#pre-established relationship or platonic or a secret third thing? who's to say. i shan't!

[catboydogma]

a dirty business (dreaming)

wc: 1,536

notes: second entry for coday bingo! no sergeants were harmed in the writing of this fic.

summary:

“Not to worry,” Cody said evenly. “Sergeant Wake stopped crying a few meters back. We’re operating at full functionality.” His bucket wasn’t completely empty. He’d brought a pair of medics and a full squad of ARCs and ARFs, leaving Lieutenants Boil and Gregor as in situ battalion commanders. And Howl. Maybe there was a reason to worry after all. “You’re a fuckin’ terror, sir. When you get up there make sure you give the General a piece of your mind for letting his comm die out like that.”

cross-posted to ao3

“Sitrep,” Cody demanded over comms. Boil’s end of the line fuzzed in contemplation.

“’S pissin’ rain, sir,” Boil said at last.

He’d suspected this would happen when he’d promoted Boil for his ability to think creatively under pressure and circumvent standards to play situations to his advantage. The whole lot of his Command Corps were like that. Unfortunately.

“No good trying to make it up that slope for a good look, sir. Last engagement compromised casing integrity on the rock-climbers and the rain’s got all in the engines. We’re sitting nunas ‘till the gunships get here. But—”

Boil’s brief bout of helpfulness died with the next blustery gust of wind. Sheets of rain sliced sideways across the sky for a long moment and frigid water sluiced down the neck of his bodysuit.

“—‘s pissin’ rain. Sir.”

“Astute as ever, Lt.,” Cody said evenly. Visibility was approaching a neat zero with the rain and darkness. The 212th couldn’t afford to tip their hand any more than they already had. Cody was already acting on the conclusion that their base coordinates had been compromised. If not for this damned rain they’d already be moving onward.

Unfortunately, aside from the rain and the predominantly dark rotations resulting from a far-off and geriatric star—aside from the hostile terrain and rockslides and mudslides and sinkholes and the Sith’s own bad luck—their Jedi General had gone and gotten himself stuck halfway up a cliff with a malfunctioning comm unit and a pair of his ARFs.

“The General can find his own way down,” Boil said at last. It sounded like it pained him to say. He was likely right. Still, Cody found himself glancing up at the remainder of the slope he had left, one hand braced against a piton and the other jammed into the cliffside. “We’ll never hear the end of it if half our Command died in a freak rain accident, Commander.”

Ah. The good Lieutenant was feeling helpful again. Cody tested his weight against the piton, then levered his leg up to the next foothold. The rain had made the rock slippery and loosened the grit and pebbles in its various crevices. It was frigid—nearly to freezing temperatures—and Cody’d had to turn his HUD to night vision an hour back. He was soaked to the bone and his toes felt as if they would never be dry again.

All in all, it was a hell of a good time.

“Not to worry,” Cody said evenly. “Sergeant Wake stopped crying a few meters back. We’re operating at full functionality.” His bucket wasn’t completely empty. He’d brought a pair of medics and a full squad of ARCs and ARFs, leaving Lieutenants Boil and Gregor as in situ battalion commanders. And Howl.

Maybe there was a reason to worry after all.

“You’re a fuckin’ terror, sir. When you get up there make sure you give the General a piece of your mind for letting his comm die out like that.”

“I’ll take it under advisement, Lieutenant.” Cody cut the line and grunted with exertion as he heaved himself up the last two meters, relying on the strength of his shoulders and core and digging the fingers of his gauntlets into the cliffside.

The rocky slope leveled out into a slight plateau before climbing into the sky once more. The peak was obscured by the rain and dark and even darker clouds that hung low and heavy in the sky.

What Cody had missed from the bottom of the slope was that there was the jagged mouth of a cave just before the cliff went vertical again—and within the cave, the glow of red emergency light sticks.

Cody had to drop down to one knee and duck his head to get through the opening of the cave, and then it widened right out—his HUD picked out three heat signatures, then Cody was pulling it off so the glow of the light sticks didn’t futz with his night vision.

“Ah, Commander,” Kenobi said cheerfully. His hair was plastered to his skull and his robes were sodden against his torso. He was drenched. And he looked like a drowned tooka. “Excellent timing, as always.”

