#sorry i just picked jesse out of a hat to have bad interior design taste

[legobiwan]

A little post-Zygerria ficlet appears from nowhere! Based off my meta the other day about Obi-wan being down with murder. Rex and Obi-wan, with a short mention of Anakin. As is usual for me, Obi-wan angst mixed with some humor.

Intro here, rest under the cut.

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*Knock knock knock.*

No answer. Rangir. Rex stretched his neck to one side, then the other. The strip of raw, tender skin beneath his chin protested at the movement. Tucking the datapad in his hand under his arm, Rex reached into his utility belt, pulling out a small, unmarked tube.

“It’ll help,” the General had said, his gaze drifting towards the inflamed, seeping ring around Rex’s neck. “And try to…” Skywalker scanned the hangar, frowning as he spotted the ragged, ash-stained tunics hanging off a barely-upright General Kenobi, who was in the middle of doing damage assessment with Cody and General Koon.

“Nevermind,” Skywalker had muttered, placing a hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Get some rest. I’ll send Kix in a little later.”

The cooling balm tingled, radiating from the base of his neck. The clone let out a small sigh of pleasure as the almost-minty sensation traveled through his upper-body, dancing across skin and muscle. It was some kind of miracle stuff, this cream - probably some kind of Jedi secret locked away in that massive tower. Kix had had no idea what the light-pink substance actually was, had never seen anything like it before. Sniffing at the tube, he had finally declared with a dubious look that it seemed to contain some kind of herb native to desert planets, and was definitely not on any official Republic medical supplies list. 

Rex didn’t care if it was colored bantha poodoo. The stuff worked, relieving the maddening, near-constant chafe and itch.  

“General Kenobi?” Rex called through the door, returning the little tube to his utility belt, rubbing the excess residue on his pants. “Are you there? I have that report.”

And I also have orders from Kix to haul your ass down to medical, at blaster-point, if necessary. Not that Rex thought he was going to have much success on that front.

It had been two days since he and the General had emerged from that hellish caldera on Kadavo, two days since Republic forces had demolished the Zygerrian slave center, sending both the mining facility and a not small number of Zygerrians to a flaming, explosive demise.

Good. Those skanahs deserved nothing less.

Especially considering what they did to the man who was standing on the other side of the now-open door.

“Ah. Good, you’re here. Come in.”

Obi-wan gestured inside, walking over to a desk piled high with teetering stacks of flimsis and datapads. Rex did not comment on the General’s disheveled hair, nor on the way he rubbed at his wrists when he thought Rex wasn’t looking, which were buried under the sleeves of a high-collared, long-sleeved tunic.

Rex took a seat opposite the General, careful not to disturb the arrangement of starmaps near the edge of the desk.

“Back to work already, sir?”

“I don’t think I ever stopped,” Obi-wan replied with a sardonic grin, clearing an empty space in the metropolis of paperwork for two glasses and a bottle of colorless liquid.

“You know, sir, the shirt is not exactly your usual brand of subtlety.“

Obi-wan barked out a laugh, tihaar nearly spilling over the side of the glass with the movement. “Tell Kix I’ll be down sometime before we reach Coruscant.”

“I’ll tell him, but he won’t believe me,” Rex replied, taking the offered glass in hand. “He wanted me to escort you at blaster-point.”

Obi-wan picked up his own drink, eyeing Rex over the rim of his glass. “I’d like to see him - or you - try,” Obi-wan smiled, the barest edge creeping into his voice.

Rex stifled a sigh. Kix was going to be livid - again. But Rex knew that tone in the General’s voice - the one that told you to shove it with a smile and a polite bow. The General would visit medical when he saw fit, or, more likely, when he was being hauled in, unconscious and bleeding.

Not wanting to contemplate Kix’s inevitable tongue-lashing on his return, Rex lifted his glass to meet Obi-wan’s, sharing a silent toast, absent the clinking of glasses, hearty shouts, or bawdy songs that normally accompanied a bottle of the vod’s finest tihaar. It had evolved into a bit of a ritual between him and the General, this quiet acknowledgment of their hardships, of the terrible things they had seen, kriff, had done in the course of a mission.

Obi-wan downed his drink in one go, taking a moment to inspect his empty glass in the harsh fluorescent lighting before returning it to the table with uncharacteristic roughness.

Rex sipped at his own drink in an almost cautious fashion that would have been the butt of a hundred insults had he been with the other vode. But Rex enjoyed the sensation, the feel of the warm fire that spread through his chest, down into his gut.

He was also stalling, trying to pinpoint what, exactly, was wrong with the General.

“It’s nothing, Rex,” Obi-wan croaked, hand floating halfway to his neck. Rex calculated the likelihood of some kind of internal damage of the esophagus due to the combination of smoke inhalation and that damned collar.

“Anyway, that’s not why I asked you here.”

Rex polished off his own glass, setting it down gently between a map of the Sertar System and a series of inventory reports.

“Then what is it, sir?”

Obi-wan folded his hands on the table. “The report. I’d like to take a quick look at it before it’s sent to the Senate.”

“Doubting my grammar, sir?” Rex responded, holding out the datapad for Obi-wan to inspect.

“Never, Rex. I trained that out of you months ago,” Obi-wan replied with a smile, perching the device on his knee.

Rex chuckled at the memory of both he and General Skywalker being hauled in by Obi-wan time and again for “shoddy, nearly unreadable prose.”

“Gentlemen,” Obi-wan had said gravely, “I realize we are fighting a war, but our combat objectives do not extend to the decimation of the Basic dialect.”

