Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cody’s single most prized possession is a ceramic mug with a chipped rim.

Ever since it chipped he refuses to use the damn thing, so now it sits as the sole decoration on the single shelf in his bunk, gathering dust. He cleans it every so often, with held breath and careful fingers, as though he could break the mug by looking at it wrong. 

The mug had been a gift from General Kenobi, a month into their deployment, when the general had declared that if Cody joined him for flimsiwork so regularly, he needed his own mug to drink from. A week after, the general had returned from his short deployment planetside with a bag of local loose-leaf tea and a paper-wrapped parcel.

The mug is orange in colour, not quite two-twelfth but close enough, and has a picture of a grumpy tooka on the front. Cody still remembers the general’s shit-eating grin when Cody had taken the thing out of its packaging. 

Cody has never used the mug outside of the general’s quarters; he has an image he’d prefer to uphold, and a mug with a tooka that copies his own expression is not a part of that image.

While Cody refuses to agree verbally that the animal resembles him in any way, he’s not exactly blind.

Cody had, briefly, considered refusing the gift.

Back then he hadn’t been entirely sure of his general yet, the Kaminoan idea of proper distance between commanding officers still too fresh in his mind. He hadn’t known whether accepting gifts was appropriate or not, or whether refusing the mug would be even less proper. He also hadn’t been quite sure if the mug was supposed to be a little inside joke, or if the general was subtly having a laugh of the insulting variety.

Cody still remembers the general’s expression; between excited and apprehensive, at once extremely pleased to be giving Cody something, and already bracing for him to reject the gift. Cody remembers saying, “Thank you, sir,” and the way the general’s smile had turned up to a million lumen in its intensity.

He also, quite distinctly, remembers riding that particular high for about five days, convinced then that it was merely happiness over his first-ever gift from someone not a vod.

By now, though, Cody knows better. 

~

In his day to day life, Cody makes a valiant effort to convince himself he doesn’t have a problem, the kind that would get him decommissioned faster than he could say, “No, thanks.”

He is aware of the little shiver that travels along the small of his back when General Kenobi looks particularly flushed with exertion after an evening on the sparring mats.

Cody registers the fact that when General Kenobi smiles that million-credit smile, aims it somewhere in Cody’s general vicinity, part of him goes hot under the collar while the other part fights to keep his face under control.

The brief moments of quiet respite wherein General Kenobi lays a hand on Cody’s unarmoured shoulder, bolstering him, speaking whispered encouragements, are sometimes the only thing salvageable about a particularly nasty campaign planetside. 

Cody orders his unsteady spine to shore up. He bids his skin to stop blushing and to stop seeking out the warmth of his general’s palm. Cody tells himself he doesn’t have a General Kenobi-sized glaring weakness throbbing under his breastbone. 

~

Flimsiwork with his general remains at once a constant source of satisfaction and the kind of emotional-energy sucking vortex that leaves Cody too tired to go to bed.

Filling out his papers and signing off on mission reports never fails to give Cody a little burst of happiness, something like pride at a job well done, the surety of himself and his work. Sometimes he has to spend an entire evening trying to word an appeal to a rejected resupply so delicately that he doesn’t accidentally (or on purpose) offend a local senator or businessman so badly that the two-twelfth might never stop for pickup in the sector again. 

Sometimes General Kenobi steeps a pot of tea so big and so bitter that it’s enough to keep Cody functional well into the day’s shift. That part has nothing to do with the tea, he knows, but refuses to draw any conclusions about. 

~

A famous scientist once theorised that if a box with a tooka inside had a random chance to kill the animal and an equally random chance that the tooka might live, it could at once be considered alive and dead, at the same time. Only upon opening the box would the results solidify into one possible outcome, ending the thought experiment.

Originally this had something to do with the way atoms behave, a kind of science Cody never could wrap his head around. Regardless of atoms though, there sits a little box somewhere in between Cody’s organs, near his diaphragm and a little south-west of his heart.

Sometimes the box is deathly still, more so an as-of-yet unburied coffin than a locked chest.

Sometimes the thing inside scratches and yowls so loudly that Cody fears his private thoughts might actually be displayed all over his face.

Cody doesn’t try to peek inside this box through the gaps in the joins, doesn’t dare rap a knuckle on the lid to confirm the creature inside yet lives.

So long as Cody doesn’t open the box, he is safe, the truth of the matter still up to interpretation.

He is only the proper amount of loyal and devoted, unaffected; a good soldier, following orders.

He is too loyal, recklessly devoted, completely and irrevocably in love with his commanding officer. 

~

The spot General Kenobi leaves next to himself on the cafeteria bench is exactly Cody’s size. 

Waxer would be uncomfortable, squeezed between his general and the bench end. Wooley wouldn’t fit; he has no idea how to hunch his shoulders even in situations where he kind of should. 

Cody takes his seat and allows himself a minuscule moment, barely a tick, to enjoy the bodily contact that goes from his shoulder all the way to his right knee. He’s privately extremely glad he went to firstmeal today with the top of his armour still in his bunk.

It’s not entirely proper of him, but he wants to project an ease he doesn’t really feel to bolster the men. Cody, after all, is not nervous because he fears his general, the way the shinies sometimes do. Some of them are still skittish with the general, fresh off Kamino a year into the war. Others just need a little nudge in the right direction.

General Kenobi forgot to get himself a cup of tea with his breakfast, even though that’s just about the only part of the meal he actually looks forward to. The brother behind the cafeteria’s service bar handed Cody two empty paper cups without needing to be asked; Cody slides a steaming cup of tea towards his general. Today’s pick of the bunch is a bagged green kind.

The generali goes a little bit soft around the eyes when he notices the cup. Some of the tension bleeds out of his spine, and suddenly the pressure against Cody’s upper thigh increases.

The adrenaline wakes Cody up faster than his caf ever could.

~

There are two sides to Cody, and they’re usually in disagreement with each other. He prefers to refer to them as ‘Marshal Commander Cody’ and ‘Adrenaline Cody’.

Commander Cody sighs in glee and relief when his flimsiwork gets rubberstamped and smiles with satisfaction when their storage bay is stacked neatly like a giant block puzzle, leaving no wasted space.

Adrenaline Cody gleefully dogpiles enemy generals and punches everything from stupid B1’s to lithe BX’s and would really like the chance to see Grievous again. Or Ventress, or Dooku, he’s not picky. Adrenaline Cody buzzes with happiness and a sense of belonging when under enemy fire, his general at his six and his brothers around him taking names. 

Commander Cody likes to get a proper night’s rest and a breakfast spent plastered to General Kenobi’s side. Adrenaline Cody would like nothing more than the exact opposite of a restful night, but he’s in agreement over keeping his general’s close company.

It’s Cody’s job to make Commander Cody and Adrenaline Cody see eye to eye, which usually involves late, bleary-eyed evenings with personnel rotation schedules  and promises of dust-brown plastoid underneath Cody’s scraped knuckles in the very near future.

~

General Kenobi has an office he doesn’t use all that often, preferring his own bedroom and desk. This afternoon, though, finds Cody and his general side by side, each in their own uncomfortable swivelling chair, taking advantage of the frankly ridiculously large desk. 

General Kenobi inputs the last of their resupply route into the starmap and leans back, satisfied. The route had taken quite a bit of puzzling this time, figuring out how to hit all the necessary docks without burning through more fuel than they could pick up. 

“I never realised just how much of the reality of war is concerned with traveling for food and fuel,” General Kenobi says, his stretching back twisting the words until they’re more sigh than enunciation. Cody nods. “One thing the Seppies don’t have to worry about, sir. Droids don’t need to eat.” General Kenobi thinks this over for a second, until a thought pulls his face into a sly smile.

“Ah,” the general says, “but the droids have their hands full worrying about us,” comes the rebuttal.

Cody grins. “That they do, sir.”

General Kenobi falls silent, then.

There’s nothing on their agenda anymore and Cody figures he should probably head for his bunk, take a sonic. He stays in his seat, and waits his general out; Kenobi looks like he has something on his mind, still.

“I hadn’t known about war until I was already in one,” the general begins, gazing unseeing at the starmap still floating over the desk. “And now that I’m in a war I can’t remember what the peace was like. I worry, you know,” the general says. “Give or take one and a half years into the fighting, and somehow the title of Jedi Knight already suits me better than Master. I certainly feel more like a warrior than a peacekeeper.”

The general turns his head a little to look at Cody. “I can’t picture what it would look like after the war,” Kenobi murmurs, like a confession. “It’s so difficult to assume it might actually end.”

Cody can relate. This is what he was born (well, ‘born’, more like sieved out of a vat of Fett-stew) and bred for, and even he finds it a daily slog. There’s never enough time to regroup and always a new army to crush, a new front to defend, a village to avenge or a trade deal to protect. Cody nods.

“I try not to think about it,” he says. “I grew up with the war as my only constant. More of a birthright, you might say. If that ever falls away, then where will I be? If I’m not in the field, what will I do?”

After a moment, he says, “Besides, the casualty rates are such that even clones of high position will eventually die in the field. It’s statistically extremely unlikely that I will actually live to see the clankers fall. So I just assume I’ll die sometime next week, take each day as it comes, and if I do somehow make it through to see the end, then I will cross that current when I get to it.”

The look General Kenobi gives him is crushed, and understanding all the same.

Cody tries not to feel pitied, but he has to swallow the indignation anyways. It’s nice, to be felt for. Still, there’s heat creeping up the back of Cody’s neck and he has to look away, focussing on a spot behind the general’s ear.

“I’m a grown man,” Cody says. “I can handle a bit of sombre talk, sir.” The general nods. “It’s not bad advice,” he insists. Cody frowns, at that.

The truth is, Cody’s outlook on life is not unique; he shares it with about five million other people. What his general just called ‘good advice’ is something rather closer to nihilism, or a crossed wire in the brain. For a nat-born, it is a line of thought that would warrant a mental health evaluation; Cody knows this quite well, as do all of his brothers.

Ah, riptides take him, but if Cody has just now given his general depression, he might request his own reconditioning himself. 

“Please don’t do that, sir,” Cody tries, his tone pleading. “I’m given to understand it’s not a healthy state of mind for nat-born people to have.” His general shakes his head. “I’m a grown man, Cody. Crossing that bridge later sounds like a grand idea.” 

Damn.

