Chapter Text
Obi-Wan woke up slowly, and for a few pure breaths he was just a body relieved to take in air. Then the memories flooded back. He shuts his eyes and lets out a sigh. What a mess he has made of things. He takes an internal inventory. Aches litter his body, and his side hurts, but he’s mobile. He reaches out to the Force around the room, and finds he doesn’t have to reach at all.
As younglings, they’re taught to shield themselves in the Force, lest they influence or be influenced by the emotions of others. Obi-Wan has cultivated exceptionally strong shields since childhood out of the necessity of avoiding first the disappointment of the Jedi around him and then later the pain and horror of the Young on Melida-Daan. Shielding meant survival. It was the very last thing to go before complete Force exhaustion. And while he didn’t feel like he was suffering from Force exhaustion, his shields simply weren’t present. Obi-Wan could not just hear but feel the hum of the ship around him. He could sense the occasional trooper passing by - their mood, their aches and pains, their immediate motivation. He was surrounded by life, by the Force.
Brow furrowing, Obi-Wan tried to build something temporary - anything permanent would have to wait for meditation, ideally somewhere peaceful - but surely he could pull something together for the moment. As he always did, Obi-Wan reached for his faith in the Force, intending to use it as a loom on which to weave his protection. Immediately, the problem became clear. If his faith was a garden, it was parched and dead, the soil barren. No protection could be found there. Obi-Wan opened his eyes and stared at the blank ceiling. What a mess.
For the first time in a decade or more, he was completely open to the world around him. As vulnerable as a child.
Any Jedi within fifty feet would feel the faith he’d lost like an open wound. Being outed would cost Obi-Wan not only his position, but possibly bar him from the war permanently.
Would that be better?
It was tempting. He had been personally responsible for so much pain.
It was tempting the same way that the maw of a fairytale monster was tempting. Letting himself get sent back to the Temple, no matter how he might personally benefit, was just another way to run from the blood on his hands. No, in his current position, Obi-Wan had some power. It was high time he started using it.
Obi-Wan sat up slowly and realized that he was in the same room Port had brought him before, except it was empty. There was a long crack in the ship wall, hastily repaired. A bit of lingering Force residue caused Obi-Wan to grimace - how out of control had he been? No doubt Cody had seen all too much, if Obi-Wan’s hazy memories were even remotely reliable.
He pulled his hands up to rub at his eyes - how to explain his behavior? It wasn’t the strangest thing he’d had to explain away during this force-forsaken war, but certainly the most personal.
Obi-Wan carefully removed his IV and hushed the bedside machine with a flick of the Force. No need to alarm anyone.
He stretched gently, testing his range of motion, and found it functional. Someone had replaced his robes with a terribly unbecoming medical gown, but there were probably a pair of clone blacks around here somewhere. They would have to do. Obi-Wan walked over to a wall closet and started shuffling through.
He felt Port coming down the hallway in a swirl of emotions under the tight lid of a medic’s compartmentalization. The man had an uncanny sense of when Obi-Wan was evading medical care.
“Hello, there,” Obi-Wan said, as Port opened the door. The man turned sharply to look at him.
“General. Why are you standing?”
“Just looking for - aha!” Obi-Wan pulled his robes from the closet, gesturing with them to Port. “Oh dear - they’re quite ruined, aren’t they?” Their lovely beige was heavily spotted with blood and black grease.
“Sir, you’re in a hospital gown for a reason, and it’s because you belong in a hospital bed. Please sit.”
“Port, dear, I’ve been in bed for what - three days now?” Port’s mood shifted to derision and Obi-Wan quickly corrected himself “Or a bit longer, perhaps, but I’m up, I’m well, you can see for yourself once I get settled.”
“Sir, once you get settled I won’t get you back in the infirmary for hell or high water.”
“I’m sure I’m not all that stubborn.”
“Past experience might suggest otherwise.”
Obi-Wan smiled winningly, but something in him was tensing up at the thought of being cooped up with his thoughts. He needed action. The Force held nothing for him, not right now.
Port’s expression changed slightly.
“I - you don’t want to be here, do you?”
