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tenderjock · 5 days

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in the middle before I knew that I had begun; [not a happy codywan ficlet]

In the Jedi teaching, attachment is forbidden. Love is – a separate issue, obviously, as love can take many forms. When Cody and I were – what I mean is, I was –

You realized that you were in love with him and panicked.

: :

Obi-Wan is finishing the dregs of his second Daruvvian champagne cocktail when Breha inhales, sharp.

“Hmm?” he turns to her. His head is pleasantly fuzzy, but he’s far from nonfunctional. “My dear, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she’s quick to reassure him. There’s something strained around her eyes. He turns to see what she had been looking at, and she puts an insistent hand on his arm. “No, Obi-Wan –”

He doesn’t immediately see whatever caused Breha such stress; instead, Obi-Wan’s eyes go to Cody, sharply dressed in his greys across the ballroom. He’s talking to the Ghayyn’i ambassador, a handsome man with wide green eyes. The ambassador is tall enough that Cody has to look up to meet his gaze. Obi-Wan opens his mouth to comment, rather snarkily, on that fact, when the ambassador brushes gentle, sensual fingers across Cody’s chest.

Obi-Wan waits for Cody to move away. He doesn’t. Instead, he smiles, a little knowing quirk of the lips.

“Oh,” he says, feeling rather as though the wind has been knocked out of him. “Oh.” He quickly looks away. Cody is a very private person, and it feels wrong to have seen something so clearly intimate.

“Obi-Wan,” Breha says, and her face is sad. Obi-Wan doesn’t know why it’s sad. Nothing bad has happened. He clears his throat, thinking one of the sweet-pickle cherries in his drink must have caught there. Unbidden, his gaze is drawn back to Cody and the – the ambassador, who is now laughing at something Cody said.

It’s fine. It’s beyond fine – it’s wonderful, that people recognize Cody for the brilliant man that he is, Obi-Wan explains, three cocktails later, eyes closed with his head in Bail’s lap. Bail makes a noncommittal noise.

“People other than his command,” he clarifies. “And his fellow commanders. And, ah. Me.” His voice is very rough on the last word. These sugary drinks are really hell on the throat, he thinks.

“Of course, love,” Breha says soothingly. Her hand cards through his hair. It feels pleasant. Cody does the same, when they’re lying in Obi-Wan’s bunk together after a long day.

Obi-Wan opens his eyes, letting them stare unfocused somewhere near the floor. Breha is really wearing the most ridiculous shoes, and he’s thinking he should tell her that when a pair of GAR-issued boots come to a crisp halt just in his line of sight.

“General,” Cody says. Obi-Wan nearly falls out of Bail’s lap in his effort to sit up quickly.

“Commander!” he says, helpless to how warm he sounds. Cody had looked good when they left the ship, all buttoned up in his uniform, but he looks better now. He’s holding his cap in his hand, letting Obi-Wan see his short curls, and the top clasp of his jacket is undone.

Obi-Wan squints. Is that a lovebite on his neck?

Before he can dwell on that, Cody says, “We should get you back to the Temple, sir.”

Obi-Wan considers that. He’s fine where he is, except that when he attempts to lay back down in Bail’s lap, both Bail and Breha push him back up.

“That’s a good idea,” Bail says, firm but kind. How he adores the man. “I can arrange for an air taxi – Commander, are you alright to see him back?” There’s something uncertain in Bail’s voice. Obi-Wan doesn’t know why; it’s Cody. Of course they’ll see each other back.

Cody just looks at him. In this light, his eyes are dark honey.

“I’ll get you home, boss,” he says after a beat. Obi-Wan blinks at him, lips parted. He suddenly feels the alcohol very much, everything loose and golden and a little bit sweaty. Cody’s lips twitch. “C’mon, then.”

Cody manhandles Obi-Wan to his feet. Obi-Wan tucks his face into Cody’s shoulder as best he can while also moving his limbs in the direction of the taxi Bail is calling them. Cody, wonderful steady dependable Cody, keeps him going, a hand at his waist and another under his armpit.

“The ambassador,” Obi-Wan manages after a few steps. Cody hums.

“He had to leave,” Cody says. “There was an afterparty. He asked –” he cuts himself off, then continues: “I’d rather stay here, honestly.”

Obi-Wan nuzzles the starched fabric of his shirt. Wonderful man, he thinks.

The taxi ride lurches unpleasantly. Obi-Wan is distracted by the task of not spewing the contents of his stomach all over his commander. They get to the Temple without incident, and make it to Obi-Wan’s rooms with no one other than Yoda – who cackles – seeing them.

Cody puts Obi-Wan down in his bed. Obi-Wan tugs him in after.

He catches himself above Obi-Wan, arms bracketing Obi-Wan’s head. Cody huffs a bit of laughter and dips down to brush a kiss over his forehead. Obi-Wan cranes up, chasing his lips.

“Not now, sir,” Cody says, chiding. He kneels at the side of the bed to take off Obi-Wan’s boots. When he’s done, he leans back up, brushing the hair out of Obi-Wan’s face.

Obi-Wan beams at him, feeling unbearably fond. His Cody. His darling. Always looking after him.

Cody’s face is very still, just a few inches above his. Obi-Wan reaches out, touches his scar.

“What are you thinking?” he wonders. Cody shakes his head.

“It’s nothing.” He kisses Obi-Wan’s forehead again. “Get some rest, General.”

Obi-Wan exhales, eyes fluttering closed. He tracks Cody’s movement, straightening his jacket, turning the lights off, slipping out the door. His familiar Force presence is warm sunlight and hot caf, thrilling and comfortable in equal measure.

As the door clicks closed, Obi-Wan murmurs sleepily to himself, “Love you, my darling.”

