The Force screamed a warning a bare moment before the first shattering impact hit the palace. The walls cracked and the ceiling groaned as Obi-Wan turned towards the door on the far side of the massive room. Rex cursed beside him, low and vicious and barely audible over the continuing sound of the barrage.
When had the Separatists arrived? Only they had anything to gain by attacking the presidential palace. He and Rex had been investigating the private papers of the President; papers that revealed a secret agreement with the Separatists that would cripple Republic supply lines in this area.
They had to get back outside, had to find the President and make sure he survived this attack. At least long enough to provide them with details of his deal, and hopefully stand trial for treason.
Arms like iron bands caught him around the waist before he could take a single step towards the door.
"Rex, what?" Obi-Wan demanded, not quite fighting, trusting the Captain, but his voice was sharp and demanding nonetheless. The Captain didn't say a word as he hauled him backwards and spun them, shoving Obi-Wan face first into the very safe they had been riffling through — an excessive monstrosity of a personal safe at over six feet high and nearly three deep, with walls of solid, foot-thick durasteel. Rex's full weight impacted with his back, shoving Obi-Wan's chest against the shelving, and pressing in behind him. A second later the ceiling collapsed with a screeching roar of twisting metal and falling stone. He didn't even have the chance to haul the door closed enough to provide additional protection. All he could do was try to use his body as a shield between the Jedi and the collapsing building.
Obi-Wan wouldn't have made it to the door on time. He would be lying beneath the rubble even now. He might have been able to hold some of it off with the Force, but not all of it.
Rex had saved his life.
Rex grunted and jerked forward as bricks and chunks of stone continued to fall, some impacting with his armor-clad back. Obi-Wan reacted to the pain in that sound, reaching backwards with his Force sense to try and provide some protection. He deflected what rocks he could sense, twisting a durasteel pole away before it hit Rex. He tried to twist his head around to see, only to be blocked by Rex's chest plate.
"Hold still," the Captain snarled at him, managing to wiggle one arm up from where it had been practically pinned around the General's waist. He used it to keep Obi-Wan's head tucked down, and protect him further from the small items that were leaping off the shelves around them as the floor shook.
Slowly, the roaring rumble faded away to uneasy silence, and darkness.
"Are you alright, General?" Rex asked, his voice low in the dark. His heart was beating a rapid tattoo against his chest, relief and concern surging through him. He'd recognized the sound of that weapon, known it could easily collapse this building in seconds. He'd seen the cracks spiderwebbing through the ceiling, known that there was no way they would make it out of the building in time. The safe had been a desperate gamble, a fleeting hope that at the very least he might be able to save Obi-Wan.
There was no answer to his question.
Rex's blood ran cold. Had he failed? Had Obi-Wan been hurt? Had Rex hurt him? He'd been a little rough in getting him in here, but no too much, right?
He couldn't feel the rise and fall of breath through the armor he wore, no matter that they were pressed together head to toe.
"General?" He demanded, contorting to try to bring his ungloved hand to the General's neck. He'd taken his gloves and helmet off to look through the papers, but he regretted it not at all. His mouth was full of powdered duracrete and his lungs burned, but his fingers found his General's warm pulse at his neck and that was worth anything.
"General," He tried again, nudging forward with his shoulder, trying to rouse him enough to determine his health.
"Hush Captain," Obi-Wan admonished gently, and his voice was a relief, even through the aggravation Rex felt at the casual tone. Rex felt him shift just a tiny bit, felt the increased pressure from what had to be him tipping his head back to rest against Rex's breastplate. If there was any light at all, he would be able to stare up into Rex's eyes. "I'm fine, thanks to you. Are you uninjured?"
Rex flexed the muscles in his back, wincing at the pull, probably from one of the impacts of stone. Even through his armor, that would leave a mark. "Bruised, but nothing broken, I don't think."
"Good. I'm trying to get in touch with Anakin and see what's happening outside. The Separatists should not have been able to get close enough to fire on our position. We appear to be quite firmly stuck, but I'd like to know if they are going to renew trying to bring the building down around us, or not."
"Trying?" Rex asked wryly, leaning emotionally on Obi-Wan's calm. From where he was standing, their situation was pretty bad. They were trapped under tons of rubble with an indeterminate amount of air, no supplies, and in a city that seemed to be under attack. "Seems to me they've succeeded."
Obi-Wan was silent for a second, before he snorted a tiny laugh that vibrated through the space.
"Fair enough, Captain." Obi-Wan conceded. "Though we've been extraordinarily lucky thus far, considering. There is fresh air coming in from somewhere, so we are unlikely to suffocate. Anakin is too far away to reach clearly through our bond, but he's aware something in wrong, and he will be able to use it to locate us."
Obi-Wan heaved an aggrieved sigh.
"I'll likely never life this down though. Having to be saved by my own Padawan."
Before Rex could wryly agree that no, Anakin was not likely to let having to rescue his Captain go either, a frantic beeping emerged from one of Rex's storage pouches.
His communicator. Thank the Force.
