Chapter 1: The Casino
Chapter Text
Obi-Wan woke quickly when the boot kicked his side.
Obi-Wan always wakes quickly now. Bad things would happen if he didn’t. At least he only had to wake slowly twice before his brain got the message.
Obi-Wan doesn’t make a sound when he’s kicked. He knows better. Instead, as quickly as he can, he climbs off the dirty, lumpy mattress and gets to his feet.
He also knows better than to make eye contact, so he looks down while the Omertas thug grabs his arm and yanks it, swabbing the skin carelessly with cheap vodka before the man brings over a needle to inject the drug into Obi-Wan’s veins.
Obi-Wan is shivering, and not just from the cold. For many reasons, he’s glad for the drugs. This existence would be so much worse without them.
He doesn’t know what’s in the needles, he never has known. He thinks it’s some kind of mix between morphine and ecstasy, but everything seems easier when he has it… everything is so much more floatier. The things the bosses and customers do to him don’t hurt quite so bad because it burns through his veins.
The thug pushes the plunger and Obi-Wan feels the cold liquid flow through him.
His lips go numb and he’s led through to the dresser, staffed by a couple of slaves too old to catch customers’ eyes anymore. He’s amazed they’ve survived in this hell as long as they have. Obi-Wan has only been here two years and already he’s not sure he wants to live through another.
The women strip him down and scrub him as quickly as they can. Water is a precious commodity in the desert, even with the army pumping it up to the Vegas Strip from the river. It still costs a lot of money, so they are sparing with the water. The bosses want to waste as little money and water on him as possible.
Once he’s clean enough to be considered fine for client use, the old biddies help his shaking limbs into the ugly leather get-up reserved for those dancing on the floor.
He’s not sure whether he should feel happy he’s starting his day out dancing rather than over in the tents.
On one hand, you get a good smacking if you don’t put “enough effort” into your dancing. On the other hand, you don’t have to give as many customers “services” because the customers are too busy watching you and distracting themselves from how much they’re losing at the tables. You’re still expected to service customers if they request you, but you don’t have a quota to meet and if you don’t service any customers during a dancing shift, the bosses don’t care. Whereas, if he was out in the pleasure tents, he would be expected to make a quota and if he doesn’t, he’s punished. But if he were going to the tents, he doesn’t have to do anything: just lounge sexily around in front of his empty tent and try to draw wandering customers in.
The thugs hand Obi-Wan a ration bar and a flagon of water and expect him to finish it as quickly as possible.
Nothing tastes like much of anything with the drugs in his system, so he chews and swallows the dry bar and gulps down as much of the water as he can.
For the next few hours he dances to the music. He’s barely aware of customers coming in and out of the club room to watch.
One customer tries to jerk off in the club while staring up at the dancers, and security escorts him out. The club bosses have a rule that the dancers can be bought for sex, but you don’t get to use their visage for free.
He notices little while he dances, the lights shine in his eyes and the drugs swim through his veins. People come and go. A group of two men stay for a long while and Obi-Wan can feel their eyes on his body.
He’s finally given a bathroom break five hours in, before he’s forced back to the floor.
He passes the table of two men as he makes his way back to the stage, but the security guy escorting Obi-Wan yanks on Obi-Wan’s arm to make him stop in front of them.
“The bosses noticed you two eyeing our lovely employee here. They’re wondering if you two want to rent his holes out for an hour. He’s very much worth it, trust me,” the guard runs his tongue over his lips.
Obi-Wan doesn’t remember this guard, they all just blend into each other over time. The only person who stood out was the Big Boss for the shit he does to the slaves. All of the slaves and employees are afraid of him, including Obi-Wan.
The guard presses Obi-Wan forward into one of the men’s laps. Obi-Wan twists and rocks his hips against the man’s crotch. “You are so gorgeous,” Obi-Wan says alluringly, like he’s been taught. He will be punished, later, if he doesn’t follow his training. “I would have you for free if I wasn’t working.” It’s a lie he’s been told to tell, and there would be more than just a belting if he doesn’t do as he’s been trained.
“How much?” The man grabs hold of Obi-Wan’s hips to steady him in his lap.
“For you fine gentlemen, I’ll give you a discount. How does ninety sound?”
The other man whistled. “That’s steep for a discount.”
“Our lovely Ben here is worth more.”
“I could give you everything you need, baby,” Obi-Wan leans forward and whispers, still rocking his hips over a slowly growing bulge.
“Sorry,” the man says, and he really does sound sorry. “I lost the last of my day’s wage at the table. I would love to take you up on your offer another day though,” the man offers back.
“Sure,” the guard grabs Obi-Wan’s wrist and yanks him off, hard. “You just tell ‘em Mikkey said you could have this one for ninety.” The guard yanks Obi-Wan and drags him back towards the stage. Obi-Wan relaxes into the man’s harsh movements, it’s easier this way. Less painful.
Obi-Wan dances for five more hours before the Big Boss comes for him personally.
Obi-Wan doesn’t know if the man comes back the next day for the discount, because he can’t move from his mattress for three days after that. Visits to the Big Boss usually end this way though.
Another day, more dancing. Obi-Wan is a slave. He doesn’t get days off.
The only time he doesn’t have to work is if he’s hurt so bad the doc says he needs time to recover. He should be glad those days don’t happen as often as they used to. Obi-Wan doesn’t know if it’s because he’s too old and ugly now, or maybe if it’s because there’s fresher victims around here more recently. He doesn't have the energy to care.
Obi-Wan doesn’t cry or scream when the bosses or customers hurt him now. He just watches blankly, feeling like he’s not even in his own body.
But today he’s dancing, swaying seductively to the music, when he feels those eyes on him again.
There’s always eyes on Obi-Wan, so he doesn’t know why this gaze feels different.
Obi-Wan is being led back by a different guard when a man approaches them. He seems familiar, vaguely, but honestly that means very little. Obi-Wan remembers little of who he meets these days, the faces of customers, bosses, guards and thugs alike pass by in a blur.
Sometimes he thinks about throwing himself at the guard and scratching and hitting and biting until they subdue him so hard he dies. But he doesn’t. He can’t. Just like he can’t even think about escape.
Anakin is still here somewhere, his younger step-brother is the leverage they use to keep Obi-Wan in line.
Like most slaves they’d tried to use the explosives planted under his skin to keep him in line at first, but Obi-Wan hadn’t cared. He’d grab on to middle management and held on tight when they threatened that, hoping to take out one of these sons-o-bitches with him.
So instead they’d threatened to hurt, to beat, to rape his brother and now Obi-Wan obeys.
They don’t let Obi-Wan see Anakin. They know the brothers are too wily: they know Obi-Wan and Anakin would find a way to escape if they could see one another. And they’d paid the fucking legionaries that had kidnapped and stole Obi-Wan and Anakin a thousand each. Apparently they were both valuable slaves, so they wouldn’t want to lose them.
But now, a man with dark curly hair, russet-golden brown skin, and a scar around dark eyes, approaches and talks quietly to the guard. The guard protests the price, but they haggle to a satisfactory price at some point, and the guard grabs Obi-Wan and shoves him at the man.
“He has you for sixty.” The guard says and backs off.
“Would you like something here, sir? Or in a tent in the courtyard? Or perhaps you have a room in the hotel here you want to go to?” Obi-Wan asks in his softest voice.
“Just at my table would be nice,” the man leads Obi-Wan back to his table where another man sits, watching them with keen eyes.
Obi-Wan follows placidly and slides into the man’s lap when he indicates it. The man’s hands wander along Obi-Wan’s outfit, finding the crotch zipper and opening it up. The man fumbles between them, pulling out his dick and rolling a condom on himself. Obi-Wan is surprised and incredibly grateful when the man pulls out a bottle of lube and lubes his cock up.
Then the man tries to get Obi-Wan to rise up to sink down on him, but he seems to be aiming for Obi-Wan’s ass, so Obi-Wan redirects the man and sinks his cunt down onto the man’s erection.
The man groans, his expression says he’s surprised by Obi-Wan’s anatomy. Dualsex people aren’t common, but they aren’t uncommon either.
The man seems to not know what he wants, or maybe he doesn’t care too much, because he doesn’t force Obi-Wan to move. So instead, Obi-Wan just sits still and clenches down on his cock.
The man groans, obviously enjoying it.
“I cannot believe you’re fucking him. In the middle of the fucking casino too,” the other man in a dark-red baseball cap says in a hiss. “You aren’t keeping your head in the game. We’re not gonna be able to do what we came for if you become obsessed with the first drugged up whore you see.”
“Like you don’t think he’s gorgeous too. Besides, maybe he can help us.”
The music in this room is loud and Obi-Wan knows little can be heard here. If anything this might be the most private place in the whole casino to have a conversation.
“We want you to answer a few questions for us sweetheart,” the man with the dark eyes and intriguing scar curling around his left eye, asks him.
Obi-Wan clenches on the man’s cock and lets his eyes flicker around the room. The guards aren’t paying them any mind, and most of the patrons are watching the two dancers on stage or the woman sucking off a male customer right up by the lit stage.
The table Obi-Wan and the two men are at is in a dark spot on the side, not in the corner so as to be suspicious, but sort of out of the way so most people’s eyes skim past them. Really, it was a brilliant spot to pick.
“Depends what the questions are,” Obi-Wan finally says, “And it depends what I get out of it.”
“We can offer you your freedom,” the man who’s cock is inside him, says quickly.
The other man hisses, eyes narrowed.
Obi-Wan makes a noise of dissent as quietly as he can. “If you can free my brother, I’ll tell you anything you want to know. He’s seventeen, he doesn’t deserve to be in a place like this.”
The two men look a bit surprised, but they both soon agree to do as Obi-Wan asks.
The questions start off easy: who the bosses are, what they were like, what were their schedules? What were the guards' schedules? Then the questions get a little harder, but Obi-Wan has been here for a couple of years and the Big Boss has dragged him all over the casino to hurt or rape him. The Big Boss thinks it shows how powerful he is that he can let outsiders witness him using the staff how he wants.
Then they begin asking harder questions like: where the money and drugs are kept, where do the drugs come from, where do the slaves come from, where would the bosses keep the proof of their illegal transactions?
Obi-Wan rolls his hips slowly everytime guards or patrons swing their eyes their way, letting it look like the man who has hired his cunt wants it nice and drawn out. And honestly, he’s surprised by the man’s stamina and mental acuity. Even as Obi-Wan slowly bounces on his cock, he never stays away from his questions. The only thing the man does when he’s close is clench his hands tightly on Obi-Wan’s hips. And whenever Obi-Wan can tell the man is close, he stops so the man can stay inside him, it gives them an excuse to be close to talk… Or at least that’s what Obi-Wan tells himself. In reality, this is the best sex Obi-Wan’s had since he was enslaved. This man is way more gentle with Obi-Wan than he deserves.
Finally the last question came. It was the most important question, and also the only one Obi-Wan didn’t even have an inkling of an answer to.
“Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan admits painfully. “You’ll have to ask around outside the casino. I think they lend Anakin out to do for-hire mechanical work. He’s brilliant at that kind of thing. And as immoral as they are, they pretend children are safe from this kind of depravity. But Anakin will turn 18 soon, he won’t be safe for much longer. Please, help him.”
The two men exchange looks, but quietly agree and Obi-Wan feels like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders and his heart.
“You should push me onto the table and finish inside me. We’ve been at this too long, the guards think you should have finished by now, they’re getting suspicious.” Obi-Wan said calmly.
The man does as Obi-Wan suggested, but he is still incredibly gentle about it. Once the man begins to thrust, he only lasts a couple seconds. Which isn’t surprising, Obi-Wan has been teasing the man with his cunt for almost thirty minutes at this point.
“We still have twenty-five minutes left,” Obi-Wan tells them. “You should probably pass me to your friend if you want your money’s worth.”
There’s a strange, surprised look on the man’s face, but he does pull out and let his friend pull Obi-Wan onto his lap.
It takes a few minutes of logistics, but soon Obi-Wan is sinking down on the other man’s condom-covered cock.
While Obi-Wan has sex at least a few times a day, rarely is it more than a couple minutes at a time. Most customers can’t get real lovers and they all last barely any time at all. So Obi-Wan is sore inside from being on that other man’s lap for more than a half an hour.
But this man seems intent on enjoying himself. He helps Obi-Wan bounce on his dick, slowly, but at a much steadier pace than Obi-Wan had with the first man.
In the end the man comes, with almost fifteen minutes still left on the clock.
Obi-Wan just sits on the man’s softening cock, for a while after, while the man comes down from his orgasm. Once he does, he pushes Obi-Wan away, and Obi-Wan awkwardly sits in one of the other chairs at the table. Neither man tells him to leave or do something different, and there’s still time on the clock.
When the guard returns to collect Obi-Wan, the curly, dark-haired man with the scar smiles at him. “That felt amazing. Thanks.”
Obi-Wan nods and heads back up to the stage to continue dancing.
Obi-Wan has to keep himself from watching or even looking at the men until they leave an hour later.
Chapter 2: The Plan
Notes:
I got comments on chapter one! They made me grin with glee! Thank you so much, I can't wait for everyone who is interested in this story to read this chapter!
I start work on Monday, so I will probably try to post a chapter a day until I am too tired from working, then I will hopefully be able to do a chapter a week from them on. So do check back tomorrow as well!
Chapter Text
He’s at the tents when he sees the two men again, this time accompanied by a third man.
“We’d like to acquire your services,” says the new man, who has a scar on his face and a false left eye.
Obi-Wan smiles distantly at them and beckons over the Omertas sales rep to haggle with them.
A price is finally agreed upon and Obi-Wan brings the three men inside his tent.
The three men sit down on pillows spread through the tent. The tent is large and Obi-Wan could stand up without hitting his head on the top. Usually Obi-Wan only has one or two customers at a time though. Three people can fit comfortably, but four people is a little squishy.
Unbothered, Obi-Wan stands before the three men and peels off the lingerie he’s wearing, baring himself to the men.
“Woh, what–” the new man spoke, confused.
The man in the red cap elbowed the new one to silence. “We need the cover,” he spat quietly, "in case someone comes in."
Obi-Wan looks between them, confused. “Who is first?” He asks in a daze.
The man he’d first been with last time, holds out his hand and Obi-Wan crawls into his lap.
It’s brighter in the fabric tent — especially since they’re outside this time and it’s the middle of the day — than it had been in the club the last time he’d seen the two. It’s brighter and Obi-Wan is close enough to see the man’s expressions as he opens the man's trousers and slides down the man’s cock. The man’s big brown eyes, under the curling scar, are earnest and soft and Obi-Wan struggles to look away.
His hands are warm on Obi-Wan’s hips, making Obi-Wan shiver. He doesn’t know how long it had been since he felt so warm.
The man pulls Obi-Wan even closer, as if they’re going to kiss, but instead he begins to whisper in Obi-Wan’s ear.
“We did some digging,” Earnest Man breathes into Obi-Wan’s ear. “Your brother Anakin Skywalker was bought out of his contract by the mayor of Mountain Springs, less than a year after you were brought here. The mayor is a woman named Padme Amidala. Not much is known about what happened to them after they left New Vegas, but there’s chatter that she freed him and married him. Enough chatter for it to be true.”
Obi-Wan stops dead still on Earnest Man’s lap, feeling confused and hurt.
The pain and torment he’s endured in the name of keeping Anakin safe all this time, rings through his body. It was all for nothing. He thinks he’s going to be sick.
“It’s gone too quiet in here,” Obi-Wan’s instincts kick in. “You two should talk about what you want to do with me,” Obi-Wan says bleakly to the two other men.
The other two men startle but take Obi-Wan’s advice and begin talking about sex.
Obi-Wan feels like his whole world has collapsed and he doesn’t know what to do, so he does what he was trained to do and begins rocking on Earnest Man’s lap again.
Earnest Man’s hands tighten on Obi-Wan’s hips. “Stop,” he whispers, “You don’t have to do this. I can tell this is a big shock. I’m sorry.”
Obi-Wan whimpers and presses his face into Earnest Man’s neck. The man smells good, like sweat and horses, sun-beaten leather and gunpowder.
When he can finally get a hold of himself, he pulls his tear-streaked face away. “Thank you for coming back to tell me. It’s very dangerous for you to be here. Please, take me as hard as you want, as a show of my gratitude.”
This isn’t how Obi-Wan had thought or even hoped his encounters with this man would end, but they held up their end of the bargain. His brother is free even if it wasn’t by their doing.
Earnest Man pulls him back in. “We did little. You have helped us tremendously. We would still like to keep our bargain. We couldn’t free your brother, but we have the means to free you.”
Obi-Wan is shocked. He hasn’t thought much beyond making sure his brother was free before wrestling a gun off a guard and shooting himself in the head. He’s gone over and over all the ways out of this hell and that is simply the easiest way to finally end it.
“I…I don’t have anywhere to go even if you did free me,” Obi-Wan whispers numbly, not prepared for this turn of events.
“I can help you with that,” Earnest Man says kindly, too kindly.
Obi-Wan thinks about going home with this man, about the life he would probably live. He knows he would be expected to let this man use his body until either of them died. But this man seems kind. Even when he pays for Obi-Wan’s holes he is kind and gentle.
“Alright,” Obi-Wan agrees.
Earnest Man nods to the newest member of their party, the man with the false eye.
False Eye comes up behind Obi-Wan and begins to feel along Obi-Wan’s back. If you don’t get a large, cumbersome, explosive slave collar, the bosses always put an explosive in your back. That way you can’t reach it. And the explosive device is just sensitive enough that most people wouldn’t want to try to help you cut it out. Most of the sex slaves here don’t have collars, they need to look pretty for the customers.
“It’s somewhere around my left shoulder blade,” Obi-Wan turns his head and whispers. It had been sore and aching like the spot had been cut, when he’d first woken up after he’d been taken from his home.
False Eye feels around that area carefully, but shakes his head.
“I know it’s there,” Obi-Wan insists and begins to rock on Earnest man’s dick and throw out a few moans. He doesn’t want a guard or sales rep to come and check on them right now, if they’re being too quiet. It’s the guards job to make sure the merchandise (in this case Obi-Wan) wasn’t being hurt too badly, so they can be used again.
“Too much scar tissue to find it,” False Eye whispers and pulls out a jerry-rigged hand-held scanner that looks like it uses ultrasound. He puts jelly on Obi-Wan’s back and begins to look inside of him, the images are relayed onto the screen of the man’s wrist-computer, which looks to be a repurposed, old fashioned Pipboy.
Obi-Wan stills himself for the scan, but continues to moan softly while False eye looks for the explosive planted in his body. He must find it, because he signals red Ball-Cap man, who brings out a scalpel, tweezers, a flask and a handkerchief.
False Eye wipes the gel off Obi-Wan’s back and sterilizes Obi-Wan’s skin, the scalpel, and tweezers with whatever kind of alcohol is in the flask.
Obi-Wan clenches his hands in the fabric of Earnest man’s shirt as False Eye begins to cut into his skin.
Obi-Wan tries not to focus on the pain, instead staring into Earnest man’s eyes and trying to imagine what kind of life will await him outside of the hellhole that is this casino.
Finally, False Eye holds up the small radio-activated explosive in bloodied tweezers. The amount of explosive was small and probably would have killed him in an agonizing, slow death.
Obi-Wan sighs, leaning forward into Earnest Man’s chest.
False Eye secures the wound with some superglue and a butterfly bandage. Obi-Wan appreciates that the bandage is small, that way it’s less likely to be noticed by the guards after the men leave.
The instruments and medical supplies all quickly disappear into pockets and jackets.
Obi-Wan starts rocking on Earnest man’s cock again, wanting to give the man pleasure. He wants to thank them for what they’ve done.
The man moans unconsciously. Fingers that had been clutching at Obi-Wan’s waist during the procedure, trying to give comfort, are now digging tightly into Obi-Wan’s skin.
False Eye has scooted away from them and now Ball-Cap man gets close, voice low. The intensity of his tone makes Obi-Wan pause. “When would you be able to sneak away from your captors? One of us can meet you at the side door on the northwest side of the building.”
That was the kitchen supply loading door. He could probably sneak out there when the Casino floor and restaurant got busy around eleven pm. He says this to Ball-Cap.
The man nodded back. “One of us will be there.”
Ball-Cap and False Eye man look away while Obi-Wan begins to bounce, hard, bringing Earnest man to climax. Afterwards, Obi-Wan tries to offer the other two his mouth or his cunt, but False Eye refuses firmly and Ball-Cap, after a hesitant glance at False Eye, also refuses.
