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“Hey! Slow down, will you?” Cody called ahead to Boba, who was dragging him by his hand through the open field toward the group of people gathered there. “Your brother,” he sighed and shook his head, glancing down at his sister who also held onto his hand but matched his pace evenly.
“He’s your brother too!” Omega giggled, making a smile appear on his face.
“Come on!” Boba exclaimed, “I want to see what they’ve found!”
Despite Omega’s more relaxed pace, Cody knew that the both of them were equally excited to be here. He remembered two weeks ago when they had come running up to him, flyer in hand, and begged him to take them. It turned out that the archaeology department at their local college were doing a demonstration of an excavation to help educate and fundraise for their program. To be honest, he didn’t know the first thing about archaeology except for the fact that they dug up people and artifacts rather than dinosaurs—both Boba and Omega had been insistent about that. Either way, he was more than happy to spend a couple of hours with his youngest siblings.
“Alright, Alright” Cody grinned, catching up to his younger brother as they made their way to the excavation site. Boba and Omega led the way to an open spot, eager to get a glimpse at the archaeologists working. Looking up from his siblings’ excitement, Cody came face to face with possibly the handsomest man he had ever seen.
The man—presumably one of the archaeologists—stood in the rectangular hole he was digging with a shovel in his hand. He was dressed simply in a button down shirt, which was tucked into his work pants, and sturdy hiking boots. The man had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows, exposing his toned forearms littered with freckles. His copper hair and beard shone in the bright sun, grey hairs beginning to pepper his temples. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm, breathing heavily as he looked down at the work he had done. Cody felt heat crawl onto his face as he watched a bead of sweat trail down the man’s neck, the sudden desire to follow it with his tongue overwhelming.
Suddenly, the man glanced up, meeting Cody’s gaze with a brilliant grin that crinkled his eyes attractively. He stepped out of the hole he was digging, careful not to stand on its edge, and came to stand in front of him. They were similar in height, with the man before him only slightly taller than Cody himself.
“Hello there” The man said, smiling at him.
“Hi,” Cody replied breathlessly, his brain still trying to process the hot archaeologist standing in front of him. It wasn’t his fault that his gay awakening had been watching all of the Indiana Jones movies on repeat as a kid. Who could blame him when faced with the real deal?
“Hi sir!” Boba and Omega piped up, startling Cody out of his thoughts. He mentally slapped himself over the head for being so distracted by the man in front of him that he forgot his siblings were even there.
“Hello to you too as well!” he responded, smiling down at the kids. “My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi and I’ll answer any questions you have today as well as demonstrating exactly what we do here. Does that sound good?”
Both Cody and his siblings nodded as Obi-Wan led them back over to the hole in the ground.
“This here is what we call a unit,” the man explained, “They can be dug in any size but are often 1 by 2 meters, like this one here. Please be careful around the edge as you could fall in or the wall could collapse.”
Boba and Omega stepped back from the edge, apologizing as Obi-Wan stepped into the unit. The man adjusted his grip on the shovel he was holding and began to dig into the dirt. “Right now, my job is to shovel the dirt in this unit into buckets until I hit how deep I need to go. Then these buckets will be taken to be screened for any artifacts. It is important to keep the floor of the unit level so that the depth of the unit can be recorded accurately.”
“How do you know how deep to dig?” Cody asked, drawn into Obi-Wan’s explanation and the sound of his voice.
“That’s an excellent question,” Obi-Wan responded, Cody blushing slightly at the praise. “When we first start excavating a unit, we choose a number of centimeters to dig down at a time and these become our layers. Here we are digging 10 centimeters layers until we find what we are looking for, which are features. Features are evidence of human activity that aren’t movable, things like post holes and wall trenches indicating structures or hearths for cooking. To us, they show up as differently colored dirt in a unit.” Obi-Wan explained.
“Have you seen any yet?” Boba asked, peering into the hole, looking for what the man had just described.
“Not yet, but we should hopefully be seeing some in the next layer” The man answered.