“Not that it’s not lovely to have your company, my dear, but I believe we’ve discussed my - “
“No, sir, sorry, but I have the strangest feeling that you need to be - somewhere else.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes widened in alarm. Was he so open to the Force that a clone - a people who were as a rule about as force-sensitive as a wall of bricks - could sense him? Was he projecting so loudly? Was he influencing Port unintentionally?
“This is important,” Obi-Wan said. “Please examine yourself closely and answer honestly. Do you feel compelled to let me do what the feeling tells you I want?”
“I’m not sure,” Port said, after a moment’s thought. “It’s strong, and I’m sympathetic, so I think I’m swayed more than I might usually be. But I’m not about to go breaking rules for you, sir.”
Obi-Wan frowned. Not ideal, to be sure. He needed his shields up.
“Sir, what’s going on?” Port asked.
“I believe that my Force abilities - empathy and openness to the feelings of others being one of them - have gone a bit astray during the time I was out.”
“Is that something I can help with?”
“Nothing a stretch of quiet meditation won’t fix. Which is why,” Obi-Wan said, gesturing with his poor robes, “I should head back to my quarters and ready myself for the day to come.”
“If that’s what’ll help best,” Port said, throwing his hands up. “Why bother with medical care at all, when you have the Force. I need to notify the Commander, but I’ll let one of the shinies walk you there, sir, just wait right here.”
“Wait-” Port was out the door before Obi-Wan could stop him. Obi-Wan sighed, draped his dirty robes over one arm, and leaned against the wall behind him. Influencing people using the Force wasn’t just unethical, but a violation of more than one pillar of the Jedi code of conduct. Obi-Wan needed to fix his kriffing shields, and having Cody around would be the opposite of helpful.
Cody had visited him, Obi-Wan remembered. He remembered muzzily saying something about how lovely Cody’s voice was - another piece of this mess he was in. Poor Cody must’ve felt so awkward.
The shiny came in and walked Obi-Wan to his quarters, during which time Obi-Wan accidentally abused his lack of shields to convince the poor man to avoid the main thoroughfares and lend Obi-Wan his pad for the evening. It was hard to not influence the clone - if Obi-Wan thought with any strength of feeling about something, the man could sense it. Having been trained to trust his instincts, and mistaking Obi-Wan’s Force projections for his own feelings, he was rerouting them around main thoroughfares and updating Obi-Wan on the ship’s welfare without Obi-Wan even needing to ask. By the time Obi-Wan reached his own room, he thanked the shiny and closed the door in the poor man’s face, falling back against it with a sigh of relief. He was a hazard to them all, even more so now than as just the commander that led them to the deaths they’d been bred for. Obi-Wan shook his head and flicked the room’s lights to half-power.
His quarters were larger than most - commensurate with his rank as High General, regardless of how Obi-Wan had argued that most Jedi were monk-like in their asceticism and had no need for rooms twice the size of those they used in the Temple. The Senators would hear none of it, unfortunately. The space that Obi-Wan had walked into included a sitting area around a low round table in one half of the room, while to the right there were doors to the fresher and his bedroom. Along the back wall were a few subtle panels that held non-perishable foods and other storage.
Obi-Wan took the door to the fresher. Freshers weren’t quite as rejuvenating as bathing with real water, but Obi-Wan would certainly feel better once he was clean. Then he would figure out at least the Force-related part of this mess. Once Cody arrived, Obi-Wan could focus on putting up a tired but back-to-duty front - he’d need to be at his best to have a chance of escaping his friend’s sharp eyes.
He spent longer than anticipated in the small room, getting used to the way his body looked and moved after days asleep. He spent some time trimming his hair and beard with the kit he kept among his things, trimmed and sanded his nails, and scrubbed hard at the grease and old blood that remained on his body. It - it felt good to be clean. LIke maybe he actually could do something about this whole fiasco.
Experimentally, Obi-Wan relaxed into the Force around him. He could feel maybe a few rooms in each direction, plus the folks who walked the halls. He moved as unobtrusively as he could, but even if he wasn’t influencing people, he was reading them. He could hardly fail to, given how loudly the average untrained individual projected. Two rooms down, he realized he was overhearing an intimate encounter, and pulled back abruptly into himself, cheeks flushing.
