#'sweater paws' cody echoes quietly; head still spinning

[frostbitebakery]

“Set a man to watch all night…”

Hummed, muffled words echoed through the Negotiator’s halls, around corners, behind doors. Every clone, every natborn was on edge, hunted look around their eyes and shoulders. The lights seemed to flicker childhood-bright but to the instruments everything was as it should be.

The campaign had ended so abruptly. A shadow falling over the battlefield like a sun eclipse, Cody’s General… dissolved. For no reason he could discern. Just the perception of Obi-Wan suddenly wavering, literally going up in smoke, and rushing to the sentient enemy commander with a rolling mass of dead groans and screams.

White as a sheet, cowering behind a tank where the smoke left them, the enemy General had begged Cody to accept their capitulation.

Obi-Wan had gone back to his duties, face placid and unassuming. Like nothing of notice had even happened. Cody shivered.

It was the silenced air that had goosebumps break out on Cody’s arms. A forced absence of sounds concentrated in Obi-Wan’s quarters. It let Cody hear the things it wanted him aware of only. Suggestions to his senses he should heed. The steady drip of thick liquid. The blue night-sky-glowing where Obi-Wan’s eyes were supposed to be calm, stormy in color. Not…this.

“General?” Cody asked quietly, eyes adjusting to the dark room. “Obi-Wan? Are you alright?”

“I’ve never felt better, my dear.”

“Are you—“ The lights turned on with a too-loud click and buzz, too bright and Kamino-white. Cody squeezed his eyes shut just to escape.

After a moment he opened them again, blinked against the information his head was picking up automatically. Suppressed the swallow at seeing dark things drip from Obi-Wan’s fingers, onto the table, the floor, his lips. “Are you sure?” Because this seemed anything but okay.

“I am what I’m supposed to be,” Obi-Wan said, almost singing the words, voice melodious and a terror pin pricking Cody’s neck.