For the rest of the time, Earnest Man pulls Obi-Wan close and lets Obi-Wan lean against his shoulder. Obi-Wan even falls asleep for almost fifteen minutes, pressed up against Earnest Man’s warmth.
When their hour is up, the guards escort them out and Obi-Wan redresses in his lingerie and waits outside his tent for customers, trying not to look too jittery with nerves.
Obi-Wan is scared he won’t make it to the meeting with the men who are willing to save him.
Six hours later, he comes out of his tent — after servicing a client — and the Big Boss is there, grabbing him by the hair and dragging him into the casino.
Obi-Wan doesn’t pull away, he doesn’t run, he relaxes into the man’s hold. Soon the man gets bored of dragging Obi-Wan along and forces one of his guards to pick Obi-Wan up and bring him up a few floors to the Big Boss’s suite.
Obi-Wan feels shaky, knowing that only the worst of his experiences in this casino have happened to him in this room. Things that Big Boss doesn’t want his boss, the owners, or the patrons of the casino to see.
Obi-Wan is afraid the Boss will see the bandage on his back, under the lingerie he’s wearing, he’s afraid the man will put a new explosive in him, he’s afraid the man will hurt him so bad he can’t make it to the rendezvous.
Obi-Wan realizes he is afraid for himself for the first time in a long time.
He has suffered and bled and been hurt, but he always thought he deserved it.
He was supposed to be watching out for Anakin when they had been taken. It was his fault they had gotten into this mess. And he had blamed himself all these years.
But now, when freedom is just about in his grasp, when he knows his brother has been safe all this time, he might lose it all.
At first, the Boss doesn’t do anything. Obi-Wan cowers in the corner as Big Boss does paperwork at his desk, and his posse of guards lounge around the sitting area of this large suite.
What feels like an hour goes by, then another. It must be almost nine PM. Usually around now, Obi-Wan is ending his twelve hour shift and given more drugs and water and left to sleep on his mattress. Nothing is ever usual about the Big Boss though.
Obi-Wan knows the bastard's name: Cachino. He refuses to use it in his head. He doesn’t want to give this man the privilege of a name. He’s seen all the slaves cower in fear when his name is mentioned. And he knows why. He’s seen what the man does to his slaves first hand. Obi-Wan’s held more than a few slaves as they died from their wounds in the basement on a dirty mattress. He’s helped dress a few of their wounds too. The doctor that is on staff here does his best to help the slaves after a beating, but the guards watch him too, so Obi-Wan usually offers to help with dressing the wounds of those hurt, and he always tries to comfort them.
Not just the slaves fear Big Boss though. Even the hired employees fear him, Big Boss enjoys mentally tormenting them whenever the opportunity presents itself. He never gets physical with his employees like he does his slaves, but he isn’t kind to any of them either. Obi-Wan would have more sympathy for the abuse they endure if they didn’t completely ignore what happens to the slaves. They stand and watch and go about living their lives as if how this man treats people is okay.
Obi-Wan has even asked a few of the employees for help before, especially if one of his friends had been in trouble. Obi-Wan had a few friends amongst the slaves when he first started, but slowly they all died or were sold-off somewhere else. After a year of remaking new friends after new friends because the old ones disappeared, Obi-Wan stopped bothering.
Sometimes he wonders what happened to his friends Quinlan or Bant or Garen. He wonders what happened to them after they were taken and never came back.
Sometimes Obi-Wan fears that Big Boss targeted them because he knew they were friends with Obi-Wan. He has no proof, but he’s been isolated for a long time.
He shivers and hugs himself, wishing he were already outside through the kitchen door, leaving this hell hole with Earnest Man.
Soon enough, Big Boss seems done with whatever he was doing and grabs Obi-Wan, tugging him over to the big bed. It’s set up right in the middle of the suite so his guards can watch what he does from the sitting area.
“I hear a few men have been back to see you three times over the past month.” Big Boss says dangerously with a dark grin on his face.
Obi-Wan hadn’t realized the visits had spanned a month, it hadn’t felt that long.
Obi-Wan doesn’t respond, he’s learned the hard way not to talk back. He just blinks slowly up at the man who is pacing back and forth like a predator stalking its prey.
“You know the NCR Army has been trying to bring me down for years,” the Boss says pleasantly. He pauses his pace and steps closer to cradle Obi-Wan’s face with one hand, like a lover would. “They claim I pay Legionaries to kidnap their precious Californian citizens and use them as slaves. Which we all know is ridiculous.”
The guards all laugh. Obi-Wan just blinks again. He had been a citizen of the New California Republic when he’d been kidnapped.
“Did those men ask you any questions, my sweet?” The Boss leans in and asks, lowering his voice.
“They asked about my holes. They asked what they could do with them,” Obi-Wan answers the question, his heart is thumping in his chest as he lies.
Big Boss punches him in the face, not letting Obi-Wan’s face move away to reflect some of the blow he sees coming to his left eye.
“That’s all they asked you?” He asks, tightening his grip on Obi-Wan’s chin.
“That’s all,” Obi-Wan whispers. He wants to ask questions himself. He wants to ask the Big Boss what part of the NCR he suspects the men were. He wants to ask the Big Boss what he’s afraid of, what they’ll find. But he doesn’t. He’s learned not to talk back.
He knows the Boss doesn’t know anything for sure, he wouldn’t be asking questions if he did, he’d just be cutting or lashing Obi-Wan if he did. He obviously wants Obi-Wan conscious and well enough to answer him.
“Why you then, my sweet?”
Obi-Wan’s never figured out if Big Boss doesn’t know his name even after at least a year of being his favorite, or if that’s the nickname he’s given Obi-Wan specifically. Obi-Wan is glad he’s no longer the favorite.
“Why did they single you out? Hmm?”
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan answers honestly. He still doesn’t know why it was him the men chose.
Big Boss grips his hair and pulls out a switchblade, flicking open the blade.
“Wait,” Obi-Wan says urgently. “The one with the curly hair. I heard him tell the others he thought I was gorgeous. That he wanted me so bad. He said he was intrigued by my hair.” Obi-Wan isn’t really lying, The man had said he was gorgeous the first time he’d been inside Obi-Wan. And when Obi-Wan had been drifting off earlier in the tent, Earnest Man had stroked his fingers through Obi-Wan’s auburn hair and told the others he’d never seen anything like it. And Ball-Cap had responded that he shouldn’t let himself fall for a crack whore.
Big Boss traces the tip of his sharpened blade down Obi-Wan’s neck and top of his chest, leaving behind a thin, beading trail of blood. He only pulls the blade away when he reaches the edge of his lingerie, the sheer top and bra combo obviously made for a woman. The Big Boss likes Obi-Wan’s hair too, so he wouldn’t want to let go of it long enough to take off Obi-Wan’s top. Obi-Wan is afraid he'll cut the straps and see the bandage on his back, but tries not to let his panic show. He breathes evenly, trying to stay calm.
“That’s it? That’s the reason they kept coming back to you.” The Big Boss scoffs derisively to himself.
“I was in a bit of a haze,” Obi-Wan says, even though he knows he shouldn’t speak if he isn’t asked a direct question.
Big Boss laughs though. “Good point. Ronnie, get the kit, sweetie here is seeming mighty sober. Must be that time of night for him.”
Obi-Wan doesn’t move or make a sound. Normally he would agree with the Big Boss that he would want another hit of drugs. Especially if he might have to deal with Big Boss any further. But he wants to keep his wits about him, not just because of Big Boss, but because he doesn’t want to be a high mess when he meets with the men he is beginning to suspect are New California Republic Army Rangers, undercover.
…He wonders if the Big Boss gives him another hit, if he will even be able to physically get to the meeting with the Rangers.
Rangers are soldiers they send in when no one else can do the job, when the New California Republic needs a precise, delicate, difficult job done. They were the special forces units of the NCR army, usually focused on slavery, intelligence, and other sensitive issues.
It makes sense NCR Rangers would have been sent if the Republic was trying to find where their citizens were being taken off too. It also makes sense why a good man like Earnest Man was in such a den of debauchery as this, if he was a Ranger.
Ronnie, one of Big Boss’s favorite guards, brings over a full needle and a bottle of vodka, swabbing Obi-Wan’s pockmarked inner elbow with the alcohol.
Ronnie slides the needle into Obi-Wan’s arm and gives him the dose.
Obi-Wan tries not to react at all through the whole process, but he can see Big Boss’s lips curl into a sadistic smile.
“Now, why don’t you let me use that fine cunt of yours,” Big Boss says as the drugs rush through Obi-Wan’s veins.
Obi-Wan doesn’t say anything, he just stands and begins to slide off his panties.
Big Boss sighs, disappointed. “I remember when you used to scream. I remember when you used to protest and fight and scratch and talk back. You’ve become boring, sweetie.”
Big Boss turns away, uncaring of Obi-Wan’s semi-nudity.
“Ronnie, get this wretch out of my sight. Bring in the new one with dark hair that screams so sweet,” Big Boss says, pleased with himself.
Obi-Wan barely has time to pull up his panties before he’s shoved out the door and Ronnie strides past him to go collect whatever poor slave has caught Big Boss’s attention right now.
Obi-Wan is a little wobbly from the drugs, but not hurt or incapacitated enough to need a guard escorting him back to the basement. And normally, with the threat of his brother and the explosive in his body (that would go off if he gets too far from the casino, if it was still in his body), he would do exactly as he was expected.
Neither of those threats hang over his head right now.
He stumbles towards the stairs, the guards on this level ignoring him. He’s not allowed to take the elevator, that’s for paying customers and employees. Most times, he would hate that he has to stumble down four flights of stairs to the basement, but this time he’s glad. There’s a stairwell exit on the first floor, which comes right out by the kitchens.
He makes his way as quickly and carefully down the stairs as he can. He doesn’t know what time it is, and how long the Ranger who comes to meet him will wait if he's late, but he doesn’t want to miss them even if it might be far too early. Big Boss had taken him a few hours before his shift in the tents was finished.
Obi-Wan exits on the first floor. The guards down here glance away from his swelling eye and bleeding neck, thinking that wherever he was going, the Big Boss had told him to go there.
Obi-Wan quietly enters the kitchens, trying to be as invisible as possible as he skirts the busy chefs making food for customers, hired thugs and bosses. The Casino’s menu wasn’t extensive, and there was no dining room, but they did offer food through room service, to their lounge, to exclusive club patrons and to their employees.
The chefs are busy at this time of night, and none of them give him more than a glance as he walks around the edge of the kitchen, staying out of their way.
He reaches the back door and no one says anything when he slips outside into the cooling, fall night air of the Las Vegas Strip.
Chapter 3: The Escape
Notes:
Thanks to all the comments, I appreciate them all so much!
I am aware there aren’t any horses in FO:NV, but suspend your disbelief, considering how much of America (animals, people, buildings, land) survived the nuclear apocalypse, I think horses would have survived (maybe they would just be a little rare).
And let’s be honest FO doesn’t have horses bc they are too difficult to program.And also, what’s the deal about no one using motorcycles or bicycles in the FO games? It’s like those people want to walk everywhere XD
Chapter Text
No one is in the alley to greet him.
Not wanting to get caught, Obi-Wan ducks behind a dumpster that smells awful, crouching against the brick wall of the casino and waits.
While he waits he begins to fall asleep, and has to keep forcing himself to stay awake.
The drugs in him don’t help, making the darkening, starless sky swirl in his vision. He hasn’t seen the stars in years. The bright lights from the Strip overpower any sight of them, and he’s rarely allowed outside, beyond the tented courtyard, anyways.
He’s on the edge of sleep again when he hears the quiet crunch of a shoe on one of the broken bottles that litter the alley.
He pokes his head cautiously out, trying to see without being seen, but the dark approaching figure spots him and nears.
Obi-Wan’s heart races, terrified of who it could be. But as the figure nears, Obi-Wan realizes it’s Earnest Man: the curly-haired man from earlier, so Obi-Wan stands.
“Thank the forces of nature,” Obi-Wan breathes and carefully walks along the glass strewn alley to the man. Earnest is still wearing the undercover disguise he had been in earlier, with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder.
“I’m glad I thought to bring some clothes,” Earnest man brings around the bag and helps Obi-Wan dress in a simple button up shirt, pants that are a little too big and a pair of shoes that are too tight. The outfit is topped off with a dusty cowboy hat that’s seen better days, and Earnest man pulls up Obi-Wan’s hair so it can hide under the brim.
Obi-Wan follows Earnest man out of the alley and down the bright Strip boardwalk. He keeps his head down and his hands in his pockets to help hold the loose pants up.
Obi-Wan can’t believe his luck when they aren’t stopped as they exit through the Strip’s main gate and walk out through Freeside.
Obi-Wan’s never been out this far from the casino while he’s been conscious, and he takes in the Vegas settlement from beneath the brim of his hat.
Outside the clean, manicured, gated Strip itself, Freeside is a shithole, reminiscent of many of the towns Obi-Wan saw before his kidnapping. Civilization is still living amongst the rubble and pockmarked infrastructure The Nuclear War brought. Although many parts of the Mojave desert and New California escaped the worst of the bombs, the War devastated the world’s landscapes… Or so he’s been told. He’s seen pictures of what these places looked like before the War, but that was almost two-hundred years ago now, and the sights of crumbling buildings and life-worn people are familiar to him.
They get all the way through Freeside and out again without anyone stopping them, although the further they get from the casino, the harder it is for Obi-Wan to keep going. He’s exhausted and hurt and it’s hard to walk in these shoes. He wouldn’t mind a place where he could sit down for a while and sleep off the worst of the drugs.
Outside the gate of Freeside, they meet up with Ball-Cap, who is also still in his disguise.
“Finally,” Ball-Cap breathes. “I was worried.”
“I was only gone fifteen minutes. It took that just to walk here and back, luckily he was waiting for me.” Earnest Man answers.
The two men look at him.
“You should know,” Obi-Wan slurs a bit, “The Omertas suspect you are NCR. They think you’re looking into them.”
“Is that how you got this?” Earnest man asks, running a gentle thumb along Obi-Wan’s bruised and swollen cheekbone.
“Cachino asked me who you were.” Obi-Wan forces himself to say that bastard's name. This was important for the Rangers to know. “If you asked me anything. Why you kept coming to see me.” Obi-Wan says, concentrating on the words so they come out somewhat clear.
“And what did you say?” Ball-Cap asks, eyes narrowed.
“I said you asked about sex and that you liked my hair and that was why you kept coming back to me.” Obi-Wan raises his chin and replies. But then looks away again. “He likes my hair too, he thought it was funny.”
Earnest and Ball-Cap lean towards each other and begin to argue quietly.
There’s a chilly breeze in the air and Obi-Wan shivers. “Can we go now?” Obi-Wan asks them quietly.
The two men pause their argument and swing over to look at him closely.
Ball-Cap swears. “He’s higher than a kite.”
“Big Boss forced it on me,” Obi-Wan says pathetically, terrified they’re gonna leave him behind.
“We can’t take him with us. Not yet.” Ball-Cap tells Earnest forcefully. “We gotta finish this mission first.”
Earnest sighs. “I was thinking we could take him to the Ranger safe house and have him wait for us there.”
“If he’s detoxing, we can’t leave him there,” Ball-Cap shakes his head. “And we can’t take him to the base, no civies allowed.”
“Civilian contractors are allowed,” Earnest argues back.
“Codes,” Ball-Cap says, full of exasperation.
‘Codes’ sighs and Obi-Wan staggers back a few steps, bracing himself on a nearby wall.
His head spins like he was given too much. And the two men talking about leaving him behind makes his chest feel tight.
“Ben?” Codes asks, his beautiful brown eyes wide.
“I, I,” Obi-Wan turns his head and vomits onto the ground. He feels worse than usual.
Ball-Cap gets close and forces open Obi-Wan’s right eye. “His pupils are tiny,” Ball-Cap frowns and feels around Obi-Wan’s neck for a pulse. “His skin is clammy and his heart is racing. I think he’s overdosing.”
Obi-Wan closes his eyes, shivering. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“We should move,” Codes looks up and down the street as if a solution will just appear in front of him.
“There’s a Followers camp full of doctors in Freeside,” Ball-Cap says.
Codes nods and steps close, picking Obi-Wan up in a bridal hold.
Ball-Cap opens the gate to Freeside and leads them back through as the world begins to fade.
The next time Obi-Wan is aware again, he wakes up feeling cold on his mattress with his head aching.
He sobs lowly in his dry throat, not opening his eyes.
It had all just been a horrible, yet wonderful dream. He hasn’t been saved, he is still a slave sleeping in the basement of Gomorrah Casino, with Big Boss just a few floors away.
“You’re awake,” an unfamiliar female voice says, voice full of concern.
Obi-Wan’s eyes fly open. Immediately, he wants to close them again. They hurt so bad in the bright light of mid-day. He is on a mattress on the ground in a large open tent, which looks to be inside some kind of fort.
It wasn’t a dream. He is safe.
“Where’s Codes?” Obi-Wan asked, eyes searching his surroundings.
“The men that brought you in?” The doctor says distantly, distracted as she takes Obi-Wan’s vitals. “They left soon after.”
“Did they say if they were coming back?” Obi-Wan asks, trying to keep his hope locked away, in case the answer was no.
“We were stabilizing you at the time. None of us thought to ask. You were overdosing. We did what we could to keep you alive, but you might have come back to consciousness quicker if we’d known what you took,” the doctor says, non-judgmentally.
Obi-Wan tells her the street drug's name. He has his suspicions of what it’s in it, but he really doesn’t know for sure. “I didn’t take it on purpose,” Obi-Wan says quietly, “They forced me.”
The doctor doesn’t say anything, she just squeezes Obi-Wan’s shoulder kindly and writes in his vitals on the chart she’s holding.
“Now that you’re stable, we’re going to start you on a taper regiment of the drug you were taking. We’ve noticed you are a long-time user, so weaning you off will be necessary so we don’t strain your already damaged heart.” The doctor explains. “Since I know what you had in your system, now, I am going to prepare the mixture. I will be back. Try to get some rest while I’m gone.”
Obi-Wan nods and closes his eyes against the bright glare of the sun shining through the open tent flap. There were a couple of other patients in this tent, and the sound of their sleeping breaths was soothing, like the other slaves he had slept amongst in the casino.
There is little to do in the Followers’ camp. It had been set up in Freeside, close to the Strip as a safe place for addicts to get help.
The doctor assigned to him set Obi-Wan up with a counselor to talk to. But other than talking to the counselor and his scheduled treatments each morning, he has little to do but think.
At first he’d been terrified to be somewhere so close to the strip, but the Followers have guards and the doctors have promised to register him under a false name.
The fact that his hair was so distinctive and easily visible if someone came into the camp, still terrifies him.
He’d talked about his fears with the counselor they had him seeing, and the next day the man had appeared with a mossy-green knitted hat that Obi-Wan could tuck his distinctive hair into. “It won’t hide you completely, but it will help,” the man had said kindly.
It did help. And sometimes when he had nothing to do but sit on his mattress, he would take it off and trace the woven threads over and over. It was soothing.
Obi-Wan spends two weeks on the reduced withdrawal replacement treatment before the doctors begin to discuss weaning him off completely. They still say that he should complete another week. They want him to slowly reduce the amount he was taking even more, which Obi-Wan appreciates. He’s not excited to go off completely yet, even if the reduced amount he’s taking isn’t enough for him to escape some of the awful withdrawal symptoms. He knows they would be so much worse if he had quit cold-turkey.
In all the time he’s been here, he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of ‘Codes’, or Ball-Cap, or even False Eye.
The day before his treatment is to go the last step down to the smallest amount (a step that he has been dreading), he wakes up to a feeling of excitement in the camp.
There are whispers and hurried discussions between doctors and guards, even hushed conversations between patients. Most of the patients tend to keep to themselves, so this is unusual to see.
“What’s going on?” Obi-Wan asks one of the other occupants of the tent, a man named Bill Ronte.
“Apparently last night the New California Republic Army raided Gomorrah Casino. I heard they arrested several of the Omertas management and freed quite a few slaves.”
Obi-Wan's heart aches. He would have thought that he’d be happy to hear such a thing, but inside he just feels cold fear and sadness.
“Not the,” Obi-Wan licks his dry lips, “Not the owners?”
Bill shrugs. “Heard the reason they did it had something to do with managers hiring out the kidnapping of NCR citizens.”
Obi-Wan and the other slaves had seen or heard little about the top Omertas who owned Gomorrah. And the pain and punishment and chains of slavery had always come from Cachino and his underlings.
Obi-Wan has always assumed the owners had known though. He wonders if there had been no proof at all that the owners were involved. That would mean that, Obi-Wan swallows thickly, Gomorrah Casino would stay open for business. The building would continue to stand and serve as a reminder to all who passed through, of the wicked things that had been done and the Casino probably still would do.