It was strange. Shields were as much protection for Force-sensitives as for their companions. An unshielded mind was vulnerable to attack by another Force-wielder, but it could also exert undue, unconscious influence on beings nearby. Trying to contain himself without shields was like trying to catch smoke in his hands - practically impossible. And Cody was probably on his way. Obi-Wan sighed and massaged his temples, grimacing at himself in the mirror.
He had horrifically dark circles under his eyes too, and that was just unfair. How could he have under-eye bags after being unconscious for days? He poked at his skin gently for a few moments, his displeasure growing disproportionately sharp. Distantly, he recognized this as an easy outlet for feelings with other sources, but really, this was just-
Obi-Wan was distracted by Cody’s Force signature entering the minimal radius he was trying to keep his senses limited to - and not just entering, but moving at high speeds. The Commander let himself into Obi-Wan’s apartment with a shout of Obi-Wan’s name and came through the fresher door in the very next moment, wild-eyed in rumpled blacks. Obi-Wan had just enough time to throw a spare robe over himself before the fresher door opened.
Cody looked - he looked well, Obi-Wan decided. He was always distractingly handsome, and right now he looked uncharacteristically messy, but overall he seemed uninjured and well-fed, if a little tired. His short curls were clumped on one side, as if he’d been sleeping soundly and come here immediately upon being woken up.
He didn’t need Obi-Wan at all, did he? Something faltered inside Obi-Wan even as his resolve grew to protect this man - and the others - from the way the world, and he himself, had treated them.
“Cody, my dear, it’s good to see you.”
Cody’s dark eyes drifted from Obi-Wan’s to do a practiced once-over that Obi-Wan recognized as a check for injuries. Obi-Wan tried to squash down his feelings, unable to release them into the Force with Cody right here in the room with him, unable to even feel them for fear of influencing his friend. There was too much, though, and upon being in Cody’s comforting presence, words and fears and regrets were rising like a tide.
Cody’s brow furrowed, and he moved closer. He stopped close enough that Obi-Wan could feel the body heat emanating from his blacks. Clones ran warmer than most other humanoids.
Obi-Wan stopped trying to do anything at all with his feelings, utterly focused on the too-small distance between their bodies.
“Something’s wrong,” Cody said, voice rough. Suddenly aware of how few layers he was wearing, Obi-Wan shivered. Cody was studying him, bringing the entirety of his brilliant, strategic mind to bear on the problem of unraveling Obi-Wan, of finding Obi-Wan’s troubles and breaking them into smaller and smaller pieces until they resembled so much dust. It was a breathtaking amount of attention, and Obi-Wan felt far too transparent.
Something strong rushed through his blood, tingling along his skin, and Obi-Wan realized distantly that he was almost tipsy on their proximity. When was the last time he’d experienced intimacy like this? When was the last time he hadn't simply released his loneliness to the Force, accepting what could not be changed?
Cody’s hands drew up, ever so slowly, until they hovered gently over Obi-Wan’s sides. They did not touch. Obi-Wan desperately wanted to close that final gap, but found himself frozen in place. Cody swallowed hard, and Obi-Wan couldn’t break his gaze. It felt like Cody had been looking at him like this forever, when in reality it had probably only been a few moments. Somewhere, Obi-Wan relished the experience. How long had he waited for Cody to look at him precisely like this? Like they were closer than friends, more knowledgeable than lovers. How long had he wanted to look back? Then his mind caught up with itself.
Intimacy. Consent. Oh, Force-forsake him.
Obi-Wan took a large step back, pointedly ignoring Cody’s aborted move to follow. He ignored the way Cody’s hands clenched and unclenched as the man dropped them to his sides. He ignored the way Cody’s gaze got sharper.
“Sir,” Cody started.
And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Everything in Obi-Wan, all those pieces he’d shattered himself into to keep them all alive, shuddered.
“Something’s wrong,” Cody insisted, voice tense.
“All is well, Commander.” Cody tried to speak, but Obi-Wan cut him off. “If you’ll step out for a moment, I can dress and we can discuss what has happened in my absence.”
