Work Text:
1
They cannot possibly believe they are being subtle right now. Alpha-17 has seen a lot of banthashit in his short lifespan, but this is certainly up there; his star pupil is currently mooning over a Jedi General through his bucket (a truly impressive feat) and said Jedi General is actually reciprocating said mooning .
When Alpha had pulled Cody aside before this meeting and demanded he, “not act like a fucking freak until you’re on the damn ship out of here, please” he hadn’t exactly believed that his star pupil would—for even a single second—actually listen to his instructions. He’d hoped despite all common sense that he could kickstart the part of his vod’ika’s brain that responds to real threats of bodily harm if he just glared at him harshly enough.
Not that Kenobi is the decommissioning type—Sith hells, Kenobi is going to love Alpha’s most feral vod. It’s about the principle of the matter.
There are members of the natborn brass in this meeting, not to mention the Kaminiise with their long necks poked into places they damn well don’t belong. But if Kote has any hope of doing what Alpha knows the shebse can do for the Republic, Alpha damn near needs to make sure his vod gets there unimpeded.
Everything is going perfectly, at first. Alpha has never seen such a crisp and perfect salute as the one his vod snaps off when introductions get made. Sure, Cody might look like a fuckin’ radio with all those damn antennae sticking out of his kit, but giving the damn things to him is a far better alternative than listening to him bitch about the HUD comm relays endlessly. (Cody has a unique patience for bitching.)
“I am CC-2224, General,” he rattles off his ident in that particular flat affect of his.
Something shifts in Kenobi’s eyes that has Alpha’s hackles raising. It’s the slow bubble of water right before it reaches a boiling point. No, he starts telegraphing into the Force as loudly as he possibly can. Don’t you karking dare, Kenobi.
“And your name, my dear?” the Jedi drawls, batting his eyelashes and staring deeply into the blank stare of Cody’s bucket.
This Jedi is impossible; he knows how weak the Standard troopers are to petnames and praise. The “my dear” is Kenobi’s reflexive address to any clone whose name he has yet to learn—it never fails to make even the straightest (or most asexual) vod blush.
It does not work on Alpha because Alpha finds Kenobi as appealing as an overtired toddler careening towards a full melt-down. It should not work on the command class by virtue of Alpha having trained these idiots himself and therefore they should kriffing know better.
Cody, a quick study in everything but common sense, takes his bucket off like a desperate slut. He extends his gloved hand for a tender clasping of palms with Kenobi—it would be a mistake to call the tender caress of their hands a mere handshake.
They touch each other like old lovers reuniting after a long, grueling campaign. They have almost certainly (with 99.99% accuracy) have never met each other before. Alpha would strangle them both if there were not multiple members of the admiralty in this very room.
“They call me Cody, sir,” Alpha’s star pupil simpers.
Manda , kriff the Republic, this was a mistake.
“Well, my dearest Commander Cody, if there is anything I can do to help you settle into the role and the battalion, please do not hesitate to ask,” Kenobi drawls. The two have yet to release each others’ hands. Their eyes are smiling so very loudly it’s a wonder Alpha can even hear them speak.
“I do have one question, sir,” Cody prompts in his best I’m-Not-A-Shit-Stirrer tone.
“Do ask away, Commander Cody.”
“Is there a cultural reason why you Jedi refuse to wear proper armor into battle, or am I to understand that the Force protects you from plasma burns?”
The ambient temperature of the conference room plummets a good five degrees. A few of the natborns exchange significant looks of alarm with one another. Kenobi’s eyes begin to sparkle with what Alpha can only describe as giddy excitement .
Alpha knows how Kenobi will respond as soon as Cody has finished asking his question; Kenobi takes to being challenged like a Nautolan takes to water and Alpha went and handed him the single most Difficult Trooper in all of Tipoca City.
Obi-Wan Kenobi loves nothing more than a Difficult Man that he can throw himself ceaselessly against like a moth to flame. Alpha refused to play this game with him on account of being entirely uninterested in the man’s shenanigans; Cody is currently purchasing season-tickets.