Obi-Wan and his counselor have recently been talking about symbols of pain. About how just the sight and idea of things that hurt you could cause further pain. He would have expected to hear such news as the possibility of Big Boss’s imprisonment would take away his fear… and yet it didn’t.
Obi-Wan realizes he’s been staring, unseeingly, at Bill. He blinks and looks away. “Guess the Strip isn’t the Strip without Gomorrah.”
“Yeah,” Bill says awkwardly and leaves the tent.
That night, Obi-Wan is eating a bowl of plain gruel with half a fresh apple. He’s lucky to have the apple. The Followers do their best with this outreach program, but they lack the funding to have good food for themselves, let alone for their patients.
It seems there’s celebration in the air though, because the apple had been a surprise. One of the doctor’s aides had handed Obi-Wan the bowl of gruel, then they had grinned widely and offered to split their apple with him.
He looks up from his last spoonful of gruel to see a familiar face chatting to Dr. Farkas, the head doctor of this camp. Obi-Wan isn’t sure if he hadn’t expected to see Codes ever again, or if he just hadn’t expected to see Codes so soon.
Obi-Wan’s head sinks down a bit, and he stares across at a crate that’s a few feet from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the cool ground.
Obi-Wan still doesn’t have anywhere to go once he completes his withdrawal program with the doctors here. So he knows if Codes honors his offer to take Obi-Wan back to his home, Obi-Wan will probably agree. But the part of him that is still learning what freedom means is deeply troubled at the idea of leaving one form of slavery only to feel like he’s in another.
Obi-Wan doesn’t realize he’s clenching the edge of his empty bowl in his left fist until Codes, now in his Ranger armor and uniform, approaches and crouches down in a squat in front of Obi-Wan.
“How are you doing?” The Ranger asks. He looks handsome in his Ranger uniform and hat.
“Better I think, thank-you for getting me out. I… heard about Gomorrah. Did you really arrest Cachino?” Obi-Wan asks.
Codes shakes his head. “He resisted arrest. We were able to arrest some of the other managers, but he wouldn’t let himself be taken in.”
“Then he’s dead?”
Codes nods.
Obi-Wan drops his bowl with a tiny clank and covers his face with his hands. The tears and feelings of relief that come make him feel ashamed. He shouldn’t feel so good about someone else’s death but… the pain and misery that man caused ache through him still. The things he had done to Obi-Wan, and now the man is dead.
Obi-Wan feels a gentle hand cup his elbow, a simple touch giving Obi-Wan reassurance that someone is there.
“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan whispers, lowering his hands.
“The things he did to you.” The Ranger shakes his head, “I understand.”
“Thank you, Ranger Codes, for everything you’ve done.”
The Ranger laughs. “My name is Cody, not Codes. Codes is what Rex calls me. Rex has always given nicknames to the people he decides he likes. To be fair to him, he’s followed me through hell and highwater, so he’s allowed to give me a silly nickname.” There’s a fondness in his tone as he speaks. Obi-Wan is glad Cody has someone to cover his back. Rangers have dangerous jobs.
Obi-Wan can’t help the blush that stains his cheeks though, he’s been thinking of this man by the wrong name this whole time.
“Sorry,” he says, embarrassed. “You’ve told me your name, I guess it’s fair for me to tell you mine.”
“I thought your name was Ben?” Cody frowns.
“That was the name one of the other slaves gave me when I wouldn’t… when I couldn’t speak my name at first. I was in shock, waking up to what I did.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, trying to shake away the memories. “My name is Obi-Wan.”
Cody smiles, a charming, beautiful smile. There’s something about Cody that pulls Obi-Wan in, that intrigues him, that makes him yearn to be back in his lap. He hates how much he yearns for sex. How much his body and mind have craved it these past weeks, so much so, it’s been a physical ache.
“Nice to meet you Obi-Wan. Speaking of Rex… Our Colonel has given us both a couple weeks leave, with the success of our mission. So Rex and I are going home to New California. I know when we first talked about you escaping, you said you didn’t have anywhere to go. I offered to bring you back home with me, and well, that offer is still open. If you’re interested, that is.”
“Where is your home?” Obi-Wan asks quietly, his gut churning as he thought through the offer.
“It’s on a little ranch my father left me in Weldon County. It’s in a little grassland valley in the Sequoia region. A little east of Lake Isabella and north of Los Angeles.”
Obi-Wan nodded. He’d grown up east of there, in California on the other side of the Death Valley near Tecopa. But he’s never had anything going for him here in the Mojave, and he is ready to leave it behind. He can’t imagine there is anything left back at home either, not after…
“When are you leaving?” Obi-Wan asks, trying not to finish that thought in his own mind.
“Tomorrow. It’ll probably take us a three to four day journey on horseback, so we’ll leave early and rest the horses at the hottest times.”
Tomorrow meant Obi-Wan would have to leave the taper program behind early. That meant he’d go through the rest of withdrawal a week early. But this would be a trip back to New California with people to watch his back. He might be walking into another form of slavery if he ends up becoming just a warm hole for Cody to use but… he seems like a nice man. Obi-Wan has lived a much worse fate, with much worse people using his body. And at least this would get Obi-Wan out of Nevada and away from the Strip.
“Alright, I’ll go with you.”
Chapter 4: The First Leg
Notes:
Your comments and kudos are incredibly appreciated! Hope you all enjoy this chapter.
Chapter Text
When Cody left the night before, he let Obi-Wan know that Cody would come by to collect Obi-Wan early the next morning. This meant that Obi-Wan is able to get one last treatment before the start of their journey.
“I don’t advise you leaving your treatment program early, but I’m not going to stop you,” Doctor Mondey — the doctor he’s primarily worked with since he’d woken up here — tells him that morning as she prepares to administer his daily dose.
“I know. But this might be my only chance to get back to New California,” Obi-Wan responds softly. He’s grateful for all of her help, he’s grateful for the help of all the staff here. They do this work for free, solely to make the Mojave desert a better place to live and he admires them for their dedication and kindness.
“I understand,” she says sympathetically, squeezing his shoulder in the way she always does. “From here on out, I wish you a better life, Ben,” she swabs the inner crook of his elbow and gives him the diluted drug for the last time.
He dresses in the same shirt and dusty cowboy hat he arrived at The Followers in, as well as some socks, pants and shoes he was able to find in the Followers’ donation bins.
As he waits for Cody, the sun rises and his counselor comes to see him off. Obi-Wan tries to return the green knitted cap to the man, but the man pushes the cap back towards Obi-Wan and then hugs him gently.
Obi-Wan thanks the man, and his counselor tells him that the man thought Obi-Wan had made amazing progress and he hoped Obi-Wan would continue to do so. He mentions that Obi-Wan had been more willing to let go of the past and break away from the root of his forced addiction than most of the patients the man’s counseled over the past five years.
The man’s words get Obi-Wan thinking. Obi-Wan hasn’t thought to ask how the man came to be with the Followers and now he kind of wishes he had more time to ask the man about his past and why he would choose a life like this.
Whatever the reason, the man has done so much for Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan will be grateful for his help for the rest of his life.
Cody arrives not much later and Obi-Wan is surprised that Rex isn’t with him.
When Obi-Wan mentions this, Cody just smiles and leads him out of the old fort, through Freeside towards the outer gate of the city. “He’s waiting with the horses.”
Sure enough, when they exit Freeside into the Mojave desert, Rex is there, waiting with two beautiful, large stock horses.
“They’re big for stock horses,” Obi-Wan says quietly. He walks up to the darker chocolate-brown horse that he can tell is Cody’s, considering how Rex was holding its reins further away from his body. It also helps that Rex is standing right up against the caramel-brown horse, who was currently mouthing at Rex’s broad-brimmed ranger hat. Rex doesn’t move to push the horse’s mouth away, as if such a thing were a common occurrence. So Obi-Wan can confidently assume that the caramel-brown horse is Rex’s.
Obi-Wan holds out his hand and, once the horse accepts his scent, he begins to stroke its neck.
“Vigilance,” Cody points to his own dark horse and then he points to Rex’s caramel-brown horse with white socks and a white star on its forehead. “And Resolute were both from a line of stock horses that were crossbred with draft horses a couple generations back. They are faster than draft horses, but steadier, calmer and a bit larger than most stock horses. While we mostly don’t ride them into battle, we’ve encountered more than a fight or two while riding.” Cody comes up beside Obi-Wan and pats Vigilance’s flank. “Their even tempers have been a saving grace.”
Cody steps up beside his horse and swings himself up into the saddle. “We should get going,” he holds out his hand to Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan lets himself be pulled up behind Cody. Someone had strapped a bedding roll just behind the saddle, so Obi-Wan can use it as cushioning for a seat.
Rex climbs up onto his own horse, which is packed heavier than Cody’s, and the group sets off.
During Obi-Wan’s stay with the Followers, he had a lot of extra time. Most of that was spent sleeping, and luckily, the frequent naps had helped immensely with his withdrawal symptoms.
Sitting upright on a horse behind a man in hard combat armor is not conducive to mid-morning naps. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan now finds himself falling asleep against Cody’s back a couple hours into their journey.
An hour later, Obi-Wan is jerked out of his semi-doze by the sound of gunshots. Rex and Cody both have pistols drawn and a Legionary scout lies dead beside the road, a weapon in hand.
“Fucking Legion,” Rex curses. “We’re pretty close to the border into New California, they shouldn’t be this far. We should let the troopers at the next outpost know there are enemy scouts in this area. They can pass the message on to Camp McCarran.”
Cody nods grimly and tucks his gun away. The horses never broke their strides during the entire ordeal, which speaks to their calm temperaments and trust in their riders.
Obi-Wan shivers as they pass by the body. Legionaries make up the raiding parties that sneak into New California and kidnap people as slaves.
He is happy that they won’t have to pass close to any Legion occupied areas in order to go through the border into New California at the Mojave Outpost.
A couple hours back, they had passed by the large NCR army base at Camp McCarran that had made its home in Vegas’ former airport, just south of the New Vegas Strip.
Cody had pointed out the guards and entrances, and afterwards, Obi-Wan had asked where their route back into New California.
Cody had answered they were going the fastest, most direct route possible. From Camp McCarran, they would head southeast down Highway 15 through Sloan and then they would stop in Primm for the night. Before the Nuclear war, the border to California had been just after Primm, but the NCR has found that using the Clark Mountain Range was an easier border to maintain, so they would have another day before they could actually pass into the New California Republic.
Regardless, Obi-Wan wishes they were stopping, for the night, sooner. A full day of riding sounds excruciating, especially with Obi-Wan’s body unused to getting this little of the drug. Already, he is feeling like the dose he got this morning was not enough. And he’s worried tomorrow will be even worse. He can’t imagine what the withdrawal symptoms are going to be like, tomorrow, if it’s already starting to get them this badly today. The dose today was significantly less than yesterday, and already his head and eyes are aching. He knows he can’t complain though, he’s already so much better because of the careful care the doctors in Freeside have given him. He can’t imagine the agony he’d be in right now if he hadn’t been on the taper program for the last two weeks.
Complaining won’t help his plight, so he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he shuts his eyes, grits his teeth and leans forward, pressing his face into Cody’s strong back.
He wraps his hands loosely around Cody’s waist and rests his eyes. It feels like he dozes again for a bit, but whenever he feels like he’s about to fall asleep, his body has the sudden sensation of slipping and he jerks awake.
The rest of the morning is spent like that.
A couple of hours after they pass the broken remnants of Sloan, they pull off the highway to a rest area maintained by the nearby town of Good Springs. There is even a spot where they can let their horses drink and have an hour of shade and rest.
Obi-Wan finds a nice rock to lean against and actually falls asleep this time. It’s a much more restful sleep here than the half doze from that morning; especially considering the fact that here he doesn’t have to worry about falling.
But when Cody gently shakes Obi-Wan awake, his head is pounding and his gut is churning. He wishes he’d had a bit longer to rest.
The intense heat of noon has passed by and they ready themselves to leave.
It takes the whole afternoon to get to Primm. The sun is beginning to set as the three of them ride into town.
Obi-Wan is grateful for the stop, his head and body ache. He’s unused to riding horseback for so long, and he can feel that reflected in the pain in his thighs. On top of that, he’s starting to feel the beginning of much worse withdrawal symptoms. He feels dizzy and more than a little queasy.
“We need to check in with the NCR outpost here,” Rex turns his head and says to Cody as they lead their horses up off the highway.
“We should see if there’s a stable where we can settle the horses too,” Cody says quietly. “And get a hotel room. It’ll be nice to sleep the night in an actual bed.”
Rex nods. “You wanna take getting a room and finding a place to bed the horses and I’ll go see who’s around at the outpost?”
Cody agrees and Rex splits off from them, heading across the overpass towards a small grouping of green tents amongst the rubble of the buildings.
Cody leads Vigilance towards the signs for “The Vikki and Vance Casino! Right across the street from the Buffalo Bill Hotel!”
This section of the city has been fixed up a bit, and residents as well as patrons of this town’s tiny casino are out and about, strolling along the streets. The patrons here look dirtier and stronger than the soft customers of the Strip, but there’s a kind weariness to their faces that is missing on the people of the Strip. It’s not a surprise considering the Strip’s fences and robotic security make it a place of safe debauchery. People there think their refined cruelty makes them better than the people out here in the desert. Obi-Wan has to disagree, from what he’s seen these people just seem to be trying their best to live in a harsh world.
They trot around the corner of the casino and the hotel comes into view, next to a broken down roller coaster.
Cody dismounts and then helps Obi-Wan down.
There’s something that makes him feel a bit weak in the knees when Cody puts his hands on Obi-Wan’s hips and lifts him to the ground.
Cody doesn’t tie up his horse anywhere, instead whispers something in Vigilance’s ear, before he leads Obi-Wan in through the door of the hotel.
Obi-Wan’s eyes look around the dark, but clean interior of the lobby, while Cody talks to the proprietor about room rates. The prices mentioned worry Obi-Wan, everything sounds so expensive. But in the end, Cody sighs and settles on getting one double room.
Cody takes Obi-Wan up the stairs to the third floor and opens the door to a decently clean room with two large double beds and an en-suite bathroom with a functioning bathtub. Obi-Wan knows his eyes must be gleaming in excitement at the thought of an actual bath. He’s been subsiding on sponge baths for years now, with the occasional cold bucket of water thrown over him by a sadistically laughing casino guard.
Cody sets down the packs he brought in, that had been tied to Vigilance.
“Would you be alright if we shared a bed?” Cody asks him, eyes large and earnest again. “If not, I’m sure I can convince Rex to share with me. But he kicks, so I’d rather not sleep next to him.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes flicker down Cody’s thick muscular body and finds himself nodding in agreement.
Cody smiles. “I need to get back to Vigilance, I don’t want to leave her alone too long. I’ll be back in a couple of hours with something for us to eat.”
Obi-Wan nods and watches Cody walk out before he checks around the room. He’s heard employees at the Casino say that people often leave interesting things behind in hotel rooms.
He finds a horrible looking dust ball under one of the beds, a small pouch of bottlecaps wedged behind a bedside table and a bottle of sweet smelling shampoo and a bar of soap tucked in a cabinet behind some cleaners, looking like someone had tried to hide them. He pockets the bottlecaps, which are often used as currency these days, puts the shampoo and soap beside the tub to use and ignores the dust ball.
He strips off in the bathroom, carefully rinsing out each article of dusty clothing before squeezing out as much water as possible. He then takes his clothes back into the room, opens the balcony door and hangs each article on the railing there. The tiny balcony itself looks rickety and one hard breeze away from crumbling, so he doesn’t step onto it and hangs his clothes no further than he can reach.
Obi-Wan then goes back into the bathroom and begins to run a bath. He is surprised there is actually warm water. He hasn’t had a warm bath in so long.
He slides into the water and begins to cry at how good it feels.
It takes him a while to finally wash up and get out. He’s a little dizzy, but the edge of his withdrawal symptoms are more annoying than debilitating. Despite the dizziness, he feels good: more clean and relaxed than he has been in a long time. He relishes the feeling.
He eats a ration bar Cody had left, then he sits on the bed.
He’s still sitting on the bed in nothing but a towel, staring out the window at the darkening sky when Cody walks back into the room.
Cody stops, the door still open behind him, staring at Obi-Wan with an intense gaze.
Obi-Wan stands, letting the towel fall away so he is completely bare before Cody’s eyes, and he can see Cody’s throat bob in the low light of the room.
“Close the door, Cody,” Obi-Wan takes a step forward and says quietly.
Cody reaches back blindly and swings the door shut, his eyes not leaving Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan steps close and he flicks on the light, letting Cody see him completely. Then he reaches up and takes off Cody’s dusty hat, putting it on the nearby scratched up bookshelf.
There’s a crease from the edge of his hat, running through the middle of Cody’s forehead, his short curly hair is matted down and flat-looking from spending all day under his broad-brimmed ranger hat.
“Can I… have you?” Cody asks, sexual tension rising thick and potent between them.
Obi-Wan considers Cody’s question. He had honestly expected Cody to just take him, but he appreciates Cody actually asking.
Obi-Wan nods.
Cody presses forward, his strong fingers grabbing Obi-Wan’s shoulders, bringing him in for a kiss.
Obi-Wan’s fingers scramble up Cody’s chest, blindly searching for the catches on Cody’s body armor. Cody moves back and looks down, confused.
“You’re a little overdressed,” Obi-Wan smiles.
Cody blinks only processing for a second before he begins stripping down, armor and boots set against the shelf and then his uniform thrown on top.
Cody’s body is gorgeous. Slim and muscled from hard work, his shoulders are broad and his thighs thick, displaying the strength he hides beneath his Ranger uniform.
Cody steps forward, backing Obi-Wan onto the bed.
Cody surrounds him completely in this position, and Obi-Wan presses up into Cody, feeling like for once, he is safe… As if this man’s body could shield him from the pain and cruelty of the world.
Cody kisses Obi-Wan, fingers trailing down Obi-Wan’s side and then across his pelvis, skimming down the side of his cock and then teasing the outside of his folds. His fingers dip inside, checking how wet Obi-Wan is.
“Sorry,” Obi-Wan closes his eyes. “It… it might take a while for me to be wet enough without help.” He can’t remember the last time he’d been able to slick on his own. He’d usually lubed himself up before his shifts. It didn’t always last, but it helped.
“I’ll grab my bottle of lube. You’d be surprised how many uses it has in the field,” Cody smiles, the scar around his left eye wrinkling.
He gets up, leaving Obi-Wan feeling cold.
Obi-Wan props himself up on his elbows and watches Cody rummage through his pack. He holds up a bottle in triumph and then turns back to the pack again.
“Fuck, I–I don’t have a condom,” Cody freezes.
“I, I’m clean now,” Obi-Wan blushes. He’d asked the doctors to screen him for diseases and infections. He’d spent two weeks on antibiotics, but his most recent blood tests — he’d had a couple days before Cody came to retrieve him — had been clear. “You could take me bare.”
Cody closes his eyes and groans. “Fuck. That, that sounds fucking fantastic.”
Cody comes back over to the bed, crowding Obi-Wan back down onto the blankets.
It isn’t long before Cody is sliding into him. Cody had been generous with the lube and it feels good. Obi-Wan had been scared it wouldn’t.
He can’t remember the last time being fucked felt so good. But the penetration is mildly pleasant, rather than painful or uncomfortable.
Cody pulls Obi-Wan’s thighs up and around his hips. Obi-Wan takes the hint and crosses his ankles behind Cody’s back.
Cody is making sensual, deep, rolling thrusts inside Obi-Wan, breathing heavily against the damp hair sticking to Obi-Wan’s neck when the door to the room suddenly swings open.
Rex is standing in the doorway.
Rex groans. “Fucking hell Cody. You left me at the stable twenty minutes ago.”
Cody pressed down on Obi-Wan, covering him with his body, protectively. “Close the door, Rex,” he barks.
Rex shuts the door and walks into the room, body tight and angry.
“Sorry Obi-Wan,” Cody breathes as he stares up at Rex, not moving.
Cody turns back and stares down at Obi-Wan, eyes searching Obi-Wan’s.
Obi-Wan moves his hand off the bed — from where he’d been bracing himself — and strokes that hand up Cody’s chest and shoulders. He circles his hands around the back of Cody’s neck and pulls him in, so his face is pressed down against Obi-Wan’s neck and hair again.
“You feel so good,” Cody whispers and begins to thrust again.
