Xanatos/Cody - Love at 1st Snark
“Oh, stars and stupid little birds,” Obi-Wan says, entirely exasperated. “Why did it have to be you?”
Cody raises his head from where he’s been trying to chew through the gag. Anything that can get his general sounding like that promises to be entertaining, to say the least.
“It’s pronounced thank you, little brother,” a posh-sounding voice—no Coruscanti accent, but something more liquid, a lot less Core, which is interesting—says, precisely aimed to cause maximum irritation. “And I take payment in credits or peggats, whichever you have on you at the moment.”
“I'm naked,” Obi-Wan says, offended. “Clearly I don’t have any credits, Xanatos—”
“A shame. I suppose I’ll have to leave you to Hondo, then.” Steps sail past Obi-Wan’s cell, and there's a curse, the sound of struggling, but they don’t turn back. Cody raises a brow, and a moment later the fancy bastard who matches the voice sweeps around to the door of his cell, raises a lightsaber with a gleaming white blade, and brings it down sharply. The door thumps down flat, and Xanatos steps over it, then sweeps a look over Cody, brows rising.
“Well hello,” he says. He purrs, and Cody levels a brow right back. It makes Xanatos grin, sauntering into the cell.
“He doesn’t have any credits either, Xanatos!” Obi-Wan calls from the other cell, annoyed.
“For him I’ll make an exception, and rescue him out of the goodness of my heart,” Xanatos calls back, smirking at the sound of offense it gets him. Sinking down to one knee, he pulls a very nice knife from his sleeve, then leans in to cut through Cody's gag, and then says, “You will be repaying my altruism, I presume. You don’t seem as rude as Obi-Wan.”
Cody doesn’t laugh, just leans to the side so he can spit the gag out, then says, “Of course. Wouldn’t want anyone’s altruism to be without some kind of benefit, right?”
“Obi-Wan!” Hondo says, loudly and delightedly, from the next cell. “My friend, you seem to be in a bind! Perhaps this old pirate can help you out?”
“If my choices are you or him, you’d be my first choice every time, Captain,” Obi-Wan says sincerely.
Xanatos rolls his eyes, moving to deactivate Cody's binders. “I don’t know why I bother,” he says. “This whole family is a nightmare. I should have run away when I was fifteen and joined a circus.”
“You’d make a beautiful clown,” Cody tells him gravely, and surprise washes over his face for an instant before he laughs.
“Thank you, I like to think so too.” Getting a hand under Cody's arm, he tugs him to his feet, then asks, “Every limb still attached?”
“All the important ones,” Cody says mildly. “Commander Cody, thanks for the save.”
It gets him a lazy smile, full of intent. “Xanatos, with the 501st, but I think you can call me whatever you like.”
If this is the Jedi Rex has been refusing to introduce Cody to, Cody's going to have to turn Rex upside down and dunk his head in dye or something. “Yeah? That include—?”
“Cody. You don’t even know where he’s been.”
“Sorry, General,” Cody says, not sorry at all. When Xanatos sweeps his fur-trimmed cloak off and offers it, he takes it with dignity, slinging it around his shoulders.
“Well now,” Xanatos says, and that smirk is an invitation. “That’s quite the look, Commander. Makes me want to lay you down in front of a roaring fireplace—”
“Xanatos.”
“I think if we keep scandalizing the general, he might have a coronary,” Cody says gravely. “Be a shame to rob Hondo of his company.”
“You’re right, of course.” Xanatos offers Cody his arm, and, wholly amused, Cody takes it like he’s a senator at a fancy gala. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I'm going to toss you out an airlock,” Obi-Wan says crossly, limping down the corridor to join them. Hondo has one of Obi-Wan’s arms pulled over his shoulder, and his hat is askew. “You’d better not have dragged Feemor along—”
“Oh no, my dear padawan brother,” Xanatos says airily. “I brought Qui-Gon.”
Obi-Wan blanches, at in the same moment, something distant explodes, shaking the whole base.
“Time to run,” Xanatos advises Cody, and takes off, hauling Cody right along with him.
