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The Flavescent Fortina of Fortina’s Fortuitous Fortunes holds his palms in long, soft-skinned fingers, and says, “It seems to me that the dead only return for love or for revenge.” She looks up, blinking at him thoughtfully. “Who did you come back for?”
Rex suddenly wonders if, just maybe, psychics are not, in fact, full of shit. “Well, I can’t speak for myself,” he says, trying not to think about one particularly love-struck idiot outside the tent, “but I’m pretty sure Manny Dufresne would say ‘revenge’.”
Manny Dufresne may literally even have said the word himself, if Rex interpreted correctly.
Fortina’s face and hands go slack, and it takes all of Rex’s willpower not to quip, didn’t see that coming, did you?
When Rex leads her outside and into the waiting arms of the local police department, Cody - standing by while Obi-Wan talks to the circus’ ringmaster - gives him a proud smile, and subtly signs their symbol for ‘hug’. Rex’s chest fills with an affirming warmth and happiness, and he’s pretty sure Cody doesn’t need a psychic to see it.
The Facts Are These
Ahsoka scrutinises him across the table, then stabs her fork in his direction. “So, you died on a farm in Saleucami.”
Rex squirms. Technically, he died before they reached the farm - which is probably a good thing, he’d have hated to have died smelling of manure. “Yes.”
“And Cody did this whole necromancy thing and brought you back to life?”
Placing Rex’s slice of Very Berry Blue pie in front of him, Cody raises an eyebrow at her, says, “It’s not ‘necromancy’,” then leaves to attend another table.
“But now he can’t touch you, because if he does, you’ll die again?”
“… Yeah.” They were two for two on Rex’s Top Five Least Favourite Topics.
“And after all that, you decided to live with him anyway and start this Private Investigator team we’re now all part of?”
“Technically,” Obi-Wan says at her side, his Citrus Celebration pie already celebrated in full, “you are not part of this firm, Ahsoka.”
She taps her fork against her chin. “I don’t get it. If Cody can raise the dead -”
“Not a necromancer,” Cody says in passing.
“Why can’t he just resurrect you every time he accidentally kills you?”
Rex sighs. He would really like to enjoy his pie without being reminded of his precarious dead-then-not-dead status. “It doesn’t work like that. If Cody touches me again, then that’s it - I’m dead for good.”
Ahsoka contemplates that for a moment. “Well, that sucks,” she declares.
“Tell me about it.”
“How are you two ever going to bone if his dick will literally be the death of you?”
A loud crash sounds from the restaurant’s kitchen.
You Look Like You’ve Seen a Ghost
Six days, twenty-three hours and forty-seven minutes after he is struck in the chest by the stray bullet of an angry farmer defending his territory, Rex Fett wakes up to find himself staring at the starry sky and a familiar pair of eyes - namely, those belonging to Cody Fett (no relation - yet), his childhood best friend and boyfriend of one month, five days, eighteen hours and twenty-nine minutes.
Or is it now twenty-nine days, five hours and eighteen minutes?
“Cody?”
“Hi.” He licks his lips. “Would you forgive me if I did something very stupid but might mean we get another chance at happiness together?”
Rex blinks. “Can you give me some context?”
“You died.”
“… Right.”
“And I may have just dug up your freshly-buried coffin and brought you back to life.”
He frowns.
“Which I shouldn’t have done because it’s selfish and not without a cost but I’ve been miserable this past week without you and -”
“Wait wait wait,” Rex says, holds his hands up - and, oh, his clothes are… formal. Very grey. “Can we go back to the part where I… died, and you… ah, brought me back to life?”
Cody looks at his watch. The torch in his other hand shows dirt on his sleeves, the kind you might see on someone who has just spent the better part of half an hour digging up the coffin of his recently deceased boyfriend, having thought it best to let said boyfriend’s family have their closure before going about securing his own. After a few seconds, he sighs. “Okay,” he says, and in the distance something like a car crashing into a tree sounds out across the night. “I’ll tell you everything.”
“Okay,” Rex says, and moves to get out of his - wow. Coffin. (It’s surprisingly comfy.) “Could you give me a hand?”
When he looks up, Cody winces. “About that…”
The P and I in Pie
Obi-Wan Kenobi is a mystery to Rex. His plans never go to plan. He’s forever losing his phone, torch, pen, notepad or whatever else he’s handed at any given point in the day. He always works pro-bono but never wants for money. Everyone they meet seems to want to engage him in outrageously flirtatious banter. Rex has never seen him eat anything other than Cody’s pies and drink something that isn’t tea. He makes beige look good.
And somehow this Private Investigator ‘firm’ he’s running from his living room-sized office is a resounding success.
Maybe Rex is biased, but he thinks that’s largely down to him and Cody.
“Oh, undoubtedly,” Obi-Wan agrees. “These cases would take so much longer without Cody’s unique touch and your…”
“‘Unique touch’,” Cody mutters as Rex folds his arms and waits.
“… physical prowess.”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rex counts to five. “What?”
Completely seriously, Obi-Wan gestures at him with a teacup. “Remember that time you chased that amateur hurdler over all those gravestones through the cemetery?”
“I went around the graves.”
“Or that time you rescued the stolen mayoral cat from the tree?” Cody chimes in.
Rex stares at him. “It jumped!”
“And you fought off that rather aggrieved swan to rescue Senator Chuchi’s collection of idols.”
… That had happened, and Rex still slightly regrets his decisions that day. The swan ruined one of his favourite shirts.
“Our point is,” Obi-Wan continues, ignoring the scowl Rex is trying to inflict on him, “without you to volunteer to do the more arduous parts of our investigative ventures, many of the cases that have been cleared because you were there would have been failures instead of successes, and Cody and I - who are far less accomplished in such avenues - would undoubtedly be at a loss.”
He likes to think he contributes a little more than ‘convenient muscle’ (and smells bullshit, anyway. Obi-Wan is in just as good a physical condition as Rex is. How else can he make beige work?), but Obi-Wan’s speech was a nice enough stroke to his ego that he can let it slide for now.
“‘Less accomplished’? Speak for yourself.”
“Shut up, Codes - let me have my moment.”
Age is Just a Number
Rex looks up as the bell over the door chimes and then at the clock above the service window. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
Ahsoka gives him the kind of look Rex has only known teenage girls capable of giving. “It’s Spring Break,” she says, kindly keeping back the ‘duh’.