From the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan can see Rex stroppily taking off his weapons, armor and uniform. Once Rex is naked, he slams into the bathroom, closing the door with a bang behind him.
Obi-Wan urges Cody into his climax, squeezing around him and moaning quietly.
Cody comes with a grunt, sighing as his warmth fills Obi-Wan’s cunt. He rolls off Obi-Wan so as not to crush him, closing his eyes in bliss and satisfaction.
Obi-Wan moves to the edge of the bed, gazing towards the bathroom door.
“Do you need me to help you get off?” Cody asks sleepily, cracking one eye open.
Obi-Wan shakes his head. “Do you mind if I…” he points towards the bathroom door.
Cody smiles, his face full of relaxed, relieved affection. “Rex and I share almost everything. I would be more than happy if that’s what you want.”
Obi-Wan blinks, considering. He doesn’t know if having both of them is what he wants, but he knows he doesn’t want to disrupt whatever is between Cody and Rex.
The problem with that is Rex seems to have… conflicted emotions about Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan has had little to do but watch people over the last two years. He can tell Rex desires Obi-Wan’s body, yet he can also tell Rex feels anger, maybe even jealousy over seeing Cody and Obi-Wan together. What Obi-Wan doesn’t know though, is if the jealousy is over himself or Cody.
What he does know is that beyond their affection for one another, Cody and Rex seem to be a package deal. Obi-Wan gets the impression that their sharing goes beyond the physical. That the two of them are partners, joined for life. How or why, he doesn’t know. But if he wants a good relationship with Cody, he needs to find a way to make Rex at least tolerate him.
Obi-Wan nods at Cody, letting the man drift off to sleep as he heads over to the bathroom door. He makes sure to lock the door to their hotel room before he tries the handle of the bathroom door.
The door is not locked, so he knocks softly and walks in.
Chapter 5: The Gamble
Notes:
Everyone who has commented and kudo'd is incredibly appreciated. I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Chapter Text
Rex’s back is to him when Obi-Wan enters. Rex is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, reaching for the knobs to turn off the water. Obi-Wan is startled to notice that Rex has blond hair. Up until now, he hasn’t seen the man without a hat, and the lightness of his hair is a surprise. Rex’s bright hair doesn’t quite match his dark eyes and his warm dark-amber skin tone. Obi-Wan quietly notes the beauty of how those dark eyes contrast with his bright blond hair, as Rex turns to face him.
“Cody that was not—” Rex says as he turns and freezes when he sees Obi-Wan. “I thought you were Cody.”
His face hardens and he gets into the bathtub, his expression daring Obi-Wan to say anything about his state of vulnerability.
Obi-Wan tilts his head. “Cody’s probably asleep by now. Can I… can I join you?” Obi-Wan asks, gesturing to the bathtub.
Obi-Wan can see the line of Rex’s jaw harden. “Fine,” he bites out.
Obi-Wan climbs into the tub, kneeling around Rex’s legs, facing him. He picks up the bar of soap and begins to lather up Rex’s arms and chest, which seems to surprise Rex.
“You don’t have to…” his expression slumps into a look of sheepish confusion.
“I want to,” Obi-Wan assures him.
Rex makes no move to help him, he just sits back and watches Obi-Wan gently lather him and then rinse each body part with cupped hands — all the while with a blank expression on his face.
When Obi-Wan scoots all the way to the other end of the bathtub and lifts one of Rex’s feet so he can wash them, Rex finally breaks the silence.
“You don’t have to try and make me like you.”
Just so that he doesn’t have to make eye contact, Obi-Wan concentrates on washing between Rex’s toes, which makes Rex shiver.
“Cody says you share a lot of things.” Obi-Wan says and glances up quickly from beneath his lashes.
Rex responds slowly with a fair amount of incredulity in his voice, “So that means we should share you?”
Obi-Wan puts down Rex’s other foot and kneels up straight in the tub so his torso, half-hard cock, swollen pussy and tensed thighs are on display. “Do you not want me?” Obi-Wan subtly gestures to his cunt.
This is what Obi-Wan is good at. To his knowledge, this is the only thing he’s good at anymore.
He takes a chance and glances up at Rex again. Rex is almost all the way hard, and there is a look of intrigued curiosity in his eyes.
“You’ve had me before,” Obi-Wan whispers. “Was I not good for you then?”
Rex breathes heavily from his nose, his nostrils flaring. For a moment the air is thick between them, but neither of them move.
“Come here then,” Rex eventually says, voice thick. He doesn’t reach out with his hands for Obi-Wan like Cody does, but he draws Obi-Wan in with the heaving of his chest and the desire in his voice.
Obi-Wan grips the edges of the bathtub and uses it to move along until he’s just over Rex’s thighs.
The side of his cunt rubs against the head of Rex’s dick as he gets close.
Rex’s fingers spread apart the folds of Obi-Wan’s pussy, his gaze staring down at what is revealed.
Obi-Wan would have to be incredibly flexible to see what Rex is seeing, and he wonders if Rex can see Cody’s cum dripping out of him. He feels incredibly wet inside.
As Rex’s hands drop away, Obi-Wan reaches one hand between them and grips Rex’s cock so he can press himself down onto it. It slips inside really easily, the lube, cum and the stretching of Cody’s thickness in him earlier, eases the way. The penetration aches a little more than when he’d had Cody inside him. He feels a little tender inside, but he doesn’t give any outward indication of the hint of pain.
His headache is also rearing its head again, but he ignores it in favor of moving slowly up and down on Rex’s dick. He grips the sides of the tub to give himself leverage, and surprisingly, Rex puts each of his hands over top of Obi-Wan’s so they are connected at three points. It’s strangely intimate.
They're pretty close together now and Rex can’t see between them anymore. So Rex leans his head back and closes his eyes, just enjoying the sensation.
After a while, Obi-Wan can tell Rex is growing annoyed by the slow pace. Obi-Wan doesn’t speed up though, because he’s aching inside and also because he wants to see what Rex will do.
What Rex does is shove him off with a growl and manhandle Obi-Wan around so he’s now faced away.
A bit of water sloshes out of the tub, but Rex pays it no mind. He presses Obi-Wan’s shoulders down and forward so he’s on his hands and knees, head dangerously close to the tap and the surface of the water.
Rex gets up behind him and presses back in, gripping Obi-Wan’s hips hard and beginning to thrust forcefully.
Obi-Wan’s face tightens at the mild sting of each thrust and he bites his lip to keep himself from making a yelp at the initial penetration. He’s dealt with pain much more intense than this, and Rex’s cock does feel good inside him.
He relaxes his body and tries to press back into Rex’s strong thrusts.
Finally Rex comes, shuddering and shaking and groaning.
Obi-Wan lets Rex come down from his orgasm, then gently pulls away. Rex lets go of him and sinks back, letting Obi-Wan get out of the tub.
The water has grown cold so Obi-Wan turns on the hot water tap and picks up the soap bar from where it's fallen out of the tub and onto the floor.
“Lean forward so I can get your back,” Obi-Wan says quietly as a trail of cum trickles down his thigh and onto the cool tile floor.
Rex cracks open an eye and sighs, but leans forward.
Once Obi-Wan has finished cleaning Rex, he turns off the hot water and leaves Rex to wash his face and intimate areas, and relax by himself.
He drips water all along the floor in the bathroom and then through the carpeted bedroom.
Cody is asleep, naked, on top of the covers. His face is beautiful and relaxed in sleep. Obi-Wan uses the towel he’d dropped earlier to dry himself off again.
Carefully, Obi-Wan pulls the covers out from under Cody. He climbs inside the bed next to the man and pulls the covers over them both.
He’s exhausted, so it doesn't take long to fall asleep to the rhythm of Cody’s even breaths.
Obi-Wan wakes up with a warm body pressed against his back and a muscular arm pinning him back against the solid body behind him.
In the bed across the room, Rex is sleeping on his back, arm thrown over his face, blankets kicked off of his nude form.
It’s early. The sun is just starting to rise, turning the sky a soft orange. There are no curtains to cover the slightly cracked glass balcony door, and Obi-Wan can see right out of them.
Today is his first day without any of the drug mixture the doctors had been giving him.
Even though it’s not bright yet, his head already throbs, his feet and hands feel ice cold, and his muscles feel weak all over. He needs some of the drug. He feels that grasping need for it in his veins.
He closes his eyes and takes some deep breaths, trying to push the feeling away. The deep breathing from Cody and soft snoring from Rex are soothing in a way he has never experienced. And after a moment the intense feeling of need recedes a bit.
Obi-Wan shifts back a bit into Cody’s warmth and Cody stirs.
A gentle kiss is pressed to Obi-Wan’s shoulder and he shivers. He doesn’t deserve how kindly Cody treats him.
Obi-Wan can feel Cody’s morning wood poking him in the thigh. He wants the closeness of sex, but he doesn’t really want to be penetrated, especially considering how awful he feels and the fact that he is going to have to ride horseback all day. So instead, he grasps Cody’s arm, pulling it away so he won’t roll onto it and twists so he’s facing Cody.
Cody smiles at him, his eyes barely open, “Good morning.”
Obi-Wan smiles back, running his hand down Cody’s chest and the sparse, rough hair there. “You know I’ve never sucked you off. Wanna have you in my mouth. Can I?” Obi-Wan asks with fake shyness.
Cody sucks in a surprised breath. “Yeah, of course.”
Obi-Wan slithers down Cody’s body, admiring the man’s filling dick, tracing the veins with the tips of his fingers. Obi-Wan puts his mouth around the head, licking at the salty pre-cum there. He’s good at this, better even than intercourse, and he knows how to make Cody feel good.
He uses all his techniques to give Cody pleasure, pulling the man higher and higher towards his climax. Finally, Cody finishes in his mouth, breathing heavily with his eyes closed.
“That was nice,” Cody sighs.
In the other bed, Rex snorts in his sleep and turns over.
Obi-Wan rests his forehead on Cody’s thigh, tasting Cody’s spend on his tongue. It isn’t a great taste, but it isn’t the worst thing he’s had in his mouth either. He wishes he had a toothbrush. Last night he had used his finger because he’d forgotten to bring the one the Followers had provided him with.
Cody hums above him. “I suppose I should get up and have a wash. I know you and Rex washed last night, and today might be the last time with a tub until we get home in two or three days.”
Cody kept calling it that: home. Obi-Wan wonders if he will come to call it that too, or if it will just be a waypoint for him to get back into New California. Obi-Wan honestly isn’t sure if Cody and Rex will still be interested in Obi-Wan staying there long term. And while Obi-Wan is afraid of what will become of him if he leaves Cody’s protection, he also isn’t sure he can handle living under someone's rule, or living in someone else’s home after what he has endured.
He pushes those thoughts away to be dealt with at another time.
Obi-Wan lets Cody up when he pats Obi-Wan’s shoulder, also moving away to begin gathering his washed clothes from the balcony.
By the time Obi-Wan is dressed, Rex is awake and watching Obi-Wan from where he lies on the second bed, completely unashamed of his nudity.
The other man’s intense stare is a little unnerving.
“Everything alright?” Obi-Wan asks timidly.
“You tell me.” Rex says, looking thoughtful.
Obi-Wan nods. “Well, we all forgot to eat last night, so we’d probably better find something this morning.” He doesn’t mention that his gut is squirming, burning with acid and nausea, and he hopes that eating something will calm his raging stomach.
“Alright. Did Cody go to get food?”
Obi-Wan shakes his head. “He’s having a bath. He said it would probably be the last time we’d get a good wash before we get to the ranch. Since I’m ready, maybe I should go get food?”
Rex is already heading towards the bathroom door when Obi-Wan poses his question, and he pauses, looking over his shoulder. “That would be nice, thank you.”
Obi-Wan nods back, heart thumping in his chest as he approaches the door. He hasn’t been out in the world by himself in years. He’d been locked away for so long. And since he was freed, he’s been with either Cody and Rex or the kind doctors of the Followers.
He’s never had to be alone out in the world, since he was taken. He hasn’t even had to think about it before now, but he’s suddenly terrified. His suddenly ice-cold hands shake as he reaches for the doorknob.
“Obi-Wan,” Rex is suddenly behind him and Obi-Wan jumps.
“Y-yes?”
“Here,” Rex hands him some cash. “You’ll need money to get food.”
Obi-Wan thanks him and takes the cash, holding in a sigh of disappointment when Rex turns away and enters the bathroom.
Rex leaves the door open a crack and Obi-Wan can hear the gentle murmur of Rex and Cody talking.
He can just barely make out their voices if he concentrates, but afraid of what he might hear, Obi-Wan straightens his shoulders and leaves the room.
The old woman at the front desk tells him that the Casino across the street will start serving hot food at their bar around ten AM, but before that they might have cold food.
“I’m afraid we don’t have any other places to eat in town,” the old woman says sadly. “We used to have a cafe, but the proprietors lost everything at the Casino a couple of years ago, and no one has opened anything here since. People who travel through on their way to visit the Strip, or to trade, or stop at our Casino usually bring their own food or stop by the Casino for a bite to eat.”
Obi-Wan nods, turning away.
“Here dear, have a mint. I made them myself and you look like you could use one.” The lady pushes a bowl across the desk marked with cigarette burns. This lady seems like she keeps the fixed-up areas of the hotel pretty clean, so the burns must be a long-forgotten trace from the people who had owned the hotel before the War.
Obi-Wan picks up one of the little candies and pops it into his mouth. He expects it to taste awful, like dust or chemicals, like most of the candy that had survived the War. But it isn’t. Instead it is soft and sweet and minty and it almost melts on his tongue. The angry nausea in his stomach even feels a little calmer.
“This is… so good. Where did you find these?” Obi-Wan asks, curious.
“Made them myself, dear,” the old pale woman smiles at him. “They’re butter mints. Here, I can write you the recipe if you like them. The mint can be dried or fresh, although using the mint leaf directly makes it a little chewy. I usually try to press the oil out of the mint and use that instead, but it does take longer.” The woman finds a spare bit of paper and writes the recipe out carefully, cursing when her pencil breaks and she has to sharpen it with a knife. “I also use a bit of cola for flavoring instead of vanilla. I found the recipe in an old book, and I’ve never seen vanilla before,” she shrugs.
There are a lot of things in pre-war recipes that people have had to find creative substitutes for. There are so many things just not available now. Their world has been scarred by the War. And it has been slow to recover, but hearing stories about what the wastes were like two hundred years ago after the bombs dropped, Obi-Wan thinks they’ve come a long way.
When she finishes writing, she hands it to him.
“There you are dear. I hope…” She gives him a searching look. “Everything works out with you and those two troopers. I’ve met lots of them as they pass through and NCR Rangers can be… Rough.”
“Thank you,” Obi-Wan says sincerely and clenches the recipe in his hand as if someone might take it from him.
“Take care of yourself,” she calls kindly as Obi-Wan finally finds the courage to walk out the front door.
When he gets outside, he smooths the recipe out, then folds the paper carefully and puts it in his pocket alongside the bottlecaps and the cash Rex gave him. It’s weird to think he has something of his own that someone gave him — out of kindness — to keep. Someone that doesn’t know him and will never meet him again.
Even after all the evil and hurt he’s experienced, it’s nice to see some kindness still in the world.
The heat of the day hasn’t quite warmed the air and he shivers at the chill the wind carries. He walks quickly into the Vikki and Vance Casino across the street.
Inside, the slot machines are spinning and ringing noisily, although there doesn’t really seem to be many customers in here at seven in the morning. One weaselly looking man is playing blackjack with a dealer at a table, but other than that, a couple casino employees walk around looking tired and bored.
The bar is in the upper left section of the floor and Obi-Wan heads over there. Behind the scratched up wooden counter, a bartender is washing glasses in a tub full of soapy water.
“You serving any food right now?” Obi-Wan asks the tired looking woman.
The woman shakes her head. “No one is in the kitchen until 10 am. I could make you a drink though?”
Obi-Wan shakes his head and sighs. “I just need some food.”
“Well the Kerrs have a little trading stall down the street, closer to the highway and the NCR camp. They might be there setting up for the day already. They carry a lot of different stuff, ammo, weapons and even food. You could check with them.”
Obi-Wan thanks the woman and leaves the Casino, setting off in the direction the bartender had pointed him. Sure enough, there is a trader stall down one street with a pretty blonde girl, maybe a few years younger than Obi-Wan. She is sorting through a crate of wares as he sidles up to the wooden stall.
She shows him what kind of food they have when he asks, and he’s excited to see some fresh fruit brought in from New California and some local Maize that would probably be excellent grilled. He picks up some fruit for them to all eat (with some of Rex and Cody’s ration bars) and three cobs of Maize he hopes he can cook for the other two men one night. He remembers Cody telling him they would probably need to rough it two nights and would have to cook over a fire.
He almost has enough bottlecaps from the stache he found, to buy a small pistol and he eyes the weapons thoughtfully.
Back when he had lived on Qui-Gon’s farm, he had learned to shoot. He’d even had his own rifle. It’s been a while since he’s fired a gun, but he probably should find a weapon. He doesn’t want Cody and Rex to think of him as a liability. But he doesn’t have quite enough bottlecaps to trade, so he doesn’t ask to see the pistol and instead thanks the girl and leaves.
He heads back towards the hotel, not really looking where he’s going. When he rounds the corner, he bumps straight into the man who had been playing blackjack in the Casino earlier.
“Well hello there,” the man says in an oily tone. “Never seen you in Primm before. What’s a pretty looking thing like you doing in a deadbeat place like this?”
“Excuse me, I need to go,” Obi-Wan tries to walk around the man.
“Well that’s rude. Hold on there sweetie,” the man grabs Obi-Wan’s shoulder.
Obi-Wan shivers in revolution. Big Boss had always called him sweetie. He feels that horrible, debilitating fear creeping through his belly and he tries to push away the memories. “Don’t touch me,” Obi-Wan whispers.
“You know, you look familiar,” the man says, narrowing his eyes. “Were you—”
“Obi-Wan,” Cody’s voice calls, clear and true.
Obi-Wan shoots his head over to look at where Rex and Cody have just exited the hotel.
The weaselly looking man drops his hand, muttering something rude about the NCR under his breath.
Obi-Wan scurries over to Cody who puts an arm around his shoulders. “Alright?” Cody asks quietly.
Obi-Wan nods and buries his head in Cody’s neck. Cody’s hand moves up from his shoulder to stroke through the back of Obi-Wan’s hair.
“I was worried when you didn’t come back in a while.” Cody says kindly as Obi-Wan pulls away. “Also, you forgot your hat,” Cody plunks the cowboy hat down onto Obi-Wan’s head.
Obi-Wan nods shakily, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart. “There’s nowhere to get hot food in town. But I was able to get some fruit from a trader,” Obi-Wan holds out a Valencia orange to each of them.
When Obi-Wan looks up from the ground finally, the man is gone and Rex is giving him a very intense, searching look, over Cody’s shoulder.
The men each take an orange and Cody leads them off towards the stable next to the Mojave Express Courier storefront.
They go to retrieve the horses and Obi-Wan feels like his nausea, dizziness and the itchy-crawling feeling all over his skin has slowly been getting worse. Obi-Wan is grateful he’ll be able to just climb up on Vigilance and not have to walk anymore. He knows he would fall behind if they were traveling on foot. So before they mount the horses, Obi-Wan gives Vigilance some extra neck pets in gratitude and even feeds the horse a couple leftover sections of his orange.
He also uses Rex and Cody’s distraction — while they’re paying the man who runs the stable — to slip the Maize he bought into one of the packs.
In almost no time at all, they’re back on the road, traveling south along the highway.
The morning passes by slowly. Obi-Wan looks out at the desert as they trot on, taking note of the radscorpions, cactus’ and tumbleweed that he didn’t see yesterday, with his face pressed into Cody’s back.
The mountains bracketing this hot, sandy valley are beautiful too, their imposing presences standing quietly over the desert. There is something sort of beautiful about the desolate landscape here.
Despite its beauty, Obi-Wan is still glad to be leaving it behind. He’s not really sure if New California will feel like home again when he gets there, but it has to be better than the awful memories that he has of the Mojave Wasteland.
Ahead of them, the San Bernardino mountains rise, tall and scraggly. The mountains had been untouched during the Nuclear War and they still stood tall and proud, beaten by winds and heat, protecting the borders of the New California Republic since its inception over a hundred and eighty years ago.
For three hours they ride, Obi-Wan looking out at the landscape. The mountains draw closer and closer, until they finally begin to climb up the side of one mountain. They stick to the road and their horses weave in and out of the metal skeletons of pre-war cars left behind to bake under the desert sun.
After the first hour of their ride, Obi-Wan notices something in the distance. It almost looks like two men, standing while shaking hands, on top of the mountain they were heading towards.
