Work Text:
The campaign for Lau is an unfathomable mess, in large part due to the cheery bureaucratic incompetence of the Republic Navy. Obi-Wan still can’t quite understand why the navy must be its own separate thing with its own career officers, seeing as the Grand Army is so incredibly efficient that within two months it had broken all sorts of historical military records. Instead of being run by the clones and the Jedi, who have learned to keep an army running and organized, the navy is crewed by clones and run by a swarm of utter fucking idiots.
So there they are, the high command of the 7th Sky, stuck in a strategy room in the Republic Center for Military Operations with a crowd of admirals and commodores and other confusingly distinct naval ranks. Everyone talks over each other, interrupting even the most basic attempts at organization, and nobody listens to Cody at all. None of the naval officers listen to any of the clone officers present, to be fair, but they ignore Cody with a particular spite, despite the fact that he’s the one who planned the damn campaign.
It is distinctly unfair. Life frequently is, of course, but Cody hardly deserves their vitriol and hatred. He’s spent months planning this campaign for the Republic’s foolhardy crusade to retake the Outer Rim, and now the navy refuses to even listen. It’s infuriating is what it is, even for Obi-Wan, who normally considers himself above irritation. It’s horrid and unfair and even cruel, and he despises the officers for it.
“And on the outskirts of the capital city, the Separatists are copying our siege of Umbara, as you can see here,” Cody says valiantly, soldiering on through his presentation despite the chatter and snide comments. “The plan is extraordinarily similar to our four-pronged attack on Umbara, especially in every detail of the ranging troops. The Separatists are copying the attack schedule of the five-oh-first and using it to quell local resistance. Since they are reusing a plan originally devised by this very corps—General Kenobi, might I ask for your input on this?”
“Exactly reusing our plan, you say?” Obi-Wan asks immediately, jumping in to Cody’s defense. “Has our security been infiltrated? I can order a manhunt for Separatist spies.”
At his words, the admirals and other fuckers all straighten up and stop talking quite so openly. He does, as a high general, have some smidgen of authority over them—enough, at the very least, to have them interrogated as possible intel leaks.
“I’d say that’s highly likely, General. As I was saying, the Separatists are copying our plan of attack on Umbara. If they’ve studied our work there, then we’d expect a protracted siege with—General, would you care to explain our work on Umbara?”
“Umbara was a four-prong offensive against resistant locals with three corps besieging a city while a fourth took out enemy bases,” Obi-Wan explains, putting it in small easy words that the naval shits can understand. “The Separatists have nearly identically copied this on Lau, setting up a large force of troops around the capital city with the remainder of their droids ranging past the perimeter to handle any resistance. Now, as I understand it, the two are not quite identical. Is that correct, Marshal Commander?”
Cody nods at him, presence blooming with gratitude. “Yes, that’s true. For one thing, the Separatists are finding minimal resistance from the locals on Lau. Intel does indicate that they’re favorable towards our side, but prefer to not participate in the war. This means that… I’ll wait.”
“You’ll be waiting quite a while, I’m afraid,” Obi-Wan mutters, sidling closer to Cody and side-eyeing the chattering officers. “Which plan of attack do we take? They aren’t paying much attention to me either.”
“Divide and conquer, I think. This is hopeless. I’ll gather the corps’s officers and discuss the strategy for Lau. You convey the gist of it to the admirals, probably over a dinner and wine.”
“How many ships do we need?”
“Full Venators? Four. That’ll just be Yularen and Hoffar.”
“I’ll talk to Yularen now and have a luncheon with Hoffar. Is he more logical, or should I flirt him into compliance?”
“He’s looking at you a lot,” Cody mutters, roiling with displeasure at he glances over at the admiralty. Honestly, those lot, treating this important meeting like a karking wine tasting. Some of them are even drinking. “Wine him, dine him, get the fleet, we’ll rendezvous in your rooms tonight. To discuss progress on the campaign.”