“Then shouldn’t you be doing Spring Break things?”
“Like hanging out at my favourite pie place with my friends?”
He looks behind her before catching on. He sighs. “You wouldn’t rather be hanging out with kids your own age?”
She swivels on one of the swivelly barstools. “And miss out on all the murder-solving fun? Not a chance!”
These days, he’s learnt to just roll his eyes at her. She hasn’t listened to them for six months, she won’t miraculously start now.
“Speaking of - where are Cody and Obi-Wan?”
“Cody’s taking inventory, Obi-Wan’s at his office.”
“Is there a mur-”
“No.”
“Not even -”
“Not a whisper.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Watching the excitement drop out of her eyes isn’t something Rex expects to pull at his heartstrings. He leans his elbows on the counter, says, “Not that I’m not happy to see you, Ahsoka, but, what are you doing here? Wouldn’t you rather be with your family?”
Her lip curls a little. “Anakin’s working, and Padmé took the twins out to some kids’ swimming thing with Breha, and I just…” She shrugs tightly. “Didn’t want to be on my own.”
And there go his heartstrings again. Pushing himself off from the counter, Rex goes back to the kitchen, returning a minute later with a bright orange slice of Tart a la Tart - which just so happens to be Ahsoka’s favourite. “On the house.”
She beams at him. “Thanks, Rexster.”
“Don’t mention it.” Cody will be cross at one of his freshly-made pies already missing a slice, and at Rex giving them away. (Though he, too, may make an exception for Ahsoka. The girl holds all their heartstrings like a master puppeteer.)
“How’s your love life going?”
“You remember that list we made a while ago of topics I’m not comfortable discussing with a girl under the age of eighteen?”
“Yeah, but I’m not asking about your sex life. And you never said I couldn’t ask about your love life.”
He gives her an unimpressed look. “Ask Cody.”
“I did. He said to ask you. So - how’s your love life going?”
Rex briefly wonders if killing Cody would mean he dies, too.
Ah Yes - Me, My Boyfriend, and his 120lb Canine Companion
There are several key differences between Rex and Wolffe: Rex has two legs, Wolffe has four; Rex has two eyes, Wolffe has one; Rex does not have a tail, Wolffe does; Rex’s teeth are designed to chew and break up an assortment of meat-based and plant-based foodstuffs, Wolffe’s teeth could tear the flesh off a man’s arm. There are also some key similarities between Rex and Wolffe: they both harbour a deep affection for one Cody Fett; they have both died and been resurrected by said Cody Fett; neither of them wants to tear the flesh off a man’s arm.
Rex is going to use that as proof to Ahsoka that neither of them are zombies.
Whether there is some form of ‘resurrected kinship’ between him and Wolffe, Rex isn’t sure - but he’s not unconvinced Wolffe doesn’t know. Maybe it’s an invisible thread. Maybe it’s the way Rex smells. Maybe Wolffe was once a human and he came back as a dog. (Cody may have laughed at him for that one.) What is undeniable, though, is that Wolffe always ends up sitting and staring at Rex for no apparent reason.
“He wants you to stroke him,” Cody says.
“I did stroke him. Several times. He’s still staring!”
“Have you tickled him under the chin?”
“Yep.”
“Behind the ears?”
“Yes!”
“Given him a belly rub?”
Wolffe makes an eager noise.
Exasperated, Rex says, “If that was what you wanted, why didn’t you lie down or something?”
Despite the relatively small space available between the sofa and the coffee table, Cody’s Irish Wolfhound slides down from sitting to lie on his side, one front leg raised in the air, tongue lolling. As he leans down to acquiesce, Rex idly wonders which of them is giving the commands.
“Give him a chest rub from me, would you?”
He sighs inwardly but moves one hand up to rub at Wolffe’s chest. “Anything else you want from Cody via me? A back-scratch? A hug?” he asks, somewhat glibly. Although he tries not to let it get to him, it’s upsetting when one Cody-revived creature can still get the love and affection he wants without feeling guilty about it and Rex cannot.
The sofa dips next to him. “Rex?”
He looks up to find Cody smiling at him, the kind of smile that says ‘thank you for doing this for me’ and ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you a back-scratch or a hug’ and ‘I adore you’. Straightening, Rex’s mind wanders to the scant space between them, and just how close he could get to Cody before it became too close - close enough to smell him? To feel the warmth of him? To catch a ghost of a breath across his lips -
Wolffe grunts from the floor, obstinate at having been abandoned mid-belly rub. Rex and Cody lean away from one another, back to safety, cheeks flushing and pulses racing.
“Shall we, uh -” Cody has to clear his throat. “Shall we take him for a walk?”
“Sounds good,” Rex agrees, voice also pitched slightly higher than usual.
They both go and fetch the necessary items - separately. Very separately.
And Wolffe, satisfied that he has seen his duty through and kept Cody and Rex from heartbreak and death respectively, waits to reap the rewards of his efforts.
Murder, She Spoke
Starting his stop-watch, Cody touches the woman’s cheek. She sits up with a gasp, breath trying to wheeze through her crushed esophagus, everyone wincing when the problem becomes obvious: nobody speaks ‘gasping’.
“Apologies, my dear,” Obi-Wan says, ever the gentleman, “we’re having trouble understanding what you’re saying. Can you confirm for me that you were murdered?”
The woman nods.
“I’m terribly sorry about that. I don’t suppose you know who the perpetrator is?”
With a negative noise, she shakes her head.
Ahsoka leans around Obi-Wan. “But the coroner’s report says you died from severe strangulation, as evidenced by the bruising?”
The woman lifts a hand to her discoloured throat.
“And that, apparently, the formation of the bruising suggests that whoever attacked you did so from the front?”
As if suddenly remembering, the woman makes a gesture around her eyes, thumbs and forefingers drawing parallel lines in a strip.
“You were blindfolded?” Rex guesses.
She nods.
Cody frowns. “And you don’t know who blindfolded you?”
Her lips purse, then she holds a finger out and wheezes a few syllables.
“Why don’t you write it down,” Obi-Wan offers, the others waiting as he pats at his jacket. “Where did I put my -”
“Time’s up,” Cody says, poking her in the chest. She falls backwards onto the morgue trolley with a clatter, as dead as she was when they’d walked in.
Obi-Wan sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Well. That was not as helpful as I’d hoped.”
They all agree, Ahsoka saying, “We’re leaving with more questions than when we arrived.”
