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The rain came down in sheets soaked everything not covered, and most things that were. The planet was naturally warm and swamp like, and the down pour made the world smell pungent and rotting. This stupid planet.
They’d been stuck here for months and nothing had changed. For every inch of land they took the clankers took it back. Quinlan took out a smoker from a small metal container; rolled it between his fingers. No actual nicotine, just nice smelling herbs.
His old master would burn them to cover up his horrible cooking. It takes him back to a simpler time. A time with less spilled blood.
“What are you doing hiding out here?” Here being the shitty little cover on the roof of an even shittier apartment building in the shittiest part of the town.
Obi-Wan saunters to where Quinlan sat and reached over to the damp box of smokers in his front pocket. He takes one rolling it in his fingers feeling the paper before sliding it in between his teeth.
“Never took you for a smoking man,”
“I know there’s no actual addictive ingredients in this,” Obi-Wan smirked as he talked, like a fox he thought. Under all that political decorum and guilt lies a Fox. It was all just a matter of dragging it out. A matter of peeling back the layers of hardened shell till the soft core was exposed. Quinlan laughs while taking Obi-Wan’s chin and jaw in his large and calloused hand. His beard about a day of neglect pasted well groomed. Dragging him closer, in the rain and damp smell of the city, Quinlan lit Obi-Wan’s smoker with his own. Their faces only inches apart. The embers glowing brighter as Quinlan breathed more oxygen through the filter.
It takes a moment for the smoker to catch, Quinlan can feel Obi-Wan’s breath against his cheek. He doesn’t pull away or tug from Quinlan’s grip. Something deeper in his chest that should be left to rot stirs. A few puffs to get it going and Quinlan pulled away popping the bubble of that tentative something that only happens when the rain pours hard enough to drown out his better sense. He blows the multicolored smoke into the air watching it swirl up instead of doing something he wants to regret but knows he won’t.
Obi-Wan would regret it.
In the glow of their smokers and the few lights of the city still getting power, Quinlan couldn’t help but find Obi-Wan beautiful.
Not handsome, not pretty, but beautiful.
Obi-Wan is beautiful in the way a large marble statue is. Wonderful from afar, but when you get close you start to see the ways it's been sculpted to be admired from afar and from the ground. You’re not met to see it up close.
Quinlan thought it gave him charm.
Maybe if he was a different man and they were born in a different time.
“How’s that clone of yours?” Quinlan asked instead of suffering the silence.
“No idea what you’re talking about,”
Obi wan took a long drag and blew it into Quinlan’s face. Cheeky.
“Yeah you do. Or maybe you’re just the only one who doesn’t. You do like lying to yourself,” Quinlan knew he was being mean or at least rude. There was no part of him that can muster up the effort to care. Learning how to not care of what others thought of you had served Quinlan well. Saved on headaches and broken hearts.
“Cody’s fine,”
Obi-Wan is hatefully polite in the way all politicians learn to be. After all these years the passive almost uncaring tone cuts deep into the soft bits Quinlan only opened to someone who has mastered the art of deeply caring while going to war.
Obi-Wan has that art in spades. Quinlan wanted to laugh, but he just took another drag and blew out a ring of smoke.
“What about Anakin? How's the ankle bitter doing?” The last time they’d been in the same room together Anakin had been a little boy with sandy hair and eyes that already knew of cruelty.
“He killed a band of tuskins after they killed his mother,” Obi-Wan talked about it like it's the morning report.
Quinlan let out a sharp snort wishing he was surprised.
“By Yoda’s balls. Damn,” Obi-Wan flicked ash at him.
“Don’t be crude,” Quinlan did laugh this time. This was their dynamic. They smoke and talk and kept everything unsaid. It’s better that way; has fewer strings attached.
“Being crude is my best quality,” He put a little extra tooth into his smile tapping ash onto Obi-Wan’s damp clothes.
“And here I thought it was your roguish good looks and tracking ability, but that goes to show what I know about you,” Obi-Wan gestured with his smoker as he spoke.
Quinlan barked out another laugh, it's short but Obi-Wan hides a smile behind his hand while taking a long drag. Something tells him laughter has been in short supply for him these last few months.
“You think I have roguish good looks?”
“I think I get complaints about you from the council every time I talk about you,” Quinlan leans in.
“You talk about me?” His voice edges on something it shouldn’t.
“Yes. To complain,” quick as a war is slow Obi-Wan shuts down any chance of escalation.
Quinlan takes a drag and lies that the swelling in his chest isn’t disappointment.
“Quinlan” Obi-Wan stares into the middle distance, “Do you think we’ll see the end of this war in our lifetime?”
“Why are you asking questions like that?” is the best answer he can muster. He doesn’t know how to respond to that. He’s used to banter on a razors edge or exacerbated sarcasm not that.
“I’m thinking about deserting,” Obi-Wan’s admission rings like a bell.
“You’d never do it,” and Quinlan is right. Obi-Wan never would. He loves Anakin too much, and is too selfish to do something that sensible.
“I might lose my morals one day. You never know,” Obi-Wan took another long drag on his smoker. It was meant to be a joke, but his tone was too heavy soaked with rain for anything funny. Obi-Wan was a man who lived and breathed The Code with guilt so heavy it’s choking him.
“Everyone lost their morals the moment this war started,” Quinlan rubs his hand together hoping to generate some warmth. The tips of his fingers had gone tingly with numbness. If that was true or not didn’t matter all too much to him. Just felt like the right thing to say if not the appropriate one. Obi-Wan gives out a thoughtful hum at his answer. He was good at that, saying nothing but communicating everything. He chose his words as a sniper would choose his target. Careful and never without purpose. The training of a council member.
The rain kept on pouring down. Will it ever stop? Some planets had permanent rain on them. Maybe it was better if it didn’t. They could keep this moment frozen in time, no command or code or morning creeping in over the horizon to break the spell between them.
When morning hits everything would go back to what it was. Quinlan didn’t pin over a man he couldn’t have, and Obi-Wan didn’t smoke and joke about running away to the farthest part of space where nothing can touch him; not even his own guilt.
No, It was better if the rain stopped. Better if the sun rose.
Obi-Wan stands several joints popping and creaking showing off his age more than Quinlan was sure he wanted. The smoker had burned out leaving nothing but a stub and unspoken regrets. The rain lessens from a down pour to a like sprinkle and the sun pokes its head over the horizon streaming through what's left of the city.
“Give Cody my best,”
“I will,”
And he was gone as if he’d never been, only a tightness in Quinlan’s chest left behind.