Cody stops walking when the first tendrils of fog curl around his boots.
He swallows and leans against the wall for a moment. Watches the fog slither dark and foreboding from the General-assigned quarters into the connected hallway. The lights flicker and die before coming awake again over-bright and blinding. He sees ghosts when he blinks and he knows it’s just his own brain haunting him.
He scrubs a hand over his hair, his face. He can’t do this. This is ridiculous. He should just—
Claws click in a rhythm on the backplate by his shoulder and he straightens up, wills the goosebumps back into his skin. He doesn’t turn around, there won’t be anything there.
The door to the quarters slides open and a second later Obi-Wan sticks his head out.
“Cody? Is everything alright?”
He should re-assure. Apologize for the interruption. Turn around and go. It’s in the middle of night cycle, feeding time for Obi-Wan, and he shouldn’t—
Why didn’t you eat my nightmare, he wants to ask and bites into his tongue.
But it is in the middle of the night cycle and the nightmare had been— He’d just— His head isn’t all there, the newest version of how his family, how Obi-Wan, dies horribly while he, inexplicably, orders their death, is rattling around in his head.
His fingertips tap against his thighs, prickling from the dream-numbness.
Obi-Wan is still looking at him, waiting.
“I,” he starts and falters.
“Would you like to come in?”
The mercy spears through his locked joints.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, means it more than he can put into those words. His hand clenches in the smoking robe.
Obi-Wan shakes his head. “No need. If this is something I’m able to help with—“
Cody ends up on Obi-Wan’s bunk with Obi-Wan curled around him and his robe under Cody’s head because Boil for once didn’t have dark circles under his eyes and Wooley had looked like he slept through the whole night.
“It’s the cloak,” Obi-Wan had explained. “We are a people, somewhat, not cursed or the monsters in the dark. Our young cannot grow up without dreams. We cannot overwhelm them with nightmares when we hold them. The cloak allows us to share dreams. Tranquility, comfort.”
“I don’t want to watch you die anymore,” he had croaked out in turn, fingers clenched, knuckles knocking into his sides to stay there.
He’s here now, curled up, the smoke tickling his temple.
Obi-Wan’s clawed pinky sneaks over his, and Cody hides his smile in the smoke.
Cody closes his eyes and dreams.