Again, they all agree. Rex says, “There is one question we can get an answer for.” He turns to Ahsoka. “When did you sneak in?”
“Cody said I could come.”
Cody’s eyebrows shoot up as Rex turns an accusing gaze on him. “I did not.”
“You said I could take Wolffe for a walk while you went to the morgue, so we walked to the morgue and I told the coroner that my team was already here and they let me in.”
They all stare at her for a moment.
“Also - I did some research, and our victim was a member of a BDSM chatroom, which suggests the blindfold was put on consensually.”
They all stare at her for a moment longer. Obi-Wan coughs, then turns to Cody and Rex. “So, which of us is going to pretend to be looking for -”
“I’m out.”
“Absolutely not.”
Rumours of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
The last person Rex expects to see when opening their apartment door is Cody’s younger brother - which, in his defense, is not as much of an oversight as it might first seem, given that said brother is not exactly a frequent visitor.
Or he wasn’t before Rex went overseas, at least.
Fourteen-year-old Boba looks him up and down, his expression blank enough to rival a professional poker player’s, and for the briefest of moments Rex wonders if maybe he can get away with claiming to be someone -
“Rex.”
He can now confirm that all his luck was spent on his boyfriend resurrecting him.
“Boba.”
“Cody said I could come and pick up his old PlayStation.”
“… Right.” Had that been while he was dead? Does Boba know he was dead? Was he at the funeral? Rex can’t even remember the last time he personally spoke to Boba. Should he ask how things are going? Offer him a drink? Is that something Cody would do? Does Boba even drink coffee? Or would coffee be seen as a precursor to Boba staying longer than he needs to, and thus put them both in a situation requiring Small Talk, and therefore likely broaching the elephant in the room - assuming it is, actually, an elephant, and not a tardigrade -
“So, can I?”
Rex blinks. “Uh. Yeah - sure, sorry.” He steps aside, and Boba strides in and makes straight for the old PlayStation console by the television, giving Wolffe a good head-rub as he passes the sofa he’s lying on.
Still hovering by the door, Rex watches Boba shrug a backpack off his shoulder and start to deftly untangle the cables, and decides to try and regain some of his dignity. “Cody’s out at the moment.”
“No shit.”
“He’ll be back soon if you -”
“I’m just grabbing this and going.”
Rex exchanges a look with Wolffe, who seemingly pleads with him not to let Boba go. “Okay,” Rex says anyway, certain that he has no hope of convincing him to stay, sincerely or otherwise. “Do you want me to pass him a message saying you picked it up?”
“Nope.” Boba stands with the PlayStation packed away in his backpack, and gives Rex a piercing once-over. “You’re not looking so bad for a dead man.”
Rex’s heart damn near stops in his chest again. Clutching to ignorance like a koala to a eucalyptus plant, he says, “I don’t know what you mean.”
Boba rolls his eyes. “I’m not stupid,” he says, scratching Wolffe’s chin until the giant wuss all but melts into the cushions. “Did he bring you back as a zombie or something?”
Have Boba and Ahsoka been - Rex cuts that thought off before it can manifest, and opts to scowl at Boba instead. “My brain’s fine, thanks.”
He has the distinct impression that Boba represses a scoff at that. “Sure,” the teen says, the one word drenched in scepticism. He moves to leave, adding as he passes Rex, “Tell Cody he’d better not be setting himself up for heartbreak again.”
And that’s that - Boba departs faster than he’d arrived, the door closing firmly behind him and leaving Rex, Wolffe and the metaphorical elephant alone in the living room.
“Well,” Rex mutters, and Wolffe looks at him with his ears forward. He shrugs. “At least that’s one less person we have to lie to…”
How many brothers does Cody have again?
Three Is…
A triple homicide is always an interesting case, if that’s the sort of thing you find interesting. What makes it even more curious is when the victims are not only triplets, but were found murdered in the same place, at the same time, and with the same weapon.
“Right then,” Obi-Wan says, scratching his chin as he stands between Tammy and Tommy Tittisworth, renowned triple jump champions and two of three said homicide victims. “How are we approaching this?”
Stood between Timmy and Tammy Tittisworth with his hands on his hips, Cody frowns between the bodies and declares, “We’ll speak to them each in turn.”
On Timmy’s other side, Rex raises his eyebrows. “Not all at once? Would save us time.”
“Do you remember what trying to sort out an argument between Waxer and Boil was like when they both started going at each other?”
Rex swiftly concedes.
“You think they would argue?” Obi-Wan muses.
“I think,” Cody says, nodding thoughtfully, “that we can ask each of them independently who they think did this. If they all say the same person, then we have a very likely suspect. Three similar results is a correlation, right?”
From the opposite side of Tommy to Obi-Wan, Ahsoka chimes, “Only in certain circumstances! We’ve been learning about statistics in class.”
Rex scrutinises her. “Shouldn’t you still be in class right now?”
“I have a free period.”
“In that case,” Obi-Wan cuts in before Rex can question Ahsoka’s life choices further, “shall we proceed, Cody?”
With a nod, Cody sets the timer on his watch and pokes Timmy in the neck.
Sitting up immediately, Timmy frowns at Cody and Rex, giving them a cautious, “Hello,” in greeting.
“Timmy Tittisworth?” Cody clarifies.
“That’s me.”
“We have reason to believe you were very recently mortally attacked, and wondered -”
“Yeah, by my own triplet!”
He blinks. “Which one?”
“It was Tammy,” Timmy says immediately. “She was real sore about our last competition and the fact we came joint-joint-first - always said three’s a crowd, you know? Came up with some crazy theory that one of us had bribed the officials to fudge her jump somehow and prevent her from winning outright.”
“So she shot you?”
Timmy scrunches his face up. “Don’t remember. Think I hit my head? Definitely heard a gunshot though, so maybe.”
“And Tommy?”
“Tommy was there, but he didn’t come at me like our sis did. Wouldn’t be surprised if she went after him, too.”
“Good enough,” Cody declares, and with another poke Timmy is dead again.
Ahsoka holds up a finger. “One vote against Tammy. Odds on Tommy pinning it on her as well?”
“We’ll soon find out,” Obi-Wan says.
Cody revives Tammy next, and like her brother, she sits bolt upright, cutting a sharp glance between Cody and Obi-Wan. “Yeah?”
Cody draws her attention, asking, “Tammy Tittisworth?”
