The tea had been cold for long enough that its soothing steam was barely a memory. Rex drank it anyway, grimly. The normally pleasant red blend was brewed at triple strength, and fiercely bitter for the insult.
He didn't care. He needed the caffeine.
The battle was almost twelve hours behind them, and Rex had yet to seek his own bed.
Only one more report. Then he could find his bed and crash for an entire shift. Maybe he would just go crawl in with Cody. Rex could use a warm bed and some company tonight. Though he was more likely to find Cody's bed empty, than find a Commander to snuggle with.

Normally, when the 212th and the 501st had an engagement together, Cody and Rex would complete their paperwork together, Cody sitting at his desk, Rex spread out on the floor of Cody's room. When they were done, they would collapse together in Cody's bunk, sheltering each other from the nightmares of responsibility and loss. But not tonight.
The Commander had taken a crack to the head during the battle and been summarily banished from anything that wasn't rest, despite his protests. Even paperwork.
It had been a hard battle, with too many losses. More in the 212th than the 501st. Cody, in technical compliance with his orders to rest, was probably buried somewhere in the tumble of brothers occupying the largest rec area on the Negotiator. A similar scene was no doubt occurring on Rex's ship. The 501st had already been congregating when Rex had departed for the Negotiator, dragging blankets and pillows along with them.
Rex knew he would be welcome to join the 212th, let himself get swallowed by the sounds and feel of his brothers, warm and alive around him. But even the thought of dragging himself all the way across the ship at this point was abhorrent. If he tried, he'd probably collapse in the corridor somewhere and wake to the cleaning droids trying to sweep him up.
Like so much garbage.
Eyes hard, Rex dragged the last towering stack of flimsi towards himself. This was the report he hated the most, every time.
He took a deep breath, and looked down.
His own face stared up at him from the corner of the first page, a scar across the bridge of the nose, hair dark and shaggy, on the edge of too long. Ultima, the first line read, followed by details of statistics, training, and death.
Next page.
Bald, with a tattoo of a Kili bird in flight stretched over his scalp. Yancen.
Next.
Dark hair in a regulation cut. No markings, and that stiff look all shinies had. CT-9864.
Next.
Regulation cut. A sunburst arcing from his left eye done in golds and outlined in 501st blue. Striker.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Next.
Too many. Always too many.
Rex hated the casualty lists, but he would not shy from them. Would not delegate them before passing them up the chain of command, to be barely glanced at by officers to whom a brother's life was worth less than trash.
*He* would not dishonor his brothers by failing to acknowledge every single one of them.
Not when sometimes, it felt like he was the only one who would.
A shuffle across the table made shame flood him for the thought, and he glanced at General Kenobi sitting facing him, surrounded by his own stacks of flimsi, towering higher than normal, even for a the clusterfuck this last mission had been. It was Cody's paperwork in addition to his own, snatched straight out of the Commander's hands over Rex's brother's slurred protests. The scolding admonishment that Cody would be doing nothing but resting, if Obi-Wan had to tie him to a bed in medical himself had Medic Tile half laughing, half scowling, and muttering about the General following his own advice when injured. Which their General had pointedly ignored as he stalked off with Cody's paperwork, ignoring his Commander's grumbling.

He and his brothers had been made for the Jedi, and for the republic. That was an honor in addition to a duty. It might feel, at times, that they were treated like nothing more than droids. Left to die without care or acknowledgement of their service, but some cared, as much as they could.

Obi-Wan cared. Anakin cared. Plo Koon, ans Ahsoka cared. They did everything they could to minimize casualties, while honoring a brother's efforts and existence. They ran themselves ragged, pushed themselves just as hard as any one else. Harder.

Now, Obi-Wan was looking at him, tired lines around his eyes, a cold cup of tea at his own elbow. Obi-Wan had been in the thick of battle same as him. Throwing himself recklessly at the enemy, trying to take out as many droids as possible, fast. Trying to keep as many of his men alive as possible. Rex had been busy riding herd on Anakin, trying to keep his own Jedi safe while he similarly threw himself recklessly into danger, but he'd seen flashes of Obi-Wan's blue lightsaber deep in the hottest parts of battle. And heard Cody's fond, well-worn bitching grumbling as he was getting patched up, about Generals who didn't have the sense to stay behind the lines.

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at him, as if sensing the shift in his attention, offering a curious tilt of his head in question.

"Everything alright, Rex?"

Rex shook his own head.

"Just chasing sunrays, Sir," Rex told him, thinking of Kamino, and the endless rain that had cocooned them for so long, the shivering beams of sunlight a rare and near mythical occurrence.

Like the Jedi had been, all through their training. The suns who would guide them in the battle they had been created for.

Thinking that it was a shame the first time he saw a sun properly it was on the battlefield, when it was so beautiful and fierce and could be so much more.

Was his life to be nothing but endless battlefields in an endless war?

Rex didn't know what his face had just done, but Obi-Wan made a concerned, interrogatory sound, and the Captain shook his head again, smiling self-deprecatingly at his General. "Just getting maudlin in my old age, Sir."

Cody was fine. Torrent company had come out unscathed, as had their Generals, and Commander Ahsoka. Those brothers who had lost friends and lovers would be ensconced in a pile of others who could take the tears, or rage, and give back whatever comfort was needed. The living were being taken care of, and there was nothing more Rex could do for the dead than see to it that they were remembered.

And win this damn war before every single one of them died.

Obi-Wan gave him an understanding look, glancing sadly at his own towering stack of casualties. He'd done them first, practically radiating the grief and mourning he couldn't take the time to feel on the battlefield as men fell around him. Pushed down until he had a quiet moment, deep in the endless night.

"They served well, and died with honor, and we will remember them," Obi-Wan said, and Rex smiled tiredly, reacting to the deep well of genuine sadness behind Obi-Wan's otherwise platitudinous words.