“I’m afraid armor limits a Jedi’s very flexible range of motion,” Kenobi’s pink lips curl around every word. Alpha watches Cody track those lips like a varactyl tracks its prey.
“Indeed? I’d love a demonstration sometime, Sir,” Cody replies.
When Kenobi starts to laugh and reaches out to place a tender hand on Cody’s arm like an old friend, he officially declares the whole situation FUBAR and no longer his concern. Alpha has been told by multiple parties (see: Kenobi, Kenobi’s brat Knight, and Ventress) that he is about as Force-sensitive as gum on a shoe and yet even he can feel the charge of something passing between the two di’kuts.
He hopes they live a long and happy life very far away from him.
2
Quart has only been the head quartermaster of the Negotiator for a single ten-day when he learns about the General and the Commander’s… arrangement.
Clones—even very high-ranking ones like the Marshal Commander Cody of the 7th Sky—aren’t afforded their own private working quarters. The best that even a Commander gets is a private room just big enough to fit a double-size bunk, a fresher, and a pitifully small desk. (The Jedi, for their part, only receive a single additional amenity: a couch built-in under their bunk and the nightly indignity of having to climb up a ladder to get into bed). But on the Negotiator, negotiation is the rule of law, and their General skillfully negotiated a shoe-box sized office for the Good Marshal Commander complete with desk, couch, and caf machine.
Quart is just dropping by Cody’s office to get his signature on new troop assignments. He nearly drops his stack of pads when the automatic door whooshes open to reveal not one but two desks crammed flush together across the length of the tiny office, such that the owlish blank stare Quart receives is a double-wide from both Commander Cody and General Kenobi. Their conjoined desks span from one side of the room to the other, leaving no space to walk around.
“Hello, Quart! How are you on this fine Taungsday?” the General chirps. The bags under his eyes are a dark purple and it is decidedly not Taungsday.
Cody is giving Quart a Look, so Quart just greets their General with equal enthusiasm, “General! I… didn’t know you’d moved in?”
Cody says, “He gets lonely,” his voice flat and bored as he continues to poke away at his keyboard.
“It’s true, I get terribly lonely,” the General sighs.
“Isn’t your office bigger, though, General?” Quart knows for a fact it is.
“But it doesn’t have Cody in it, my dear Quart. Do keep up,” the General responds.
Quart leaves the Commander and General’s joint office resolved to go find the vod in charge of the 212th’s Will-They-Won’t-They/When-They betting pool. He’s got some contraband to win.
3
“Boil!” Rex’s voice is uncomfortably hoarse, having been shouting orders for hours. Thankfully, Boil hears him anyway, and doesn’t make Rex keep shouting for his attention. When he catches up to his side, Rex asks, “Have you seen Cody?”
“Probably in the General’s tent,” Boil says, tone unreadable through his vocoder. Rex knocks his glove against Boil’s shoulder in thanks, jogging off in the indicated direction.
As preoccupied as Rex is with getting General Skywalker’s message to General Kenobi—and as kriffing exhausted as he is after their near three hour march on this fuck-ass planet’s capitol city—he doesn’t stop to question the noises he hears coming from the 212th’s temporary command tent until he’s already pushed past the opening.
Rex gets quite the eyeful of pale Jedi ass bent double over the holomap, wet thighs wrapped around an armored waist—
“Oh kark—I’m so sorry— I’ll just—” he stammers out, no doubt burning bright red under his helmet. Rex beats a hasty retreat, loitering a good few feet away from the tent as if it could give his brain distance from what he just saw—
Who knew General Kenobi was non-standard? Rex’s brain offers him the thought with all the force of a concussive blast. He shakes his head back and forth as if to dispel the haunting image of his ori’vod plowing General Kenobi like his life depends on it—
“Walk with me, vod,” Cody says, and Rex jumps half out of his armor. Cody’s bucket is on—it was on even as he was bouncing his General cunt-first on his cock, what the fuck; was he recording it?— but Rex gets the overwhelming feeling that Cody is laughing at him.
“Are we going to pretend I didn’t just find you fucking your General, vod?” Rex hisses over private-comm.