“Who wants to know?”
“We’re investigating a recent attack on you and your brothers.”
Her lip curls. “Oh, the one my dear brother started?”
“Timmy?”
She scoffs. “No, Tommy. When we got home after our triple first-place win, he made some snide comment about the number three being unlucky for some, and next thing I knew he was going for my throat.”
“Your throat?”
“Yeah. So nice of Timmy to step in and help me,” she drawls sarcastically, “even when Tommy shoved me into him. It’s always been them against me.”
“So you retaliated when Tommy attacked?”
“What? No, how could I?”
“And Tommy definitely tried to strangle you? He didn’t have a gun on him?”
Her face brightens. “I did hear some shots, actually. The first one sounded like a starting pistol, then the second one hit me.” At that, her jaw drops. “Wait, did he -”
“Thank you for your help,” Cody says quickly, and Tammy falls back to the gurney with another prod.
Lifting her other hand, Ahsoka holds up her second index finger. “One vote for Tammy, and one for Tommy.”
“Not surprising she’d pin it on him if she was the one who shot Timmy,” Rex points out. “Especially if she feels like they both had it in for her.”
“Interesting that she didn’t know about the gun before it went off, though,” Obi-Wan says. “Either it was concealed by one of them very well, or either Timmy or Tammy are lying.”
“The plot thickens,” Ahsoka intones.
“Indeed. The last one, Cody, if you may?”
When Tommy is revived, he looks around for a moment before catching sight of Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. He beams at them. “Hello!”
“Good day,” Obi-Wan greets him. “Tommy Tittisworth, is it?”
“It is!”
“Excellent. We were hoping you might be able to shed some light on a fatal attack made against yourself and your siblings not so long ago?”
Tommy’s face falls, becoming grave. “Oh it was terrible,” he says. “Timmy was awfully riled up about the results of the competition. I thought it was quite lucky, and tried to remind him that we all used to say that three was our magic number, but he flew into a tremendous rage and attacked me on sight!”
Obi-Wan takes a second to parse that. “Right,” he manages to say. “Can you describe the manner in which he did so?”
“With his fists.” Tommy holds his own up fisticuffs-style to demonstrate. “I think he must have gotten a good blow in because he pulled me against Tammy, and that’s where my memory gets fuzzy. Oh - though I do remember hearing some strange loud bangs.”
“Like gunshots?”
He gasps. “Gunshots? Are you saying my brother shot me and Tammy and then killed himself?”
Obi-Wan frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“Well there were three bangs.”
“Time’s up,” Cody cuts in, giving Tommy a quick jab to turn him back into a corpse.
In the ensuing silence, in which they all try to process the three very different accounts they’ve heard, Ahsoka - failing to come up with a way to add a third finger for the vote against Timmy - sighs. “I thought all the good things were supposed to come in threes.”
Rex can already feel a triple-grade headache looming in his near future.
Maintaining a Healthy Work/Life Balance
It’s Date Night, and in Rex’s book, Date Night means:
1. No pie
2. No Wolffe
3. No well-meaning but slightly-too-involved colleagues and/or teenage girls
4. No jumping into murder investigations
5. No talk of cases, past or present.
They’re doing quite well on all counts, so far. They each found nice clothes to wear that aren’t marked with remnants of their last escapade chasing murder suspects, flour or juices of whatever fruit was going into Cody’s latest pie; Wolffe was successfully dropped off with Cody’s father, his one-eyed guilt-trip bypassed with some well-timed dog snacks by Boba; Obi-Wan and Ahsoka haven’t attempted to contact them; no-one has keeled over in front of them except for a slightly intoxicated lady emerging from a bar on the way to the restaurant; and they’ve avoided any and all talk of shop, focusing instead on wonderfully mundane things like the new gym - Get Your Muscles! - that’s opened up in town, which team is going to win the local rugby tournament, and what they should get their neighbour for his next birthday (which may or may not be his niney-ninth celebration, if their other neighbour is to be believed). In fact, as their main dishes are cleared away and Rex starts to consider whether or not he has room for dessert, Date Night is going very well indeed.
Which is right when Cody says, “I’ve been thinking.”
There are many, many possible follow-ups to the phrase “I’ve been thinking”. Some of them are perfectly harmless - “I’ve been thinking about what colour we should re-paint the living room,” or “I’ve been thinking about where to put that new throw blanket Madame Nu knitted us.” Some are exciting, like: “I’ve been thinking about holiday destinations,” and “I’ve been thinking about buying tickets for that music festival we’re both interested in.” And there are some that are best not thought about, if at all possible, from “I’ve been thinking about our relationship,” to “I’ve been thinking about what would happen if I were to unexpectedly pass away.” Luckily for Rex, Cody says none of the latter; unluckily for Rex, he says none of the former, either.
“I’ve been thinking - what if our chief murder suspect had an accomplice drive him to and from the scene?”
Across the table, Rex tries to think how to salvage the quickly-crumbling fifth Date Night rule. “Cody, it’s Date Night. The suspect has a clear alibi, and Obi-Wan is covering the case tonight. Not us.”
Cody grimaces. “You’re right,” he says. “Sorry - I’ll leave it.”
Pleased, Rex lays his hand as close as he dares next to Cody’s, wondering if putting a napkin between them would mitigate any potential disasters. The waiter comes by with the dessert menu, and when Cody insists they should indulge, Rex’s heart does a happy little flip in his chest. This is as normal a couple as they’ve been in a long time: going to a nicer-than-average restaurant for a date, talking about day-to-day things that interest them both, getting dessert together because they want to and they can have it. Sure, there’s still the careful awareness of physical proximity to maintain, particularly in regards to accidental leg-brushing under the table, but it’s doable. The hardest thing might be having to deal with the growing urge to kiss Cody - which, ultimately, would be very unsatisfying given the consequences - but that doesn’t mean that Rex can’t be… inventive in his avoidance of being made dead again. Who’s to say, for example, that kissing through a napkin would or would not be a perilous pursuit? Maybe not something to try in public, but if they have dessert - if Cody has something chocolatey, say - and, once home, Rex could always claim to see some kind of chocolate smudge on Cody’s face, take a napkin as if to wipe away the mark, and then -
“But did anybody check the alibi’s alibi?”
Or, Cody could break Date Night rule number five again, which is a very effective mood-killer and dampener on the urge to kiss him, pain of death be damned.