“Yes, of course,” Obi-Wan says, clasping his hands in his sleeves and letting himself brush slow and languid against Cody’s rippling-bright presence in the Force. “To discuss progress. Do update me on any feedback you hear from the rest of the corps. Hoffar and Yularen might pick at the plan, but they’re only blockading. Honestly, as long as we restock the natborn mess for Thrush, I wouldn’t worry about them.”
Cody folds his arms over his chest, tapping in dadita against his vambrace. Rendezvous-location-Y-O-U. Request-T-E-A. Additional. Request-C-O-M-F-O-R-T.
“Yes, my dear. Anything and everything you want.”
“Category four, I think,” Cody adds quietly but out loud, helmet tilting to the side. “At least right now. We’ll see how I feel after talking the campaign through with competent people. Force.”
“Whatever you ask, Cody, I’m yours. Anything you want.”
“I’ll take you up on that. Right. Divide and conquer, then?”
“Twenty-hundred in my quarters?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. ’Til then.”
“’Til then.”
Because Obi-Wan is at some level, despite his mastery and age, still nervous about these things like the fumbling padawan he had once been, he has the tea ready and sitting on a warmer at 19:30. It’s not that he’s worried about this relationship he enjoys with Cody—certainly he doesn’t care to engage in loving with anyone else at the moment, and Cody hardly sees anyone other than his brothers and the fucking naval officers—but. Well. It’s still somewhat fragile and new in the way that these matters tend to be for quite a while.
Not that it’s new. Force, it’s not new. They have spreadsheets. And plans of attack, and categories of distress, and many such things. Cody had approached it with the same level of care and effort with which he approaches everything from military campaigns to individual training sessions, and Obi-Wan for his part had been more than glad to assist. He knows how Cody feels about him, since Cody had ‘accidentally’ given him access to a document where he’d been listing out his feelings. He’s told Cody how he feels plenty. So it isn’t insecurity, really, nor jealousy, not even simple newness.
He knows what it is, because he is a Jedi, and much of his daily practice is sorting through the tangle of emotions that always lurks in his chest to ensure that none of it will impact his work. It’s that he’s older than Cody, to put it simply. Cody is somewhere around twenty-three now, having lived thirteen years, and Obi-Wan is… more than that. Cody is young, younger than Obi-Wan had been when he was knighted, and he should be dallying with someone his own age. The matter of the difference in their ranks is somehow more surmountable, in large part because Cody is almost always the one to initiate any affection. Their ages, on the other hand—it simply sits wrong with Obi-Wan.
He is older, wiser, experienced, and perhaps that means that he shouldn’t want Cody so terribly bad. But he does, wants him so much that it burns through his chest and into his most sensitive vulnerabilities, wants him enough to overcome his deepest shames. And, in all fairness, Cody doesn’t seem to mind that his partner is uncomfortably close to twice his age, and he certainly doesn’t mind Obi-Wan’s experience with relationships and intimacy. It’d been rather a selling point, apparently, and had ended up contributing quite a bit to the spreadsheets. It’s more that Obi-Wan minds.
Not enough to keep him from enjoying it. Obviously. His relationship with Cody is the only bright spot of this entire war. Without the steady grounding of his presence, Obi-Wan might have already lost himself in the torrent and upheave of death and battle. It’s physical, yes, but more than that they’re friends. Companions. Lovers. And it’s—
Cody’s here, vibrant and glowing in the Force. Two seconds later, his knock sounds on the door.
“Dear heart, I missed you,” Obi-Wan gushes, opening the door and waving Cody in. This is a familiar routine by now, both in his rooms at the Temple and on the Vigilance. Welcome Cody in, act no different than the years of shared flimsiwork evenings before this, wait for him to shuck his armor and stack it carefully by the door before kissing the living daylights out of each other.
“I have never been more grateful that Kamino refused to produce incompetent troops,” Cody says by way of greeting, tossing his helmet down to the floor. Ah. So they’re armor-tossing today. Category four it is, then. “Those fucking admirals can suck my fucking dick—nah, they’d be bad at that too. I swear, if we get one more fucking complication in my fucking plan I’m going to scream.”