Cody doesn’t even turn his head to look at him. Rex can hear the smile in Cody’s voice when he replies, “No, because I am not fucking my General, Rex’ika. I am fucking Obi-Wan. We are professionals.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Why would I kid you, Rex? We’re all adults here.” Cody’s arms are folded regulation-tight behind his back, as if he’s giving Rex a private debrief over their comms and not rationalizing fucking his Jedi General.
“Cody…” Rex tries, apprehension clear in his voice, “If anyone were to find out—”
“Oh, as if the entire GAR doesn’t know about your General and his senator,” Cody drawls.
Before Rex can reply, something explodes not too far off, sending a thick cloud of dark smoke up into the sky above their campsite. A few shouts and shots ring-out as the troopers around them scramble.
An ungloved, pale hand comes down on both Rex and Cody’s shoulders as General Kenobi leans into the space in between them, grinning. “Hello gentlemen,” he greets, not at all like a man who Rex just saw having the daylights kriffed out of him. “Let’s go see what the Seppies have got for us now, hmm?”
(Uncontrollably, Rex finds himself wondering if the man is still wet under his robes.)
4
After the recovery operation from the Zygerrian mines, Wolffe goes looking for his vod.
No rumor mill works harder or faster than the GAR rumor mill and Wolffe has heard quite a lot about his vod’s supposed c loseness with his Jedi General. Having just seen precisely the sort of Sith-forsaken Hell the Jedi spend the last ten-day in, Wolffe has his concerns about his vod’s state of mind.
Cody came and found him for a check-in after the Malevolence disaster. Wolffe will be damned if he doesn’t return the favor.
He finds Cody in his quarters, looking hollow-cheeked and weary around the eyes.
“Vod,” Cody greets him at the door, and the civility of it betrays truly how exhausted Cody must be. Usually, Wolffe’s favorite batchmate greets him with a violent keldabe or at the very least, a kick to the shin.
Wolffe sighs and draws him in for a gentle keldabe anyways. Cody goes, smelling of sour stress-sweat and caf.
“How are you holding up?” Wolffe asks, shuffling them two steps back into Cody’s quarters. They are pristine as always—bed made to military precision, desk perfectly organized, armor clean and orderly in its rack.
“Peachy,” Cody grumbles into Wolffe’s collarbone. “I am the pinnacle of physical and mental wellbeing.”
“Uh huh,” Wolffe replies. He’s distracted by the sound of a water-sonic clearly coming from Cody’s private fresher. “You have company over? Want me to come back later?” He won’t begrudge his brother a bedmate for working off stress—every vod has their dalliances to keep them sane.
“‘Ts fine,” Cody waves him off, dragging Wolffe to sit with him on his bunk. “Just a friend.”
Wolffe does not expect said friend to be Obi-Wan Kenobi, who emerges damp and battered from the fresher with pupils the size of a ripe meiloorun. While Wolffe stares at him in slack-jawed shock, Cody reaches both arms out towards his General like he’s beckoning a tooka towards his lap. Hardly even noticing Wolffe, Kenobi—clearly drugged out of his gourd on painkillers, given the sheer amount of bandages covering his body and his floppy-limbed gait—shuffles into Cody’s embrace and allows the other man to bodily manipulate him into the bunk, drawing an orange knitted throw blanket up around Kenobi’s finely trembling shoulders.
Cody murmurs in Mando’a to his loopy general, letting his still-damp head rest against the outside of Cody’s thigh, only the thin fabric of Cody’s neoprene bodysuit between them. The deeply scarred hands of Cody’s Jedi general come up to clutch loosely at Wolffe’s vod, who bats not a single eye at their proximity.
When Wolffe manages to stop staring and pulls his eyes back to Cody, he finds that Cody has gotten there first. He's giving Wolffe a Look usually reserved for Fox or Bly, meaning the only reason I am not calling you stupid right now is because it's more fun to tell you with my eyes.
"It's… been a very rough cycle," Wolffe offers.
Cody snorts out a laugh. Face buried in Wolffe's vod's thigh, eyes still firmly closed, Kenobi mumbles, "It has been a very rough decade, Commander Wolffe. Thank you for the rescue."