“We’re not talking about this now,” Rex insists. “Save it for tomorrow.”
“You know it makes sense -”
“Cody.”
He holds his hands up. “Saving it for tomorrow,” he says, and Rex lets it drop (again) as the waiter comes to take their order.
As Rex had hoped, Cody orders the chocolate fudge cake, putting Operation: Napkin back on the metaphorical table. The downside to the plan is that Rex would have to find an excuse for taking a napkin home with him, because they don’t have any of their own, and a regular old tissue is hardly as romantic. Then again, if he used a napkin, he wouldn’t see Cody’s reaction through the material… Operation: Clingfilm instead, then? But how is he going to approach Cody with clingfilm in hand and a viable excuse -
“I’ll just be a moment.”
Blinking, Rex watches Cody get up, phone in hand. “Where are you going?”
“Obi-Wan just texted; he has the same idea as me.”
Maybe Rex will just approach Cody with clingfilm on the grounds of revenge for spoiling Date Night.
Chivalry Isn’t Dead
The question is not, ‘Why do these two murder suspects carry swords on their persons?’, it is, ‘Why do these two murder suspects not realise that carrying swords on their persons is a rather obvious clue to their identities?’
Oh - and, ‘How does one survive a sword fight without being practised at wielding swords?’
“Parry left!”
Rex parries, somehow keeps his footing and hops backwards out of the way of a swing from the right.
“Riposte!”
He thrusts the sword forward.
“That’s a lunge, but very good!”
“Not helping!” he yells over his shoulder, seeing an opening between his attackers and leaping through it to gain some space behind him. If he happens to also put himself in prime position to glare at Cody and Obi-Wan, then all the better.
They both give him sour looks in return. “Forgive the turn of phrase,” Obi-Wan says, “but we are rather tied up at the moment.”
“And yet,” Rex grunts, fending off more attacks from the two perpetrators, “you seem to think - ah! - that I understand your fancy fencing words -” He curses as one swipe shaves the tips of his already very, very short hair off.
“A parry is when you block an attack; a riposte is -”
“Behind you!” Cody shouts, and Rex has enough time to spin out of the way of a downward slash, the sword clanging against the floor where he’d stood a second ago.
“That’s more helpful!”
In a lull, the two ninja-like assailants converge to stare him down in a stand-off, only their eyes visible through their cheap balaclavas, their swords glinting in the museum lighting. Rex has no idea if the swords are real or not (heck, he doesn’t even know if the one he grabbed from a nearby suit of armour is), but he has no intention of waiting to find out.
Hanging upside-down from a light fixture, Obi-Wan calls, “Now remember: when you move forwards, your back foot should follow your front foot -”
“I’m not exactly thinking about my feet, here!”
“Really, Rex, I am only trying to help prevent you falling on your own sword. I think you’d agree, that would be most embarrassing.”
From where he’s tied up against a sarcophagus, Cody shouts, “Throw something to distract them!”
So Rex grabs the first vase in reach and launches it at his opponents. Bewilderingly, it works.
“Oh, not the Ming Dynasty -”
“Go! Now!”
He follows Cody’s direction (always has, always will) and darts forward, swinging his weapon in a mildly-controlled arc. He catches the first attacker across the chest, the man crying out as he falls backwards, but meets steel from the second, who retaliates (ripostes?) immediately. Rex just gets his sword up to block in time but trips over his back foot.
Obi-Wan tuts. “You see now why I insisted on -”
“Rex!”
Prone on the floor, Rex is helpless as a booted foot clamps hard on his wrist, grinding down until he relinquishes his hold on the sword. From there, all Rex can do is watch as the poorly-costumed, probably-not-a-ninja raises his own weapon above his head, his intent clear, it’s destination deadly.
With a growling bark, Wolffe charges through the museum doors, launching himself up at Rex’s would-be-murderer teeth-first, claws second, and the man goes down with a shriek, eyes wide within the gap of his balaclava.
Gathering himself quickly, Rex rolls to his feet, reclaiming his sword and lifting it ready to fend off an attack - only to realise there isn’t one coming. Fake Ninja #1 is still on the floor near the broken Ming Dynasty vase, whimpering as his chest bleeds through the thin slice in his long-out-of-fashion turtleneck, and Fake Ninja #2 is pinned by Wolffe, still growling in the terrified man’s face. It’s all for show - Wolffe wouldn’t hurt a fly - but Rex knows firsthand that unexpectedly finding oneself under the bulk of an Irish Wolfhound is quite alarming without the addition of teeth in one’s face.
It’s at this point that Ahsoka charges in, brandishing not one but two swords in a stance that suggests she is far more familiar with the weaponry than any of them. “Where are they? Is it -” She lowers her stance. “Aw, did I miss the action already?”
“I’m afraid so, my dear,” Obi-Wan says. “Wolffe was the hero of the hour this time.”
While Ahsoka exuberantly praises Wolffe, Rex abandons his sword and hurries over to Cody, grasping the sides of the sarcophagus to which he is tied. It brings them close together - perhaps closer than is advised, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Are you alright?”
“These ropes are kriffing tight,” Cody grumbles, “but I can still feel all my fingers, so let’s go with yes.”
“Good,” Rex breathes, smiling with the relief. “I’d hate for you to lose fingers.”
“Really? Would reduce the risk of us accidentally touching.”
“Fingers are useful for a lot of things, Cody.”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan interrupts, “such as: untying your colleague from a precarious and rather uncomfortable position?”
Eventually, they manage to get Obi-Wan down from the lighting (also with all fingers intact) and both him and Cody freed from their restraints. Whatever ire Rex felt towards them during his unexpected fight melts away when Obi-Wan compliments his on-the-fly learning and Cody, smiling proudly, flashes him their little hand sign for ‘kiss’.
“My knight in not-so-shining armour,” he murmurs.
Rex wonders if he should take up sword fighting as a more permanent vocation.
I Love Cheap Thrills
One of the unfortunate things about not being able to touch your loved one for fear of dying again is that you have to become accustomed to maintaining a semi-constant awareness of where said loved one is when occupying the same general vicinity. Most of the time, Rex and Cody would say they’re quite accomplished at this. That is not to say, however, that there have been some close calls.
There is the time Obi-Wan is looking for his magnifying glass and both Rex and Cody reach for it simultaneously.