“What is that?” Obi-Wan asks, pointing at the landmark.
“The Unification Monument,” Rex answers.
“The what?” Obi-Wan wrinkles his nose.
“Three years ago,” Cody says over his shoulder, “The Desert Rangers, the organization that had been policing Southern Nevada, or as it is usually referred to: the Mojave Wasteland, agreed to meet with our Rangers in the NCR. Rex and I were still in First Recon at the time, so we weren’t a part of the talks, but the two parties made agreements to merge. The agreement meant the New California Republic would get the resources and land from the Mojave, in exchange for us promising to protect it from the Legion to the east.”
Obi-Wan does remember hearing some vague murmurings of a treaty between the two organizations right around the time of his kidnapping.
Cody shakes his head and sighs. “But protecting this area from the Legion has been a long, slow bleeding battle of attrition that has been hard on the NCR’s resources. Caesar's Legion is brutal and efficient. Although to be honest, even though it’s been an incredibly difficult battle, I think we probably would have helped the Desert Rangers even without the deal. The Legion’s battle practices and how they live and treat other people is abhorrent, so the NCR didn’t want them to be the controlling power in this region.”
“The Legion are slavers,” Obi-Wan whispers, chest aching. A raiding part of Legion foot soldiers had been what had stolen him and Anakin.
“And rapists and murderers,” Rex adds in his own piece, darkly.
“Anyways, the statue was built to recognize our pact,” Cody continues seriously, then pauses and tries to lighten the mood. “They meant the statues to be large enough to be visible from the Vegas Strip,” Cody’s voice is amused. “But with all the mountains in the area, you can’t really see it,” he shrugs.
“Did you say you and Rex were a part of First Recon?” Obi-Wan asks, impressed. NCR First Recon is only the best of the best of the Army’s snipers.
“Yeah,” Cody throws Obi-Wan a smile over his shoulder. “Rex and I became close during basic training. We were singled out for our marksmanship abilities. Rex is very good with spatial awareness and I am really good at precision shots. We worked well together, so they paired us as Spotter and Sniper and began training us.
“Then a year and a half ago, some officers were looking to train more Rangers, and our Colonel recommended us. Being a Ranger is more physically demanding than First Recon, but we have to take less lives. Rangers are used a lot more for intelligence, investigations and hard, quick, quiet strikes against enemies. Our First Recon training has come in handy for more than one of our missions.”
“Not on the one where you met me.” Obi-Wan says softly.
“No. Not that one. Honestly, that first time you climbed in my lap, I felt very out of my comfort zone,” Cody chuckles.
“I’m glad though. That you were the ones who came,” Obi-Wan says, feeling emotional. He can’t imagine another Ranger or team would have come back to free him, especially when it had been such a danger to them and their mission.
Obi-Wan can see that Rex’s jaw has gone tight from where he’s sitting on his own horse, and Obi-Wan wonders if he is thinking the same thing and wishing they hadn’t saved Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan tightens his arms, pressing closer to Cody’s back. Maybe Rex isn’t happy, but they can’t get rid of Obi-Wan yet. Cody promised they’d take him home.
Chapter 6: The Outpost
Notes:
Thanks for your patience, work and irl has been a lot lately. Thank you for all of the lovely kudos.
Chapter Text
At the top of the mountain pass, a large secured outpost comes into view, sitting just under the shadow of the huge Unification Monument statues.
The guards let them pass through the gate with little fuss, and Cody and Rex head over to a gated area reserved for army horses and trader pack-animals.
They leave the two horses there, giving strict instructions to the Animal Cavalry Specialists that took care of the horses in the outpost. From there they head further into the outpost, towards the Administration Hub building.
“Codes, we can’t bring him in.” Rex states flatley as they near the door.
Cody blinks, turning his head to glance at Obi-Wan standing behind him. “Oh, right. Sorry Obi-Wan, we have some sensitive information to talk to the General about. But there is a bar and restaurant attached to the barracks available for soldiers, traders and civilians. I’ll get you something to drink there while we’re in our meeting.
Cody leads Obi-Wan back around the Administration building and into another one-level building.
Inside is a large, open room with a few tables scattered about the edges of the room. At the center of the room is an open bar that acts as a saloon and supply shop.
Cody leaves Obi-Wan at a table and comes back with a tall, cool bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla. “Rex and I should be back soon,” Cody hands him the cool bottle, condensation starting to form along the outside of the glass.
After Cody leaves, Obi-Wan tries to pop the bottle cap off the sealed bottle a few times, but his hands are weak and shaky from withdrawal and exhaustion. He’s never had a cold Sarsaparilla before and he wants to try it before it warms up.
“I could help you open that,” a young man in an NCR uniform seems to suddenly appear beside the table, making Obi-Wan jump.
Obi-Wan eyes the young soldier warily. Most people who handed him drinks back in the casino had usually drugged them, beforehand. Obi-Wan hated the customers who drugged him the most. He would never remember what happened afterwards, but usually woke up on his mattress — in the basement — with time missing and very hurt. He’d gotten good at noticing those suspicious drinks as time had gone on and always tried to subtly refuse, but if the customer insisted, he wasn’t allowed to protest.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” the young man says softly. His face has a sweetness to it, but there's also a tiredness to his eyes. Obi-Wan realizes the second time he looks up at him, that the man isn’t quite as young as he first thought. The soldier has a young voice and a soft demeanor, but he is probably closer to thirty than Obi-Wan’s twenty-one.
Obi-Wan hesitates in accepting the man’s help. “I uhm, I don’t know.”
“There’s a trick to doing it if you’re not wearing gloves,” the man smiles and sits down across from him, holding his own bottle of Sarsaparilla. He positions the edge of the bottlecap against the edge of the table, holding the neck of the bottle with one hand. With his other hand, he slams his palm down on the cap and it pops off, tumbling a couple of times onto the table top.
Obi-Wan blinks and then tries to copy what the other man did to little success. His right hand can’t grasp the neck of the bottle tightly enough and his left hand is weak when he slams it down.
The other man’s eyebrows furrow worriedly. “I can do it for you, if you’d like.”
Reluctantly, Obi-Wan hands over his bottle.
The man quickly deals with the cap and then hands back the bottle and cap, to Obi-Wan’s surprise. “I’m Major Knight. I’ve been stuck at this outpost for some time,” his eyes roam sadly around the room before coming back to Obi-Wan. “And I’ve never met anyone as beautiful as you, here.”
“O-Obi-Wan,” Obi-Wan introduces himself awkwardly. The man seems nice enough, and his eyes are full of blanketed desire when he eyes Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan knows how to deal with the desire, he’s had to deal with it for years; but he’s not as familiar with the kindness in the man’s voice. Before Cody, he hadn’t met anyone who’d been kind to him here in Nevada.
The problem is that Obi-Wan doesn’t really want to deal with this man’s desire through sex, even if he is nice. He has Cody. And Rex. And whatever the three of them are. He doesn’t know where the thing between them is going, but he wants it to be something serious. At least, he thinks so…
Most of the time, he feels so overwhelmed over everything that’s happened since he left the casino. Not to mention that the shakes and headache and dizziness are getting worse as the day goes on and he feels awful, which makes him want sex even less, with or without Cody and Rex.
“What are you doing at a place like this?” Knight says kindly.
“Traveling,” Obi-Wan says hesitantly.
“Oh? Where to? Maybe I’ve been.”
Obi-Wan hesitates again, he doesn’t really want to say. But then the door that leads out to the compound opens and Obi-Wan turns towards it, hoping it’s Cody.
It’s not Cody, it’s Rex, and Obi-Wan feels something inside him sink. Rex probably won’t care that Obi-Wan just wants this nice man to go away.
Obi-Wan expects Rex to turn away, he expects Rex to leave when he doesn’t see Cody. But when Rex’s searching eyes land on Obi-Wan, he strides quickly over to the table.
Rex’s eyes dart back and forth between them and he seems to come to some kind of conclusion.
“Major,” Rex says with just a touch of intensity, saluting casually.
Knight looks up at Rex, noting his uniform, then he nods. “Tab-spec.”
“I think you are in my seat.” Rex’s eyes narrow, even as his posture stays respectful.
Knight stares at Rex for a moment, then nods. “Apologies.” He looks over at Obi-Wan, nods once more then he leaves.
Rex lets out a heavy breath and sits down on the chair next to Obi-Wan, rather than the one across that Knight had been in. “Everything okay?” He asks, tone flat.
Obi-Wan feels shocked, but he doesn’t let it show on his face. And when Rex leans closer, Obi-Wan leans in as well, resting his head on Rex’s shoulder.
He expects to be shrugged off, he expects Rex to turn away, but Rex puts his hand on the back of Obi-Wan’s chair, encircling him protectively.
Rex picks up Obi-Wan’s Sarsaparilla and takes a swig. “You’ve hardly drank any at all and we’ve been gone for over half an hour. You alright?”
“Nauseous,” Obi-Wan admits ruefully. “And it’s too sweet for how my stomach is rolling.”
Rex sets down the bottle and stands. It happens so quickly, Obi-Wan almost falls over. He catches himself on the table and straightens in his chair.
“Rex–?” He says softly, but Rex is already gone, striding away.
Obi-Wan sighs and leans back in his chair, staring up at the dirty roof.
He’s surprised when, several minutes later, Rex strides back into his sight, a bowl, cup and spoon in his hands.
Rex sets down the bowl and spoon in front of Obi-Wan and retakes the seat beside him. “It’s oatmeal. I went to the NCR mess hall and got you some. The Army subsides on porridge. I thought it might be easier on your stomach.” He sets the cup down next to the bowl. “There’s brahmin milk if you want it. I wasn’t sure if you would.”
Obi-Wan tries to swallow down the thickness that is suddenly in his throat. “Thank you, Rex.” He says quietly, then picks up the spoon and begins to eat. He eats the whole bowl, savoring every bland bite. His senses seem sharper, painfully sensitive right now, and the mild flavor and soft texture of the oatmeal is perfect. When his mouth gets too dry from the plain oatmeal, he takes little sips of the milk Rex brought him.
Meanwhile, Rex slowly sips Obi-Wan’s Sarsaparilla, his eyes scanning the room.
Once they both finish, the two of them sit there quietly, each lost in their own thoughts for the next twenty minutes until Cody finally joins them.
Cody sits down in the seat Major Knight had vacated across from Obi-Wan, muttering something darkly about “bureaucrats that think they’re military”.
When he blinks out of his thoughts, he notices the bowl in front of Obi-Wan. “You’ve eaten?”
Obi-Wan nods, “Rex got me oatmeal.”
“Oatmeal?” Cody frowns, confused. “I didn’t think they served oatmeal in here,” he spins around in his seat and looks over at the bar, where the two workers behind it serve drinks and cold food like sandwiches to troopers and merchants alike.
Obi-Wan thinks there’s a hint of red on Rex’s cheeks, when the man mutters, “Got it for him in the mess.”
“Alright,” Cody says slowly, turning back to stare at Rex.
Rex just shrugs, not meeting Cody’s eyes.
“...Well, should we just grab some food for you and me to eat while we ride?” Cody asks Rex. “I’d like to be out of the mountain pass before we need to stop for the night.”
Rex nods and they stand.
“Obi-Wan,” Cody starts, “Maybe you want to just meet us over in the animal enclosure while we grab—”
“He should stick close, just in case. He can come in with us to the mess hall.” Rex butts in.
Cody lifts a brow in surprise, at Rex, but then nods and leads the way out of the building.
Obi-Wan stacks the used dishes and picks them up, following along.
They’re on the horses and passing through the checkpoint at the edge of the outpost, not even twenty minutes later.
Vigilance huffs impatiently when Cody stops her to show the Corporal on duty their paperwork.
With tired eyes, the Corporal waves them through and they take their first steps into the New California Republic.
A few weeks ago, Obi-Wan thought he would never again get to see the land where he was born and grew up. He’s happy to be wrong.
Cody and Rex seem on high alert for the next few hours as they travel across the mountain and then down.
“What’s wrong?” Obi-Wan asks them a few minutes out from the outpost.
“Cougars and Nightstalkers have been seen in this area in the past few weeks.” Cody answers, assault rifle held across his lap firmly with one arm, while his other holds the reins.
“At least there’s no Cazadors here,” Rex jokes, to which Cody shoots him a dirty look.
“Don’t joke about that kind of shit, Rex. I don’t have any Cazador venom antidote on me if you curse us and one of us gets stung by one of those giant mutated insects.”
Obi-Wan shivers and sinks down a bit. Growing up in a farming community, he experienced some pretty dangerous wildlife encounters. And a neighbor of theirs had gotten stung by a Cazador and she had died a slow, excruciating death.
Nightstalkers are no joke either. Obi-Wan is surprised there are even any cougars or other wildlife left in this area. Nightstalkers are much more brutal and hostile than the coyote ancestors they had mutated from. Nightstalkers, unfortunately, tend to hunt local animals to extinction.
The sun begins to set as they come down off the mountain. When they get to the base of the mountain pass it’s completely dark and Rex and Cody turn on lanterns that they hang from their saddle pommels.
Obi-Wan thinks now that they are off the mountain they’ll stop for the night, which he would appreciate, because it’s getting harder and harder to stay awake. On top of that, every part of him aches and itches.
But Rex and Cody continue on, trudging into the dark, still wearily watching their surroundings.
Obi-Wan stares out at the darkening landscape, wondering if they’re looking for something specific before they stop, or if they’re still worried about the wildlife. Exhaustion, from the heat of the day, plus the dizziness and other withdrawal symptoms are making it hard to stay awake.
When he feels like he can’t keep his eyes open any longer, he decides to try to lean forward into Cody and let himself just rest a bit. He only means to close his eyes for a few minutes.
He doesn’t know what happens next, but he feels a painful jolt and suddenly he’s looking up at Vigilance from the ground and Cody and Rex are beside him, talking to him.
“Obi-Wan, are you alright? Can you hear me?” Cody calls as he kneels and cradles Obi-Wan’s head with his hands.
Obi-Wan can only blink as Cody shines his lantern in Obi-Wan’s eyes, so he can check his pupils.
“He fell pretty hard,” Rex is saying, but his voice feels far away. Rex’s head is turned, he seems to be looking out at the darkness surrounding them. “But we can’t stay here.”
“I know,” Cody snaps. “I’ve been listening to the howling too, and we can’t handle a whole pack, just the two of us. But we can’t leave him here, and I don’t think he can ride.”
“So fucking strap him to your back,” Rex says bitingly, both of them a little intense right now.
“Alright,” Cody lets out a heavy breath.
Obi-Wan groans, trying to bring his hands up to clutch at Cody’s, his limbs feel not very responsive. He feels like he’s flailing around, everything hurts even more than before, especially his back and his head. The left side of his face stings and feels wet. He wonders if he’s bleeding.
“We’re gonna get you back up on the horse, Obi-Wan,” Cody tells him, and Rex and Cody both lift him upright, then up onto the horse. Rex holds him up while Cody mounts in front of Obi-Wan, then the two of them tie Obi-Wan’s chest and thighs to Cody’s.
Cody grunts as Obi-Wan leans his whole weight onto him, but Cody seems to find his balance.
“Get on your horse and let’s get out of here, quick. It sounds like those nighstalkers are getting closer.” Cody says.
Then they’re galloping, going faster than they have as of yet.
For what seems like hours, but is probably only thirty or forty minutes, they gallop. A ghost town springs up around them and they slow down a bit. The howls begin to fade, but they don’t stop here either. Soon enough they’re out of the town and slowing even more.
“How about under the next overpass?” Rex asks and Cody grunts affirmatively.
They continue down the highway at a less furiously quick, but still steadier pace.
Under the next overpass, Rex helps Cody untie Obi-Wan and get him down off of Vigilance. Everything still hurts and his head is throbbing, but Obi-Wan is able to walk with their assistance.
Cody and Rex set up camp, letting Obi-Wan drift off propped up against the wall. It’s only as he’s about to fall asleep that he remembers wanting to cook the maize for Cody and Rex. He had wanted to show them that he could be useful to them for more than just sex.
The thought doesn’t last long though as the world around him fades into a heavy sleep.
Chapter 7: The Disappearance
Chapter Text
Obi-Wan wakes up the next morning, cold and spread out on top of a bedroll. Rex is on the other bedroll, still asleep. Cody is standing guard not far away, hands clenched around a sniper rifle, occasionally scanning the landscape through the scope.
Obi-Wan winces at the bright light of the rising sun. Everything hurts so bad, and his whole body feels like it’s on fire with an intense itch. From what he’s heard around the Followers camp, day two and three of detox are the worst, and he can see why they say that now.
He’ll be happy to get to the ranch, if only so he can finally rest a bit.
Hopefully, if he is halfway through the worst of it, then he only has a day to go before he begins to feel much better.
“You’re awake,” Cody’s voice breaks Obi-Wan out of his thoughts. “I’m glad. You were pretty out of it yesterday. Neither Rex nor I realized, I’m sorry. You fell and… I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Obi-Wan says shyly. “It’s not your fault. Just the heat and the withdrawal and the long ride all got a bit too much.”
Cody nods, eyes serious. “Do you think you can ride today? We’ve been making alright time. I think we should be able to make it to Barstow by noon and then to the ranch in Weldon by sunset if we get going pretty quick. But if you’re not well, we can wait for you to rest and stop for the night in Barstow.”
Obi-Wan bites his lip. He feels awful. But staying here, out in the open won’t make it any better, will it?
“I think we should go, try and get as far as we can. Then I can rest at the ranch, right?”
Cody nods.
“Can you two shut up?” Rex moans grumpily from where he is lying between them, his eyes pressed closed. “I took the late guard shift. Just let me sleep for 30 minutes longer and then we can go.”
“Sorry Rex,” Cody says sheepishly. “He did take watch for most of the night,” he tells Obi-Wan, then rolls his eyes. “Which he didn’t have to.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m so sorry I let you sleep longer,” Rex spits. “Now shut up.”
Cody holds out his hand for Obi-Wan, helping him step over Rex and then over to the fire someone had built and maintained during the night.
“Maybe I could cook breakfast while Rex sleeps?” Obi-Wan whispers to Cody, beginning to look through Rex and Cody’s pack for food. He pulls out the maize he tucked away, as well as a few eggs Cody picked up at the Mojave Outpost, a frying pan, a spatula and some cooking oil.
One thing he is confused about finding in Cody’s pack though is a silky, pale green nightgown that looks like it’s made for a woman. He frowns at it for a moment, then tucks it back in the bag. He glances up to Cody, who is scanning the landscape with his scope, then shakes his head. He knows that whatever reason it’s in there is none of Obi-Wan’s business.
Whatever is between the three of them has not been named, and Obi-Wan is very aware that he is being given more than he should be. The two of them have been nothing but unconsciously kind, and have treated Obi-Wan better than anyone has in a long time. They treat him better than he deserves.
Obi-Wan gathers the cooking implements and food and he begins to prepare it. He shucks the leaves and silk from the maize and rinses them off with his canteen. Then in the frying pan, he adds water and sets it over the fire. Whoever had recently built up the fire has put the logs in a square, log cabin shape, which gives Obi-Wan the perfect space to rest the pan so it can heat up.
Once the water has heated a bit, he adds the corn and covers it with the accompanying lid.
It takes a while to boil, and Obi-Wan checks on the ears until the kernels are just beginning to brighten in color and grow tender. He takes them out and lays them on one of the two plates he found in the pack and dumps the water. Then he adds some oil to the pan and begins to fry up the eggs.
Once Rex is awake and has blearily come to sit across the fire from Obi-Wan, the eggs and maize are ready to eat.
The three of them dish up a plateful of the food Obi-Wan has made. Cody and Rex seem pleased with their meals, which makes Obi-Wan feel warm inside. He wishes he’d had some fresh fruit to go with their food, but this will do for now.
Afterwards, they clean up and then pack up their campsite. They load up the horses and prepare to leave. All the while, Cody and Rex always seem to be diligently watching both directions of the highway, ready for any dangers that might come their way.
“Is this area really dangerous?” Obi-Wan finally asks.
“The main roads always carry their dangers,” Cody answers. “Lots of different types of people, many of whom you won’t want to meet, travel down this road. Not to mention the dangerous wildlife in this area.”
Obi-Wan doesn’t remember ever feeling like he had to be quite so vigilant all the time, on the communal farm — he grew up on — near Tecopa. But then… he’d thought he was mostly safe there, up until Anakin and him had been kidnapped.
“Is the ranch safe?”