It took great deal of contorting and wiggling in the space they had before Obi-Wan managed to dig the shrilling thing out and activate it.
Cody's hologram was painfully bright, and blue light it cast revealed the dust-motes slowly settling in the air. It nearly blinded them as their pupils tried to adjust from absolute darkness. They were facing each other now, the hologram floating between them, pressed as tightly as ever. The ghostly blue shadows the hologram cast on their faces showed the stress and worry both had been using the darkness to conceal.
The commander wasn't looking at the hologram, his attention focused intently on something out of pickup range.
"Cody?" Rex said.
"Good, Rex, you're alive." Only a tiny bit of the tension in Cody's frame leaked out when he heard Rex's voice. "The palace has collapsed, and I can't get in touch with General Kenobi." The stress and worry in his voice was obvious, even though his bare face was creased with nothing more than concentration. His scar stood out in sharp relief, bisected by a trail of blood that dripped down from his hairline. Rex wondered where his helmet had gone.
Cody's arm came around smoothly, his blaster firing behind him without even aiming. A Commando droid fell through the hologram pickup, headless. Rex's breath caught. He felt Obi-Wan mirror him, and tightened the arm still around his waist in sympathy. Cody was one of the sexiest vods Rex knew, and that effortless competence and violence was a large part of it.
"I'm fine, Commander." Obi-Wan spoke before Rex could, and Cody's head snapped around to look at the hologram with naked relief on his normally concealed face.
"General — where are you?" The matching relief in Cody's voice tilted up sharply at the end, and Rex could only imagine what the hologram was picking up.
"The Captain and I were in the President's private rooms when the attack hit. The Captain's quick thinking got us into the President's private safe just before the ceiling collapsed. There is air circulating, but I'm afraid we're rather stuck. Is there any chance you can spare some time to dig us out?"
Cody's eyebrow rose just a fraction. "In the safe. Together?" Cody had seen that safe when they had first cleared the palace. He knew just how big it was. It was probably a mark of just how much completely ridiculous shit the 212th and 501st got into that his reaction to finding out that his General and one of his Captains was trapped together in a tiny space under several tons of rubble was to switch straight to teasing as soon as he knew they were okay.
"It's not exactly a comfortable fit," Rex drawled, dry, dry, dry as the desert planets his General hated. "But we managed it. Now we'd like out, if it's not too much trouble."
Cody's eyebrow climbed a fraction higher, and it was such a pure Obi-Wan expression, obviously learned from the Jedi Master, that Rex wasn't sure he wanted to punch his brother, or pull him in for a kiss. Probably the latter, had he been physically in front of him. It wasn't exactly an unfamiliar feeling with either of the men who routinely wore that expression.
Obi-Wan cleared his throat before Cody and Rex could dissolve into a pissing contest better suited for off duty. "Is the city still under attack, Commander?"
Cody refocused his attention on his General, and shook his head. The answer was obvious of course. If there was still a serious danger, Cody would have been all business, instead of teasing Rex, but a report would be appreciated. "No, General. It was just one squad with the kriffing blaster canon. The target was obviously the palace, and I don't think they knew we were here. We're just finishing the mop-up now. We'll be able to start digging you out within half an hour. Will you be alright until then?"
"Of course, Commander. We don't have a lot of space, but this safe is sturdy, and we'll be fine. Bored, but fine. Captain Rex is certainly better company than the last person I was locked in a cell with." Obi-Wan smirked at Rex, who rolled his eyes.
"Oh, thank you, Sir," Rex said. "If I recall correctly, the last person you were stuck in a cell with was an overweight Togruta."
"A Twi'lek courtesan, actually," Cody replied, a wicked smirk just barely at the corners of his eyes. "One who was completely enamored of The Negotiator. You're a bit out of date, vod."
It was impossible to tell in the blue light if Obi-Wan was blushing, but Rex knew he was.
"Thank you, Commander," Obi-Wan said, voice steady. "Please, let me know when Anakin arrives. He will be of great help moving rubble, and it will be good practice for Ahsoka as well."
Cody snapped out a salute at Obi-Wan.
"Yes, Sir. It will be a few hours, but we'll get you out. Let me know if your situation changes."
Then he turned towards Rex, voice and eyes serious and earnest.
"This might be your best chance, vod." He said, the Mandalorian falling as easily from his lips as Basic. "Don't waste it."
Then the wicked smirk from earlier curled around his mouth again. "And find out how he feels about sharing, while you're at it, will you? I'm not inclined to give you up entirely if I don't have to."
Then he cut the hologram before Rex could do anything more than sputter in outraged embarrassment. Damn him! As if this wasn't going to be uncomfortable enough without thinking about Obi-Wan pressed against him; not fully clothed and sandwiched between him and a shelf, but naked, passionate, and pressed between him and his favorite brother.
Then, of course, Obi-Wan made it worse.
"Ask if I mind sharing what?" Cody's General asked from the sudden darkness, in the flawless Mandalorian Rex never would have suspected he possessed.
…Kriff.