Whilst in the kitchen of the restaurant, Cody goes to get a pie from the oven at the same time Rex makes a beeline for the sink, their paths crossing unexpectedly and forcing them both to execute avoidance manoeuvres that would earn them high scores in an ice dancing contest.
In an incident where Wolffe decides to lie in a doorway for the sole purpose of being a nuisance, Cody has to make a last-minute leap over the hound and into an oncoming Rex; when they land with Cody nearly on top of him in a heap on the floor, Rex promptly declares, “Stars above, Cody, I didn’t get this many adrenaline kicks when I was in the Army.”
Cody - who Rex trusts has done enough push-ups in life that his arms won’t suddenly give out on him - merely grins. “Rex, are you saying that me being in close proximity sets your heart racing?”
And if Rex is semi-constantly aware of anything, it’s the fact that, yes, this weirdly magical man makes his heart flutter every day, with or without their ‘touchy situation’, and Rex wouldn’t trade him for anyone.
The Devil is in the Details
“Shouldn’t we say something… holy?” Ahsoka ventures as they enter the church.
In front of her, Rex clicks on a torch. “We’ve already forced our entry and are now technically trespassing. I don’t think holy words are going to be much help.”
“Oh, come now, Rex,” Obi-Wan says. “Have a little faith.”
He snorts. His experiences in the Army challenged his notions of gods or some otherworldly entity watching out for them. Similarly, Cody’s ‘gift’ has made his own relationship with any higher being… complicated, and between them they’ve agreed not to think too hard about the hows, whys and whos of their overall situation. But he does understand where Ahsoka is coming from: when the killer they’re after has garnered the nickname ‘The Silencing Saint’, and their hunt for him has led to them breaking and entering into a small church at night, saying a few words of penance might, indeed, bring comfort to some.
From behind, Cody intones, “May your spirit know peace on the journey to come.”
Ahsoka hums, seemingly satisfied that that sounds holy enough, and murmurs the words on repeat to herself as she goes to explore a corner of the church for clues.
Hanging back, Rex turns a curious look to Cody. “Where’d that come from?” he asks under his breath.
In the darkness, he thinks he sees Cody’s eyes tighten at the corners. “Your funeral.”
Tell Me Beautiful Things
In the restaurant kitchen, Rex watches Cody take a jar of cinnamon in hand, dunking a spoon in and sprinkling it over the dough he’s just mixed up. “What are you making?”
Cody glances at him. “I’m trying out a winter spice crust,” he explains.
Rex shows his interest with a, “Really?” The year has only just turned into June.
“Yeah. Want to put some practise in to get it right for the season.”
“How’s it made?”
“Like any other crust, but it’s all about getting the right blend and balance of spices. At the moment, I’m just using the classics: cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom…”
And that’s it - Cody’s off on one, talking so enthusiastically and unstoppably about the nuances of flavoured pie crust that anyone not invested with the culinary practise might find themselves regretting asking what was seemingly an innocuous question. But for Rex - who is by no means a master of the humble pie himself - this is what he’s been longing for all day: Cody in his element, eyes alight with passion, hands animated when they aren’t measuring or kneading, the words tumbling out of his mouth as if he’s reeling off thoughts as they come to him. Whether he takes any of it in or not, Rex soaks it up because this is the Cody he fell in love with - the one who cares about seemingly insignificant things, who has the patience to try something new again and again until he’s got it right, who invites people into his world just to share his excitement and love (of pies, of dogs, of murder mysteries); and when Rex needs to remember that his relationship isn’t defined by its physical limitations, he finds ways to make Cody shine like this.
If he can’t hold Cody himself, he can at least bask in his all that he is until his heart is full nonetheless.
That’s the Sound of the Police
It’s unusual for Obi-Wan to be called in to help the local police department solve a crime (“I’m sure some of them are convinced I’m a witch,”), and not as glamorous as it sounds when it does happen.
Firstly, it makes it harder for Cody to put his ‘special touch’ to good use.
Secondly, it means Rex has to wear a disguise, lest Sheriff Fox Fett - who just so happens to be Cody’s older brother, and is not in-the-know on the whole I-can-bring-dead-people-including-my-boyfriend-back-to-life situation - realise who he is.
(Thirdly, it means Ahsoka can’t be involved at all, as there’s no way in Hell, Heaven or on Earth Fox would let himself be walked over in the same manner that Obi-Wan, Cody and Rex admittedly have been and let her in on the investigation.)
Standing in disguise under Fox’s scrutiny for the first time is more nerve-wracking than the prospect of facing whatever grisly murder scene awaits them beyond the police tape. After a minute or ten of silence, Fox says to Obi-Wan, “I thought you worked with Cody on these things?”
Rex’s upper lip is sweating under his fake moustache (helpfully dyed blonde by Ahsoka, “to make it look really convincing!”). He doesn’t take his eyes off Fox from behind his mirrored aviators, and staunchly resists the growing urge to lift up his bucket hat and wipe a hand over his no doubt equally sweaty hair.
“Normally I do, yes,” Obi-Wan confirms, “however business was a little too good at the restaurant for him to step away today.”
Fox eyes Rex again. “So you are…?”
“This is Cody’s replacement.”
The way Fox visibly refrains from rolling his eyes is shockingly like Cody. “I was asking for his name.”
Sweating though he may be, Rex freezes like a bug in a tundra.
Beside him, Obi-Wan is either panicking or buying him time. “Ah, yes, his name, of course - forgive me, Sheriff, I’ve been quite out of sorts today. Just this morning, in fact, I managed to convince myself I had misplaced my phone, when it was in my hand all -”
“CT.”
Cutting his perpetually sharp gaze back to Rex, Fox lifts an eyebrow (and, holy shit, it’s like Cody, way too much like Cody). “Come again?”
“My name,” Rex says, feeling like a shiny new recruit under the intimidating eye of his seasoned commanding officer - except Krell had looked nothing like Cody at all, and hadn’t been related in any way whatsoever. “CT. Initials. Everyone calls me by them.” It’s the first thing that came to his mind, and hells, what is he thinking, Fox is the Sheriff, for shit’s sake, Cody’s whip-smart older brother, he’s going to see right through that flimsy excuse of an alias and then it’ll be questioning and cross-examining and going to jail for fraud and jail time for Cody too and not seeing him again never mind not touching him and maybe there’ll even be scientific examining and shit what if Ahsoka was right and it turns out he is a zombie -
An elbow digs him hard in his arm, and Rex blinks as he staggers. Looking right, he finds Obi-Wan staring meaningfully at him, Fox watching him with a confused sort of concern.
