due to the fact that Cody was currently tucking butter-knifes onto their napkins. “Got trapped in this weird underground cult, to be honest.”

Carting the plate of omelettes over, Obi-Wan sat before sliding a jug of orange juice towards his husband. “Quinlan is having relationship problems.”

The breakfast was delicious, but that didn’t stop it from turning in Quinlan’s stomach at his friend’s very obvious and very unnecessary lie. There was Obi-Wan again, skirting around confrontation like it was a fire at the edge of the forest, hoping that if he ducked under enough trees he would outrun the smoke. It had always been like this, unneeded evasion and fabrication, woven together to stop anyone from getting too close to him - or maybe even too close to one another. God, he had thought adulthood and a career and a marriage would beat the tendency towards cold, clinical removal out of his friend. But maybe they were all just as fucked as they had been as kids. 

There was no reason to lie. Although Quinlan had struggled to even begin their conversation - struggled to the point where he could have ended up with a shiny restraining order - he wasn’t ashamed . He just didn’t know how to… This was like Obi-Wan’s assumption that he was homeless all over again. It wasn’t a topic that needed to be approached delicately, or hidden behind vague phrasing like it was some corpse drawing flies in the broom closet. It wasn’t something to condescend, or avoid, or act superior towards. And even if Obi-Wan’s concern had been genuine, his attitude had been cavalier and that was enough to rankle Quinlan.

Clearing his throat, he set his knife and his fork to either side, trading his grip for a swig of orange juice. “I’m not, actually. Well, not right now. I’m in a long term partnership.” Ew, what the hell , he’d made it sound like Asajj and him were planning to open a law firm.

“Right.” On the opposite side of the table, Cody was chewing with a line pressed between his brows. Beside him, Obi-Wan’s eyes fluttered shut. “Congratulations?”

“Thanks - these are great croissants by the way - we have an apartment downtown.” 

Reaching for the pepper, Cody nodded, confusion clear in his every movement. 

“It’s his first long-term relationship,” Obi-Wan pressed, and Quinlan wondered if his dismissal was less about guarding their topic of conversation than it was about protecting Quinlan from having to explain to Cody why he was there. 

It was an out, an offered retreat. And Quinlan knew he was being difficult as soon as he felt his mouth twist into a dangerous smile. He jerked his head towards Obi-Wan, “Not really. I mean after you it was more like dabbling here and there, you know. Kit, Desh, Rex, that tattoo artist in Vancouver -”

Cody’s fork dropped onto his plate with a clatter. “ What ?”

Oops . “Ah,” Quinlan grimaced, this was unexpected, “look I know Obi-Wan might not have told you. But we have been friends pretty much our entire lives. Combine that with an extra horny undergrad, and -”

“I know all that,” Cody’s scowl was blacker than a steaming pile of tar. He waved a hand. “I don’t care - but you slept with my brother ?” Beside him, Obi-Wan made an indignant sound at being sidelined. “My baby brother? ”

“To be fair,” Quinlan held up his hands, placating, “they’re all your baby brothers, man. Price of being the oldest.” If there wasn’t a witness, he was certain Cody would have leapt over the table and strangled him to death by now. “You don’t have to worry about that, though. I’m in a serious relationship now. With Asajj.”

His eyes still hard, Cody barked out an uncharacteristic laugh. “ Ventress ?” He whirled on Obi-Wan, “So, your ex-boyfriend is dating your ex-girlfriend?”

Omelette sitting untouched on his plate, Obi-Wan’s face sank deeper into a pout. “You’d be surprised how often that happens, really. And besides, your brother slept with my ex-boyfriend, so which is worse?”

At the barb, Cody rose abruptly from his seat. “What would you like in your coffee, babe .” The term of endearment was pronounced the same way one might say scum of the earth .

Finally picking up his fork, his husband inclined his head. “Milk and maple creamer, thanks, dear .”

Once Cody had poured Obi-Wan a mug the size of his head, using a hand-frother to make it a latte and topping it with whipped cream for good measure, he set about fixing his own mug. He was utilitarian, Quinlan liked that - he’d always enjoyed the balance of opposites. Master Sinube used to sit him at the drawing table with a colour wheel and a pencil, his glasses slipping down his nose as he explained how the right mixture of red and blue, of tight and flowing, or of modern and old created unity. 