~

On the planet Nixus Cody loses fifty men.

He commits their names to memory, as he always does, and makes the rounds through the affected platoons himself. He’s not surprised to find his general halfway through the same list.

General Kenobi is in low spirits, which is also not unusual, the first day or two they spend in orbit around the planet. When he receives permission to extend relief to the locals, he perks up, though.

The general sets up camp near the most affected area of the relevant continent. The people are wary, at first, but when they see General Kenobi unwrap a ration bar and eat it, they clue in fast enough.

Kenobi finds himself directing the relief efforts, receiving thanks in person from every stooped-over elder and every bright-eyed youngling who prefers bothering the approachable-looking Jedi instead of the armoured soldiers. It’s not long before the general has a kid on his hip, maybe two years old (four, for a nat-born) and drooling sleepily into his caf-brown robe.

The setting sun haloes his hair until it glows fluorescent-bright, and General Kenobi looks like a person stepped out of a fairy tale. 

The kid fusses, and Cody’s general lays a hand over their head, mussing up their pigtails. The kid’s expression softens again, but the hand remains, stroking from forehead to crown almost on automatic. General Kenobi bounces the toddler on his hip as he walks, all of it second nature.

If time were merciful it would slow to a stop and preserve this moment eternally. If gravity were kind it would cease with that incessant pressure on Cody’s stomach. If life were a picture book he would close the page here, lay his bookmark and never move away, reread this passage until the page yellowed and the letters were clearer in his head than on the paper.

If ever a person deserved to live through the war, to see the other side, it would be Kenobi. Cody begs forces he doesn’t understand and doesn’t believe in that perhaps Cody dies first, and perhaps all the luck he hadn’t used yet protects his general in his stead. 

It would be easier, if Cody went and hit the currents before Obi-Wan did. He doesn’t know what he would do, if he ever turned to hand his general his lightsaber to find an empty space there instead. He thinks his general would take Cody’s heart with him if he went, and so Cody decides that the war should probably kill him first.

~

They’re only just shoring up the borders of their personalities when they receive their new orders; a generic planet, all grassy fields and soft blue sky, has a little Separatist-shaped problem.

The bots have holed up in the city they’re pillaging and are using the capitol’s built-in ray shield to their full advantage. The post civil-war technology that had once been repurposed to keep the particularly nasty nocturnal predators out of the people’s gardens is now being used to keep the Republic from saving those homes.

Cody has a mission, and Kenobi has his. That’s the way these things go. Still, Cody can’t help but resent that his general is on the other side of the battlefield, more than five klicks away from Cody’s current position, and counting. It feels wrong; Cody is supposed to have his General’s back.

He tries to reason with himself, that if he and Ghost Company are successful in their infiltration, Cody will be aiding his General by taking down the ray shield currently kriffing up their afternoons. He tries to tell himself that’s much more useful than if Cody were standing, helpless against the shield, at his General’s side.

Just like the past few times Cody’s tried, it doesn’t help.

Ghost Company is silent as their namesake making their approach towards the compound.

It’s a square, smallish building with snaking hallways designed to confuse, chokepoints on every corner, droid patrols marching around the clock. It makes sense for this place to be swarming with clankers; from here, the ray shield is activated or, in Cody’s case, deactivated. After a morning traveling the sewers to enter the city undetected, the next part of their plan feels like an improvement.

They infiltrate the building by worming their way through the maintenance shafts, armour scraping over metal. The tunnels are dusty and unused, though their group tenses in wait every time someone inevitably bangs their helmet on the ceiling. Sometimes their pauldrons groan as they are scraped over metal. Sometimes their leather gloves squeak when dragged over the shaft’s walls. The little noises have never sounded so ominous. 

Still, the trek towards their target goes surprisingly well. They make good time, all things considered, and before long Cody is undoing the screws of a metal grate in the ceiling of the compound’s main power circuit. He climbs out of the vent carefully, pleased to find he hasn’t alerted the base to their presence. With a hand, he signals for Ghost Company to join him, so they can get started on their sabotage.

The plan is simple; get two men to plant explosives along a weak point in the power grid, and the remaining three join Cody in guarding the two entry points to the room. Well hidden and silent, the ordinance won’t be discovered until Cody and company are well outside of the blast radius, enjoying the fireworks. 

The fuse box is humming softly at Cody’s back when the plan falls apart.

He hears a single click of a lock engaging, as both doors jam simultaneously. In the corner of his vision he sees Crys tense; Cody hadn’t imagined the sound.

Before he has the chance to open his mouth and order someone to check each door, a gas canister drops from the ceiling vent, the very same one he and his men just exited. The little sabotage droid, distinctive due to its parachute-shaped appendages, chuckles at Cody when he spots it. He could swear its two red eyes glint with cruel glee when the gas begins to spread through the air.

Cody yells, “Everybody keep away from the gas,” though the warning is a little unnecessary. The noxious green cloud that bursts forth looks so instinctively unhealthy that every trooper who lays eyes on it immediately tries to steer well clear.

Now, Clone Trooper helmets have good internal filters. After all, it wouldn’t do for soldiers to inhale sand or snow and choke, or for a sneezing fit to throw off their aim. The scrubbers in their helmets clean the air they inhale, ridding it of anything toxic or harmful, as well as blocking most of the particles needed for scents to penetrate their noses. 

The thing is, Clone Trooper helmets have their upper limits. Cody knows those limits off the top of his head, because one of his personality issues is that he takes pride in knowing everything about anything. He knows the density of particles needed before he will start to smell battlefield smoke, remembers how much dust the filters can catch before they clog and fail, is able to intuit when the scrubbers have removed all the dioxide they can and the air is about to become thinner.

So when Cody sees the sheer volume of green bile that spews from the surprisingly small canister, cold sweat begins to prickle at the back of his neck.

Fortunately for him, though, right when he starts to smell something horrid, tasting it in the back of his throat like burnt metal and lighter fluid, his eyes are already slipping closed.

He blinks to find himself on the floor, somehow, his vision nothing but billowing green, copper and gasoline fighting for dominance inside his taste buds. He blinks again, and then he knows no more.

~

Cody blinks awake and he’s still on the floor. His eyebrows scrunch together behind the safety of his bucket, in frustration and anxiousness both.

Their infiltration mission had been made. Somehow, someone had known they were coming and set a trap. Cody recognises now that the reason their noise never alerted the base is because they were following the enemy’s intended route.

He drags himself upright, a battle against muscles that groan and bones which refuse to support him. His body is tight, instead of overly loose like he’d expected. He feels as though he’s spent a few hours with every muscle in his body coiled like steel cables.

Cody props himself against a wall with considerable effort, breathing laboured and his heart beating much faster than the simple movement really warrants. Whatever was in his system is clearly still affecting him.

He surveys his surroundings to find he’d been moved while unconscious. The knowledge settles like a stone in his guts; the vulnerability in it, unable to defend should an enemy have decided to be rid of him. He swallows. Nothing to be done about that, now.

He and all five troopers of Ghost Company are in a holding cell, and going by the crumbling stone walls, they’re still in the same compound they had been infiltrating. Cody isn’t sure if that’s a good thing or not. He doesn’t get the time to think it over, because his men are coming awake, pretty much all at once.

Clones all share roughly the same body, after all, so they have roughly the same tolerance for intoxicants.

Wooley is the first to try to speak, bless him, so he finds out for the rest of them that their throats are raw and damn near clogged shut.

At the first sign of attempted speech the words turn into a gurgle that wheezes with effort, and Wooley curls over on his side in misery as deep coughs shudder through him. Boil is laying somewhat close to him, so he drags an arm over and pats Wooley on the back with some effort.

Waxer is making his way over to Cody, painstakingly slowly, on his hands and knees. Seeing as how Cody had needed to do the same not five minutes ago he decides not to chide the poor trooper right now. He doubts he’d have the breath for it, anyhow.

The men piece themselves back together with the help of walls that support their attempts at sitting vertically, and their water flasks dissolve the last crumbs of grit in their vocal chords.

Cody is glad to see Boil and Waxer already joined at the hip again, gently teasing Wooley for his coughing fit now that the scare is over and the topic is declared safe.

Sitting against Cody’s chosen wall are Trapper and Crys, their buckets discarded. Crys’ eye-wateringly bright yellow hair is sticking up in places, still defying gravity from when he ran his hands over his head. Trapper is pointing out each individual cowlick with less than helpful directions on how to pat it down, and Crys looks close to throttling him for it.

They are in a cell; there’s no two ways about it.

Ghost Company is occupying two of the three free walls, the fourth being a doorway complete with a glaring red ray shield, its access port on the other side. Cody is sitting across from the shield, keeping a keen eye on the door on the other side, even as he watches Crys attempt to tame his hair.

Because he’s watching the door, Cody is the first to stiffen when the indicator light comes on. Above the bulkhead a yellow light blinks awake, and blinks again to green. As it does so, the door slides open, revealing a man.

Cody wasn’t there when General Kenobi joined General Skywalker on Naboo, so he’s only heard stories of the wild goose chase the generals and Commander Tano went on, trying to stop the development and release of a new Blue Shadow Virus. He’s heard how close they came to getting blown sky-high in a cloud of dust and infectious disease, how close the galaxy at large had been to succumbing to a second plague.

Cody has only read the mission report on the Blue Shadow’s manufacturing, and yet he recognises the man who steps through the doorway, confident as though he owns the place. He might as well, Cody thinks. 

Nuvo Vindi is a man so notorious Cody recognises him well before he remembers the name. Last Cody had heard, Vindi was supposed to be in a high-security prison on Coruscant, not walking free and confident on a no-name planet in the Mid Rim.

He is a tall man, a little over two metres, lanky and long-limbed. Even his skull looks oddly stretched, his purple skin sickly and pale. As a cherry on top, the man is a scientist, a real sha’buir of a scientist, a cruel one, specialising in genetic and medical science and the bastardisation of it. Nuvo Vindi is a man who caricatures the Kaminiise just by existing. If someone had described this man to him, Cody would find the joke a little on the nose, even. 

Cody hates him already; it’s practically second nature.

“Gentlemen,” Vindi says, gleefully. “How wonderful that you are all awake to join me. You may be wondering why I have detained you, and the answer is simple; I needed some test subjects, you see.”