It had taken Rex a few instances to realize the General was joking - mostly. But the usual small signs of Obi-wan’s peculiar sense of humor were absent now, the man having taken his chin with one hand, stroking his beard in what the all the vod had come to know as the General’s “thinking pose.”

After a minute, Obi-wan’s hand drifted to his neck, kneading at the area just above the collarbone. The high collar of the tunic prevented Rex from seeing just how bad it had gotten, but if his own experience was anything to go by, the General was probably in a fair amount of pain.

“You know, sir, I’ve got this cream General Skywalker gave me. I thought you might have some if it. Kix calls it the ‘Jedi Bantha Osik Miracle Drug’.”

Obi-wan looked up from the datapad, arching an eyebrow. “An inventive name. But no, what you’re describing is likely Anakin’s personal concoction, and being so, I am certain of both its efficacy and dubious origins.”

Rex peered again at the General. His collar had shifted, revealing a bright red shock near his throat.

“You know, General,” Rex began tentatively, “it might be a Jedi Bullshit Miracle Drug, but it does work.”

Obi-wan frowned, pulling his collar over the exposed wound. “I’ll be fine, Rex.”

“No offense, sir, but that didn’t look fine.”

“It’s not of any consequence,” was the terse response, leaving no room for argument. Rex knew better than to push - the General could be more stubborn than a dozen gundarks and Rex was not about the test that right now.

“Rewriting history?” Rex asked, hoping to steer the conversation towards less dangerous ground as Obi-wan’s fingers flew over the datapad keys in a series of haphazard clacks, sounding all too similar to an approaching army of battledroids. Rex shivered. 

“Just editing some of the more lurid details.” Obi-wan glanced up at Rex through his bangs, punching in one more quick series of keys before handing the datapad back to the clone. “I’ve heard Orn Fre Taa’s stomach for such things isn’t what it once was, and it wasn’t much to begin with.”

Rex scanned the document. Most of what he wrote remained unchanged, although certain phrases such as, “Kenobi incapacitated by Zygerrians” jumped out at him like a freighter in hyperspace. Chissk, General, bit of an understatement, don’t you think?

But it was the last paragraph that caught Rex’s attention, his eyebrows steadily rising upwards as he read the bit aloud.

“After the assault by Generals Skywalker and Koon on the base, General Kenobi and Commander Rex dropped their guise as prisoners, escaping through the south entrance of the facility. Shortly after, an explosion of approximately 87,4 magnitude blew out the last supports of the observation deck, where it dropped into the caldera of Kadavo’s major volcano. The facility foreman, Arguss was incapacitated before the explosion and assumed to have perished in the demolition.”

Rex brought the datapad down, furrowing his brow as he weighed his options. He was close with General Kenobi - not close the way he was with Skywalker or Tano, but still, he considered him a fellow vod. But the General was still the General, and Rex was not one to commit rank insubordination. If this was the version of events Obi-wan wanted to be the truth, then he wouldn’t stand in the way.

Obi-wan sighed. “You did nothing wrong, Rex. You…” The General played with the empty glass on the table, rubbing his finger around the edge. “You just followed orders.”

The glass began to vibrate, emitting a high, jagged crystalline pitch. Obi-wan allowed the sound to resonate, to buzz in Rex’s ear uncomfortably before dampening the object with his hand.

“Anyway, if you would be so kind to send that off, we can rid ourselves of this whole ordeal and I can get back to - ” Obi-wan made a grand, sarcastic gesture at the chaotic piles of paperwork on the table.

Rex frowned at the array of invoices, maps, and troop deployment schedules.

“You might want to take a break, General.”

Obi-wan snorted. “And I can’t imagine where that might take place. The med wing, perhaps?”

Rex gave the General a sly smile. “Kix will do up a room all nice, just for you. I’ll even get Jesse to do the interior decorating.”

“And here I thought you were trying to heal me,” Obi-wan retorted, eyes crinkling. Jesse’s taste in design was...unique, to be certain. Rex never wanted to quash his men’s expression of their individuality outside the battlefield, but the series of clashing patterns and colors adorning the clone’s bunk was enough to blind a man.

“General,” Rex steeled himself, hoping to take advantage of the lighter tone of conversation. “I might be speaking out of turn here, but you should consider the offer, minus Jesse’s decorating. You’re not looking any better, and that ring around your neck is going to scar real bad if you don’t do something about it.”

“And Force forbid I look anything less than dashing for the holonews cameras,” Obi-wan spat, a shadow forming on his features.

Rex blew out a harsh breath, biting his lip. Well, he could tell Kix he tried. 

The General leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his forehead. “I apologize, Rex. I mean it when I say you did nothing wrong. In fact, you followed my orders to the letter.”

Obi-wan brought his hand back to his neck, grimacing as he rubbed the sensitive area where the Zygerrian collar had been attached to his body.

“I knew exactly what I was asking of you. And...‘A Jedi does not seek revenge, does not find pleasure in the pain of others, does not spill blood unless they have exhausted every other option.’” Obi-wan quoted.

Rex met the General’s dark stare. 

“The dark side is slippery, seductive. We cannot let our guard down, cannot allow ourselves to listen to its whispers, its false promises. No matter how right, how good they may feel.”

Obi-wan pulled at his collar, grimacing at the movement as he stood, motioning Rex towards the open door.

“Sometimes, some of us need that reminder.”

“Of course, General. I understand,” Rex responded, not understanding at all.