He watched as Cody drained the coffee pot into a medium sized mug, no frother, no fancy ingredients. Finishing his drink with a single splash of milk, he finally sent an apologetic glance to Quinlan. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask. I’ll get another pot started.”

“No worries, dude. I know I’m disrupting your morning routine.”

“Yes, you are.” It was truthful, not unkind. Quinlan appreciated it immensely. Sitting back down with a frown, Cody nudged both elbows against the table, his hands folded around his cup. On the other side of the kitchen, the oven fan faded to a whisper, and the hum of the coffeemaker started again. The sun was officially set in the sky, risen full without any adornment, but the morning was still too dreary to turn off the overheads. Quinlan watched the reflection of one spinning on the surface of Cody’s drink. 

When was the last time he had dipped a finger inside a plain cup of coffee? Did the milk increase the viscosity? Were the mugs earthenware or stoneware? The pattern of the paint meant he would have to touch one to find out… Quinlan clenched his fist, suddenly hyper-aware that every set of eyes was fixed to his miniature spiral.

“Quinlan,.” For a man who hardly smiled, Cody sure knew how to layer kindness into his voice. Or maybe he did smile often. Maybe Quinlan had never put the effort into seeing it. “Why are you here?”

“I’ve just -” fuck , he needed something to do with his hands - “I’ve been thinking recently, and like -” the knees of his jeans were too familiar, the table was too obvious - “like I kind of feel that like, since Asajj, I’ve noticed that I…” He was scrambling, everything he wanted to say bundling up in fits and starts. “With my dad, and I, like, processed all that. But recently, I don’t know, it’s been, like, bothering me more. That I didn’t get to know him better, or spend more time with him, or whatever.” Experimentally, he tapped the tines of his fork against his knife. The sound was discordant, it did nothing for him.

Obi-Wan’s eyes were wide and so, so blue. Bluer than he had remembered. “Is it your dad?” He sounded alarmed. “You’ve always been -”

“Good about it, I know,” Quinlan nodded. He tried clinking his knife against the plate (porcelain). “And it’s been a long time.”

“Well, yes,” said Obi-Wan, his gaze turned musing. “Long enough that you were able to help me when my - when my father…” Quinlan forgave him his stumble. For most of his life, before Anakin and Ahsoka, Obi-Wan’s father had been the only person he’d had. “And with what you taught me, I was able to help Cody when Waxer died.” Cody’s eyes flicked to the table and held there.

“I don’t think it's that,” Quinlan composed himself - it wouldn’t do to convince Obi-Wan his confidence in handling familial deaths was entirely false. “It just, it made me think-” He broke off, dropping his cutlery in favour of sorting through the fruit bowl. Finally, he grabbed hold of a persimmon, rolling it between his palms, Quinlan focused on the slight give of the waxy skin beneath his thumbs. He wouldn’t get anywhere like this, he needed to change tracks. 

“When I was in New Brunswick, I was sorting through boxes and boxes of old postcards. We were doing this project where we tried to match them up to moments in history. We wanted to make a collage in the NBM… make this sort of, I don’t know, timeline of ordinary life.” Both Obi-Wan and his husband were silent so he continued. “I found this one postcard, sent in 1917. It was from a Canadian soldier named William Braxter to his wife Natalia. Sent from Étaples, received in Mahranee, all it said on it was: “Dearest, have the bunnies arrived yet? Yours, Bill”. It took me five days but I sifted through our paperwork and found enough of the correspondence to piece together a story. He’d bought two ceramic bunnies from a vendor in France, he’d kept them with him while he was on the front, and sent them back to Canada with an injured friend.” Obi-Wan’s whipped cream was deflating slowly into the liquid of his coffee. 

“I thought it might be fun to track the bunnies down, display them, maybe, so I started with Natalia in Mahranee. Records become public after 100 years, you know, which made it easy to identify her. I found out that William never made it home from France, and she married again in 1938. When she died in 1983, her estate sale listed two ceramic bunnies, so I had to find the person that had bought them. It took some finagling with insurance claims, but I found they were sold to some dude named Clyde Branagh who moved to Orto Plutonia in ‘97. 

“Clyde passed away three years ago, and after he died his daughter sold the majority of his stuff, including the bunnies, on eBay. I had to contact her to find her buyer, Ishtar Mohammed, and then I sent Ishtar an email and agreed to meet her at Pantora University. 