Cody would describe Vindi’s bearing as comically evil, right now, all self-righteous excitement and amusement. He begins to walk the length of the cell, disappearing behind the wall before he reappears in the red ray shield, talking all the while. Cody is not entirely sure if he’s talking to them, to himself, or to the servant droid standing nervously in the hallway. 

“After the Jedi foiled my attempts to release the Blue Shadow Virus and captured me, I made my daring escape. I won’t bore you with the details,” he says, meeting Cody’s helmeted gaze through the shield for a moment.

“What’s much more interesting is the fact that Count Dooku was so generous as to lend me a new facility, though less grand, and sadly not on a populated planet like Naboo. Ah, Naboo,” Vindi sighs, dreamily. “What a spectacle it would have been, to turn it into the epicentre for my lovely little virus.” Vindi is silent for a little bit, apparently lost in his daydreams of a ravaged planet.

He comes to a halt in front of the cell door and turns to address his prisoners directly.

“No matter,” he says, “because what I have developed will be even better than the Blue Shadow. My new Red Death will be even grander! And you, gentlemen, have the great honour to be my very first round of human test subjects!” Vindi pauses, then, as though he expects the men to clamour in excitement. Cody barely suppresses the urge to scoff at him.

Vindi’s gaze slides to him and stays there, and Cody has to wonder if his body language is somehow giving away just how much he’d like to punch Vindi in his overly-long face. Would he bruise an even darker purple, or something else entirely?

It is Cody’s implied defiance that lands him in hot water.

Vindi leaves soon after his little speech, and just as Ghost Company starts to get restless and, dare he say it, bored, a pair of BX series droids enter the room. One deactivates the ray shield, while the other levels its gun at them. “You there,” the first droid says, tone even and impassive. It waves, unmistakably, at Cody. “You’re coming with us.”

Cody is not surprised to find he’s not allowed to keep his bucket on.

Vindi’s lab is made out of the same dilapidated walls as the rest of the compound, though some poor droid has made an admirable attempt to cover the largest cracks with a sealant of some kind. It looks chalky and cheap, smeared over nearly a third of all the walls and ceiling, so that the room actually looks much worse. The poor execution really only draws attention to the amount of sealant used.

Cody takes some satisfaction in that. Sure, Vindi is backed by Dooku, but he doesn’t seem to be in very good favour at the moment.

Cody is led to a steel chair, complete with leather straps around the armrests, two of the chair’s legs, and the headrest. The droid on his left points at it. “Sit,” it says. His heart in his throat, Cody takes his seat.

The droids are tightening the last strap around his head when Vindi enters the room in a buzz of excitement and genuine hurry. He looks as though there’s a massif nipping at his heels, and his mumbling to himself sounds harried. It’s only just loud enough for Cody to hear.

“Subject appears nervous, elevated heartbeat and breathing. The sleeping gas is not entirely out of his system, though it’s dissipating quite rapidly. The clone’s enhanced metabolism really requires more study in the future. Let’s see,” Vindi says, under his breath. “One hundred and fifty cubic centimetres of the serum, and with that elevated heart rate the medicine will take its effect soon enough. Oh, so much to do, so little time.”

Vindi turns to Cody, and seems to startle when he notices Cody has been staring at him.

“Ah, you have arrived,” he finally says. “I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans. My time is running short, and I desperately need some data on a little pet project of mine. Dooku,” and Vindi frowns, his entire face twisting and grimacing in anger, flushing a shade somewhat similar to an aubergine, “fails to recognise my greatness. With your help, I shall have everything I need to sell my new medicine on the black markets, and then I will never have to beg,” Vindi spits the word, nearly shaking in self-righteous anger, “for proper funding again. Never again will I have to dance to Dooku’s tunes.” 

Vindi taps a syringe he’s holding, the liquid inside colourless and clear, and presses the plunger until all the air has left the needle. He waves to one of the droids plastered against the wall, Cody’s former escort, and it steps towards him. With a single motion, it rips Cody’s shoulder pad off.

Vindi takes some scissors from one of the pockets of his slightly dingy lab coat and cuts Cody’s blacks to shreds. He finds the vein he needs easily, and Cody is suddenly reminded that this man used to be an esteemed family doctor.

The needle goes easily into Cody’s bicep, and Vindi is unsympathetic when he presses the plunger, pushing quite fast. The cold liquid drains into Cody’s body, and he’s transfixed on watching the syringe go empty. Within Cody’s arm, the vein protests the sudden rush of liquid and pressure, and Cody grits his teeth against the hurt. He’s had worse, but this feels much more ominous than a simple blaster burn.

Vindi steps back, satisfied, and fishes a pocket watch out of his coat. Cody counts with him, and about thirty ticks after the injection Cody begins to feel uncomfortable. His body grows gradually warmer, and his muscles feel too loose. A minute after the injection, Cody’s head begins to pound and his eyes have trouble focusing. Vindi seems pleased.

“Trooper,” he says, and Cody has to remind himself to pay attention. “What do you think of my new invention?” Vindi asks.

Cody speaks, the retort out of his mouth before he’s had the chance to form a coherent thought. “I think your invention probably sucks and I really want to punch you,” Cody says. And then he blinks.

Sure, Cody had been thinking it ever since he first saw Vindi, but that was the kind of thought Cody usually kept safely inside his own head. If Cody mentioned it aloud every time he felt like hitting someone, he’d probably never shut up again. 

Vindi lights up in triumph. “The truth serum works!” he crows. Cody’s syrup-slow brain only really registers the meaning of the words a moment later.

“Fuck you and the tube you crawled out of,” he tells Vindi.

When Cody is dragged back into the holding cell, the men look worried.

For good reason, Cody figures, because the droid escort really is dragging him. When they let him go, he barely manages to catch himself before his forehead kisses the floor. 

“Shit, Commander,” Waxer says, hovering over Cody’s shoulder anxiously. “What did that sha’buir do to you?”

Cody groans. “I wish you hadn’t asked,” he says. And then, because the words building behind his teeth are giving him a migraine, “Vindi has a truth serum. Wanna guess how I found out?”

Ghost Company politely keeps a lid on it, losing their shit, but not so loudly that Cody has to clench his eyes shut against the noise. He feels like he’s drunk and hungover, his body too warm and his tongue too loose.

“Did he find out any battle plans, sir?” Crys asks. “Any valuable intel he wanted?”

Cody, propped up against the wall again, planted there by Wooley and Trapper, scoffs. “No,” he says. “He just needed to make sure his serum works before he sells it illegally for a ton of money. I think Dooku’s been cutting his funding, and I think Vindi is looking to strike out on his own.” Boil nods. “Good to know,” he says.

“Yeah,” Cody agrees, “just wish I didn’t have to find out this way.”

Cody figures about five minutes pass before the base’s alarms blare into existence. He slaps both hands against his ears and it still doesn’t help. Some helpful soul jams his bucket onto his head and Cody could fucking kiss them.

The helmet’s filters quickly get to work dampening the background noise. 

Their wait is tense. They have no way to know what the alarms signify, and the unknowns set their minds to wondering. Is this the Vindi just launched a rocketful of Red Death-alarm, or is this more of a the entire base is burning down with us in it kind of thing?

Another five minutes later someone slaps the door’s controls, so harshly that the sound of a fist on the wall carries all the way inside the cell. Cody has the strangest feeling; a good feeling, almost.

A lightsaber plunges through the door, slicing a steady and neat circle through the steel. Cody could recognise that colour of blue in the middle of a battlefield, could pick the specific hum of the saber out from between twenty other lit swords.

“Thank the fucking Force,” Cody says, with feeling, earning him more than a few startled glances. 

Marshal Commander Cody doesn’t swear much in the field, and never lets his emotions bleed through into his voice so easily. Cody doesn’t really feel like a Marshal Commander, at the moment. 

General Kenobi steps through the molten hole in the door neatly, easily, his hair and clothes dishevelled by battle but looking so composed that the lock falling over his forehead reads like fashion, instead of exhaustion. He swipes the access panel by the ray shield with his saber, and the shield sputters and fizzles out.

As the men begin to pile out of the cell, Waxer and Boil heave Cody onto their shoulders. General Kenobi looks worried. “Commander,” he says. “I came as fast as I could. Are you quite alright?”

Cody wants to say a lot of things. He wants to say, I’m so glad you’re here, or, General, sir, that smudge of ash over your cheek makes me want to touch it. He wants to say I do hate to see you worried, or, I like it when you’re worried over me. The words fight for dominance on Cody’s tongue. Instead, he says, “Am gonn’ passout.”

And then he does.

~

Cody wakes up in the medbay of the Negotiator.

He’s extremely pleased to find that his body feels back under his own control, and his migraine has disappeared entirely. Cody still feels a little bit too warm, perhaps half a degree too hot. It’s not a fever, but Cody’s blankets feel like they’re suffocating him.

The Negotiator’s Chief Medical Officer is a trooper called Staples. Though his name evokes imagery of battlefield sutures with sloppy stitches, the truth is that the CMO is as unflappable as they come, decanted with an attitude problem and entirely too comfortable with pulling rank over his own General if it means Kenobi stays for most of the duration of his recommended bedrest. 

Just as Cody is lifting the blankets off his legs, Staples whisks the privacy screen aside. His face is already set to stormy.

“Wasn’t going anywhere,” Cody croaks, before the man can accuse him of trying to desert from the medbay. The accusation would not be entirely unfounded; Cody and his general both have the unfortunate habit of returning to duty far sooner than medically sound.

Staples harrumphs, unimpressed.

“Heard you were injected with a truth serum,” he says, cutting to the chase. “We’re still analysing the exact components. Right now we have no idea how long that stuff will be in your system for.”

Cody very nearly frowns. “You mean it’s still in effect?” he asks.

Staples smirks. He walks to the other side of the bed to adjust some of Cody’s medical equipment, fussing with an IV drip. 

“What colour are my eyes?” Staples asks. Cody catches on, and tries to tell him a lie. He wants to say Staples’ eyes are pink, or green, or perhaps bloodshot and blue. He makes it as far as opening his mouth, but the air doesn’t want to leave his lungs, and his lips won’t move for anything but the letter ‘b’. He tries not to say anything at all, holding his breath and clamping his jaw shut, but that only lasts a few seconds before the pit in Cody’s stomach begins to grow unbearable. 