“Tea is warm on the counter, the bed is open, and I’m here, darling. What can I do?”
“Listen for a bit, then offer to kiss me stupid, then… I don’t know. I’ll decide later. Oh good, you made star-petal. And—I love you.”
“I love you too, dearest,” Obi-Wan says gently, sliding over the plate of biscuits. “How was your meeting with army command?”
“Spectacular,” Cody says, wolfing down two biscuits at once. He always gets angrier when he’s hungry, and so part of their plan for days like these is plying him with food. “It’s wonderful working with people who are good at their jobs. Unbelievable. We do this for free. The natborns get paid. Anyway. Ran into Yularen.”
“Oh dear. What did he say?”
“Only thing he asked was why you made me present your plan. Your plan. Fucking hells! My karking plan, yeah? Not that he’d know. Bastard wasn’t listening to the presentation. None of them were. Jackasses, all of them. Right fucking bastards.”
Obi-Wan sips his own tea, nodding in agreement. “So you say. I agree. Did you see them drinking? Utter disgraces.”
“Utter disgraces! The one with the mustache had spotchka in that canteen, I could smell it. And a few in the back had wine. I hate the fucking RCMO. Give me a Venator any day, that place is hell, it lets them feel like they’re allowed to just—to just ignore the people who fucking run this fucking war!”
“So it does. At least we’ll be away from Coruscant for a month or so.”
“Ten weeks,” Cody says with relish, pausing long enough in his rant to grin. “Ten weeks of on-planet fighting with those fucking admirals blockading up in the skies. Ten whole weeks to share a command tent.”
“And to share a personal tent, don’t forget that.”
Cody grins even wider, nudging Obi-Wan’s leg under the table with his socked foot. “Like I could ever. You sound excited.”
“Ten weeks,” Obi-Wan says, daintily sipping his tea. “Ten weeks of having you to myself every night. Yes, forgive me for looking forward to it.”
“Right. Sure. Can you kiss me now? I need a distraction.”
“Only if you ask politely, dear.”
“I thought that was polite, yeah? What, do I have to sound Coruscanti like those fucking bastards to count as—“
Obi-Wan leans across the table and catches Cody as he talks, pulling him into a sound kiss. Cody melts into it happily, making a pleased little noise in the back of his throat. His presence shivers with delight, little rivulets of pleasure seeping through the cloud of irritation surrounding him. The press of their lips together is long-since familiar, ever since a very heated argument had turned into a different heat altogether, but it’s still wonderfully new every time.
“Bed?” Cody mumbles, drawing back for breath, cheeks flushed with passion. “More kissing, not sex. Not yet, ‘least.”
“Anything,” Obi-Wan reminds him, standing up and circling the table to kiss him again as they make their way to his bedroom. They’ve gotten quite efficient at covering ground while kissing. Practice does tend to make very damn good, if not quite perfect, and the Force helps a lot. “Anything you ask—mm, darling, please—all I want is you.”
“Romantic,” Cody says, nipping at his lower lip. “Stop talking.”
“As you wish, dear, I—yes, very well.”
Cody pins him against his bedroom door for several glorious long minutes, licking into his mouth with hunger, the molten fire of him shining in the Force. Obi-Wan lets him lead, content to be kissed, to be devoured, to be loved.
It is a consummation devoutly wished for, he thinks, to be loved so entirely. And how grateful he is that Cody loves him, that out of the wide galaxy Cody had chosen him to be the one he kisses like this, the one he spends his hours complaining to, the one he studies and learns and loves.
“You’re thinking,” Cody murmurs. His face is reddened and rough with the scrape of Obi-Wan’s beard—also something Obi-Wan had been greatly concerned over, also something that was apparently a selling point. “I can hear your mind going. Shut up.”
“I do believe that’s what I’m here to do for you, dear.”