“The first thing I see when I step into this dinky campus coffee-shop is this lumpy paper bag on her table, and it’s like I… like I forgot the reason I was even there. When Ishtar pulled them out, they were ugly, man. So much uglier than I expected, these two misshapen figurines, one of them missing an entire ear, the other with a really faded waistcoat… More than one hundred years old. 

“And I couldn’t… I wanted to verify they were real and she gave them to me and I just… held them in my hands. It was like I could feel every single thing that had happened to those stupid bunnies. William picking them up in that roadside pottery shop, the bedroll he tucked them in in the trenches, the hands they passed through on the voyage back, Natalia’s house, the mantlepiece at her retirement home, the shelf of the estate sale. And it was like I could see them too, all the traces of love that was written throughout their letters, all the memories they shared: ice-cream by the lakeside, William seeing her in her soccer shorts for the first time, their goodbye on the gulf where she tucked a carnation petal into the pocket of his uniform. I felt it all - I felt it and I realized… I don’t have that.”

His hands were trembling, he’d pierced the skin of the persimmon with a thumbnail. Looping one finger over the bridge of his glasses, Obi-Wan pulled them off, agape. “You don’t have… ceramic bunnies?”

“No I -” his laugh felt different, wrong, like it had started on the opposite side of his chest. “I don’t have what they have. A history. A story. A life story.”

There was a shrill tone as the coffeemaker informed them it was ready, but no one moved for it. Not even Cody, who had stopped nodding along somewhere around “New Brunswick”. Setting the fruit down on his plate, Quinlan wiped the orange juice on a napkin (paper composite). There: it was done, it was said. He had no idea what happened now. 

“Quin…” For a moment it looked like Obi-Wan was going to move to pat his arm, before deciding better and pulling his coffee closer to the lip of the table instead. “Of course you do. Everyone does.”

“ You do,” Quinlan corrected, his mind flicking through everything he had touched and seen in the house: the rug, the side table, the out-of-sync plastic clock. “I see it. I’m watching it happen right now.”

At a loss for words, his friend turned to his husband, a silent plea written over all his features. Crossing his arms, Cody leaned back in his seat. He looked like he was parsing Quinlan’s story as if every word was a different coloured thread in a tapestry. The shine of Cody’s scar under the kitchen light reminded Quinlan of just how many brothers he had helped raise. He asked, “what makes you think you don’t have one?” 

“Sometimes I feel,” Quinlan started, and was immediately struck by the unfamiliarity of the sentence. It was cliche, it was overused, it made him think of marriage counselling in the movies - but he couldn’t remember the last time he had said it aloud, in a context like this. The closest memory his mind could conjure was of him and Master Sinube, reflections of one another, bent over the sewing machines. Over the whir of the needle, Master Sinube would give a jerk of his tortoise-like jaw and call out to Quinlan - struggling to set up the speaker between them with one hand - sometimes I feel like a little Barry Manilow. Andy Gibb. Bread. Makes you want to dance - and dancing is good for the bones . 

He took a deep breath, trying to force his shoulders to uncurl. “Sometimes I feel like I only exist for other people, you know? I go where they want me to go; I do what they want me to do. And I can’t for the life of me remember the last time I wanted something, I chased something, I knew something, anything , about myself. I’m just,” Quinlan gestured aimlessly over the walnut table, “directionless.”

“What’s your favourite colour?” Obi-Wan broke in suddenly, a challenge evident in the way he squared his shoulders and leaned forward.

“Green, but - ah, not like… that’s not what I’m trying to say. It’s more like I can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone, and have absolutely no idea who I’ll become next. That’s my problem, I think. I blend in too well; I’m too suggestible.” He waved at Obi-Wan, calling for his attention. Across the table, Cody was biting the nail of his thumb. “It’s like I said, with Ventress, how being with her has made me realize I don’t want us to become too much of each other. I don’t want her to become like me, because I don’t know who I am. And if I become like her, I never will.”

For one flickering moment, there was silence. The kitchen was quiet, but Quinlan could still hear his pulse behind his ears, lighter somehow. He reminded his fists to unclench and found that his hands were already loose and open, the palms upturned, brown against the shine of the table. At once, the venom seemed to recede from his stomach, drawing its tendrils down through his shoulders and the muscles of his back, creeping away from his rib cage and his heart. 