"Sleep, stupid," Cody coos at his puddle of a General.
"This is… purely professional cuddling, Commander," Kenobi ignores Cody.
"Oh, absolutely," Wolffe assures him. The things Cody gets into… Wolffe is going to be a menace in their batch's text-channel very soon. It seems the rumor mill needs more feeding; nothing the damn thing claimed could have prepared him for the severity of this.
"In fact, Cody, call Rex," Kenobi continues blearily, words half-slurred. "Rex should get to benefit from professional cuddling, as well. Rex has had a very bad week," he relays solemnly.
"Rex will run screaming from this berth the moment you jam your freezing toes between his thighs," Cody replies. "I will call him."
"I'll leave you to… this," Wolffe says with a smile and a squeeze to his vod's shoulder. Cody curls his lip at Wolffe in feigned disdain—it means he is loved in return.
"Begone, interloper," Cody dismisses him. "And thank you for the rescue."
"Anytime," Wolffe tells him. He means it, too. He shudders to think what long-term separation would do to a pair like that.
5
Ahsoka is so exhausted that the thought of walking to her temporary bunk assignment on Master Kenobi’s ship is enough to bring her to the very brink of tears. Every part of her aches fiercely—muscles she’s pushed to the absolute limit screaming at her now and for what? It had hardly even mattered—and if the physical pain weren’t bad enough, she’s a mere heartbeat away from a breakdown.
She’d lost… so many men today. Her brothers.
Ahsoka wants Rex or Anakin beside her with a fierceness that surprises her; she’s not a naive child and this is war. She can’t rely on her loved ones to always be available when she wants them to be. Ahsoka is just one of millions whose life counts on them. She can't afford to be selfish.
But Force, she’s upset and exhausted and hurting, and she just wants—
“Tano,” a voice snaps her back to the present moment, sound filtering in again as if from a long ways off.
When Ahsoka turns, she finds Commander Cody, helmet hooked on his hip, something not quite a smile on his face. She’s unsure that she’s
ever
seen Commander Cody smile, now that she thinks about it.
“Commander Cody,” she returns, hating how tired and thin her voice sounds.
“The General would like to see you in his quarters,” he says. “I’ll take you.” When Cody offers her his elbow—he’s so strangely polite like that; none of the 501st are ever so formal with her, but Cody always is—she’s too grateful and too tired to refuse.
Cody doesn’t knock when they get to her grandmaster’s quarters. He just buzzes open the door. It takes Ahsoka only thirty-seconds of looking around the room to understand why.
You live here together.
All around the room are signs of a shared life. A trooper’s armor rack has been installed on the wall by the door; two sets of dishes are tucked away in the small kitchenette to the right of the fresher; places of rest are clearly carved out among the furniture—there are two obviously well-loved spots on the couch that’s built into the bulkhead under a bunk positively laden with non-regulation pillows and blankets. Not even Skyguy’s cabin feels as lived-in as this, and his quarters are a messy tribute to every single engineering project he’s started since the beginning of the war.
“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan greets her. His care is like a physical wave of relief in the Force and Ahsoka feels something tight in her spine unwind, just like that. “Come, sit, you look exhausted, dear. Cody will get you some tea.”
She follows her grandmaster’s kind coaxing to the couch and finds it to be surprisingly comfortable—not at all cold or stiff like the one in Skyguy’s room. It smells like Obi-Wan does, but also like the clones do. They all use the same soap and have the same undercurrent of human to her, and here it mixes with the slight sweetness of Obi-Wan’s particular incense-like scent. It reminds Ahsoka of the best parts of the Temple; the sunlit-filled halls, the warmth of the creche room where storytime was held, the taste of the green tea made in the commissary…
Not altogether there, Ahsoka comes back to herself to find that they’ve been fussing around her gently, such that she’s got a pleasantly warm mug of something lemony clasped in her hands, a knitted blanket around her shoulders, and her grandmaster and his commander on either side of her. Grounding. Safe.