“Uh-huh. But I can’t relax if you’re tense.”
“Not tense,” Obi-Wan breathes, tilting his head back to let Cody mouth down his neck. “Thinking about you. About how lucky I am that you love me.”
“Dunno about that. It’s a credit a commander these days, haven’t you heard?”
Obi-Wan moans as Cody reaches a particularly sweet spot, fisting his hands in Cody’s bodyglove. “Really? The last I checked it was considerably more than that.”
“Right. I’m the most expensive lover you’ll ever get.”
“Certainly—mm, please—the most studious. Darling, the bed is just—“
“Just a couple meters, I know. I like the door.”
“It still has handprints from last week, Cody, I’m well aware.”
“Damn right it does,” Cody says smugly, hitching his thigh up between Obi-Wan’s and smirking even more smugly at the moan that he elicits. “So does the shower, did you notice that? And the mirror.”
“The shower—kark, I didn’t think to scrub it!”
“Good thing I’m your only guest, yeah?”
“I didn’t see the handprints,” Obi-Wan sighs sheepishly, reaching one hand up to twine his fingers through Cody’s curls. They’re longer now than they used to be, because it’s noted on their spreadsheet that they both enjoy their hair being played with. The spreadsheet really is quite remarkable. “I did clean the mirror. But you had blaster grease on your hands, and it’s still on my door—“
“Uh-huh,” Cody says, biting at his collarbone, one hand slipping away from his clothes to press against the faint handprint on the door. “Did you get it out of the sheets, at least?”
“Oh, Force, not—Cody—not at all. It’s still smeared all over. They’ve been through the laundry twice.”
“There was grease on my face too. You remember where that—“
“Yes, on my face,” Obi-Wan snips lightly, pulling Cody back up for another bruising-tight kiss. “And on my thighs.”
“Which is why we had the shower. The towels got clean, right?”
Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, tugging Cody’s hair. “You watched me put them into the laundry. Yes, they did. I wouldn’t—mm, darling, just there—wouldn’t let them sit dirty. That’d be disgusting.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Opening the door. Hold on.”
“Hold me yourself, my good sir,” Obi-Wan teases, clinging on to Cody as the door slides away from behind him. “Alright. Bed, yes?”
“Breather first,” Cody says, straightening up and tugging at his bodyglove. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even further, and exhales long and slow. “Okay. Distraction’s working.”
“I noticed. Would you like more?”
“Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um… let me think.” He pauses, biting his lip, and blinks a few times like he’s thinking through the spreadsheets. “Could you hold me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Skin to skin?”
Obi-Wan smiles gently, unbuckling his belt and setting it on top of his dresser before removing his obi. “You need only ask, dearest. You know that.”
“Uh-huh. And I—fuck you’re pretty—I am asking. Asked. Whatever.”
“So you did. And here we are.”
“Here we are,” Cody echoes, fumbling with the seal of his bodygloves. “Yeah. So can we just—can you just hold me? Under the blankets?”
“Oh, now that’s too far, dear, you run so hot.”
“You have the core body temperature of an icicle, Obi-Wan, don’t even—“
“Why, I never! An icicle? I’ll have you know I run perfectly warm!”
“I beg to fucking differ,” Cody snips, pulling his bodyglove off. It’s nothing Obi-Wan hasn’t seen before, but he drinks in every bit of exposed skin hungrily anyway. “I want the blankets, or I’ll freeze. Counterproductive, yeah?”
Obi-Wan sighs, stripping off his own tunic and undershirt and folding them neatly before setting them on top of his dresser. Cody whistles appreciatively as he usually does, already kicking off the bottoms of his bodygloves and setting them down in a careful pile. It is a bit chilly in his room, so he supposes being under the blankets with the human space heater he’s in love with won’t be too bad. “Counterproductive, yes, that’d certainly be the case. How do you want me?”
“Lie down. I’ll lie on top of you. If that’s okay, I mean?”
“I’ll boil.”