: :

When he wakes up, head pounding and mouth dry, Obi-Wan remembers what he said. He’s the only one that heard it; it would have been easier to forget.

This complicates things.

Somehow, they go a fortnight, ending their leave and starting a mission, without Obi-Wan saying anything. He’s just – waiting for the right moment, a moment when they aren’t dogged by war and flimsiwork, when he can talk to Cody calmly and reasonably.

Or does he even need to talk to Cody? He was drunk. Everyone says things they don’t mean when they’re drunk. Teenage drunken Anakin once told Obi-Wan he wished he had been born a jellysquash, as they have no feelings and don’t know enough to care.

Cody is leading a squad on Im-Onh-Augulu’s surface when comms cut out. It’s a tense three-quarter hour before they reestablish communications.

“Arrow squad to Vigilance,” Corporal Hart is saying. “Vigilance, do you copy?”

“Copy,” Gregor says, shooting Obi-Wan a look. Cody should be the one contacting them and they both very well know it. “Arrow, sitrep, over.”

“Is General Kenobi there, Captain?” the corporal says. “Over.”

Obi-Wan’s heart is in his throat. “I’m listening, Hart, over,” he says. Under the sleeves of his robes, he’s clenching his wrists hard enough to bruise.

“They captured the commander, sir,” Hart says, desperately blunt. “When they recognized him, they took him and left the rest of us. Said they’re going to use him for negotiations. Over.”

Gregor looks at him. Appalment-sympathy-secondhand-embarrassment-stress is radiating off not just him, but also every clone trooper and officer on the bridge.

Use him for negotiations. Because Cody was a Marshal Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. Because he was Obi-Wan’s right hand man. Because Obi-Wan loved him, dearly, and would do near about anything to get him back, a fact which was apparently obvious to everyone except for him.

“Understood,” Obi-Wan says, feeling like his mouth is very far away from his body. “Regroup at the drop point; we’ll be sending a secondary team to that location for extraction.” He’s quiet for a second, nails biting into skin. “May the Force be with you. Over.”

: :

Obi-Wan is the one leading the extraction team, and Obi-Wan is the one to find Cody. He’s in bad shape.

“Didn’t –” Cody slurs out. His eyes can’t seem to focus. “Didn’t tell – ah – them kriff, sir.”

Obi-Wan stares at him, heart pounding in his chest. At his commander – at Cody, telling him that he didn’t fucking talk, when he was being fucking tortured because of Obi-Wan –

“I know,” he says, finally, blinking. He touches the pads of his fingers to Cody’s left eye. “I know you didn’t.” Obi-Wan leaves off the my dear at the end of that sentence, because it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like he deserves it. He slings an arm around Cody and hauls him to his feet, instead. “Right this way, Commander.”

Not just his commander. The man he loves.

That thought beats around Obi-Wan’s head for almost a day before he can reconcile it with the heavy feeling in his gut. The man he loves. And he doesn’t – he can’t – it doesn’t mean –

His chest hurts.

Cody doesn’t –

It can’t be so kriffing serious that he can’t think the words. It’s not. It’s not –

Cody doesn’t love him. How could he? How could his beautiful, brave, resilient, kind Commander Cody, who isn’t really his at all – how could he love Obi-Wan? And if he did – if he had some incredible lapse in judgement that allowed him to – to – Cody would have said something, his brutally levelheaded Cody who wasn’t afraid of anything, let alone Obi-Wan and his feelings –

So, no. Cody didn’t love him. That shouldn’t make Obi-Wan feel like his ribcage was being split in two.

And if Cody doesn’t love him, then that means it isn’t wrong for Obi-Wan to – kiss him, soft and warm, and press his cold nose to the back of Cody’s neck, and hold him, and –

It can’t be wrong, can it? It can’t be wrong. It hurts no one. He knows possession is against the Jedi code, but this isn’t possession, because Cody isn’t his, and Cody doesn’t love him, and –

Obi-Wan feels ill.

Cody remains in bacta for three days. Obi-Wan finishes his flimsiwork, then finishes Cody’s flimsiwork, then works on some of Gregor’s flimsiwork. He arranges the battle plans for their next two attacks. He oversees the writing of some new training protocols, something about not letting shinies have access to oxygen tanks. He scrubs his quarters, stem to stern, twice.

Eventually, Cody wakes up. And like a flutterbug drawn to flame, Obi-Wan goes to him.

: :

“We need to stop,” Obi-Wan says. He’s not looking at Cody. It’s the day after the commander’s been released by the medics, and he came to Obi-Wan’s quarters to get the datapads Obi-Wan had borrowed when he was doing all the flimsiwork he could get his hands on.

“… Stop?” Cody asks. His brow is furrowed. Obi-Wan aches to smooth it out.

“This,” Obi-Wan starts, and stumbles. “Our – us. What we have. We need to stop.”

He expects Cody to argue. He expects Cody to demand an explanation. He doesn’t expect Cody to take a slow, deep breath and say, “Of course, sir. If you think it’s best.”

Obi-Wan feels like his chest has caved in. He can’t speak.

“Anything else, sir?” Cody asks. Obi-Wan shakes his head, blinking hard.

Cody stands there at parade rest for a long moment before Obi-Wan realizes he’s waiting for a dismissal. He clears his throat. “Ah, no, Commander. That’s all.”

Cody salutes crisply – salutes – and about-faces to the door. When it clicks shut behind him, Obi-Wan lets out a single hideous, strangled sob. He buries his face in his hands.

Well. At least it looks like they won’t have to dance around each other awkwardly for much longer, he thinks to himself. The war looks to be over soon. Obi-Wan sniffs, straightens himself up, and pulls up the plans for the invasion of Utapau.

#srb

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tenderjock · 7 days