“Same as the rest of us,” is what Cody settles on. Staples almost looks impressed. “Partial truths, huh?” he says. “Never figured you for much of a politician, sir.”

“Seems I will have to learn,” Cody concludes.

He’s released from the medbay that same day, seeing as there isn’t much physically wrong with him. His muscles are still a bit sore, and sometimes his throat clots closed when a remnant of that horrible green gas is ejected from his body. All in all, Cody could be feeling much, much worse.

The problem, of course, is the truth serum. Cody hadn’t really been aware of just how many little lies he tells in a day, before now.

The men look to him, the highest ranked brother in any room he’s in, for guidance and social etiquette. They expect him to be confident and sure of himself, because the moment Cody fumbles in battle is the moment their entire battalion crumbles.

It’s one thing for the Admiralty to look worried, sometimes, but clones look to each other first. As long as their Marshal Commander pretends everything is going to be all right, it really might be.

Cody is used to telling troopers that they can have the last of the sugar in the mess hall, because he didn’t want any this morning anyways. He’s used to assuring the men with meaningless nonsense before they ship out, retelling old battles over latemeal in ways that make the troopers fighting them look a little better than they had in person.

His instinct is to say that he’s fine, he’s not tired yet, he’ll take first watch or the longest patrol or the biggest pile of flimsiwork. No, Cody isn’t hungry, he’s feeling fine, it looks much worse than it is, honest. 

Cody sits down in the mess hall with a cup of caf, laden with sugar and milk. He barely manages not to groan as he lowers himself, his legs protesting the movement. As soon as he’s settled, Wooley flings himself onto the bench next to Cody, joined by Trapper not much later.

“How ‘re ya feelin’, sir?” Wooley asks, relaxed and happy to be back in the safety of their own ship in the middle of space. 

“Like a tank stepped on me and spat me out,” Cody says, and then he sighs, annoyed at himself. “It’s fine,” he hurries, and he’s glad to find he really believes that. “My body feels like shit and the serum hasn’t stopped working yet but I feel much better than I did a few hours ago.” Wooley is regarding him suspiciously. Cody claps a hand on his shoulder. 

“I literally can’t lie to you, Wooley. I’ll be just fine with a bit of rest.” Wooley seems to accept this answer, and turns to his own cup of caf.

Cody catches Trapper’s eye. “Do me a favour. Tell Ghost to tell the vod’e that whosoever asks me any incriminating questions, or makes intentionally inflammatory statements, is going to be cleaning the entire deck of the ship with a toothbrush while the rest of us go on shore leave.”

Trapper smiles brightly, both in sympathy and amusement. Cody allows it. “Will do,” Trapper says.

~

Cody forces himself to get used to the lingering looks. People turn, rubbernecked, whenever he walks anywhere or does anything, and it’s understandable in a frustrating way.

The men know Cody as stoic and even-keeled, precisely how he likes it. They are curious to see if Cody’s insides are as stone-cold as his exterior suggests.

Cody knows he’s not unfeeling, knows he’s just as soft and squishy as the rest of them. His life would be so much easier otherwise, in too many ways to count.

Cody projects confidence with his body, and is all too glad to conclude this has the desired effect. Vod’e too curious for their own good assume he’s too busy so they can’t bother him with stupid questions, and nobody with actually pressing concerns uses their position to ask something useless. 

Cody is honestly quite proud of his men; he had expected someone to break, to speak to him about the amount of munitions in their storage bay and to cram in a question about their choice of haircut, or something.

It still makes him uneasy, when he approaches General Kenobi in the mess hall for a report on their landfall on that fateful hunk of rock, and every brother in the vicinity stills his fork and holds his breath. “Not a holodrama,” Cody mumbles under his breath. He feels like getting the phrase tattooed onto his forehead and it’s barely been two days.

Cody comes to a halt before General Kenobi, who’s already turned in his seat. “General,” Cody greets him with a nod. “Cody,” the general says, a smile lighting his face. “It’s good to see you up and about.” “Thank you, sir,” Cody replies. There’s a beat of silence as Kenobi just looks at Cody, a mug of steaming tea in his hands and his eyes crinkled gently. There’s a lock of hair loose that Cody itches to put right for him. “The report, Sir?” Cody eventually has to ask.

Someone on Cody’s left stifles a snicker into his glove. Two rows down, a little south by south-west. Hmm. Looks like there’s a graveyard shift in Beetle’s near future.

General Kenobi makes a surprised expression, a little bit of embarrassment colouring his cheeks. He pats around the pockets of his signature brown robe and fishes his datapad out. With a few taps, he puts the pad down on the table. “I’ve signed off on your forms,” he says. Cody frowns down at him, which he belatedly realises is more than a little bit insubordinate. 

“I don’t think you actually read my report,” Cody says. “Sir,” he has to add. That was definitely extremely insubordinate, stars keep him. Someone coughs, poorly disguising a laugh. Looks like trooper Cards is joining Beetle for his shift, how nice.

Cody sighs deeply, closing his eyes for a second to rally himself. He regrets not putting on his bucket before he entered the mess hall. “I’m so sorry, sir,” he says, looking just to the left of Kenobi’s ear. “I’m not exactly myself. What I meant to say was thank you for signing off.”

When Cody looks back to General Kenobi, his shoulders are shaking with mirth. “Don’t mention it,” the general says, and Cody isn’t so sure if he means the insubordination or Cody’s report. Cody nods and takes his leave, glad to get this over with.

As he exits the cafeteria he says, loudly enough that at least a few rubbernecking troopers can hear him, “Still not a holodrama,” and he decides to ignore the stifled laughter behind him.

~

It gets both easier and harder to handle the truth serum in his system in the week after Cody’s not-so-voluntary volunteering. 

On the one hand, everyone on the ship has had the time to digest the fact that Cody will just straight up say things that are rude or inappropriate, often stating the quiet part out loud. He apologises profusely every time, though his outbursts earn him more laughter than scorn.

At some point the anticipatory gazes shift, and instead of expecting Cody to slip up and profess his ever-worsening addiction to knitted blankets and fluffy tookas, they now look to him to voice the difficult opinions in the room.

When a battle plan desperately needs tweaking, when the Admiralty insist on a certain approach, when the Jedi Council maintains that General Kenobi take another mission even though he’s swaying on his feet, a few dozen pairs of eyes go to Cody, and then he cracks. Every time.

The nat-born officers are getting fed up with him, he can tell, but so long as General Kenobi declares Cody of sound mind and battle-fit, there’s not much they can do about it.

General Windu has slipped at least twice, and has to cover his mouth with his hand again, ostensibly just resting his chin on his palm, when Cody deadpans another refusal to move the ship a single parsec closer to Kenobi’s newest mission objective.

Not that Cody can really order the ship around like that, when push comes to shove, but the mere fact that Cody stays so dead-set on getting Kenobi some downtime seems to be giving the Council enough pause to consider it.

On the other hand, it’s been a week and counting.

The serum, by all rights, should have flushed out of his system already. He knows there’s drugs in the galaxy that stay detectable in the bloodstream for up to two months, and Cody holds the irrational fear that somehow Vindi’s serum will not only be in his body for another week or five, but will keep influencing his actions all the while.

Just yesterday, when in General Kenobi’s quarters, he’d asked Cody how he was feeling, looking sympathetic. Cody had damn near opened his mouth and told him how scared he was.

That wasn’t very Marshal Commander Cody of him.

His brothers deserve a commander who can look them in the eye to tell them everything is fine; his general deserves a second-in-command who won’t spill all of their military secrets to the Separatists at the drop of a hat.

Mercifully, Cody finds that muttering things under his breath seems enough to trick his body when it's dead-set on betraying him.

The filter between Cody’s hindbrain and his mouth has all but dissolved, and trying not to talk, trying to lie, feels like bees buzzing inside his molars. The pressure behind his eyes keeps building until his stomach is heaving and it feels as though his entire body is trying to forcefully eject the vowels clenched between his vocal chords. 

Cody doesn’t exactly fancy having to state every half-conscious thought for the entire room, so he mutters and mumbles and speaks into his bucket whenever he can get away with it. Already he could have offended or seriously hurt half the vod’e on the ship, and that’s to say nothing of the admiralty. 

One and a half weeks after Cody’s injection and he’s still avoiding his general as much as he reasonably can. Cody keeps busy with schedules and flimsi, and when his to-do list is empty he runs laps around the gym or benches his new personal best. He makes sure that if he’s not with General Kenobi he is seen to be busy, and he prays to the stars and back that the general assumes he is simply occupied.

It doesn’t last, of course.

Cody is once again running laps, trying simultaneously to get his body back to full strength after that stint with the green gas, and trying to tire himself out so he’ll collapse onto his cot and sleep. It’s so late that the lights in the hallways have dimmed into their night-cycle mode.

General Kenobi enters the gym, and Cody pretends not to notice. He’s just passed the doorway, so he still has three walls to cover before he really has to face his general.

General Kenobi is stripping out of his robe and sheds his upper tunic. The long-sleeved shirt underneath is a slightly different colour of creamy white and a little thinner, too. Cody imagines he can see the muscles in his general’s arms when he stretches.

“Fucking Force,” he mumbles, glad to be solidly out of earshot.

When Cody is about to run past the doorway the general sets off into a run of his own, keeping to Cody’s left, their footsteps nearly in tandem. Cody is sweating, and it’s not just the exertion. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” is General Kenobi’s opening salvo.

It doesn’t sound accusing; it sounds like he is trying to give Cody the opportunity to defend himself. “Yes, sir,” Cody confirms, a little shame-faced.

“It’s probably awkward for you,” Kenobi says. “Yes, sir,” is Cody’s reply. They turn a corner.

“You know, I highly doubt you could offend me, dear,” Kenobi tries again, panting a little, keeping up with Cody’s less-than-gentle pace. “Not what I’m afraid of, sir,” Cody says, out of breath himself. Only Cody’s lips move when he says, fuck, thinking about that word, dear.

“May I ask what you are afraid of, Cody?” Kenobi says. Oh, for kark’s sake. “I can’t stop you asking, sir. Won’t always answer,” Cody says, interpreting the ‘may I?’ as literal so that he doesn’t have to reply to the actual question. 

When the lap is complete, General Kenobi detaches from Cody’s side while Cody runs him by. The general shrugs back into his robe, leaving his outer tunic off. His shoulders sag, and it feels like Cody has said all the wrong things, trying to say nothing at all.