“You’ll—no, no, I shouldn’t.”
“No, go on,” Obi-Wan sighs, kicking his trousers off and meandering over to his bed. “I walked right into that one.”
“You’ll Cody,” Cody says cheekily, grinning like the right bastard he is. “Unless you’d prefer Boil, I mean, but last I checked bald men don’t do it for you.”
“There was one actually, a governor of some city-state in—“
“Oh, fuck off, I was kidding. Now will you lie down already?”
Obediently, Obi-Wan reclines on his bed, nestling in among his pillows and holding the blankets to the side. Cody steps in, reaching down and tracing his fingertips slowly over Obi-Wan’s shoulders and chest, his gaze dark and studious. No matter how often they’re with one another, Cody always seems to be able to find something to study, something to learn. And he always improves, somehow, no matter how well they learn each other.
“You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, y’know,” Cody murmurs, fingers trailing over Obi-Wan’s ribs.
“I’m one of the only men you’ve ever seen, darling, I know there’s precious little competition.”
“Mm. Not true.”
“I know how lucky I am to have you,” Obi-Wan says quietly, wrapping his hand around Cody’s wrist. “How lucky I am to be the one you love.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah. You sure are.” Cody grins a little, rakish and slanted the way he’s wont to do when he thinks he’s being funny, and straddles Obi-Wan in one smooth fell swoop. He rolls his hips a little, presence bright with teasing mirth, before slumping forward to lie directly on top of Obi-Wan like the galaxy’s nicest weighted blanket. He sighs happily, pressing a little kiss to the divot between Obi-Wan’s tits, and settles in.
“Comfortable, are you?”
Cody just hums wordlessly, his eyes fluttering shut. He gleams soft and bright with happiness in the Force, the last vestiges of tension melting away as Obi-Wan smooths a hand down his spine. It’s generally quite easy to work Cody, to sift through his presence for the root of his emotions and soothe away his problems, to touch him in just the right way to ease his worries. There’s something truly wondrous about how easily such a brave, brilliant young man melts at his affection. Something strange in it, perhaps, but Obi-Wan supposes that they are, in fact, in love, and that probably accounts for quite a bit of it.
And they are in love. He loves Cody so much it terrifies him. Cody loves him enough to say it, at least, though it’s almost always kept tucked close in to his chest, hidden safe behind his shields. In the moments where it can be felt, though, his love is a beautiful gentle thing, shining with passion and warmth and determination and pure, overwhelming care.
So he supposes that’s quite enough, all things considered, at least as these sorts of things go.
He pulls the blankets up over them, tucking the corners in close around them, and Cody breathes a content little sigh, nestling in closer. Gently, Obi-Wan runs his hand over Cody’s back, tracing the familiar bumps and ridges of scar tissue. He can’t feel the tattoos in the same way he can feel the scars, but he imagines the repeating curving patterns underneath his fingertips anyway. Here the jaig eyes for his brother, here the gilded sunrise of his armor, here the wings of the corps. Obi-Wan has spent glorious months learning them all, slowly earning every meaning behind the art in the quiet moments they spend together. There are never enough of those moments.
There is never enough time with Cody. Time to exist like this, to simply be in each other’s spaces, skin pressed against skin, hearts beating in tandem.
“You’re fuckin’ thinking again,” Cody mumbles, his face squished against Obi-Wan’s chest. This is generally his favorite way to cuddle, much as Obi-Wan’s is to rest his head on Cody’s lovely thighs. “I can hear it.”
“Oh, please, like you ever stop thinking,” Obi-Wan sighs, keeping his hand on Cody’s back and bringing the other up to comb gently through his curls. “I suppose if I’m going to be thinking, it might as well be about something productive instead of how wonderful you are and how much I love you, hmm?”
“Wouldn’t complain. Mm… they really are copying our plan from Umbara. What I don’t get is why an intel leak would copy a plan from a year ago. Why not find out what we’re planning now and start countering it? If they’re good enough to have details this specific from a classified campaign, they’re good enough to know that we’re retaking Lau.”