Cody hums thoughtfully as he tightens the strap that holds his pack on the back of the horse. “It has its dangers, anywhere does. But I would say it generally is quite safe compared to many places I’ve been. Many of the farmers in the area know each other and everyone there takes care of each other. Plus, Echo will be there,” Cody assures him.
This is the first Obi-Wan has heard of an ‘Echo’.
“Echo?” Obi-Wan asks.
Rex and Cody are ready and raring to go though, so Cody doesn’t answer right away. They each take turns disappearing around the side of the overpass so they can relieve themselves and then all of them mount the horses and continue their journey.
Just before they leave, Cody gives Obi-Wan his cowboy hat back again. Obi-Wan wonders how it had survived the whole way to their campsite. It wasn’t actually that easy to pack or carry while riding, and Obi-Wan briefly remembers Cody and Rex hurrying them away from the spot where Obi-Wan had fallen off of Vigilance. He was sure his hat had dropped off his head there.
But when he mentions this to Cody, the other man laughs.
“At the time, it didn’t seem all that funny, but I had no idea what to do with it. So I stuck it on top of my own hat,” he gestures to his broad-rimmed Ranger hat. “Wedged it real good on there, so it wouldn’t fall off on our gallop away. Ended up taking me ten minutes just to pry the damn thing off my own hat, once we’d made camp.”
Cody continues to chuckle to himself for a little bit.
“He asked you about Echo, Codes,” Rex reminds him, sounding a little grumpy.
Obi-Wan appreciates Rex reminding Cody, but he can’t seem to catch Rex’s eye to give him a nod of thanks.
“Oh, right. Well, Echo is one of my brothers, he’s the only one of our brothers I grew up with. Jango, that’s our dad,” Cody informs Obi-Wan, “Was kind of a…” Cody coughs, a blush spreading across his face.
“He was a slut,” Rex says blandly. “Slept with half the women in New California.”
“Rex,” Cody scolds him, then turns back to Obi-Wan. “He’s not wrong though.”
Obi-Wan looks between Rex and Cody with new awareness. They looked just different enough – especially with Rex’s light hair and caramel-brown eyes opposed to Cody’s dark chocolate-brown eyes, as well as their different noses and slightly different cheekbones – that Obi-Wan hadn’t put it together before. But with this new information, he sees the similarities even more obviously now: like their jaws, lips, eye shape and skin tone. He didn’t realize they were brothers before. He also realizes he doesn’t even know their last names. Maybe if he’d known those, he would have been able to tell they were brothers easier.
“Anyways,” Cody clears his throat. “Jango had a particular fondness for my mother and visited her often. She had me, Echo and Fives. But when I was about ten years old, she and Fives were killed by raiders. Echo was badly hurt during the assault and the doctor wasn’t sure he was going to live. There had been a school in our town and I had been attending that day. Echo and Fives had only just turned six, and they were getting ready to attend the next year. If she and the twins hadn’t been on their way to pick me up from school…” Cody stares out at the road ahead of his horse for a long while, going silent.
Obi-Wan never knew his birth parents. When he was younger he’d been sad about that, but now that he was older, he was happy he didn’t remember them. It just makes things easier.
“But,” Cody says, voice morose. “Jango heard what had happened down the grapevine somehow. He showed up a couple of weeks later. Another family in town had taken me and Echo in, but living in that town wasn’t the same without Mom. Jango offered to let us come live with him on the ranch he had inherited from his adoptive father: Jaster Mereel. At the time, I was too deep in my mourning to even think about staying in that town, so I accepted his offer. There are times I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t, but… It is what it is.”
“And he left the ranch to you when he died?” Obi-Wan asks kindly.
Rex snorts.
“He’s not dead.” Cody shakes his head. “At least, I don’t think so. Haven’t seen him in a few years though, so I guess he could be. I took over running the ranch when I was sixteen. Jango was a contract mercenary who often worked for the NCR army. So he was away often. He wasn’t exactly the best role model, but it was his work with the army that got me interested in enlisting.”
“And you and Rex went together?” Obi-Wan asks.
“Rex and I didn’t know each other back then.” Cody responds. “We knew of each other, but we hadn’t met. I had started basic training and two months later this asshole showed up,” Cody gently kicks his leg out towards Rex and Resolute, voice fond. “We punched each other's lights out a couple of times. Our Sergeants were annoyed by our scrapping, so they put us on the same punishment: helping the cooks wash and peel potatoes. During those times we got to talking, like we really talked. And we just clicked, I guess.”
Rex is looking away from them, left hand gripped tight on the rifle in his lap. Obi-Wan wonders what he’s thinking.
“So yeah, Echo is my… our brother. He has taken over managing the ranch. Although really, it hasn’t run at a high capacity for years. We really only have a small herd of brahmin now. When I first moved in with Jango, there was something like fifty head of cattle, now I think there’s nine? We have a couple milk cows and the rest are beef heifers.”
“Echo isn’t able to take care of more?” Obi-Wan asks gently.
“Echo is… Echo. He’s kind of always got his head in the clouds. I know I probably baby him,” Cody sighs.
Rex scoffs in agreement.
“But with Rex and I gone so often, I didn’t want him to have to take care of more than he could handle in an emergency. So we sold quite a bit of the herd when I enlisted,” Cody explains.
“So you and Rex… won’t be staying at the ranch?” Obi-Wan asks hesitantly.
For a while, neither Cody nor Rex answer. And Obi-Wan isn’t sure either of them are going to ever answer.
Finally, Cody speaks. “Rex and I are on leave for just a bit. With tensions running high between the NCR and the Legion in the Mojave, neither of us feel like we can leave for very long. Besides,” Cody turns his head a bit more so he can shoot a glance back at Obi-Wan, over his shoulder. “If Rex and I decided to call it quits, who would save people like you, Obi-Wan? Innocent people who are getting hurt by Caesar and his Legionaries?”
Obi-Wan’s stomach drops. He feels anxious wondering if Cody will always think of Obi-Wan as a damsel in distress to save.
But Obi-Wan knows he can’t ever ask either of them to stop doing their jobs and stay with him. Innocent people captured and put into slavery do deserve to have Cody and Rex save them.
“But you… want me to stay there? On the ranch?” Obi-Wan asks slowly.
“If you want to,” Cody tries to ask casually, but there’s something about how Cody’s shoulders tense that makes Obi-Wan feel a smidgen of hope that Cody really wants him to; that maybe Cody is starting to care for Obi-Wan for more than a victim that needed saving.
Obi-Wan shoots a look over at Rex, but Rex’s face is blank and body language carefully turned to watch the landscape around him.
“Okay,” Obi-Wan says quietly, snuggling up closer to Cody’s back and putting his arms around Cody’s waist.
Cody nods, his shoulders sinking in relief.
The three of them go silent and don’t talk again for quite some time.
They ride for another hour and a half until the ruins along the edges of Barstow appear. Barstow was obviously a very big city pre-war, but now only operates out of a small centralized section of the city’s ruins. The highway running through the ruins skirts the gated edge of the trade center that is present-day Barstow. They stop at the front gate and are allowed entrance after stating their business to the guards.
This time Cody offers to go find a place for the horses to rest, while Rex heads off to find the supplies they need. Obi-Wan slowly trails behind Rex.
Something in the cracked glass of one of the storefronts catches Obi-Wan’s attention, and he pauses to admire a mannequin at a clothing merchant dressed in a pressed collared shirt and comfortable sweater vest. He wonders how the merchant had gotten the collared shirt so white, he’d never seen such a snowy-white on a piece of clothing before. He considers the impracticality of having a shirt that color. The desert was hot, and life here was hard, dirty work. Obi-Wan couldn’t imagine wearing such a color and not having it turn sweaty or dusty within minutes of stepping outside. Obi-Wan shakes his head in amusement that someone would sell such a thing, even as his eyes linger on the brown sweater vest, and he turns away from the window.
When he looks down the street towards the direction Rex had been headed, Rex is nowhere to be seen. An overwhelming fear floods his stomach and Obi-Wan feels panicked. The only times Obi-Wan has been separated from Cody and Rex during their trip, Obi-Wan has experienced some upsetting things. He really just wants to find Rex again.
He heads down the street at a quick pace, pausing at every open store to stick his head inside. He gets to the end of Merchant Row and he still hasn’t found Rex. Obi-Wan sits heavily on the wooden boardwalk and puts his head between his hands, trying to take calming breaths.
The dizziness, headache and itchiness he’s been experiencing all morning aren’t helping one bit.
He doesn’t know what to do except just sit there and try to calm down. It doesn’t occur to him until he is finally taking some heavy, even breaths that maybe he should go find Cody instead.
Cody will not be hard to find, Obi-Wan had seen the direction he’d been headed with the horses. There shouldn’t be too many places where you could stable horses in this town, so finding him should be easy, right?
Obi-Wan walks down a few streets, but each turn feels wrong. It isn’t long before he feels completely lost. He even tries to retrace his steps to the front gate where they’d come into Barstow, but he can’t. Maybe it has something to do with the twisting-turning layout of the town, each section looking like it was added as an afterthought. He does end up finding the gate again, but it definitely isn’t the front gate. It’s a completely different side to the enclosure surrounding the town.
Feeling frustrated and upset, Obi-Wan goes into a nearby bar.
There are a couple of slot machines in the corner and their cheerful whirring and ringing makes the back of his skull buzz unpleasantly. His eyes search from person to person, expecting to see a casino guard or a familiar customer.
He remains frozen in the doorway for longer than is probably acceptable. Eventually, a person pushing past him to leave breaks him out of his daze and he heads over to the bar.
“What can I get you?” The bartender asks.
“I-I’m looking for a place to stable a horse,” Obi-Wan asks, wiping his sweaty hands on his thighs under the bar.
“Get you something first?” The bartender insists.
Right. Bartenders tend not to help if you are not a paying customer. Beer and Sarsaparilla are cheaper than water, but Obi-Wan doesn’t think he can stomach alcohol right now. “Sunset Sarsaparilla please.”
The bartender pulls out a warm, open bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla and slides it onto the bar. “Seven caps.”
“Five,” Obi-Wan counters back with a confidence he doesn’t feel. Bartering was common and widely accepted in this day and age.
The bartender grins from beneath a brown stained bowler hat. “Five,” they confirm.
Obi-Wan digs five bottle caps out of the little pouch in his pocket. There looks to be around forty left after he places the requested caps on the bar. “Now, stables?” Obi-Wan asks, taking the smallest sip of the Sarsaparilla. It tastes too liquoricey on his sensitive tongue and he almost spits it out. His stomach churns.
The bartender tells him of two places to bed a horse, the cheaper being attached to a California Delivery, the cousin courier service of the Mojave Express. Obi-Wan assumes Cody will pick that one, since he bedded Vigilance at the Mojave Express back in Primm.
He leaves, not having finished his drink and follows the bartender’s directions exactly. Ahead of him, he sees the Courier service and their accompanying stables.
He reaches for the door, but behind him, he hears a familiar laugh and turns, face paling. The laugh sounded just like Anakin.
Obi-Wan stares at the back of the man who laughed. The man is facing away from him, talking to two other men. They’re all nicely dressed in moderately clean, smart shirts and slacks. Anakin couldn’t be here could he?
Obi-Wan takes a step closer to the men, one who looks suspiciously like Anakin from the back. One of the other men says something and the three begin to disperse.
Obi-Wan blinks, and suddenly the man he had thought was Anakin is too short for how tall Obi-Wan last remembered him being. He blinks again and the man has darker, straighter hair than Anakin ever did.
The man glances at Obi-Wan with a puzzled frown as he walks past. The man looks nothing like Anakin.
Obi-Wan feels numb. He turns back around and heads into the courier stable.
He walks silently right by the man obviously in charge of the stables, sweeping out an unused stall.
Somehow, Obi-Wan finds the exact stall Vigilance is in and lets himself inside it.
Vigilance is lying on the floor, calm, yet alert. As Obi-Wan approaches the horse, she doesn’t move, instead flickering her ears and nose towards Obi-Wan.
She doesn’t tense or make a sound when Obi-Wan sits on the sod-covered floor next to her. Obi-Wan lays his head on the dip in Vigilance’s back and lets himself silently cry.
Over the past few days, her scent has become comforting, and he tries to use it to calm himself.
Eventually, he falls asleep, haunted by the sounds of the slot machines and the laughter he thought he knew.
Chapter 8: The Last Leg
Summary:
Obi-Wan is found.
Notes:
Thank you for your comments last chapter. I forgot about updating this story a little bit, both because I have been very ill the last three months, but also because it doesn't appear on my profile, so this fic slipped my mind for a bit...
Anyways, since it has been a while, so here is a recap.
Chapter 7 Recap: Obi-Wan, Cody and Rex arrive at Barstow and head into the gated town to rest the horses and buy supplies. Rex and Cody split and Obi-Wan gets separated from Rex. Obi-Wan is lost and afraid, alone in a town he’s never been in before. Obi-Wan finds the stable Vigilance is resting in, and falls asleep with the horse, amongst the hay.
Chapter Text
Obi-Wan doesn’t find out until much later where Rex went.
And when they get separated, Rex doesn’t realize Obi-Wan’s not behind him. He continues not to know until he looks up from the weapon’s case inside of a nearby weapons dealer’s shop and doesn’t see Obi-Wan with him.
Rex shrugs, thinking that Obi-Wan must have turned back to follow Cody instead, and so he continues on his errands, looking for everything the group needs.
Meanwhile, Cody doesn’t know Obi-Wan is missing at all. He thinks Obi-Wan went with Rex, and so once the horses are bedded down for a rest, he goes to get himself a glass of whiskey at a saloon.
He sits in a chair there, fanning himself with his hat and thinking about the questions Obi-Wan had asked during their ride towards town. After a while, he gets up and goes to find his best friend and the man that his feelings are quickly growing out of control for.
When the two brothers do find each other and realize Obi-Wan is with neither of them, panic sets in. They’ve both seen Obi-Wan in distress when he has been left alone. So they split apart and begin combing the business areas of Barstow.
Cody’s so frustrated, he almost starts knocking on residential doors. But before it can get that bad, he pops into a bar on the most eastern edge of town and the bartender mentions seeing Obi-Wan and giving him directions.
Cody’s heart is racing in his chest as he runs all the way back to California Delivery and pushes through the front and into their stables. The head stablehand protests loudly when Cody pushes past him and heads down beside the open passage that leads past the stalls.
What he sees has Cody freezing, mouth falling open in surprise when he finds Vigilance and Obi-Wan lying in a stall together, both asleep.
Cody steps outside the stable to radio Rex and tell him he found Obi-Wan and where they are. Then he steps back inside and apologies to the ostler. He walks back over to Vigilance’s stall and leans against the swinging wooden gate, staring in at the two of them.
As if he could feel Cody’s gaze, Obi-Wan groggily wakes and looks over at him. “Cody? I found you?”
Cody takes in a calming breath, promising himself he’s not going to yell at Obi-Wan for disappearing. Instead, he lets himself into the large stall and pulls Obi-Wan up off the floor and into his arms, squeezing him tightly.
“You scared me,” he whispers into auburn hair that is lightening at the tips from sun exposure. Obi-Wan’s hat is lying on the straw floor close to Vigilance, and Cody takes this moment to take a comforting whiff of Obi-Wan’s hair, which smells equally of sweat, fresh air and the sweet, fruity shampoo Obi-Wan had found in Primm.
“Sorry,” Obi-Wan apologizes sincerely, the rumble of his tenor voice vibrating against Cody’s shoulder.
Obi-Wan takes a step back and Cody lets him. But they’re still close enough that Cody can stare into Obi-Wan’s sad, big blue eyes, noting all the tiny flecks of gray.
Cody shakes his head, stroking leather-gloved fingers over Obi-Wan’s biceps. “Come on,” Cody pulls on him. “Rex is getting a room for us at an inn nearby.”
Obi-Wan blinks, surprised. “I thought we were going to head out, and try to get to the ranch before sunset?”
They lost too much travel time looking for Obi-Wan to get home before the sun goes down. They could still push through, but really, Cody just wants to sit down with Obi-Wan in his lap and not let him go.
So Cody just shakes his head again and pulls on Obi-Wan’s arm.
Obi-Wan goes willingly along at first and then halts. “The saddle bags. Shouldn’t we take those?” Obi-Wan frowns.
Cody had completely forgotten about those, which was unusual for him. They had some very valuable weapons and army equipment in them. He really shouldn’t just leave them here overnight. Obi-Wan makes Cody forget things he shouldn’t, makes Cody want to live a life he couldn’t, and makes him think things he wouldn’t ever have before.
He turns them back around.
Once Cody has the bags, they head to the inn and up to the room Rex has.
Cody knows Rex is still tired from last night. Rex has taken advantage of the hotel room and is already falling asleep on one of the beds in just his uniform. When Cody and Rex usually make this trip together, they rarely get hotel rooms. Usually they roughed it. But with Obi-Wan… something about him made Cody want to make sure they were somewhere more secure and comfortable: a place for Obi-Wan to rest without worry.
Obi-Wan draws Cody to the empty bed, slowly stripping off his clothes and Cody follows Obi-Wan’s lead, stripping off along the way.
Obi-Wan feels bad. Cody held Obi-Wan so tightly in the stables. And then Cody had looked so worried when he’d pulled away from the hug.
Obi-Wan doesn’t want Cody to worry about him, but he doesn’t know how to show Cody he’s alright except through sex. Sex is easy for Obi-Wan. Sex brings comfort and closeness and pleasure for Cody. So why does sex feel like the wrong easy way out?
The day has been overwhelming and confusing and Obi-Wan doesn’t know what else to do. So he takes off his clothes and beckons Cody in with his eyes and Cody comes. In fact, Cody seems happy enough to strip off and push Obi-Wan to the bed. He remembers to bring lube with him this time, and in no time at all, his slick fingers press slowly inside Obi-Wan’s hole.
Cody takes his time, thrusting just the two fingers in and out, while going back to play with his folds and clit every once and a while.
Obi-Wan spreads his legs as far as he can, glancing between Cody’s fingers disappearing into his body and then up to Cody kneeling in between his legs, the other man’s eyes are dark with desire and intent.
Obi-Wan’s breath catches in his throat when Cody grabs him by the hips and flips him. He rubs his hard, throbbing dick against the cleft of Obi-Wan’s ass.
“Fuck,” Cody curses, putting his hand between them. He’s trying to put his dick in Obi-Wan’s cunt, but his hand is shaky with urgency and he is struggling to get it in.
Finally he slides home, and Obi-Wan gasps, feeling the fullness of Cody inside him.
Obi-Wan has had a lot of sex over the past few years, but it’s never felt very good. But right now, with Cody pressed to his back, his dick so far inside, it feels shockingly good.
Cody slips his arms under Obi-Wan’s chest, pulling him close in a perversion of a hug. Obi-Wan didn’t think they could get closer, because right now, it feels almost like Cody is molded to Obi-Wan’s back.
There’s little leverage for Cody to thrust when he’s this close, so he puts his legs outside Obi-Wan’s and just rolls his hips.
Obi-Wan loses himself to the feeling, barely aware of anything else but Cody’s dick inside him and Cody pressing him down into the bed sheets.
Finally, after what feels like forever, Cody grows impatient with the pace and slides away, pressing up onto his elbows and knees so he can thrust quickly.
“Don’t disappear on me again, Obi-Wan,” Cody says, voice urgent. “I’ve found you now and I don’t want to lose you.”
The slick sound of his thrusting is almost drowned out by Cody’s breathing: heavy and loud.
“Touch yourself. Please,” Cody begs him.
Obi-Wan wiggles his hand under his body. There isn’t enough room to jack his cock, so he fingers his clit, drawing tiny circles around it.
He’s shocked when jolts of pleasure wrack through him, and his cunt contracts and squeezes around Cody’s hard dick inside of him.
He rarely comes during sex. The last time he can remember is over a year ago, and he’d had a female client. So the shuddering release that travels through his body leaves him feeling weak and satisfied.
Cody finishes as well, pressing deep inside Obi-Wan’s hole and filling him with Cody’s cum.
Cody grunts and collapses onto Obi-Wan, surrounding him completely.
Obi-Wan wakes to his head pounding worse than it had been at all the day before, but the itch on his skin seemed less… intense and less uncomfortable. Even his muscles and eyes seem to hurt less.
Cody is gone and Obi-Wan is alone on the bed. But a glance to the side tells him that Rex is still passed out in the other bed, so he doesn’t feel worried that he has been left alone again.
Obi-Wan stretches out, enjoying the space and the comfort of lying on a real bed.
He drifts a bit on top of the covers and wakes to Cody coming into the room holding a tray with some sandwiches, a bowl and some bottles of purified water. He puts the tray onto the top of a dresser, then walks over to where Rex is passed out, arm slung over his eyes.