“General,” Cody said, voice flat. “Lieutenants.”

Kenobi made the particular grimace he did whenever he knew Cody was cross with him, then raised a hand to hide it by stroking his mustache. “In my defense, I only just realized my comm was out of charge. I suspect a bit of rain may have found its way into the casing…”

Behind Kenobi, Waxer—helmet still on, smart trooper—slowly raised his hand and pressed his palm to the front of his visor.

“And you lot?” Cody asked sharply.

Lieutenant Clayton grimaced and held up his helmet. It had a large crack running through the front and the visor was dull and lifeless.

“Thundercrack triggered a bit of a rockslide, sir,” Waxer explained. Clayton was a trooper of few words but he was a damn good officer. “And something in the atmo up here’s got my signal on the fritz.”

As General, Kenobi’s comm would have been the most long-range—and sturdy—of the three of them. Cody made a mental note to see if he could get comms antenna onto one of the General’s spaulders.

“Not much to be done about it now,” Kenobi said decisively. He clasped Cody’s shoulder. He could only feel the pressure of it through his spaulder and bodysuit but he half-fancied he might be able to feel the chill radiating off Kenobi’s white-tipped hands. “I’m glad you decided to come up after us, or we would’ve been quite stranded for the duration of the…”

Cody snagged Kenobi’s wrist and the General’s voice trailed off. He pulled a gauntlet off his with his teeth, then the other, and jammed them both over Kenobi’s hands. Now that he had his gloves off he could feel how cold Kenobi’s hands were—and he didn’t like it one bit.

“No fancy twirling that ‘saber of yours if your hands turn into ice blocks,” Cody bit out. There was a strange roughness in his voice: he blamed the cold for his sore throat and chest. “And I’m warmed up from the climb.”

Kenobi stared at him with his mouth just slightly agape. The shine of rain on his face made him look surreal, like either he or Cody had been caught sleepwalking—dreamlike and distant. “Quite,” he said in a strange and quiet voice.

“Commander!” Wake and co. crowded into the cave—the medics shoved to the front and immediately started headshaking at Clayton’s cracked helmet and the bruise he’d gotten from whatever had cracked his visor—and the chilly tint to Kenobi’s lips and fingernails. “Found ‘em,” the Sergeant said into his helmet comm. To Boil, it was likely.

Cody stepped back. He cleared his throat. He jammed his helmet back onto his head and ignored the way Kenobi was—slowly and thoughtfully—rubbing at his wrists and the backs of his hands. “Lines secure?”

“Ready and waiting,” Wake replied with a brief salute. “Rain’s starting to die down a bit, too.”

“It’ll pass by in a little less than an hour,” Kenobi said mildly. He was still rubbing at his hands—just absently brushing the tips of his fingers back and forth over the ridges of his knuckles hidden by Cody’s gauntlets. “You couldn’t have picked a better time, gentlemen. Shall we?”

Cody felt the welling of his frustration and ire trickle away and die down with each step out of the cave and through the rain. He jammed his bucket down over his head and watched condensation fog up the visor before the temp reg kicked in. There had been a part of him—the part that had gotten him through CC training on Kamino and a ponderous chunk of the war and watching his vode die in droves—that had been calmly and coolly calculating the odds of the General’s survival. In the night. In the frigid and hostile terrain. That part of him had known that the chances of Kenobi and Clayton and Waxer getting injured—crushed in a rock- or mudslide—ambushed by hostiles—were higher than anything so benign as a comm running out of charge or being carelessly left in the pocket of a different robe. It had been calculating what Cody would need to do, had his General fallen somehow: an itemized pre-mourning checklist.

And yet.

Kenobi was a dim silhouette in the dark and rain. He kept his shoulders square and his head up as he slid back into his role as General, heedless of the rain that fell into his face. His borrowed gauntlets weren’t quite the right fit: too short in the fingers and too broad in the palm. But his hands were sure as he clasped Wake’s arm just above the rerebrace and clapped Waxer on the shoulder.

Next time he’d chew his General out for not keeping an eye on his comms like he should. Even as he rappelled back down the cliffside, Cody could only find it in himself to be grateful that there could be a next time.