The moment passed just as suddenly. Opportunity seized Obi-Wan, he saw it the second it happened: his friend’s eyes brightening, the spark that seemed to animate the lines of his body. Like he had when Cody was at the door, Quinlan braced himself for something --

“Where did you learn how to flip an omelette?”

And jeez it was unexpected. “ What ?”

“You’re perfect at it, really. How did you learn?”

“It was, uh,” Quinlan stumbled, thrown, “I was in Ryloth. France. I was staying with my friend Eleni. She gave me cooking lessons in exchange for first pick at some antiques auction we were running in town.”

Obi-Wan was smiling. “And?”

“And what, man? Her dad loved to fish so I suggested a silver trout. She taught me omelettes and crepes and I set off the smoke detector eight times in one day. When we got back to the apartment I helped her put her earrings in - I still remember how velvety the whip cream was when I smeared it on my wrist - but so what? And what -- Look, I don’t know what you’re asking --”

“Quin, don’t you see?” There were deep crows-feet at the corner of Obi-Wan’s eyes, and the moustache of his beard seemed to rustle with the up-turn of his mouth. “That story is just as important as flower petals tucked into a pocket, or two ridiculous, ceramic bunnies. As much as you learned from her, I can guarantee you she learned from you. Don’t scoff - look at it like this: as much as you feel you take from other people, we also take from you. Me, Anakin, Depa, Kit, hell -- even Cody.”

“It’s true,” said Cody, without a trace of obvious humour. “I’m going to be telling my family about this for weeks.”

Laughter gathered and then died somewhere inside Quinlan’s gut. He wished he could swallow around the desert’s worth of sand lodged in his throat. 

“Maybe you can’t see it right now-” Overcoming his earlier hesitation, Obi-Wan settled his hand on his arm. It was only once he did that Quinlan realized he had been clicking his thumbnail against his plate with the frantic rhythm of an adrenaline-riddled heartbeat. His heartbeat? “Maybe you feel like you don’t have anything to share. But no matter what you do or where you go, you leave things behind. Tricks, gifts, memories. Your story is there - I promise you.”

Beneath the floorboards, beneath the concrete foundations and the entire goddamn suburban street there must be a place where Quinlan could dig, could scoop soil with his hands and bury deep until the dark covered his head. There must be a place where he could sit, dirt trickling over his shoulders and his back as he did nothing but breathe . No lights, no eyes, no sympathetic best-friend-ex-boyfriend and best-friend-ex-boyfriend’s husband.

Obi-Wan’s fingers were cold; Quinlan spun at the gold ring in his right nostril and tried to look like he wasn’t avoiding speaking, like he wasn’t - he wasn’t . 

The substance of his friend’s words sat in front of him like a precious stone in the mud. There was truth there - he knew there was truth… or he could only hope. He knew… Memories passed him at the speed of light, sparking, as he tried to burrow deeper into the dark. Without his permission they seemed to be grabbing hold of him by the shoulders, tugging, lifting him out. The kitchen, the car, his apartment, the wind-swept heights of the Towers - it was all too much - and he… he thought of Master Sinube, scratching at his chin with a claw and nodding along: the vermillion velvet would suit this cut of waistcoat, what an inventive suggestion, Quinlan . He thought of Master Sinube humming out of tune to a song Quinlan had found on Spotify, queuing it alongside the rest of his favourite artists as they worked. He thought of Master Sinube, curled over the register at the front, spinning a crystal bowl of chocolate-covered almonds across the counter to a client with a wry grin and a They’re a favourite of my apprentice. He brings a bag into the back-room with him, and I thought, why not share it with the rest of you? Excellent tastes, my Quinlan .

Inside his mouth was the bitter taste of fertilizer. Breathing deep, Quinlan caught Obi-Wan’s eye, his shoulders rising in a half shrug before he could fathom them moving. Catching the crackle of electricity in the air, Obi-Wan started again. But before he could form words, his mouth opening, he was interrupted by the call of a dying seagull: Cody scraping his chair across the floor as he stood. They both watched as he gave an awkward grimace and nodded to the coffee pot, long since fallen silent.

“Maybe,” Obi-Wan cleared his throat, “there is also some truth to your own observation. That feeling of drifting and directionlessness. That you’re too suggestible, too easily swayed. Maybe it’s hard to see that you’re making your own story when you don’t feel as though you’re making your own decisions.”