Swallowing, Rex gambles. “Yes.”
A beat later, Fox scoffs lightly and nods. “I’ll let you get to it, Mr Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan smiles, says, “Much obliged, Sheriff. We’ll let you know what we can discern,” then quickly drags Rex from whatever damning precipice he was teetering on. When they’re far enough away, Rex dares to ask, “What, exactly, did I say ‘yes’ to?”
With a side-glance his way, Obi-Wan says, “Whether or not you had a license for that hat.”
Glaring at him, Rex decides to be magnanimous and not emphatically point out that he had no say in the assembly of distinctly-shaped hat, mirrored glasses and a poorly-modified facial accessory, nor how he’d like to see Obi-Wan defend himself against an over-zealous teenager wielding said hat, glasses and facial accessory with all the excitement of a hyena sighting a fresh carcass. “Next time,” he grumbles instead, “Ahsoka can wear the disguise.” Loathe as he is to admit it, she’d probably be much better at this than him.
Later, when they get back to the restaurant, Cody - phone to his ear - looks at Rex in his bucket hat, aviators and poorly-dyed moustache, manages a steady “Sorry, Fox, give me a moment,” before muting the call and promptly doubling over with laughter.
Rex vindictively throws out the disguise.
Doe (Oh Dear…)
When Ahsoka pops her head into the restaurant kitchen, Rex - clad in oven gloves and wielding a long wooden spoon in one hand and a large chopping board in the other - fleetingly takes his eyes off Cody around the other side of the island. “Ahsoka!”
Cody’s eyes widen, and he points, outraged. “Not fair!”
“Says the one-necromancer blockade.”
“I am not a necromancer!”
Hesitantly, Ahsoka says, “Yeah, Rex?”
“You can’t use her -”
“Help me change the station on the radio!”
“It’s Musical Monday!”
“Cody, you did not resurrect me just to torture me -”
“You take that back, Julie Andrews is a gift -”
“We’ve had this station for two hours already; just step aside, and nobody gets hurt.”
“I’m not letting you put the Agasar on, that stupid Eerie Vasaline -”
“Eseerin Vasahina!”
“- will just get stuck in my head for the rest of the day!”
“It’s a great song! Ahsoka, back me up here.” Greeted by silence, Rex pauses, looking back at the doorway. “Ahsoka?”
It’s been twenty-one seconds since Ahsoka decided this was one of those ‘couple’s disputes’ she did not want to get involved with, and, heaving a quiet sigh, did not say goodbye.
We are Gathered Here Today…
“Who’d have thought,” Rex says as they get out of the car, “that a Wedding Planner company would be a front for an identity fraud ring.”
“Definitely not the kind of ring you’d expect to talk about here,” Cody agrees, coming to stand close to his shoulder. “Remember our cover story?”
He nods. “I’m Rudy, you’re Cox, we’ve been together for two years, twelve weeks, five days and one hour, and you’ve finally proposed to me.”
“You insisted we had to start planning the wedding straight away, and I remembered hearing about this place from our good friend Kanan Jarrus.”
Even though the dead man claiming to be Kanan Jarrus was not, in fact, Kanan Jarrus.
“So we’re here because we don’t want to wait any longer -”
“And we have absolutely no idea that anything is dodgy whatsoever.”
“Right,” Rex says. “There’s just one potential problem we didn’t think of.”
Cody turns to him, eyebrow cocked.
“How are we going to convince them we’re madly in love if we can’t so much as hold hands?”
A beat later, Cody sighs. “Damn.”
“Yup.”
“I knew I should have brought Obi-Wan.”
“Yeah, we - wait, what?”
Summer’s Glory
It feels like he’s back on that fateful road in Saluecami, the sun beating down, his heart pounding, sweat sliding down his spine, soaking his uniform beneath his Kevlar, de-escalation not working, his men getting edgy, the farmer growing more and more agitated, the gunshot, the shock of something punching him high on his chest (he’d told Krell the vest was too big for him weeks ago, had asked again and again for him to sign off on the requisition for a new one, and look what kriffing happened), then he can’t breathe, it’s too hot but he’s growing cold, and he can’t breathe, and someone’s calling something in the distance, but he can’t -
Cody brings him back by splashing water on his face. Shocked by the sudden change from dream to reality, confused by the switch from day to night when the cloying heat persists, and soaked from sweat and water, Rex snaps at him when asked what he needs - “Nothing you can give me, Cody,” - and storms out of their room in angry shame, not bothering with putting anything on his feet before leaving the apartment entirely and going to the roof.
Tucked into a concrete corner, he thinks bitterly how he wishes he’d known that that summer in Saleucami would steal more from him than he could quantify: his brothers-in-arms, who tried to save him as he bled out in the dirt; nights where the only thing bothering him was the heat; memories that should be at the front of his mind instead of buried beneath the one that ruined it all; his family, who had no idea he was alive and well; the ability to touch the man he loves. His chest aches, and he wishes he could cry about it all rather than just feeling so tiredly, uselessly angry.
The roof door opens, and Cody comes out, his slippers quietly scuffing the concrete with each step. Rex doesn’t watch him, staring instead at the floor while Cody drops down beside him, sighing as he makes himself comfortable before setting Rex’s own slippers next to his bare, faintly chilled toes.
There’s at least two hands’ width between them.
“I’ve been thinking up a new recipe,” Cody suddenly says, his voice lacking the roughness of sleep but low and hushed anyway. “Something red currant-based, perhaps with some vanilla wound in there too. Call it Red Curra-scant or something, like a play on the name of the capital.”
He continues thinking out loud - about red currants and flavour combinations and seasonals and place names - and Rex slowly remembers how much he used to love summer. Everything would remind him of Cody, of long days spent outdoors together, of sunrises and leisurely hikes and glittering lakes, of melting ice cream and beer bottles in personalised koozies, and belting out tunes to the radio in the car with the top down, finally watching the sun set again from the lazily-swinging hammock they crammed themselves into, pressed against each other head to toe, warm and comfortable and together.
They’ll never be able to share a hammock again.
And yet…
Cody brought Rex back, knowing what it would cost, instead of mourning him and moving on. Cody’s here offering a different kind of comfort instead of no comfort at all. Cody would take two hammocks with them to watch another summer sunset instead of just one.