With a leaden stomach, he keeps running, and when he stumbles from his fresher into his bed he can’t sleep for the life of him.

~

The battlefront on Velmor is a right mess.

From the moment their gunships enter the atmosphere they’re targeted by large lasguns. The shots are inaccurate and weak by the time they reach the ships, signifying a lack of surface-to-air weaponry. The guns still mess with their approach, since their intended landing zone is now far too hot for a dropoff. The next best drop zone is seven klicks away.

The walk from their drop to the enemy lines is miserable, their full kit heavy and already soaked through with the sleeting rain. The ground is more mud than solids, so Cody’s armour is splattered a suspicious kind of brown up to his knees by the time they lay eyes on the first battalions of clankers. He thinks he’s got soil under his toenails.

The droids don’t fare much better, getting stuck in the mud, their joints so full of debris that their range of movement is almost laughable.

It’s still a hard battle, of the kind that necessitates Cody digging into the deepest parts of himself just to dredge up the energy for one more shot, one more step, if he lines his gun up just right he might even get two targets for the price of one, just one more. 

When the clankers are on the retreat and their assault on the airspace clears, they call in air support to finish off the stragglers. They have plenty of scraped-up troopers, but no dead. Cody can already picture Staples’ face when he sees the wounded and the mud they’re caked in.

Their antibiotics reserves are about to run quite short, Cody figures. Who knows what nasty business might be in the soil here? Cody would rather not find out the hard way.

The moment they step into their transport, General Kenobi staggers, one foot on the metal and one in the mud. Cody has two hands under his armpits before the general even hits the deck, slinging one of the general’s arms over his shoulders. One of Cody’s arms goes around the general’s waist, keeping him upright.

“Long day, sir?” Cody asks, just to get the man talking and a little more awake. The general groans, his chin against his breastbone. “Same as yours, I reckon,” the general tells the floor. “I suspect not sir, seeing as I’m still on my feet,” Cody says. Kenobi has a fever.

Staples takes one look at the both of them and declares Kenobi a di’kutla Jetii and a karking idiot.

“That’s the kind of fever you get out of bed with, sir,” he tells the general. “Meaning you knew you were sick before the battle began and went in anyways.” His expression is so witheringly disapproving Cody feels rather like a misbehaving adiik himself, and it’s not even aimed at him.

Kenobi is staring mulishly at a point on the floor. “Sometimes we must act for the greater good,” he says, his voice hoarse after yelling orders with a sore throat for hours on end. “Not to sound like a hypocrite,” Cody interjects, “but I call bantha fodder, sir.” 

Staples sends Cody a look that communicates exactly what he thinks of Cody’s input, and Cody himself quite agrees. He holds his hands up, placating. “Alright, alright,” he soothes, saving his own hide. He turns to Kenobi and says, “I’ll get you a cup of tea, sir,” and they both know he’s just running away from the medics, abandoning his superior officer to his fate.

Staples is done chewing out his General by the time Cody returns from the mess hall with two trays of what passes for food on a starship.

Kenobi has a little private medroom, instead of being with the men in the medbay, which he’s already voiced his opinion on quite often. They still place him in his room whenever they can get away with it, citing a loss to morale if the men have to see their general in dire straits.

Cody doubts a fever is so critical as to warrant the privacy, but then, if the cold were to spread amongst the medbay that would be a pain in the shebs for every medic on schedule.

In any case, Cody is quite glad for the opportunity to come down from the mission in relative privacy. He eats mechanically, with drying mud between his toes and sand in the backs of his knees. General Kenobi is not doing much better, still dirty and wincing every time he swallows. 

“It’s nothing personal, sir,” Cody confesses into his disposable cup of caf. “It’s not even that you are my commanding officer, though of course that complicates things.” General Kenobi has shifted his entire attention to Cody’s face. He knows what this is about.

“If I were to be brutally honest here, sir, I would say that you are one of the very few people I can truly consider a friend of mine, instead of a friendly subordinate. I know more soldiers than I do people sir, and outside of the vod’e and the Jedi, I don’t think there’s anyone I really like. I have my batch-brothers, of course, but family and friends are two different matters entirely.”

Cody barely manages to wrench his gaze away from the cup in his hands. He meets Kenobi’s eyes. “I’m really scared of messing this up, sir,” Cody says. He’s disgusted with how small his voice sounds, even to his own ears.

“Cody,” the general says. “You won't offend me,” he repeats. “You couldn’t scare me if you tried. If my assessment is correct you are not capable of anything so deep and dark that you would need to hide it. But,” he says, cutting Cody off when he’s about to open his mouth, “you have a right to privacy, as does every brother on this vessel. I will not push Cody. I seek only to reassure you.”

Cody shouldn’t. Cody can’t.

Friends don’t stay friends when one of them feels too much, when one of them doesn’t feel like friendship is enough, when one of them wants more than what the other is willing to provide.

Cody cannot saddle his general with his own heart, does not want to ruin this, will not speak the truth into existence if he can damn well help it. Cody doesn’t want to lose his general, more than he wants to see what might happen if he spoke.

Still holding his general’s gaze, panic boiling over and sizzling behind his teeth, he claps both hands over his mouth and jaw. Cody’s empty cup falls to the floor with a papery clatter. Into his fingers the sounds of his whispering are muffled and the movement of his lips is made indecipherable. 

“I’m in love with you,” he says. “And I know I shouldn’t be and─. I can’t─. I don’t know how to stop.”

When Cody places his hands on his knees he finds his fingers are unsteady and his legs are bouncing.

“Sorry, sir,” he croaks, shamefaced. He still hasn’t looked away from General Kenobi’s eyes and Cody has to wonder what expression he’s wearing right now. Most likely he looks like as much of a mess as he feels.

The general shakes his head, dismissing Cody’s apology. “Don’t mention it, dear,” he says. “Force knows you have the right.”

It still feels like he’s disappointing his general, when Cody finally leaves for his well-deserved sonic.

~

“It’s a stupid haircut,” Cody says. “You make it work.”

Wooley looks both offended and mollified. It’s his own damn fault for asking Cody in the first place.

On Wooley’s other side, Boil is hunched over the table with laughter. Trapper next to him is wiping a fake tear from his eye. “My turn,” Waxer cuts in, across from Cody. Crys is eying Waxer suspiciously and Cody feels like joining him. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else,” Waxer prompts. 

The game they’re playing involves pushing every single one of Cody’s buttons, dancing on his last karking nerve, and asking him a lot of leading questions.

Cody figures Ghost Company needs the levity after their last mission, looping around a droid assault to pincer them from the back. The trek was long and dangerous, their pace murderous by necessity, and the eventual attack on the droid’s back lines nearly suicidal. When Cody had laid out the battle plan he’d made explicit that nobody had to take this assignment, but they’d all volunteered. 

Cody himself stayed with his general while the company carried out their orders, and so he’s in the physical and mental condition to allow for some light-hearted ribbing, if it means Trapper’s shoulder will relax and Wooley might stop looking so haunted.

“I’m feeling generous,” Cody says, “so I won’t schedule you for latrine duty next rotation.” Waxer grins in response. “So, tell me,” he prods, because he’s caught on to the fact that Cody neatly avoided the question. Cody narrows his eyes.

“Alright,” he says. “The truth is,” he dithers, as though he’s really about to drop a bombshell on them, “I think the red dessert bars in our field rations taste like dirt and I hate them.”

Immediately the table turns to pandemonium. Waxer and Boil loudly make it known that Cody’s opinion is factually wrong and the red bars are the best thing since thermal detonators. Crys is jeering about betrayal, and Wooley has a hand over his mouth in horror.

“We thought you were doing us a favour, sir,” says Trapper, wounded. “Yeah,” Wooley tacks on. “Giving us the best part of the rations, you know?” “Come to find out you don’t even like them!” Boil says, indignant. 

“I’m still doing you a favour by sharing my food,” Cody argues, quite reasonably.

 “It’ll never be the same anymore,” Wooley whines into the table, dramatically playing up his anguish so Cody knows he’s joking. “The whole point was that you were sharing the tasty bit, not pawning off the dirt bar to your underlings!” Waxer says.

Cody frowns at him, not serious in the least. “Just yesterday you were happily scarfing it down,” he says. Waxer pouts and crosses his arms. “Was not,” he insists. “Were too!” Cody says, a little louder.

The conversation is getting away from them, and Crys finally looks like he’s got all his pieces back.

“I can’t believe this,” Trapper says, still with that self-righteous anger.

He’s about to continue his nattering when a jaw-cracking yawn interrupts him. “I’m going to bed,” he announces, a childish tantrum in his voice. His eyes sparkle with mirth but his face is rapidly morphing into something like exhaustion as the post-mission adrenaline finally leaves his system.

As he stands up the other men of Ghost Company start to yawn and stretch, slowly peeling off the bench to hit the hay. The whole group of them migrates to the hallways in a slow shuffle, tangled into one another.

Boil and Waxer are joined at the hip; Trapper has his right hand on Crys’ shoulder as Wooley is draped over Trapper’s left. Waxer’s hand is messing up Crys’ hair. 

They made it through the exhausting mission to the other side, and in the wake of the combat and the adrenaline they reassure one another that they are alive, still here, still whole. Every little touch says here I am, there you are.

Cody mouths the word “Jealous,” into his palm as he watches them leave. Even whispered, even muffled, to his own ears he sounds bitter and he hates it. He resolves to call Rex as soon as he can and goes back to his own bunk.

~

General Kenobi leaves exactly enough space beside him for Cody to squeeze in and eat his lunch.

He refuses to admit to himself that it lifts his spirit as much as it does.

~

Staples calls Cody into the medbay, which is his first sign that today has already gone to the tides.

It’s still early, barely after firstmeal, so the infirmary is empty save for Staples. That’s his second sign. Staples locks the door when Cody sits down, and suddenly Cody’s breakfast turns to lead.

“We have the results of your bloodwork,” Staples says, still walking from the door to his own seat. Cody nods. “The serum is still detectable, but the amounts have decreased significantly. Less than half the concentration of when you first came in.” Cody frowns. “That’s good news, yes?” he asks. “Yes,” Staples confirms, but his tone is not one of relief. “The problem is that the effect is still as strong as it was two weeks ago. That’s not normal.” “Oh,” Cody mumbles.