“Rise and shine, Rexy,” Cody smacks the bottom of one of Rex’s feet. “I’ve got food.”
Rex groans and turns away, “Fuck off, Codes. I was asleep.”
Obi-Wan sits up on the bed, looking between the two of them.
“Well you’re not now. And It’s a bit late, but I think since we have everything we came for, we could push on and be home to the ranch in only five hours.”
Rex blinks up at his brother. “What time is it?”
“Four pm. I brought some food up, so we can eat and get going,” Cody gestures over to the food.
That meant that Rex and Obi-Wan had been asleep for almost four hours. It had only felt like minutes for Obi-Wan, but still he was glad to have gotten the rest.
Rex groans. “Cody, we paid for the room for the entire night. What’s the point in leaving early just to ride through the dark? We’ll have to go slower for the horses, and there’s always more risk of desert dangers in the dark.”
“One, I got the proprietor to agree to refund half of what we paid if we leave in the next hour, so they could give the room to someone else for the night. Two, we will have to go a bit slower, but then we’ll be home and not have to get up early to travel in the morning. Three,” Cody takes something out of his bag and shows Rex, “I think we both forgot I picked this up right before The Strip mission, but we could use it to give us longer visuals while we ride. Which means we will be able to see any dangerous animals or raiders before we could even see them in the day. And four, I sent Echo a letter through California Delivery, when we first got into town, to tell him to expect us late tonight. I just didn’t think we’d get caught up so late in Barstow.” Cody carefully doesn’t look at Obi-Wan.
“Fucking hell,” Rex sighs, sounding a bit exasperated. He rubs his hand through the bristly, shaved-short hair on the top of his head. “Well, I guess we’ve traveled in much worse conditions. We’d better get moving if we need to be out of here in an hour.”
“What is that?” Obi-Wan frowns at the metal and glass tube Cody is holding.
“Infrared scope for my rifle,” Cody grins a little darkly. “It’s for sniping in dark conditions. We found out the hard way night is often the best time to try to take out higher-up Legionaries, but long-distance visuals at night are often poor. We’ve been meaning to get a second for Rex, or maybe an infrared rangefinder, but this will do for now.”
Rex nods and stands, but pauses when Obi-Wan stands up, just a step away from him. Obi-Wan is still naked and he can tell Rex is eyeing him out of the corner of his eye.
Obi-Wan steps closer to Rex, laying a gentle hand on the cotton sleeve of Rex’s uniform. His armor has been left stacked against the wall, in the corner. “It would be such a shame to go without using a perfectly good bed,” Obi-Wan’s eyes flickered over to the bed Rex had been sleeping on.
“Obi-Wan,” Cody rolls his eyes and grins exasperatedly. “As much as I’m sure Rex would enjoy having sex, we don’t have time right now. You two can have some time together when we get to the ranch.”
Rex looks away, clears his throat and steps towards his armor and boots, quickly putting them on.
“I got you some soup, Obi-Wan. I know you’ve been having some digestion issues,” Cody hands him the bowl and spoon.
“It’s less indigestion and more nausea from the withdrawal,” Obi-Wan admits, taking the bowl. It was nice of Cody to think of him. “Thank you.”
“Oh,” Cody says, surprised. “I…I should have thought of that, sorry. I did know that those monsters had been drugging you.”
Obi-Wan sits on the edge of the bed, smiling sadly at Cody before digging into the soup. The soup is warm, mild, tastes good and it eases the ache in his stomach.
Cody and Rex get to work packing things and getting organized. Cody leaves out Obi-Wan’s clothes, hat and boots and takes their newly packed bags out of the room.
Rex gets some of his own food from the tray, handing Obi-Wan a bottle of purified water.
They’re all ready and outside the hotel within twenty minutes, and Cody has already retrieved the horses and is strapping on their packs and bags. When Rex comes out, they switch so Cody can return the room key and get their reimbursement and then they are off, Obi-Wan up in the saddle as Rex and Cody lead the horses towards the gate.
Soon, they’re back on the road, the sun low in the sky.
Obi-Wan can admit to himself that he’s incredibly nervous about getting to this new place that might be his future home, and meeting Cody and Rex’s brother: Echo.
The soup Cody had brought him sits comfortably in his stomach, and he leans forward into Cody, after he climbs up into the saddle again.
Obi-Wan closes his eyes and tries to imagine what the ranch will look like.
This leg of the trip is long and boring. For the beginning portions of their trip, they mostly traveled in four hour stretches; which means that tonight, spending five and a half hours on horseback – and most of that in the dark – isn’t fun.
A bright three-quarters-full moon hangs in the sky. But with the fierce night wind kicking up the desert sands, Obi-Wan can’t see much.
Rex and Cody both pull up the neck gaiters they wear with their body armor, so their mouths and noses are covered and protected from the blowing sand. Obi-Wan doesn’t have that luxury and spends most of his time trying to hold the collar of his shirt over his mouth so he doesn’t breathe in the gusting sand.
It is a long, uncomfortable ride for the last leg to the ranch.
As they get closer to Weldon County, the mountains rise up higher and get closer. They pass through a valley between the mountains and Obi-Wan begins to see the sand and desert scrub bleed away into prairie grasses and then into farms and yellow grassy ranch land.
This area has been untouched by the nuclear war and the land seems to have thrived. Most of the valley looks to be designated into ranch land, but there are also small fields of crops that occasionally pop up between pastures and housing settlements.
It isn’t long until they ride through the center of the village Onyx. It’s a small settlement that must have been a lively community before the war. Now it’s deserted and silent. An old US Postal Service building right next to the road has been transformed into a California Delivery Service building. Despite the presence of a CDS, the only inhabited buildings in this town are the CDS itself, their separate stable building for their courier’s horses, and a small cafe next door to it. At one time the townsite itself probably supported more than five hundred people, now there’s probably less than five.
“Almost there,” Cody says over his shoulder.
“I thought your ranch was in Weldon,” Obi-Wan asks as they pass by the townsite. He’d seen signs that they were traveling through Onyx in Onyx County.
“The county of Weldon starts up just west of this village. We’re almost there,” Cody answers, sounding tired.
Cody is the only one who didn’t get a chance to rest in the middle of the day, and it’s starting to show — his shoulders are drooping a bit, and his voice is shaky with fatigue.
It has been a long trip.
Chapter 9: The Ranch
Notes:
A few miscommunications are finally being resolved between these three, and a few more are yet to come, but I felt Obi-Wan needed a bit of a break for once. XD
Chapter Text
Five or six minutes past the edge of the village Onyx, Cody turns them down a drive, surrounded by neglected, mostly empty pasture land.
It’s dark, but as they make their way to the end of the path, Obi-Wan can make out the shape of a modest Pre-War, ranch-style farmhouse.
As they get even closer, Obi-Wan notices that it looks to be a house that would comfortably hold a family of six. The house is in a bit of disrepair, but it looks livable. At the very least almost every window has a plane of glass. While it’s become possible in the last fifty years to be able to buy and install glass windows, there are still many lived-in buildings with boarded up windows. So many materials and products that people had in the nuclear Pre-War era are expensive or difficult to make now, two hundred years post-War. And one of the most difficult to get a hold of and transport safely is glass. It just wasn’t a priority for so many people.
They pull up in front of the house and dismount. Rex and Cody make quick work of grabbing the bags, undoing their straps, opening the front door and setting them just inside the house.
They take the horses to the side of the house to the free-standing stable, and Obi-Wan follows nervously behind. He doesn’t want to just walk into the house without them, even though it’s obvious they don’t need his help.
The barn is clean and empty of animals, but the strong smell of them lingers pleasantly, reminding Obi-Wan of the first time he sat on Cody’s lap and smelled Vigilance on his clothes. It’s obvious that at least two other animals regularly live in this barn, but are not stabled down right now.
The two men lead their horses into stalls and untack the saddles and riding equipment.
Obi-Wan stands near the doorway, watching Rex and Cody brush down the horses and settle them for the night with water and food. Afterwards, Cody tiredly closes up the barn and leads the three of them into the house.
They ignore the bags, locking the front door behind them and heading into the house. Obi-Wan follows them down a hallway and into a bedroom. There’s a giant bed on one side of the room and a more narrow one against the wall on the other.
Rex strips off his armor, boots and uniform, dropping it all into a messy pile in the corner of the room. Then he lets himself fall onto the single bed in only a pair of briefs.
Cody does something similar in another corner and flops down onto the big bed. “Obi-Wan,” Cody says, voice exhausted, hand outstretched.
Obi-Wan doesn’t have it in his heart to say no to Cody — now or ever, he suspects. Obi-Wan drops his own boots, clothing and hat to the ground and crawls into the bed beside Cody.
They’re all exhausted, and Cody and Rex are soon asleep. The sound of their heavy breathing and snoring have become soothingly familiar, over their trip. Yet Obi-Wan lies there on the big bed, unable to fall asleep.
He wonders what his future will hold for him, here in this house.
Obi-Wan wakes to an empty bed and a dull, throbbing ache behind his eyes.
He turns over and presses his aching head into a pillow. He drifts for a while, ignoring the mild nausea swirling in his gut. The nausea from his withdrawals was much worse yesterday and the day before, so this feels almost like a relief. Even still, he would rather not open his eyes or move from his comfortable position.
He doesn’t know how long he lays there before a hand is touching his shoulder, making him jump and turn, heart racing in his chest.
Rex is standing beside the bed, hands outstretched. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“It’s fine,” Obi-Wan breathes, hand clenched to his chest. “Did you need something?”
“Cody is cooking breakfast right now,” Rex says, his tone sounding a bit distracted. “He wants to know if you’d be alright with oatmeal? Then he says he's going to check out some things on the ranch…”
Obi-Wan realizes Rex is staring down at Obi-Wan’s chest and hips, where the sheets had slipped away during the night. He’d been too tired to even think about finding something to wear to bed.
Obi-Wan stretches a bit, running a hand down his chest and playing with the band of his washed-dull pink panties. “See something you like?” He asks softly, feeling a little nervous.
He hasn’t been with Rex as much as he has been with Cody. He had been worried for so long that Rex didn’t want him at all, that Rex might even hate him. Obi-Wan knows the look of hate though, and Rex definitely isn’t looking at him with hatred right now.
Rex is wearing just an undershirt and briefs. He continues to stare down at Obi-Wan, meanwhile unconsciously running his fingers down his own ribs and then toys with the edge of his undershirt.
“I wouldn’t mind if you came a little closer,” Obi-Wan smiles, tilting his head to the side shyly.
Rex climbs onto the bed, kneeling next to Obi-Wan. He plants his hands on the bed beside Obi-Wan’s shoulders and lowers himself to kiss Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan winces at the mingling of their morning breaths. But he relaxes into the kiss, curling his fingers around Rex’s jutting hip bones.
Rex moves further into the kiss, straddling Obi-Wan and pressing his slowly stiffening dick against Obi-Wan’s.
They both pause and turn their heads when the door to the bedroom opens. As it opens, a nice, cool gust of air passes over the two of them.
Cody is standing there. He leans his weight into the door jam, watching with an amused smile. “Don’t mind me. I’ll keep the oatmeal on the warmer if you two need a bit.”
Rex backs away, shoulders a little tight with a tension that hadn’t been there moments ago.
Obi-Wan makes a little noise of disappointment.
“Sounds like he doesn’t want you to stop,” Cody remarks, looking between the two of them.
“But you… like him,” Rex says. His voice is confused, from where he is kneeling above Obi-Wan.
“Rex, you’re my best friend,” Cody says dryly, crossing his arms.
Rex perks up a little statement, but still looks confused.
“We basically live in each other's pockets. Honestly, I can’t even imagine liking someone that didn’t fit into both of our lives.”
Rex blinks, surprised. “Oh. I don’t think I realized… So you’re okay if Obi-Wan and I have sex?”
“As long as you’re alright that Obi-Wan and I have sex too.”
“Of course!” Rex says quickly, not even leaving a second’s pause.
“We’re all adults here. Obi-Wan seems to enjoy being with both of us, so if all three of us are alright, what’s the problem?”
Rex nods and looks down to Obi-Wan. Looking determined, Rex peels off his shirt, throwing it to the floor. “This okay?” Rex asks him, looking down his long, muscular torso at Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan nods, not able to find his voice.
The bedroom door slowly closes and Rex bends down to kiss him, fumbling between them to get his briefs off.
Rex pulls away to get his underwear past his knees, where they’ve been caught.
Obi-Wan uses the distance between them to begin sliding off his panties. “Can you… can you get something to ease the way?” Obi-Wan can feel that there’s a bit of slick forming inside his cunt, but not enough to make the slide decadent or even comfortable, as he’s come to enjoy with Cody.
“Something to… Sorry, what do you mean?” Rex frowns.
“Lubricant,” Obi-Wan blushes.
“You didn’t need it last time we…” Rex trails off.
“Last time Cody had already,” Obi-Wan mimes fingering. “I can do it, but I still need some actual lubricant and I don’t know where Cody keeps his.”
“Oh. The slippery stuff he uses for easing the slide on his rifle when it becomes jammed? I didn’t realize it could be used for this,” Rex says sheepishly, getting off the bed and putting back on his briefs. “Our packs are still out in the hall. Stay right there,” Rex gestures down with his hands.
Obi-Wan sighs and leans back onto a pillow. He spreads his legs and trails his fingers down his cock and along the lips of his pussy.
With his other hand, his fingers and pinches his left nipple and then his right.
He lies there, dipping his fingers between the lips of his cunt teasingly as he waits.
Rex comes back in holding the bottle of lube and climbs onto the bed, hovering over Obi-Wan and staring down at where he’s playing with himself.
“What should I do with this?” Rex pushes the bottle into Obi-Wan’s face, even as his eyes stay glued to the fingers playing with Obi-Wan’s pussy.
Feeling emboldened, Obi-Wan uses his pointer and middle finger to spread his labia, letting Rex see his hole.
“Give me your fingers,” Obi-Wan takes the bottle, then squirts some lube onto Rex’s offered digits. “Now carefully put one inside me.”
Rex does as he asks, pressing one finger all the way in.
“Good, now add in the other finger,” Obi-Wan tells him patiently.
Rex does and Obi-Wan shudders at the slight stretch of Rex’s fingers.
Rex looks at him, eyes narrowed and intense. He pulls his fingers out. “More.” He holds his whole hand out this time and Obi-Wan drips lube all over Rex’s fingers.
He inserts his pointer finger again, thrusting it slowly before adding his middle finger. “Do you like that?” Rex whispers huskily.
Obi-Wan nods and clenches his internal muscles. Rex adds another finger and then another. All four of his fingers are inside Obi-Wan now and Obi-Wan breathes out a low moan.
“Please,” he says to Rex.
“Please what?” Rex asks, genuinely curious.
“Put your cock in me.”
Rex presses his body down between Obi-Wan’s spread legs. Then he tries to guide his dick in with his right hand.
He thrusts in this position for a bit, putting his forearms on the bed for leverage.
It feels good, intimate. It makes Obi-Wan feel like they’re closer than they’ve ever been.
But Rex seems frustrated in this position. His thrusts have to be shorter and slower, with how he’s pressed in tightly over Obi-Wan. After a few minutes he pulls out and kneels up. “Can we try a different way?”
Obi-Wan nods and scoots back, kneeling and shifting around so he’s facing the headboard. “Is this better?”
Rex doesn’t answer, just comes up behind him, fingers searching for Obi-Wan’s hole between them.
He seems to find it and reaches for his cock. Rex pushes his dick in a little forcefully and Obi-Wan grunts. The entrance of his vagina stings a little bit from the angle and force of the penetration.
Rex has a lot more leverage in this position and lets loose on his thrusts, hammering into Obi-Wan’s cunt. Obi-Wan’s hands grab onto the headboard, holding on tightly so he isn’t pushed into it by the force of Rex’s hips thrusting.
While it doesn’t feel quite as good for Obi-Wan in this position, the heaving moans Rex is making is incredibly satisfying to hear.
Obi-Wan clenches his cunt rhythmically on Rex’s dick, feeling pleased when Rex presses deep and comes with a grunt.
Rex presses his chest up against Obi-Wan’s back, his hot, heavy breath against Obi-Wan’s neck. “Fuck your hole feels so good,” he says, the force of his breath moving a few strands of Obi-Wan’s hair.
Rex clenches his fingers on the edge of the headboard for a moment, before pulling back and drawing away.
Obi-Wan trembles as Rex’s dick slides out of him with a loud slick sound.
Rex falls back onto the bed, still catching his breath. “That was so good…” Rex pauses as Obi-Wan tries to unlock his knees and move away from the headboard. “Was it good for you too?” His voice is full of insecurity and doubt.
Obi-Wan looks down at Rex with new eyes. He still knows so little about this man. Even less than he knows about Cody. But looking carefully at Rex’s face, he suddenly realizes that Rex is quite young. Obi-Wan guesses he’s robably a year or two younger than Obi-Wan, while Cody is probably a year or two older than Obi-Wan.
He wouldn’t be surprised if Rex had only had sex a time or two before they’d met. Obi-Wan wouldn’t be surprised if Rex hasn’t ever had the chance to learn how to treat a partner right. Plus, Obi-Wan could imagine that Rex felt threatened by Obi-Wan’s presence in Cody’s life. That must not have helped their first few sexual interactions.
So he lies down beside Rex, cuddling up to him from the side, lying his head on Rex’s shoulder. “It was good,” he says softly.
Rex surprises him by curling his arm around Obi-Wan’s back, pulling him closer.
Maybe Obi-Wan has misjudged this man.
They cuddle for a while, before finally getting up. The morning is more than half over already, and Obi-Wan still wants to see this new place he’s possibly going to be living in for the rest of his life.
Rex shows him the bathroom, and they have a quick shower together. The mood between them feels very relaxed and the act of washing each other feels wonderfully domestic.
They get dressed and head to the kitchen. Just like Cody said, there is a pot of oatmeal on the stove, set low to keep it warm. Rex dishes them both up a bowl. There is fresh cream and canned sliced peaches to add, and the meal is simplistic, hearty and delicious. They eat their food and then head out together to look for Cody.
Cody is standing over a motorcycle with another young man with the same very short, curly, dark hair and warm, russet skin tone as Cody, when Rex and Obi-Wan find them.
Cody and this new young man are both in dirty, greasy shirts and slacks, trying to fix one of the cables attached to the motor.
Obi-Wan has seen a fair amount of broken down motorcycles in the wasteland, and he understands keeping one in working order is tough work without specialist mechanics like they had before the war. On top of that, the roads, just over two-hundred years post-war, are in rough shape and it’s difficult to get fuel. He’s seen a couple working here and there, but he sees more people on horses, bicycles or walking.
“Oh good,” Cody looks up as they approach. “Obi-Wan, I want you to meet Echo. Echo, this is Obi-Wan. He’s going to be staying.”
Echo nods distractedly at Obi-Wan. He glances up for only a second before crouching down and fiddling with the clearly homemade attachment keeping the cable secure, with his left hand. “Should we try it out?” He closes the cover over the engine.
“That old hunk of junk?” Rex says, narrowing his eyes. “You two have been tinkering with it for the entirety of the five years I’ve known you. It’s never worked.”
“Actually, Jango found the body and most of the engine pieces in 71’. So a Fett has been working on this thing for almost a decade now. But I think we’re close,” Cody smiles. “Echo, why don’t you try starting it.”
“Are you sure?” Echo frowns. “Jango left it to you.”
“And you’ve worked on it just as much as I have at this point,” Cody urges him, “Start ‘er up.”
Echo slings his leg over the bike. Strangely, he keeps his right arm tucked against his chest and starts it with his left hand. He presses the ignition key and the engine revs and starts promisingly, then sputters out after about ten seconds.
Cody hums and opens up the engine cover. “Maybe it’s the fuel pressure. We could try–”
Rex sighs and shakes his head. “Cody,” Rex interrupts. “How about you show Obi-Wan around the ranch? After that we can all have lunch. And I’m sure there’s some other chores Echo needs some help with before we leave; those we could start on this afternoon.”
Echo gets off the bike, frowning at the open engine. His right arm swings down to his side and Obi-Wan realizes it’s a prosthetic. He tries not to stare, but he wonders how Echo got it. He remembers Cody saying something about Echo being hurt when his mother and other brother died, and he wonders if that is when he lost his arm.