“And the status of your health.” Cody added, stubborn. Obi-Wan smothered a fond smile with a pillow in its sleep.
“If you insist.”
“I do,” Cody replied. “We can start with that, in fact.” He gave Obi-Wan one more hard look before stepping out of the small room and shutting the door gently.
“Force,” Obi-Wan breathed out, hands coming up to rub at his eyes. Another thing to apologize for. Projecting his own kriffing need for human contact on his unsuspecting commander was unethical on too many levels to count. What a kriffing mess this all was.
He stepped out of the fresher room three layers of robes and five minutes of structured breathing later, feeling somewhat more prepared to face the situation. Cody was pacing, and clearly had been for some time. He looked up sharply when Obi-Wan entered and walked over, stopping a good few feet away. Something in Obi-Wan mourned his closeness, but he shushed it.
“Please take a seat, General,” Cody said, pulling out a chair. Obi-Wan gave him a slight smile before sitting. He hadn’t realized how tiring the movement of the past hour had been, but he could certainly feel the fatigue setting in.
Cody sat across from him, and gave him the same look Obi-Wan had seen the man give to shinies who were withholding information or being particularly hard-headed. Obi-Wan thought that this was unnecessary and unwarranted, but Cody didn’t seem like he was going to budge anytime soon.
Obi-Wan started. It was important in times like these to steer the conversation to more comfortable ground from the start.
“Port has cleared me for duty,” Obi-Wan said. “To my understanding, my Force abilities interacted with those of the space creature in order to draw it away, but exhausted me rather completely. I should be back to full form in a few days, but am fit for diplomatic duty until then.”
“Port has not actually cleared you for duty, sir, according to your medical file.”
“And I believe that sharing a patient’s medical information is illegal, so Port and I will be having a word.”
“It is not illegal, actually, to share medical information with the patient’s emergency contact.”
“I never made you my emergency contact, Commander.”
“Nor did you pick anyone at all, sir, and Article 79.3 of the medical handbook states that when a commanding officer has no emergency contact, their next in command is authorized to assign one in times of duress.”
“So you assigned yourself as my emergency contact?”
“Yes, sir.” Cody looked absolutely unrepentant.
“Cody! That’s a breach of privacy!”
“It was within my abilities as Commander, and moreover, your health is tactically relevant information, General.”
Obi-Wan just huffed at him.
“As it stands, you aren’t cleared for duty. And while you aren’t cleared for duty, I am the commanding officer of this ship.”
Obi-Wan squinted at Cody. Where on earth was he going with this?
“You can tell me what’s going on,” Cody said, his voice all of a sudden all too gentle, “or I can order you back to medical for the next week.”
“Are you serious?” Obi-Wan spluttered.
Cody sighed, and pulled one hand up to rub at the bridge of his nose. He really did look tired, Obi-Wan realized. Here in Obi-Wan’s quarters, in the half-light of the ship’s night, Cody looked like he was one wrong step away from falling over.
“Are you okay?” Obi-Wan asked, tentative as an outstretched hand.
Cody mumbled something into his palm that Obi-Wan couldn’t make out. This would all be so much easier if Obi-Wan’s shields were working properly. If he had shields, he could sense the state of others without being afraid of influencing them himself. He wouldn’t have to consciously keep himself locked down. Maybe if he just stretched out a teensy bit -
Cody’s heightened emotions were loud loud loud in the quietness of the room, an energetic symphony in minor key, and Obi-Wan felt the breath swoosh out of him as he tried to pick out what was going on. Force, but this man was beautiful. A flare of trumpets and Cody was out of his chair and all too close, his warm hand shaking Obi-Wan’s shoulder gently. His eyes were intense with alarm.
“That,” Cody said urgently. “What the kriff was that, Obi-Wan?”
Obi-Wan felt a flare of affection at his name on Cody’s tongue, but squashed it even as he reached out to grip the Commander’s wrist where it rested against his shoulder. Obi-Wan intended to pry him off (gently) and reassure him (again) that all was well.
Touching him was a mistake.
As soon as Obi-Wan’s fingers met skin, he felt the electricity he always felt when he brushed up against Cody. Normal for Obi-Wan - except that this time Cody’s eyes widened and a soft “oh” fell out of his mouth.