“The scan we did also has some interesting results,” Staples continues, referring to the brain scan from yesterday. “The blood flow to your frontal lobe is significantly above baseline parameters, indicating heightened usage of the area. Your frontal lobe is where most of the brain’s decision-making occurs, as well as your ability to speak.”

Cody nods; this sounds understandable so far.

Staples’ face becomes troubled, then.

“I can only conclude that Vindi’s work has altered your brain somehow, though I’ve got to admit I have no idea what he did. Our equipment is not advanced nor sensitive enough to really pinpoint the structural changes to your anatomy, and even then, I don’t have any scans of your brain from back before the procedure to compare to.”

Cody leaves the medbay, moving on autopilot with the sound of his hopes shattering like glass still ringing through his mind.

~

Cody argues with Kenobi until he’s nearly blue in the face.

He’s pacing the length of Kenobi’s bunk while the general sits at his small desk, talking all the while. Cody has been trying to convince his general to take him off active duty for the better part of an hour.

“Ask Staples, sir!” Cody insists. “My brain has changed and we don’t know how. The Kaminiise probably wouldn’t know, and that’s saying something. All we know for sure is that the effect of the truth serum remains constant despite the dwindling concentrations of it. I am a danger to the entire Grand Army of the Republic, sir,” Cody hisses, turning, and he’s repeating himself thrice over but that tends to happen when one has been talking for too long. He makes eye contact with his general, imploring him to understand.

“So long as I am able to divulge sensitive information about our troop movements, medical stations and resupply points, the enemy has a chance to hear them from me. That is simply not acceptable,” he says. “Please, sir, you must know this. If a Separatist general were to look at me sideways I would first tell them that I want to shoot them, and then I’d tell them exactly what our battle plan looks like. I am literally a liability, sir!”

General Kenobi’s face is stony. Cody has never seen his general’s eyes so cold before.

“I am not reassigning you,” he states. “I am not transferring you anywhere, I am not sending you to be poked and prodded by Kaminoan scientists, nor am I kicking you out of the GAR. I will not hear it, Cody.”

Cody could cry. “Please, sir,” he begs, stepping closer to Kenobi’s desk. “I am a danger to you and our entire battalion.” The general frowns and shakes his head.

“It’s quite simple, commander,” Kenobi says, steel in his voice. “You are a dear friend of mine, dare I say it one of my closest. I cannot and I will not run this fight without you,” comes the general’s verdict. “I cannot lose you,” he says, the general’s words soft and his face unreadable. 

Cody is a soldier, and he knows nothing else.

He endures soft touches and kind words the same way he grits his teeth through weapon’s kickback and insults.
He seeks out close company expecting it to overwhelm; he seeks out his general expecting the need to tamp himself down.

Cody shakes his head in return, rejecting Kenobi’s words, by now well practiced at leaving his own heart by the door.
“I will lose you, sir, if I stay too close,” he says.

~

They don’t talk about it.

Cody and General Kenobi work together perfectly as always, a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield and between the supply request forms, but it’s not such a smooth glide anymore. Their gears slot together as they should, but the mechanisms are rusted through.

The men notice, and Rex calls Cody out on the tension, and it doesn’t help.

Cody can’t bear to be next to his general, and Kenobi can never have him too far away.

~

“Out with it,” Trapper scoffs, instead of ‘good morning’, or something equally trite. Cody raises a single eyebrow over his morning caf. “General Kenobi is the kindest man I know,” Trapper continues, “so between the two of you, sir, you must have stuck both feet in your mouth.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Cody says, flatly. “Don’t mention it, sir,” Trapper replies between bites of his firstmeal. After a moment’s silence Cody says, “Not any of your business, trooper.” Trapper sticks his tongue out, letting Cody know exactly what he thinks of his pulling rank. 

Cody receives mildly accusatory looks all day, while his men look at general Kenobi as though he’s a kicked tooka. 

Cody privately believes them to be wrong; he wants to sacrifice his own proximity to the closest thing he knows to goodness incarnate, and Kenobi won’t kriffing let him.

~

Staples doesn’t have any more good news a week later, either. 

Though the serum is nearly entirely out of Cody’s system, his body seems to need less and less of it in order to produce the same result. Until every last molecule of the stuff peters out, Cody is going to have to grit his teeth.

He’s become a very good politician, in four weeks. Cody might actually consider a career on Coruscant, the way things are going. Far enough from the battlefront, at least.

~

The plan is simple; touch down, wreak havoc, leave, only to do it all over again.

Cody’s never heard his general suggesting such hit-and-run tactics before, and he’s immediately game. The Separatist stronghold is too well-fortified for a full frontal attack, so instead they draw out smaller battalions of droids over a period of a few days, mowing them down and dwindling the forces inside the encampment.

The plan did not involve Cody getting captured, but such is his luck.

It’s easy math, for a tactical droid; the Separatists don’t have enough intel on the GAR’s movement and plans in order to respond appropriately. They need a way to get that information, and the battalion’s second-in-command will do quite nicely.

So a squadron of vulture droids circles the battlefield providing air support where they can, all the while scanning for their target. When Cody gets separated from the fighting, lead on by droids pushing and prodding until he’s standing in a circle of dead B1’s, panting, his blaster lost and his knuckles bloody, he's whisked into the air before he even knows what’s happening.

The Separatists don’t have a dedicated interrogation droid, thank the Ka’ra, but the lanky B1’s are capable of ‘extracting information’ well enough. 

“Where are you going to strike next,” one asks, its tone flat as it sends a bolt of lightning through the metal chain and handcuffs around Cody’s wrists.

Cody wants to tell them that asking questions while he’s gritting his teeth to prevent biting his own tongue in two is really not going to get them anywhere. When the electricity ceases and Cody can barely unclench his jaw, he tries to keep the words inside, to no avail.

“The patch of forest, seven klicks out from the fortress,” he says. This is the fifth question he’s answered, honestly and immediately. “Wow,” a B1 exclaims, giddy. “I’ve never had my interrogation go so well before!” Its companion knocks it on the shoulder, and the droid gives a mechanical cough. “Right,” it says, embarrassed. 

The forest is a future target, sure, but not their next one. Cody will continue to do what he can.

It’s a full rotation before the guard detail outside the door of Cody’s cell wanes, the manpower now needed outside the stronghold instead of in. He plays nice for another day, giving up answers that are partially true or only true when looked at from the side, feeding the tactical droid outdated troop formations and targets they’d already discarded during the planning phase.

When night falls and his guards aren’t back yet, Cody makes his move.

The hinges of his door are old and rusty, and with a bit of convincing by way of Cody kicking with his full body weight, they break clean in two. The door falls into the cell and Cody catches it on his back, the impact making his teeth rattle. He crouches down and deposits the door onto the floor with a slight thud, but he’s out of his cell before anyone can check up on the noise.

The stronghold is easy to navigate inside, built more like an old residential area retrofitted with holding cells than a true military encampment. Cody walks the way he came, three days ago, sticking to the walls and the shadows. Instead of the front door he takes a window on the first floor, since the ground floor has none. He crouches and rolls when he lands, but his knees still hurt.

With his hands bound in front of him and the chain dangling between his legs, Cody books it into a nearby treeline.

When he stumbles into his garrison, about fifteen different guns point his way before both of his feet have left the undergrowth. Even deep into the night his men are vigilant about security. Cody is secretly quite proud.

He’s escorted into the medic’s tent without preamble and the verdict there is common exhaustion and mild dehydration. Some food and fluids and Cody will be back to normal, they say. When he exits the med-tent, five-ish kilos lighter with the manacles removed, he nearly bowls General Kenobi over entirely. “Sorry, sir,” Cody says, his voice a little scratched.

General Kenobi claps two hands on Cody’s shoulders, and Cody pretends that’s not the reason for why the tension finally bleeds out of his spine.

The debrief is messy, mostly because it rehashes all the old arguments Cody’s already made. Hunched over the planning console with a map of the stronghold projecting, it’s less of a report and more so a continuation of their fight. 

“This is exactly what I was talking about, sir,” Cody implores, trying to keep a grip on the volume of his voice and failing. “Another day or two, or a more skilled interrogator, and I would have given them our accurate location and relevant battle plans. I pulled the wool over their eyes by the skin of my teeth, sir.”

Cody is leaning over the table, interrupting the projection. General Kenobi waves his worries away as though that solves anything, putting his fingers on his chin.

“We’ll train you for situations like these,” he says. Cody nearly groans. “I’ve been trained, sir. Rigorously, in fact! I would’ve spilled the beans the minute they had me, otherwise. There’s no training for this, sir. All we can do is keep me far away from you and the men until the chemicals are out of my body.”

Kenobi asks, “And who knows how long that might be?”

It’s a poignant question, and relevant, too. The less serum Cody’s still got in his blood, the slower it seems to go. The graph of the concentration looks like it’ll never actually hit zero.

Cody scrubs two hands through his hair and is promptly reminded of the state he’s in. “I’m going to clean up, sir,” he says, too angry to wait for a proper dismissal, leaving the argument open-ended.

It’s only when he turns to leave that Cody realises their planning table is not the most private of places, situated in between the barracks.

Cody has to shoulder his way through a trooper or two just to find a place to sleep. He doesn’t pause to tell his brothers to make themselves scarce; they seem to get the message clear enough themselves.

The scuttlebutt used to be that Cody had insulted Kenobi’s growth tube, or something. The hot new rumour is that they’re arguing like a married couple, instead. Cody’s not entirely sure which is worse.

~

“So just karking tell him!” Rex says. It’s only Rex’ privilege as Cody’s vod’ika that stays Cody’s tongue. Rex is toeing the line expertly today, as always.

“You know I can’t,” Cody tells him. This is their third time redoing this conversational loop today, a topic so ingrained Rex brings it up every time they talk.

It goes like this; Cody needs a place to vent his frustrations about the man he loves, and Rex grudgingly allows him. Then it’s Rex’ turn, saying his usual piece about how Cody should just rip the adhesive bandage off already. Kenobi is a grown man, is his argument. He can take the news and make his own decision.

Cody is a coward. Cody refuses. Rex puts up with this only because he gets to call his ori’vod a mir’osik. 

~

Because of Force-intervention, or perhaps due to cursed bad luck, Cody keeps having to bring Kenobi into the medbay.