“Oh,” Cody blinks and turns away from the motorbike to look at Obi-Wan. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Cody takes Obi-Wan on a tour of the ranch, while Rex heads off to the barn. It’s a nice big piece of land that is mostly going to seed, under utilized as it is. The back of the house faces the side of the mountain on the south side of the Weldon valley, and the front of the house faces the road that runs right through the middle of the valley. A dry creek bed and a little bit of green foliage span the land on the north side of the road. And a few clicks to the west, he can distantly see another ranch house, but nothing else seems close.
Cody leads Obi-Wan to the top of a small hill not far from the farmhouse and points out the ranch’s boundaries. The ranchland spreads out pretty flat in this part of the valley. While the next closest town, South Lake, is hidden even further to the west behind the hills that slope up, which creates twists in the road. To the east Obi-Wan can see quite far. He can see all the way down the valley to the ghostly shell of the village, Onyx, that he saw on their trip here.
Cody also motions to a field probably half a click away, with nine beef brahmin grazing on desert-yellow grass fields. Apparently that is their herd.
There’s also a chicken coop with three laying hens near the barn. Generally, Obi-Wan finds chickens loud and lively, but these three hens are quiet and subdued as they peck at the yard. Apparently, some coyotes have eaten their rooster and two other hens recently.
Cody then shows him inside the barn again in the daylight, where Rex is brushing down the horses, nodding distantly as they pass by.
There are two stalls for the milk cattle, but they are empty right now, while the two milk cows are out grazing with the beef cattle.
Once Cody has shown Obi-Wan the rest of the ranch, they head back inside and begin preparing lunch. Obi-Wan uses the task to start familiarizing himself with the kitchen. Cody tells him that Echo trades the excess milk from the two milk cows and any extra eggs, for other foodstuffs and supplies.
Life on the ranch sounds simple, if a little boring.
Rex and Echo eventually find their way inside and they all have lunch.
For the rest of the afternoon, they repair the fences that Echo tells them are broken. It seems he can’t move the cattle into the winter pasture next to the house until they are fixed, so that becomes a priority before Rex and Cody leave.
As night falls, Obi-Wan feels a bit tired and shaky, but feels so much better in comparison to every day in the past three years, the trip over here included. He seems to be getting past the worst of the withdrawal symptoms — the taper program he’d been on had shortened the length and severity of his withdrawal, and he will forever be grateful to those doctors for helping him.
After a light dinner, Rex, Cody and Obi-Wan retire to the bedroom and each find a place to sleep.
Obi-Wan feels good tucked up against Cody’s side, and Rex seems happy having his own space on the smaller bed.
Obi-Wan drifts off to sleep, thinking that maybe things will be better, from here on out.
Chapter 10: The Store
Notes:
Obi-Wan and Cody go on a date.
Y'all's comments are giving me life! Thank you <3
Chapter Text
The next day passes similarly, only with more time focused on fixing fences.
By late in the afternoon the fences are done and the beef brahmin can be brought in. Cody suggests they all take a break though, and claims the bathroom for himself and Obi-Wan first.
They soak in a cool bath together, Obi-Wan’s back pressed to Cody’s chest.
Cody fingers him for a while, whispering filthily ideas in Obi-Wan’s ear. When Obi-Wan can’t take the teasing any longer, he turns around and eases himself down onto Cody’s hard cock.
He surprises himself by coming not long after Cody does. Maybe he shouldn’t feel so surprised though, Cody feels fucking amazing inside him, and Cody is a gentle and giving lover. Obi-Wan has never been with someone like Cody before. It makes him feel special in ways he didn’t even realize he could feel.
After their bath, they get out and let Rex have his own turn in the bathroom. They head to the bedroom and dry off, exchanging lazy kisses as they change into fresh clothes.
Cody has to look through his father’s old clothing and ends up lending Obi-Wan a shirt that’s too short and some loose jeans held up by a thin belt. But he wants Obi-Wan dressed in something sturdy so the two of them can take a ride and visit the closest general store before it closes for the night.
When they are dressed, they head out to the barn and Cody tacks up Vigilance.
Cody leads Vigilance out of the barn, closing the doors behind them.
The sun is sinking in the sky, although it isn’t quite dusk yet — but because of the shape of the valley, the sun is only barely peeking over the edges of the mountains to the southeast, casting shadows over the road.
Cody helps Obi-Wan up onto Vigilance and then gets on himself.
Obi-Wan leans forward and wraps his arms around Cody’s strong chest. He relishes the feel of Cody’s heat along his front, now that Cody isn’t wearing his body armor.
Cody leads Vigilance down and onto the road, heading left, the opposite direction of Onyx.
There is something beautifully isolating about the hush that’s fallen over the valley, as evening approaches and shadows fall over everything. That feeling makes Obi-Wan feel like he and Cody are the only people in the world.
He clenches his fists in the front of Cody’s shirt, knowing that soon this will be gone. Cody and Rex will soon be leaving to get back to their missions in the Mojave and Obi-Wan will be alone again.
Pressing his face as close to Cody’s ear as possible, he quietly asks when Cody and Rex will leave.
“Day after tomorrow,” Cody admits, slowing Vigilance a bit so Obi-Wan can hear his answer.
When they get down the road a ways, they pull into a rest stop just outside of the next town. The rest stop has a few stores and a small grouping of houses, behind. Cody halts Vigilance in front of one of the stores. Neither of them mention the wetness of Obi-Wan’s eyes as Cody helps him down.
Instead, Cody cups Obi-Wan’s scabbed cheek and kisses his lips gently. “Come on,” he motions his head towards Lawson’s Place, General Merchandise. The name Lawson is clearly new and has been painted over something else, but Obi-Wan can’t tell what name was on the sign before.
They head inside. Inside the store is clean and cool, which is unusual for most public spaces nowadays. There are a couple of people milling through the aisles of the grocery section. Cody leads Obi-Wan through the aisles, towards the back. A wall has been knocked through and they step into a large addition to the store that houses farming goods, home goods and a hardware section.
The interior of the store has a cheery feeling to it, but it’s hard to focus on picking out supplies when a led ball sits in his gut. Obi-Wan aches at the thought of Cody and Rex leaving so soon.
Cody leads Obi-Wan over to a small clothing section in the corner and convinces him to pick out a few outfits and personal items like socks and underwear.
Obi-Wan sifts through the neatly folded piles, picking out the barest of essentials. Cody sighs at his tiny pile and makes him go back again.
Once Cody is satisfied that Obi-Wan has enough clothes, Cody takes Obi-Wan’s hand and leads him away to the middle of the store. He tells Obi-Wan to look at whatever he wants in the store, while Cody moves towards a hardware section himself.
As Cody heads off to look through a bin full of bolts so he can find what he needs for his and Echo’s motorcycle, Obi-Wan finds himself wandering over to the farming supply section. The owner has a decent selection of dried seeds packed in brown paper envelopes, all carefully labeled with their contents. Obi-Wan pauses in front of them for a while, until — after a furtive look over at Cody — he decides to look through them.
The seeds make him think back to his childhood, back when he was raised on a communal farm with many other orphans. He has always been grateful to the Jedi for taking him in and teaching him so much about farming. And he was grateful to Qui-Gon for taking Obi-Wan on as an apprentice and keeping him, even after Qui-Gon had married Shmi and adopted her son Anakin. There had been times, after that, when Qui-Gon had seemed to almost forget about Obi-Wan’s existence — but still, Obi-Wan is still grateful for the care and skills Qui-Gon passed on to him.
He picks up a few packets of root vegetables like carrots, onions and turnips. They’re all reasonably priced. Obi-Wan thinks about the empty space and fallow fields on the ranch. Land that is begging to be utilized. He doesn’t know much about animal raising beyond the little he’d learnt about the chickens and dogs and cats that had lived on the farm. But he had a lot of knowledge about farming crops.
He knew he wasn’t going to be that useful to Cody and Rex. He wasn’t experienced with animal care, he couldn’t fix motorcycles, or fight in the war alongside Cody and Rex. But he could do this. He could transform some of that land and grow food.
It is already late autumn though, which means there’s no time to plant outside. But, there had been an unused basement that Cody had mentioned is only used for storage now.
Obi-Wan looks up. Cody is still sorting through a big bin filled with machinery parts, absorbed in his task. Obi-Wan sticks his hand in his pocket, feeling the few NCR bills Rex told him to keep when Obi-Wan offered it back, and the bag of bottlecaps he’d found in Primm.
Obi-Wan approaches the store owner nervously and asks about the possibility of getting UV bulbs. The Jedi had grown seedlings and plants indoors during the winter, under artificial lights. Then during spring they would transplant them outside and sometimes get multiple harvests when they should have only gotten one.
The man, Lawson, seems unsure about UV bulbs, but he does know that there is one other farmstead in the valley that grows crops through the winter. He tells Obi-Wan that if Obi-Wan can track down their UV bulb supplier, Lawson will order some for him.
Obi-Wan is satisfied with that answer, and sets down the seed packets he picked out, paying for them with his own money.
They’re a little bulky in his pockets, but he’s able to stuff all of them in.
When he turns to leave, Lawson reaches across the counter and lays a gentle hand on the arm Obi-Wan has reached up to grab his change with. Obi-Wan freezes, fear shooting up his spine.
He looks up at the store owner, but the man’s eyes are soft and concerned.
“Son, I know it can be hard to leave someone you care for, but I saw you come in with the Fett boy, and I know the Fetts can be rough. Do you need help getting away from him?” The man’s voice is quiet so no one else in the store hears them.
“From Cody?” Obi-Wan balks, trying to pull away. He doesn’t like that this man is touching him, even if it is out of concern. His experiences tell him people are not kind, Cody being one of the few exceptions. “He would never hurt me.”
Lawson frowns. “The bruises and scrapes on your face though…”
Obi-Wan puts his free hand up on his cheek. He has forgotten about that. When he’d fallen off Vigilance between the Outpost and Barstow his face had scraped along the road. So had his arm and his chest, but those wounds weren’t visible, right now.
That night, as Obi-Wan had been passing in and out of consciousness, Cody had washed the wounds with a wet cloth. He’d had to spend a long time picking out all the little bits of gravel, but the next morning he had assured Obi-Wan that the scrapes would most likely heal on their own.
“Oh, I just fell,” Obi-Wan tries to assure the man.
Lawson lets go of Obi-Wan’s arm, but he doesn’t pull away. “If you’re sure,” he says, sounding like he doesn’t quite believe it.
Obi-Wan nods solemnly.
“Well if you change your mind, I’m here in the store six days a week, nine am until seven pm,” his tone changes to a more friendly, impersonal, customer service voice.
Obi-Wan blinks and turns away, now noticing that another customer had come up behind Obi-Wan right as Lawson’s voice had changed. He wondered if the man was trying to give Obi-Wan privacy, or if the man didn’t want it spread around what he’d offered Obi-Wan.
A little shaken, he goes over to Cody, who has a couple parts in one hand and a few bolts in the other. He looks up and smiles. “Ready to go?”
Obi-Wan nods.
Cody gathers up his purchases and brings them up to the till.
When Obi-Wan hears the total, he tries to quietly protest to Cody buying him quite so many clothes, but Cody waves him off and pays for their purchases.
Lawson watches Cody carefully as he wraps up their purchases in brown paper.
“He doesn’t seem to like you very much,” Obi-Wan says softly as Cody leads him outside past Vigilance and over to another building that looks like a house converted into a bar. The sign outside the bar reads “Weldon Saloon, last stop for a drink before Lake Isabella”.
“Who doesn’t, Lawson?” Cody asks distantly, eyes ahead.
Obi-Wan murmurs an affirmative.
Cody leads him in through the Saloon’s doors and over to a table in the darkened interior. He sits Obi-Wan down in the almost empty saloon and heads over to the bar to order something.
He comes back with two bottles of pre-war beer, twisting the caps off with a gloved hand.
Obi-Wan is hesitant to drink the beer. He has had so many different drugs, drinks and toxins in his veins in the past few years, and he’s finally past the worst of his withdrawal. But he doesn’t want to slight Cody’s kindness, so he takes tiny, slow sips from the beer anyways.
“Lawson and my father Jango hate each other’s guts,” Cody confides between long swallows of beer. “It’s not undeserved hate either, Jango can be kind of an asshole at times. Anyways, Lawson has always been fairly suspicious of me as a result. But he’s never treated me poorly, and he has good prices on some things. He gets some good traders coming in who are headed east from Bakersfield and Fresno. He often has some excellent machine parts and tools that are in not perfect condition that the shops in South Lake won’t buy. Half of the motorcycle's parts have been built from odds and ends from Lawson’s shop. He always prices things pretty reasonably too, so I always come back.” Cody shrugs, “I guess I don’t really care what he thinks of me, as long as he doesn’t treat me poorly and his prices remain reasonable.”
They are quiet for a little while. Obi-Wan wants to talk, but he’s feeling shy since they are in public.
Taking a lingering sip of cold beer, Obi-Wan tries to find his courage and speaks up. “While you're gone I would like… Well, I’m not actually very good with animals.” Obi-Wan deflates a bit.
Cody blinks, confused, clearly not following Obi-Wan’s train of thought. “That’s alright. Echo might need a bit of help, but he knows how to take care of the animals.”
Obi-Wan nods, looking down at the scratched up wooden surface of the table. “I just… I want to be helpful.”
Cody curls his hand around one of Obi-Wan’s, picking it up and bringing it up to his lips. “Knowing you’re there, waiting for me to come home does help.” He lays a gentle kiss on the back of Obi-Wan’s hand. “It gives me someone to come home to, someone to survive for.”
Obi-Wan feels simultaneously flattered and annoyed. Before he was captured, he lived a life full of hard work. He doesn’t just want to lie around, bored, waiting for Cody to come home. The annoyance makes him a little more courageous and it’s like he can’t stop himself from speaking now. “I want to try and grow some crops in the unused fields.”
Cody just looks confused. “That’s fine. There’s lots of land on the ranch that’s not being used. If that will make you happy, then you should. Just don’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t work. The soil in this area isn’t exactly productive.”
Obi-Wan has seen many different kinds of interesting natural plants growing in this valley already. Yes, it’s dry, but he thinks the soil here is better than Cody realizes. There’s grassland and native shrubbery here after all. On top of which, the Jedi lived near Tecopa, where it was even sandier and hotter, and they had been very successful as farmers there. But Cody has just given him permission to do what he wants, so he doesn’t argue. He just nods his acceptance and forces himself to relax back into the cracked leather seats of the booth.
They both finish their beers and Cody asks if he’s ready to leave. Obi-Wan nods and they get out of the booth.
They reach Vigilance, waiting patiently for them, untied. She is such a calm and loyal horse, it was kind of astounding. Cody straps his wrapped purchases to Vigilance’s saddle and then turns back and smiles at Obi-Wan.
“Cody?” Obi-Wan asks, feeling a lot calmer now.
Cody hums and slips his hand through Obi-Wan's, squeezing it gently.
“You said you’ll be leaving in two days. But you didn’t say when you’ll be coming back,” he looks over at Cody.
Cody, who is reaching over with his free hand to grab Vigilance’s reins, freezes.
The sun has set, and the air has begun to cool quickly.
Cody gets up onto Vigilance without a word and then reaches down to help Obi-Wan up behind him. Once Obi-Wan is on, Cody leads them slowly towards the road.
Finally, Cody answers. “When it’s just Echo waiting at home for us, Rex and I probably only come back a couple times a year. We’ve never had a reason to come home more often. But…” Cody pauses and turns his head so Obi-Wan can see his profile against the slowly darkening sky. “Rex and I will try to come home more often now that you’re here.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Obi-Wan frowns. There’s a bit of tension between them, but Obi-Wan still can’t resist leaning forward anyways and wrapping himself around Cody. In two days he won’t be able to do this anymore, he will take comfort in this closeness while he can. He presses his nose to Cody’s shoulder and lets himself breathe in Cody’s scent.
“Our superiors won’t just let us leave whenever we want. But if we’re between missions and have more than a few days leave, we’ll head here to see you.”
“Doesn’t it take a whole three days to get here?” Obi-Wan asks. He is terrified that not only are Cody and Rex going to leave him here, but that they might never come back either.
“If we can go at a faster pace, we can make it home in a day and a half from most places in the New Vegas area. So we’ll just need to pack the horses lighter next time.”
Obi-Wan winces, realizing they had to take that journey very slowly because of him.
“...I guess Rex’s birthday is coming up in a few months as well. So I’ll try to get some leave organized so we can come back and all celebrate together.”
Obi-Wan nods but doesn’t say anything further. He doesn’t want to make a nuisance of himself, and he doesn’t want to beg for them to come home sooner. Rex and Cody will come home when they decide to, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
That doesn’t mean he’s happy about it.
They make it back to the ranch, settle Vigilance in for the night and head into the house with their purchases.
The sun has completely set and the ranch is dark. When they walk in the front door, the house is only dimly lit inside.
Echo is lying on a couch that has seen better days, but still looks quite comfortable. He’s reading a book with a small battery-powered lantern. He doesn’t look over at them when they come in, and grunts in annoyance when Cody comes over and rubs his knuckles through Echo’s short curls.
Through the open doorway to the kitchen, Obi-Wan can see Rex at the kitchen table cleaning the pieces of what looks like a small pistol. Rex locks eyes with Obi-Wan when he walks through the front door. “Come, sit,” Rex calls and points to another chair.
Obi-Wan goes into the kitchen and sits, watching Rex’s deft hands slide a cloth over each of the metal pieces. He explains what each piece is and where it goes. Then slowly, carefully, he begins to put the pistol back together, showing Obi-Wan step by step. When it’s completely back together, he hands the pistol to Obi-Wan and instructs Obi-Wan how to take it back apart, piece by piece.
A small lantern on the table illuminates their hands. It’s a little hard to see in the shadows of the room, until suddenly the overhead kitchen light flickers on.
“I think this is probably important enough to use some of the generator’s power,” Cody says, with serious eyes. Obi-Wan hadn’t even noticed his approach, but he comes into the kitchen and sits at the table with them, quietly watching.
Once Obi-Wan has taken apart the gun, the pieces lie in front of him, arranged how Rex instructs them to be laid out. Rex then tells him to put it back together, gently correcting him when he can’t remember or tries to put the wrong piece in first.
When it’s completely back together, Rex makes him repeat the process, taking it apart and putting it back together. And again a third time after that.
“That’s probably good enough for tonight Rex,” Cody interrupts them from where he’s been sitting quietly.
Rex nods and Obi-Wan moves to hand the gun back to Rex, who shakes his head. “That’s yours now. It’s important in the Wastes to always carry a weapon with you that you can use for defense. It’s a little safer here in the California Republic than the Mojave, but bad things happen here too. There’s vicious animals and occasionally raiders and people just wanting to cause trouble.”
Cody nods. “And once we leave, we want you to carry that gun on you at all times, since we won’t be around to protect you. Tomorrow Rex and I will take you outside and teach you how to shoot.”
“I know how to shoot,” Obi-Wan says quietly. “It’s been a while, but I know how. It’s one of the reasons I feel so responsible for what happened to Anakin and I. I absentmindedly left my rifle at home to chase after him. He was always running off doing stupid shit. I was supposed to watch him and I…” Obi-Wan looks down at the table, his stomach churning. “I couldn’t even defend us when they came. When those legionaries took us and tied us up and drugged us.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Cody and Rex exchange worried looks.
“So you know how to use a rifle?” Cody asks.
Obi-Wan nods.
“That’s good. We’ll see if we can get one of the older rifles that Jango left, in working order for you. But having a pistol is still a good idea. It’s small and light and we have a holster you can use. It will be easy for you to carry it while you’re moving around the ranch.”
Obi-Wan agrees, fingers tightening on edges of the pistol.
With nothing else to do, they shut down the lights and everyone heads for bed.
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p0ck3tf0x on Chapter 1 Fri 13 Sep 2024 01:33PM UTC
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miravisu on Chapter 1 Fri 13 Sep 2024 05:14PM UTC
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TrueMandalorianPadawan on Chapter 1 Sat 14 Sep 2024 03:03AM UTC
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Deep_Sea_Diver_49er on Chapter 2 Sat 14 Sep 2024 03:24PM UTC
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fantasystrait on Chapter 5 Mon 30 Sep 2024 09:07AM UTC
Last Edited Mon 30 Sep 2024 09:07AM UTC
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Anonymous Creator on Chapter 5 Tue 29 Oct 2024 04:16AM UTC
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HydrophobicPenguin on Chapter 6 Tue 29 Oct 2024 08:50PM UTC
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Anonymous Creator on Chapter 7 Sat 22 Mar 2025 01:37AM UTC
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Deep_Sea_Diver_49er on Chapter 7 Sun 15 Dec 2024 03:19AM UTC
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Anonymous Creator on Chapter 8 Fri 11 Jul 2025 04:58AM UTC
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