Obi-Wan jerked back like he’d been burnt, but Cody caught caught his hand and sat, holding it, at the chair to his side.
“I can feel you,” Cody said, quietly. Reverently, Obi-Wan did not allow himself to think.
“That would be what is wrong,” Obi-Wan commented dryly.
“Oh kark, I’m sorry, I can - I can let go if you want me to.”
“That would probably be for the best,” Obi-Wan replied, already mourning the loss. Cody’s hands were warm and rough-textured around Obi-Wan’s fingers, and Obi-Wan had no desire to move at all. The simple contact made him want to melt into his chair.
“You - you don’t actually want me to, do you?”
“Don’t cheat,” Obi-Wan said primly, pulling his hand away.
“If that’s cheating, you’re a first-rate scam. Sir.”
Obi-Wan brushed that out of the air with a wave of his hand and a quirk of a smile. He prepared himself as well as he could for Cody’s shock and horror.
“I have lost the ability to shield myself from the Force,” he said. “I am more vulnerable to attacks from dark siders and those around me are more vulnerable to the implicit suggestion of my desires. It’s coercive, and it’s unacceptable.”
“Sir -”
“No, I am sorry, Cody. I am afraid I have infringed terribly on your -”
“Sir, I really -”
“- person and I am truly, deeply sorry. I understand if you would like to report or -”
“Obi-Wan!”
Obi-Wan jerked his head up to look at Cody who, bizarrely, looked relieved.
“I’m going to ask some questions, okay, and you’re going to answer them without apologizing for anything.”
Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow, but nodded.
“Okay.” Cody ran a hand over the short mess of his curls. “You’re not dying?”
“What? No. It’s a shielding issue in the Force. I mean, I’m tired from a three - four - day coma, but that’s to be expected.”
“And this overwhelming feeling of dread that I have isn’t necessarily all mine?”
“Right. I - I’d like to apologize.”
“No. Do you even understand what you did?”
“I-“
“That was rhetorical. You went out in a single fighter against a space monster right out of an actual fairytale! You drew it away from an entire ship of tasty snacks with your mind!”
“The Force isn’t technically-“
“And you survived! I thought you were dead, Obi-Wan! I - I thought I was going to have to report you missing in action to the Council!”
Cody, a little wild-eyed now, grabbed Obi-Wan’s hand by the forearm and flopped the wrist in front of Obi-Wan’s face like a puppet.
“And you have some Force ossik issue that means everyone else gets to see inside your head like you see inside ours all the time? Sir? This is so far from a problem that I’m concerned I’m dreaming.”
Obi-Wan could only watch as the messy bundle of gratitude and warmth and worry that he was feeling flowed out into the Force, and through touch, straight to Cody. It was worth it, for the way the man’s shoulders relaxed at the feeling.
“Not a dream,” Obi-Wan said gently. “But it is a problem - it’s unethical, for one, since I can unconsciously impose my will on others, and unprofessional to match. If another Jedi finds me like this, they would be well within their rights to report me back to the Council and remove me from the front line.”
“No one is reporting you,” Cody said harshly. A surge of fear and determination came across where they touched, crystalline in its clarity.
“I’m touched,” Obi-Wan said dryly. Of course, the effect was ruined by the appreciation that skittered right out into the Force. Cody gave him a little grin, and Obi-Wan wanted to fall into the floor in embarrassment even as some part of him arched, pleased to have made Cody happy.
“We’ll just have to figure out what to do about Ahsoka,” Cody said.
“She’s still on board?”
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
“We have time, Commander. Why don’t you catch me up?”
They spoke for hours, walking through the diplomatic mission that they’d been assigned and strategizing on what to do with Ahsoka and the rest of the ship. How to deal with Obi-Wan’s mess. The entire time, Obi-Wan was all too aware of Cody’s warm hand at his wrist and the way that his thumb rested right against Obi-Wan’s pulse, but he didn’t breathe a word and neither did Cody. It was just - it was good to be there. Good to have that pulse beating against Cody’s skin. Maybe it made him a bad Jedi, but Obi-Wan wanted to savor it.