This time a lucky blaster shot clipped the general’s thigh, singeing his pants and taking some of the skin and muscle with it. The wound cauterized immediately, but Kenobi had struggled with the pain for the rest of the fight. Cody has to halfway carry him again.

The sound of the air filtration system in Kenobi’s hospital room is becoming far too familiar.

Cody’s cup of water has been empty for the last ten minutes but he hasn’t gotten up for a new one. He wasn’t even thirsty in the first place; he only took it because Kenobi would categorically refuse if Cody only got water for his general. Cody wriggles his nails underneath the rolled-up paper rim and tugs a little.

“Did you kill someone you weren’t supposed to?” the general asks. Cody startles out of his thoughts and fumbles the cup. He ends up putting it down on Kenobi’s bedside table, just so he doesn’t drop it. “Ah,” he says. “No, sir.” Kenobi nods.

“Are you going to kill someone?” he asks. “No, sir,” Cody answers. Kenobi frowns in thought. “Did you do something illegal?” 

Fraternisation is technically not against the law, but it would get Cody decommissioned and Kenobi so heavily sanctioned that he has to wonder if the Jedi order could –would– disavow him. “..No, sir,” Cody decides.

“Were you going to, how did the men put it, ah, yes. Were you going to insult my growth tube?” Cody can practically hear the air quotes around the words. “No, sir,” he chuckles. Kenobi honest-to-goodness pouts.

“Don’t you know the expression, sir? Curiosity killed the tooka?”

The general shakes his head. “Good thing I’m not a Loth-cat,” he replies. When Cody huffs a laugh, Kenobi looks proud of himself. “That’s awful, sir,” Cody says. “You are not allowed to critique my jokes if you laugh at them,” the general insists, the angle of his chin set to haughty. 

The silence that falls is comfortable, which is probably why Cody has words clamouring between his teeth. The roof of his mouth itches.

“I could get decommed,” he says, like a confession, gaze locked on a scuffmark on the wall. “You’d have every right to send me to Kamino and I think I would encourage you.” After all, soldiers with weak spots the size and shape of the valuable military target at their side don’t magically get shot at any less.

Cody’s general bristles; Cody sees the indignation rise from the corner of his eye. “I would sooner send General Grievous my lightsaber gift-wrapped in a little bow, than send you to Tipoca City. You must know this, Cody,” Kenobi argues.

“I know it sir,” Cody tells that scuffmark. “But I can’t entirely believe it. Kaminoan training was far too thorough for me to relax now.” 

It’s not Cody’s intention to make every one of Kenobi’s medical stays miserable. Today is another one for the ages, a real downer of a conversation.

Cody leaves with his tail between his legs and tries not to look at his general as he does. He still can’t help but notice how Kenobi’s eyes are too shiny and his shoulders downcast.

~

These days it seems Cody’s conversations with his general only go one of two ways; either they have an argument, or he makes Kenobi sad. Cody is so torn that most mornings he prays he can stay in bed just a minute longer, avoiding his responsibilities.

He wants to come clean; he wants never to make Kenobi feel bad, ever; he wants to shout his love from the piers, consequences be damned; he wants his general to stop digging through Cody’s secrets and leaving all his mental cabinets wide open. 

Just a few more weeks, says Staples. Cody has to marshal himself just to ensure he has his breakdown in his quarters.

A well-placed kick travels all the way up the stiff metal wall of Cody’s bunk and sets his prized mug to rattling. Cody’s tangled mess of emotions ─too angry to call it sadness, too sad to call it selfishness; much too selfish to call it vulnerability, entirely too vulnerable to call it anger─ evaporates before the sound has fully left Cody’s quarters.

When Cody visits, the circulating air of Kenobi’s hospital room sounds just like a precious thing rattling over a perilous drop.

He dreams of finding his mug lying shattered on the floor and shoots awake to find his heartbeat far above regular restful parameters. He sits in bed with a microfiber cloth, wiping imaginary fingerprints off the gleaming orange glaze until the daylight cycle kicks in.

Cody has always been too much of a person. Clones were never intended to be people, and yet.

Too soft, too protective, too vulnerable. Too inclined to take little blond-haired brothers under his wing, too likely to devote half of his precious attention in the field to looking out for the familiar glint of light over silver and gold, too distracted with trying to preserve what precious little that he has.

It’s a trait he was probably decanted with, and his training track to commander did nothing to quell it. In fact, if anything, Cody’s being responsible for his men and his brothers, being the person on whose order they will, one day, have to lay down their lives, if not in this battle then probably the next, has stoked the flames of his possessive tendencies. He tries to keep what brothers he can, tries to protect their every memory, tries to make their lives on his ship as comfortable as he can make them for as long as he is able.

With time, Cody has adopted much the same stance towards his general, keeping, protecting, always looking out and looking for.

Cody does not care one bit about the fact that General Kenobi is his superior officer; not in this. He will frame and preserve every memory, even the ones where Cody sticks his foot in his mouth. He will make his general comfortable, even if he has to do it with private medrooms and endless morning tea.

Cody knows nothing else. Truthfully, he wouldn’t want it.

Kenobi has always been too much of a person. Too soft, too protective, too vulnerable.

Fresh off of Kamino, his armour still shiny and pristine white, Cody had met General Kenobi in the hangar bay of the two-twelfth’s Venator, the very first nat-born who treated Cody like a karking human being. General Kenobi had gifted him that million-credit smile and introduced himself, as though Cody hadn’t already obsessively poured over the man’s file and memorised every detail. In response, Cody had replied, “CC-2224, sir,” with a crisp salute. “Yes, but,” the general had frowned, “what is your name?” And to the horror of every brother in attendance, he’d said, “It’s Cody, sir.”

Cody’s first experience with kindness from without, his first taste of human decency received from someone who wasn’t strained out of the primordial Fett-soup like the rest of them, and somehow it was expected that Cody wouldn't grow to treasure this man beyond all reason?

Kenobi didn’t give orders; he made suggestions, ones that the vod’e could disregard should the situation call for it without getting dropped out of the nearest airlock. Kenobi didn’t dole out graveyard shifts for insubordination, indulged them when the first tentative spots of paint began appearing on their shells, pretended not to notice the shards of Mando’a that drifted his way when a hushed conversation suddenly turned intense. He was never a very good General, Cody supposes. Only ever an exemplary Jedi.

Jedi are not soldiers. They are trained in martial arts and meditation, at best. They don’t know how to swallow the loss of a single village, are unfamiliar with the idea of ‘acceptable casualty rates’. As much as they preach detachment, they are human still. Humans don’t like it when a hundred good men die in a single battle. Kenobi hates it.

Cody folds his microfiber cloth away, stashes it into the armour repair kit he keeps underneath his bed, and tries to put General Kenobi back into the role where he is supposed to belong.
Jedi High General, untouchable, understanding and utterly serene.

That man, Cody thinks, is a stranger to him. But then, Cody wouldn't have had to lie to a General like that.

~

General Kenobi is confined to the medbay for another week, and Staples has no better news. At the very least, after his discharge, Cody can speak with his general without the sound of air circulation humming through his skull. 

Their new mission is the straightforward type Cody quietly favours. Their gunships touch down without any problems, their arrival kept a secret from the Separatist forces down below the ridge. In the cover of night they move, until by daybreak they emerge right in front of disbelieving ocular receptors. 

Despite not having slept, Cody’s men are rigorous as always. Cody nearly grins with the exhilaration of a good, punishing fight. Every moment Cody isn’t shooting something he is reloading, or seeking advantageous terrain, or spotting his general and keeping the droids off his back. Cody’s brain lets go of the reins, Marshal Commander-tight, and strangely, Cody finds himself more relaxed than he has been in recent memory.

Even though they lose a squadron or two to fighting in the open, Cody, almost guiltily, feels more invigorated than anything else. 

General Kenobi notices, of course.

There’s not much he doesn’t, just a lot he chooses to let slide. Cody is cut from the same cloth and admires his general for the amount of mildly inappropriate behaviours the vod’e are allowed to get away with.

Kenobi is shovelling bland vegetables into his mouth before he speaks. He doesn’t usually talk with his mouth half-full; he must be more tired than he lets on. “Feeling better?” he asks. Cody nods. “Much,” he says. “Sometimes a man needs a stupid droid to punch, sir.” Kenobi shakes his head disapprovingly, but his eyes shine with amusement. “Wish I could say the same,” he says, too genuine to be all talk.

“With respect, sir,” Cody argues, “have you tried punching a droid hard enough?”

Kenobi’s shoulder’s shake. “And bust up my fingers?” he retorts between chuckles, gesturing with his fork to the bandages around Cody’s knuckles. Cody sucks his teeth and waves the notion away.

“As long as they keep putting critical processing power in those soft skulls, I will keep hitting ‘em.”

They stay seated at the cafeteria table long after their plates are emptied, silently engrossed in their own separate reports.

Cody stretches, attempting to get that annoying crick out of his back, and the general notices.

General Kenobi invites Cody to his quarters for his debrief after they both agree to declare their latemeal well and truly over, the general’s own chairs better suited to long nights. They make their way over in comfortable clothes, carrying datapads and a hot drink of choice; this is nothing unusual.

What is strange, worryingly so, is the way the general walks, his entire bearing exuding dread. His steps are slow and his shoulders hunched; if Cody didn’t know any better he’d say Kenobi were currently approaching the gallows, and not his own comfortable room. 

Kenobi lets Cody inside, hesitating on the doorstep himself. With a deep breath in, decision made, the general lets the door slide closed. Without looking he fumbles around for the door’s controls, finding the panel and the button he needs. General Kenobi still has his back to the door when Cody sees the indicator light above it blink on; locked for privacy.

Locked, locked, locked.

Cody’s next breath is less stable than he’d like.

“Everything alright, sir?” he checks.

General Kenobi’s gaze is far away, an indicator of some internal battle. At the sound of Cody’s voice he snaps back to himself. “Yes, Cody,” he says. “All is well. Just thought we’d better not be interrupted during our briefing.”

They are never disturbed during their one-on-one talks, not unless there is an emergency. General Kenobi has never locked his door before. He’s leaning against it with something like trepidation in his expression, eying his desk chair as though it’ll bite him when he sits down.