An arrow, straight through the heart. Obi-Wan with his calculating blue eyes and his impeccable aim and his hatred for confrontation had shot, speared, and killed Quinlan all in one go - looking as if he hadn’t even been raising a bow in the first place. 

Swallowing once and then once more, Quinlan looked desperately to Cody, seconds short of begging for a lifeline, a reprieve, anything . With his back conveniently turned, the shorter man set about pouring Quinlan a mug of coffee, the fumes wafting rich and earthy across the weak morning sunlight. Fuck .

“I’m not your saviour, Vos.”

“Ah, I know - I know.” Suddenly the copper-hooded lights were searingly bright. Obi-Wan’s words were sharper and more persistent than needles; and Quinlan dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, palms crushed against his brow bone. “I don’t know what… I know what you’re going to say: I’ll have to do it myself, and all that.”

“Would you look at me, please?”

He barely felt himself shake his head. The sparks behind his eyelids were a comfort, guarding against the overwhelming calm of Kenobi’s kitchen table: the polished wood, the cabinets with their brass handles, the pots that hung from the ceiling fixtures. Everything that was so bright and welcoming and displayed the idea of a family and a home and a story . 

“I am not your saviour - and neither is Ventress. Only you can do this, old friend. Only you can do this for yourself.” There was the hand on his forearm again. Quinlan resisted the urge to lock onto it and grab hold for dear life. “I need you to look at me because I need to see that you understand. Good.”

“So I just, what -” said Quinlan, squinting, hating the flat tone of his voice, hating the fact that there were no boisterous smiles or booming laughs left for him to hide behind. “Start making my own decisions? How?”

“Start small; start here and now, and don’t stop. Start like this: what do you want in your coffee?”

“What?” When he looked up, Cody was facing him finally, expectantly, a carnation-yellow mug in his grip. It made a bit more sense once Quinlan caught sight of the creamy brown liquid inside. The morning was dismal, cool enough that he felt pleasant in his knitted sweater - still rumpled from his night in the driver’s seat - grey enough to send fog sneaking through the trees and bungalows. Opening the fridge, Cody gestured at the fully stocked door with an expression that clearly read: choose wisely . For a house that had maple creamer and whipped cream on hand, he was sure there was some barista-level shit hiding in the cupboards that he could utilize. 

Scrubbing his hands over the knees of his jeans, Quinlan sucked in a breath and began internally listing off all of the things that had ever been a comfort: green chiffon and sturdy denim and climbing chalk. Oak and beech and walnut, tables and chairs and the warm worn feeling of antiques. Wooden etching and silver sculptures. Clay bowls and clay cups and the powdery edge of broken ceramic. Crackling fires and stirring wind, the rumble of a wood burning stove, the smile of a woman with eyes as pale as ice-chips, the taste of chocolate, the taste of mint. Snake-themed guest rooms and waste-bins full of poetry and two century-old bunnies and a slender hand clutched between his own. 

“Oat milk,” said Quinlan, gaze drawn to the carton. “And honey. Please.”

After a dash of white went swirling into the creamy depths of his mug, Cody passed him a spoon and a jar of farmers-market honey. And Quinlan had to resist the urge to snort because really , sometimes he and Obi-Wan were just so domestic . The spoon went slowly into the golden, crystal-like liquid. The honey drizzled slowly off its metal edge and down to the bottom of his cup. He stirred slowly, counting to thirteen in his head, feeling like there were dozens more people crowded in the kitchen, watching him the same way his friend and his husband were. 

And the first sip moved slowly, warm and frothy, creamy from the milk and sweet from the honey, from the lip of the cup to the tip of his tongue. Unlike what Quinlan perhaps expected, it didn’t taste like a resolution, like some grand crucible of his story, or like a thousand decisions coming to rest in one. It just tasted like coffee; a little stagnant and a little too rich, soft and simple. He held the liquid in his mouth for a moment too long, savouring every molecule, every familiar and soothing flavour. A thousand bees had made this. A thousand bees with a thousand stories and thoughts and feelings, and a thousand more to tell.

Soon, he would have to breathe again, drain the rest of his cup and step forward. But for now, Quinlan was still. Silent. Waiting until the syrupy, summer taste of the honey seeped down through his chest and began to linger, deeper than a promise, in his bones.