Sniffing, Rex wipes at the fresh tears on his face, gently interrupts Cody’s rambling by saying, “Do you think you could close the restaurant for the weekend if the weather’s nice?”
The smile Cody gives him is brighter than any Saleucami sunrise.
What the F?
Five hours, forty-four minutes and fifteen seconds after setting out that morning, the four of them return, dejected, to the restaurant, Cody tries to lift everyone’s spirits with a slice of his supreme Sunshine Special - but as they all sit in their regular booth able to do little more than prod at the pastry with the prongs of their forks, Rex just gradually feels worse.
Obi-Wan tries to go through the facts again, but the fact is that Manny Dufresne, resident strong-man of the visiting Cirque du Travail (which, Ahsoka pointed out, does not mean ‘travel’), remains unavenged. Killed by one of his own spherical dumbbells, according to the coroner’s report, but anyone who could have lifted the five stone weight Manny claimed he was hit with had a solid alibi - and that was most of the damned circus.
This is the first case in Rex’s memory where they might actually have to admit defeat.
Diagonally opposite him, Obi-Wan picks up the newspaper, holding it upright as he reads listlessly. The ad on the back is, ironically, for Cirque du Travail, and Rex takes in the faces of the performers they interviewed with little success earlier: the Trapeze Artezests, Antoine and Andeux each posing identically with a trapeze held between them; Contortia, the Constrictor Contortionaire, with her snakes wrapped around her contorted legs; Bear Leonis, Beastmaster, and Fred the Lion at his feet; the Flavescent Fortina of Fortina’s Fortuitous Fortunes in her bright yellow saree; the recently-deceased Strong-Manny Dufresne, weight bar lifted proudly above his not-concaved head; fire-eater David -
Rex blinks. He stares at the Flavescent Fortina of Fortina’s Fortuitous Fortunes, recalls what Manny’s last attempt at words to them was, and wonders aloud, “What if he wasn’t saying five stone?”
Everyone glances at him, Obi-Wan lowering the corner of the paper to say, “Come again?”
“Manny,” he says, the idea taking momentum the more he thinks about it. “What if he wasn’t trying to say ‘five S’, but ‘five Fs’?” They had all agreed that stone was a strange weight measurement to favour.
Cody frowns. “Five Fs meaning…”
“Flavescent Fortina of Fortina’s Fortuitous Fortunes.”
Beside him, Ahsoka is already shaking her head, her fork pointed in his direction as she says, “We ruled Ms Fortina out, remember? She was one of the only people who couldn’t easily lift the five stone weight.”
“Right - but ignoring the weights, what if she used something else to cave his skull in? Something she could lift more easily and that matched the round shape of Manny’s dumbbells?”
He sees the moment Cody catches on. “Like a crystal ball?”
“Like a crystal ball!”
“But what about her motive?” Obi-Wan asks.
Ahsoka suddenly exclaims “Oh!”, and points her fork at him instead of Rex. “Monsieur Rueisnom’s Chart de Custom! Ms Fortina’s act had fewer visitors than Manny’s act, and she was the first person in the ‘danger zone’ of being cast out.”
Stroking his beard, he nods. “So it’s possible that our dear Flavescent Fortina feared for her future and fell back on foul play to further her own fortunes - but we cannot make an accusation without irrefutable evidence.”
“Why don’t we ask Ringmaster Rueisnom if we can check his cameras again?” Cody suggests. “We didn’t check them earlier because of the weights factor, but none of the other acts mentioned her in their alibis. As far as we know, nobody was with her that night.”
Ahsoka’s fork finds Cody; “And Manny couldn’t properly say her name because of how fractured his face was!”
“Alright,” Obi-Wan declares, folding the paper away and moving to stand. “Then we had better strike while the thought is fresh. I’ll contact Monsieur - what are you all doing?”
From where he’s furiously scarfing down his slice of pie, Rex, his mouth full, says, “We’re finishing our food.”
“You can’t waste the Sunshine Special,” Ahsoka agrees, her words slightly more garbled.
Cody just innocently watches Obi-Wan as he chews.
“Fine,” Obi-Wan sighs, sitting down again. “We’ll finish Cody’s splendid pie, then we’ll go after the Flavescent Fortina.” Looking around his plate, he frowns. “Has anyone seen my fork?”
Rex rolls his eyes across the table at Cody, who smiles knowingly back, his gaze shining with gratitude and fondness.
It’s a Dog’s Life
Rex is not a presumptuous man - he has expectations, sure, but outside the Army he has learned to keep them low. There is one exception: when the little kitchen in their apartment is awash with the warm, blanketing smell of a pie in the oven, a smell that usually precedes Rex being presented with a freshly made slice of said pie, and a half-nonchalant request for him to try it.
Cody never really expects him to try it. Rex never really expects him to ask. And yet.
“Can you try this for me?”
Meaning: I made this for you because I know you enjoy my cooking and I like making you happy this way.
“Sure.”
Meaning: of course, God yes, abso-kriffing-lutely, let me at it now.
Cody leaves the plate on the coffee table for him, explaining that the Butter Bly is a butterscotch pie with a twist, inspired by one of his brothers, and that Rex is to guess what the twist is. He leaves to clean the kitchen, and Rex tucks into his slice and immediately forgets what he’s supposed to be doing, lost in a blissful butterscotch balm.
The balm is broken when he realises he’s being watched.
“Codes? Wolffe is staring at me again.”
“He probably wants some pie.”
“Doesn’t he know this is my slice?”
Wolffe licks his lips.
“That’s probably why he wants it.”
“Get your own,” Rex grunts. “Actually, no, don’t get your own. Isn’t pie bad for dogs?”
“He’s been eating my pies for years,” Cody says. “Seems fine to me.”
A point Wolffe grunts his agreement with.
Rex eyes him up and down. “How old is he?”
“Don’t know,” Cody says, a verbal shrug. “Few years? I lost track.”
At this point, when faced with incomplete information and a desire to know everything he can on the subject, Rex does what all good Private Investigators do and turns to research, asking the Internet on his phone for the average lifespan of a healthy male Irish Wolfhound. What he finds is… concerning.
“How long have you had him?”
“Since I was a kid, remember?”
Cody is in his thirties.
The average lifespan of a healthy male Irish Wolfhound is six to ten years.
Rex stares at Wolffe.
Wolffe stares knowingly back.
So You Think You’re Immortal!
… Kriff.