Cody decides to take this at face value. Perhaps, he reasons, his general really does need to reassure himself that they will not be delayed. Perhaps Kenobi has something to say, a performance review of his commander or a stern talking-to about Cody’s habit to disregard his own fingers. It wouldn’t do, after all, for some poor trooper to walk in on his Commander getting a dressing down.

Cody pretends to be at ease, leaning against his general’s desk. He sets down his pad and his caf, and settles in for the wait. Whatever it is, Cody must have done something to warrant it; the least he could do is to not look as cagey as he feels while Kenobi gathers his words onto his tongue.

“Cody,” he begins, still stuck to the door.

Kenobi shakes his head, cutting himself off, and finally crosses the few metres to his desk. The general stays standing on his own side of the room. “Cody,” he says, his voice noticeably less hesitant. “You’ve tried your level best to keep what you perceive to be a terrible secret indeed.”

The floor drops out from underneath Cody’s feet. He’s in freefall, his heart in his throat, as he tries to listen.

“The thing is, Cody, dear, I think I might have an inkling as to what it is you’re trying to hide. It’s not appropriate of me, to be saying this while you’re still under the serum, but I don’t think you need to keep your secret under lock and key, after all.”

Cody knows nothing else than to hoard what he has. 

Amongst millions of his brothers, what secrets Cody kept were what set him apart from the kids in the neighbouring bunk bed; Cody’s equals in all but his innermost.

Amongst trainers who liked to pit cadets against each other and scientists who viewed their forming close attachments as a personality issue to be bred out as soon as possible, Cody learned to keep his love close and tightly guarded. His general, for all his wisdom and empathy, could never understand it, the need to jealously hoard that which makes Cody happy.

Cody’s mug comes to mind; barely used and only a miniscule imperfection on it, and yet Cody puts the mug away and uses disposable cups instead. What little Cody has needs to last him for the rest of his life, after all, however long that might be. He’d rather hit the currents and be buried with his love than see it run out, lest he run empty. 

He shudders to imagine what his life would become, if he used up every ounce of precious feelings inside himself. Would he even be Cody, then?

Cody is having trouble paying attention past the wind rushing past his ears. It is then he remembers he is still falling, and he can’t see the ground yet. He doesn’t know when to brace.

General Kenobi walks around the desk again, and comes to a halt next to Cody.

“Cody, dear,” he says, softly. And, that’s good, isn’t it? Kenobi doesn’t look as though he’s preparing to deliver a cruel blow; he has the bearing of one trying to calm a skittish animal. Cody decides that his general’s warm tone means he’s not going to be thrown out of the airlock.

“Yessir,” Cody croaks. Kenobi rewards him with a blinding smile. “I didn’t mean to scare you, my dear,” he says. Cody nods, a bit dumbly.

“The thing is,” the general begins, and then trails off. His blue eyes flick to the wood-coloured plastic finish of his desk, only to meet Cody’s gaze again. “The thing is,” he tries again, and the words get stuck again. Cody is distantly a little jealous; he’d kill for the ability to trail off in incomplete sentences.

Kenobi’s hand comes up between them and Cody’s eyes follow. Kenobi lays his hand on Cody’s shoulder, the contact through his blacks grounding and too real. Cody looks to his general, a question in his eye, behind his teeth.

The general’s hand slides up Cody’s shoulder, over the bare skin of his neck, and comes to rest over the left side of Cody’s face, warm from his ear to his jaw. “Is this alright?” Kenobi murmurs.

Cody has, in his weakest moments, the warmest of dreams. Whether it be day or night, awake or asleep, the content of the dreams is startlingly constant.

It is just Cody, and only Obi-Wan, and they touch, softly, easily, freely. There is no tension, no hurry, no war, only sunlight and happiness. 

This feels remarkably similar. It is a touch Cody knows from his dreams, a little like déjà-vu, the touch already familiar and comforting to him even though he’s never received it before.

Cody’s feet find solid ground.

“Yes,” Cody says. Kenobi smiles gently, even as there’s worry in his eyes. He steps closer, his body heat tantalisingly close to Cody’s.

“And this?” he asks, even softer now. “Yes,” Cody says, quicker.

Obi-Wan slots his body against Cody, the contact warm from head to toe. Obi-Wan’s face is so close that Cody is sharing his breath, the air smelling of tea and caf both as they breathe each other in. “And this?” Obi-Wan asks. He is so achingly close that Obi-Wan’s words caress Cody’s mouth.

Cody doesn’t answer him; cannot, for Cody closes the last of the distance and he wouldn’t move away again even if their damn Venator was being boarded by Grievous himself.

Cody learns, in this kiss, in the vacuum between Obi-Wan’s lips and his, that the vessel he’d thought finite and small, is in fact merely a wellspring, a point of origin.

The fountain of his affection rumbles underneath his skin, the mug on his shelf clattering in anticipation. A trickle of warm love like a dewdrop spills gently down from cracked ceramic, and then rises up over the rest of the glazed rim. The trickle thickens to a stream, and then an eager tide that rushes over the edge of the shelf in Cody’s head. 

Obi-Wan’s beard prickles against Cody’s skin, moisture caught in the bristles and brushed over Cody’s cheeks.

He startles and breaks their kiss to find the water is his, honest tears trailing from his eyes.

Obi-Wan tries to wipe one away, and it is replaced just as quickly. “Oh, my dear,” he sighs, gently. “Sorry, sir,” Cody says, though the vowels catch in his throat. Obi-Wan shushes him. “You’re alright, my love,” he murmurs , and that does nothing to quell the affection behind Cody’s eyelids. 

Obi-Wan moves both arms around Cody’s waist to pull him into a hug, allowing Cody’s head to drop onto his shoulder. His love soaks through Obi-Wan’s shirt, and he doesn’t seem to mind. Obi-Wan makes soothing shapes with his hand over Cody’s back, and somehow this feels even more like a dream than the kiss did.

“Am I awake?” Cody asks, before he can try not to. “You are, my love,” Obi-Wan hums. Cody slowly puts his arms over Obi-Wan’s shoulder blades. “Good,” he says into Obi-Wan’s shirt. “That’s good.”

Obi-Wan is patient with him as Cody gathers himself. He doesn’t know how long they stand there, just holding each other, only that by the end of it Cody feels flayed wide open.

“Would you tell me your secret, Cody?” Obi-Wan asks, still with his head on Cody’s shoulder, his hold on Cody relaxed but grounding.

It is easier to say, if Cody doesn’t have to look at him. He nods.

“The truth is that I’m in love with you,” he says.

This first admission, for all that Cody has done to keep it inside for months now, is somehow the easiest. “I already liked you as a general since you bought me that mug, and somewhere along the way that just kept growing. The truth is..” All the serums Nuvo Vindi could cook up in his entire life, and Cody would still stumble over these words.

“The truth is that I lay awake at night thinking of all the ways I might lose you,” he whispers. “The truth is that love and grief have been one and the same since my first brother suddenly disappeared and never came back. The truth is that war is unpredictable.”

Cody breathes in the scent of incense that clings to every item of Obi-Wan’s wardrobe with shuddering inhales until the tightness of his throat dies down. Comes back again, when what he's about to say registers in his mind.

“The truth is that I want to be the one to kill you. You don’t deserve to die scared and in pain, the way us soldiers do, surrounded by droids and their blasters. You should die quickly and painlessly, and I would bury you on a sunny hillside between the flowers and the birds. Your lightsaber, too, so that Grievous could never take it from you.” Cody is ignoring the hitching of Obi-Wan’s shoulders.

“The truth is that I want to die by your hand, because I know you would keep my armour clean for me when I’m not there anymore.”

Cody has seen how Obi-Wan maintains his lightsaber, the meditative way he meticulously polishes the metal and checks all the electronic parts. When the night hours seem to go on forever and Cody’s chest won’t stop aching he imagines those careful, almost reverent hands skimming over old and worn-out plastoid, a little brush digging the dirt out of every groove, a new coat of orange over his own faded designs.

Cody dreams of his soul being cared for after he has already marched on, and it soothes him even as he burns with envy.

Obi-Wan’s voice is thick with tears when he speaks.

“I love you too,” he says, and suddenly Cody understands. The very same selfishness that saw Cody squeezing into seats slightly too small for him is the reason why General Kenobi never managed to send Cody back to Tipoca.

It’s everything, it’s forever, it’s not enough and it doesn’t solve anything. Cody holds onto Obi-Wan and he shakes and shakes until he can’t anymore.

~

Cody joins his men for breakfast with red-rimmed eyes and a new understanding of the world.

His brothers try not to notice that their tough-as-nails Marshal Commander looks like shit. They pretend not to see when their General lays a hand on their commander’s shoulder. They immediately forget the way their commander’s spoon stills, halfway between his plate and his mouth, and he soaks up the contact the same way gauze catches blood.

They are brothers of the same cloth, products of the same environment; they understand down to their bone marrow the need for secrecy and hoarding like a dragon possessed. They are loyal to a fault, and they love their general; they will keep him safe by not noticing how General Kenobi’s eyes are too soft for a commanding officer of his station.

Rumours and betting pools are all in good fun, merely pastimes that have no bearing on reality. When the real world comes too close to fanciful scuttlebutt, they will change the whispered water-cooler talk until all is right again.

Yesterday, Commander Cody and General Kenobi had been arguing like a married couple. After breakfast it turns out they were actually arguing like Loth-cats and Lurca hounds.

They keep one another safe, by never letting talk and action overlap. There are no gaps in this particular armour.

And anyways, Commander Cody has an announcement to make. Their next set of orders is in, and what rousing orders they are.

General Grievous has engaged the GAR’s fleet in the Coruscanti skies, and the two-twelfth gets the honour of kicking his rattling shebs back into Separatist-controlled space, where he belongs. They might even shoot him full of blaster holes, turn his iron ribcage into a cheese grater, and be rid of him once and for all.

~

When Generals Skywalker and Kenobi successfully crash-land the heap of junk that used to be a Star Destroyer, when the Supreme Chancellor is confirmed hale and whole, and when General Darth Tyranus is confirmed headless and very, very dead, the men learn that cowardly Grievous has fled the fray.

It’s funny, how things work out sometimes. The Jedi don’t believe in luck, but the vod’e don’t have another word for this; trooper Beetle had mentioned, just a week before, how he wanted to sight-see the Utapauan oceanic-cave systems.

~