They’re talking in soft but not hushed voices over her head. Taking her first deep breath in what feels like ages, Ahsoka sags into the couch and lets herself lean into their shoulders. The familiar rhythm of their conversation washes over her like white noise. For a greedy moment that Ahsoka lets stretch out in front of her like taffy, she pictures a life that isn’t hers, a life that might feel like this all the time. One where they could just… be family like this, always.
It’s that thought that carries her into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
+1
Cody would rather not have this talk. Cody would rather jump head-first into the mouth of a saarlac than have this talk. However, needs must, and the situation has certainly escalated into a need.
For the third time this week, Cody has had the distinct misfortune of running head-first into real-time news of the latest Skywalker-Amidala tryst among the GAR servers. Enough is enough, and Obi-Wan certainly isn’t going to go talk to his former-padawan about much-needed discretion.
Obi-Wan still refuses to face the fact that his former padawan is in fact married to his beloved Naboo senator. Obi-Wan insists that Anakin is a perpetual twelve years old and still believes that girls have cooties.
Someone has to talk to Skywalker. If Cody has to hear Rex poorly lie to his face one more time just so that Anakin Skywalker can get some hanky-panky, he is going to desert and set out for the Laquane farm. And Obi-Wan would hate being a farmer.
It isn’t terribly difficult to catch Skywalker leaving the bridge and fall into step with the man. Once acknowledged with a polite (if suspicious) nod and a “Hey, Commander”, Cody begins, “Are you aware of the GAR rumor mill, sir?
Anakin scratches at his unruly hair and chuckles. “Uh, yeah. Try painfully aware. Fives and Echo are very… dedicated gossips.”
“And do they keep you apprised of all the goings-on? Especially those which might include the details of a particular senator’s romantic life?” Cody continues. Subtlety is not Skywalker’s strong suit, Force love the man.
That already pale face goes even more colorless and Skywalker begins to stutter, “I have
no idea
what you are suggesting, Cody.” His forced laugh is painful; it is clear why Obi-Wan is the more favorable pick for undercover work. “A senator’s love-life? But they’re all so ancient!” He distracts, feigning dramatic and over-the-top disgust.
Cody raises a brow. “Cut the shit, kid. And calm down,” he adds, when it still looks like Skywalker is about to stroke out. “I’m just here to ask you to please keep it in your pants or at least out of sight of our helmet cams. I’m not going to take you to Jedi-Jail. That’d be pretty hypocritical of me, considering.”
“You—wait, what? Hypocritical?” Anakin stares at him, cow-like. Cody entertains a brief thought for strangulation.
“Because of… the General?” Cody tries. He finds himself peering deeply into Skywalker’s eyes for sight of a single light on at home. He despairs to find no such thing. Shame.
“What about Obi-Wan?” Anakin scoffs, folding his arms. “Obi-Wan doesn’t do relationships, Obi is Obi.” He flaps his hands around vaguely, “Obi-Wan is like… asexual. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen Obi-Wan kiss another person, what does he have to do with anything?”
Cody stares at him and wills some catastrophe to pull the cruiser out of hyperspace spontaneously. Force, anything but this.
“You’re serious,” he tries after a moment.
Skywalker looks at Cody like Cody is the one being dense, here.
With extreme prejudice, Cody snatches up Skywalker by the robes and begins to all but drag the man down the halls, squawking and fussing all the while. When he reaches his destination, Cody punches open the door and says at an Inconsiderate Volume into the dark room, “Wake up and tell your padawan that we are married, you emotionally stunted piece of shit.”
From the lump of blankets on the couch, a muffled voice replies groggily, “Anakin, w‘re married.”
The noises that come out of Anakin are not ones that Cody was aware a human set of lungs was capable of producing. He makes all sorts of questioning, agonized gurgling sounds until landing on a handful of words communicated at a high pitch of sheer animal confusion: “Since when? Since how? I— Commander Cody?! You married Commander Cody?! ”
From the bed, still unmoving, the lump growls, “That’s your step-father you’re talking to, you watch it.”
Anakin sputters like a dying engine and stares at Cody in what Cody can only describe as the mute horror of sudden clarity and understanding (and something that looks rather a lot like relief).
Smiling, Cody just replies, “Don’t make me ground you, son.”