Yes. They had. And yes, they would.

Rex slid the last sheet of flimsiplast into the pile work completed, and beyond ready to find a bed. Or any horizontal surface, really. If he'd been in Cody's room he probably would have just dragged the other down onto the floor with him, the few feet to the bed an insurmountable journey. He blinked through the fog that had taken over his mind the moment his concentration broke.

He couldn't just curl up on his General's floor. Or maybe he could? No. He sould go find Cody's bed, only a few rooms down the corridor. He'd sleep until the first inevitable nightmares woke him, and by then maybe he would have the energy to face the trek to find the closest knot of brothers and curl up with them.

He gathered himself, and stood.

Or rather, he tried to stand, and his legs buckled underneath him.

Invisible hands caught him and eased him back down into his chair, and Rex looked up to see Obi-Wan's hands extended towards him, his eyes wide with worry.

"Rex, are you alright?" Obi-Wan asked, half risen out of his own seat.

Rex tried to smile at him through a blurred, tilting world. "I'm fine, sir. Just a little tired. I'm done with my paperwork, so I'm gonna go bed down with Cody."

Obi-Wan gave him a flat look that Rex barely registered over his exhaustion.

"I have it on good authority that, despite the medic's orders, Cody is near the bottom of a tangle of bodies on the other side of the ship. That's almost a half an hour's walk. You'll never make it." Obi-Wan told him, voice as flat as his expression.

His natural stubbornness and the *need* not to be alone tonight had Rex trying to rise again.

"I'll be fine," he groused, feeling the intangible press against his shoulders that nonetheless held him into his chair.

"Of course you will," his General said, "You're going to sleep in my bed tonight."

Rex blinked at him, sure he'd heard him wrong, but Obi-Wan was already up out of his chair and beside Rex, urging him to stand, supporting his weight when exhausted muscles staggered, and leading him through the door. Not the door back out in to the corridor, but through the other door that led into Obi-Wan's bedroom.

Obi-Wan ignored his continued grumbles about being able to walk unassisted as he steered him unerringly towards the General's bed.

Obi-Wan continued to ignore both his protests and his feeble attempts at assistance (or hindrance; he couldn't even tell himself anymore) as he helped to strip off the Captain's armor and under-suit, leaving him in only his unders.

"No." Rex said firmly, though he felt that his protest had lost some weight, now that he was nearly naked and sitting on the edge of his General's bed. All he wanted to do was sink back down into the incredible softness he sould barely fathom, the bed springy under him the way the thin pads on the soldier bunks were not.

But the thought of a night spent alone, spent in cold sheets with no one to cling to when the nightmares get too bad nearly had him on his feet again, ready to go find whatever knot of brothers was closest, despite Obi-Wan's exasperated look.

"Rex," Obi-Wan chided, "You need to sleep. If you try to walk anywhere we will find you passed out in the hallways come morning. I have a perfectly serviceable bed you are already practically in. What do I have to do to keep you here?"

"Strip down and join me," Rex said, without thinking. But once the words were out, he could not, would not take them back. He needed this, needed the feeling of living skin against his own, needed to know he was not alone.

Needed Obi-Wan to join him, to know that his General is also getting some sleep in this endless night. He wasn't sure how to convey to someone who was not a brother that this was not sexual. This is just comfort and skin, and knowing that you are not alone in the universe when the cries of falling brothers and the screech of blaster-bolts around you grows too loud in the dark of night.

"Please." He added, willing to sacrifice pride for this, the world blurring around him. The strange, too soft mattress felt the way clouds looked like they should, the white puffy ones they never saw on Kamino, that did not yield rain. Unfathomably soft, but even that could not woo him into slumber when he would be alone, when Obi-Wan would return to his own endless lists of the dead, alone.

Obi-Wan looked at him, inscrutable, silent, for a long moment, and it felt like he was looking *into* Rex. Rex didn't know what he was seeing, but he hoped it wasn't the beginning treads of the screaming nightmares he can already feel gathering at the edges of his mind. The General would probably kick him out after the first one, but he'd be able to get himself elsewhere by then.

The moment stretched as Rex tried to hang on to consciousness, then, without saying anything, Obi-Wan shrugged out of his robes. Rex was beyond grateful at the implication, that Obi-Wan would join him, press warm, living skin against his own and provide a bulwark at his back, to stand at his side and help prevent the nightmares he knows will come.

Still, Rex really wished he was aware enough, awake enough, to appreciate the smooth movement, normally only seen on the battlefield, as Obi-Wan's outer rides drop to the ground. As lacking in sexuality as this moment was, that was an aesthetic sight not to be missed.

Rex let himself fall back against the mattress, sink into impossible softness his mind could barely comprehend, sliding under the covers and turning his face into the pillows as Obi-Wan striped himself down to his own under-things, giving him that much privacy.

Rex was more than halfway to unconsciousness when Obi-Wan slid into bed next to him, warmth and breathing, and Rex latched onto him unconsciously, relaxed into the feeling of soft warm skin against him, and as many scars as any brother had. More than he would have imagined the Jedi to have.

Obi-Wan laid next to him, let Rex wrap himself around him, curl over him, protecting him as he could not protect the brothers who fell today, as he could not protect so many.

And Rex fell into sleep, and waited for the nightmares to come.

Obi-Wan looked down at his Padawan's Captain, wrapped around his torso, protecting his vitals with his own body, presence radiating tension even as his body relaxed into sleep.

That would not do. Obi-Wan carefully sank into a trance, concentrating only on peaceful feelings, and wove the sensations into the burgeoning dreams rising in the mid beside his. He let the solid body pressed against his lull him into sleep as well.

They both slept through the night, without a single nightmare to disturb them.