Obi-Wan hums, letting himself flow quiet and peaceful around the brilliance of Cody’s presence. He won’t complain too much about this. Cody is a soldier, after all, and they have a war to win if they want to truly be together instead of clinging to stolen moments. “It is strange, I agree. But if you can outthink your own plan, darling, we’ll probably make it to Anaxes in time to support the Fifth Sky.”
“Fuck the Fifth,” Cody sighs, his nose scrunching up with displeasure as he blinks blearily up at Obi-Wan. “And fuck Anaxes. One campaign at a time. If we just stick to the schedule, you and I get ten weeks together. Fifty fucking days, Obi-Wan, isn’t that nice?”
“Yes, dearest, of course it is. It’s just that those days are also fifty days of marching, and you know I loathe marching.”
“Uh-huh. It’ll be fun, though. Tramping through klicks of snow and moss, fording lakes, supplementing rations with river fish… how many more planets do you think I need to win before the fucking navy listens to me?”
“After the war,” Obi-Wan says quietly, barely daring to say anything more concrete, anything more real. “After the war, dear heart, we’ll fight for you and your brothers to be given the respect you deserve. All the medals you’ve earned, all the accolades you should be honored with, years of back pay. They’ll have to listen to you then. Everyone will.”
“That’s nice. Be realistic.”
“If the military remains when the war’s done, I have no doubts you’ll be promoted to my rank, if not higher. You’re the best strategic mind in the army, and should you choose to stay—“
“Be realistic,” Cody says, digging his chin in a little to emphasize his point.
Obi-Wan sighs, shrugging helplessly. “You and I both know they may never give you the respect you deserve, dear. There will always be people who choose to be unkind, and nothing we do can fix that. They’re allowed their actions and their cruelty, and in return you are allowed to be angry and petty and spiteful. As a Jedi, I would say that it is the duty of each of us to forgive, or the galaxy will remain in misery, but as a pragmatist I can hardly espouse that. We simply do what we must, and in all our staying strong and soldiering on, we must keep hoping.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s—fuck,” Cody mutters, his presence flaring with helpless anger. He braces himself against Obi-Wan’s chest, pushing himself up on his forearms and shaking his head. “It’s not right. It’s not fair. I work so hard and they ignore it. I give everything I am to the Republic and receive nothing in return. I’m tired of it.”
“Life is not fair,” Obi-Wan responds, reaching up and pressing his thumb over the corners of Cody’s scowl. “All we can do is continue on anyway. There’ll be time for us someday, time where you can rest, time where you can exist without the expectations of the galaxy bearing down on them. You are so very, very brave, quite probably the strongest man I know, and you inspire countless others to carry on. But for now, my dear, it’s alright to not be so constantly brave. I’m here. I can carry you for a time while you rest.”
Cody swallows hard, his throat bobbing with the motion, and nods jerkily. “I—yeah. I just—I’m so tired of it. All I want is to be good, and—and—“
“You are good. You are so good, my darling Cody, and you are allowed to be good to yourself. You’re allowed to rest.”
“I know,” Cody says, looking away. He shakes his head again, pressing his face into steel-silent compliance, but his presence remains turbulent and trembling. Hesitantly, he sinks back down, the warm weight of him achingly comforting on top of Obi-Wan. “It’s just—does it get better? Does anything get better?”
“What, with age? Yes, Cody. Everything improves. Well, perhaps not stamina, but—don’t laugh! I was being serious. Yes. You are stuck in a terrible position with immense responsibility in a horrible time of your life, and you are being very brave and very, very strong. And you are allowed to set that burden down for a time. You are allowed to rest.”
“Promise?”
Obi-Wan smiles softly, craning his head up to kiss Cody on the forehead. “Yes, dear heart. I swear it.”
“Love you,” Cody mumbles, softening into his touch.
“I love you too, dearest.”
“Sap.”
“Oh, please—“