“How do you measure how deep you’ve gotten?” Omega asked afterwards, “I don’t think I could guess how deep that is”
Obi-Wan chuckled, the pretty sound lingering in Cody’s mind as the other man stepped out of the unit once more. “Don’t worry, I can’t either and I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he smiled and led them over to what looked like a telescope on a tripod—only the ends were the same size. “This is a stadia transit rod. One person stands in the unit with the measuring rod and the other looks into the instrument. Inside, there is a crosshair and where it lines up with the rod is how far down you are. We record each corner and the center before we start digging and whenever we need to check how far we’ve gotten.”
“Cool!” Omega responded, getting a glare from her twin brother.
“How can measuring something be cool?” Boba said, face scrunched in confusion.
“It’s a part of the process! And it's like you’re a pirate with a telescope” Omega argued back.
Both Cody and Obi-Wan burst into laughter, watching as Boba thought over his response, Omega counting it as a victory. “You have wonderful children” Obi-Wan said softly as his siblings focused on each other, now playfully arguing about who was the best pirate.
Cody spluttered and laughed at the statement. “No, no, they aren’t my kids.” He understood where the confusion came from, he was old enough to be their father and the Fett genes ran strong. “They’re my siblings, and I’m single anyways.” He replied, internally cringing at his reply.
“Oh?” Obi-Wan responded, eyebrows raised. The other man raked his eyes up and down Cody’s form, an interested smirk growing on his face. He blushed, opening his mouth to say something when Boba cut in—
“What else do you do?” he asked, blinking up at the adults.
“Well,” Obi-Wan started, eyes lingering on Cody before looking at Boba, “Once you fill up a bucket with dirt, it needs to be sifted through for artifacts.” The man grabbed a bucket full of dirt and took it over to a wooden frame—one side covered with chicken wire and the other resembling a stand—folded over the ground. Obi-Wan picked the frame up, planting the stand end into the ground and balancing the other side on his hip and putting on a pair of gardening gloves. He dumped the bucket of dirt on to the screen and shook the frame back and forth before beckoning them over.
“Shaking the screen helps get the loose dirt out of the way so you can better see the artifacts you pull out,” Obi-Wan explained before pushing the larger clumps of dirt through the wire screen. Cody almost didn’t hear what Obi-Wan was saying, too focused on the man’s arms flexing attractively as he repeatedly ran the dirt though the screen. He managed to tear his eyes away as Obi-Wan leaned down to show something to his siblings.
“This here is a flake,” he explained, taking a glove off and brushing the excess dirt off from the artifact with a gentle thumb and subsequently having Cody suddenly wishing he was a rock of all things. “It's what comes off of rocks when people are making tools. You can tell that it's a flake rather than just a piece of rock due to this raised bit on its front side called the bulb of percussion. That’s where they hit the main rock and this bit broke off.”
“Cool!” Boba and Omega chorused, holding the flake between them. Cody watched them fondly before noticing Obi-Wan motioning to step closer to him. He stepped around his siblings to come up to the other man’s side, resisting the urge to brush the loose strand of hair that had fallen between Obi-Wan’s bright eyes.
“Here’s another example so you can see” the archaeologist almost whispered, his voice much lower than before. Cody struggled to focus, overly conscious of the way Obi-Wan’s shoulder brushed his every few seconds. Their heads were bowed together, both studying the rock in the other man’s hands.
“That’s really interesting,” he said, looking up from the flake to meet Obi-Wan’s eyes. Cody felt a wave of satisfaction at seeing a soft smile and blush on the other man’s face.
“Well,” Obi-Wan said, raising his voice so Boba and Omega would hear, “Let me finish sifting this bucket and then we can let you guys try out excavating a unit. How does that sound?” Both Boba and Omega cheered, their excitement infectious. Obi-Wan took the flake he was holding as well as the one he had given Boba and Omega and placed them into a paper bag. The archaeologist managed to finish sifting the dirt through the screen relatively quickly, picking out the artifacts and leaving behind only the occasional root.
Once Obi-Wan was done sifting through the dirt, he dumped the screen out and set it back on the ground. He then led them back over to the units, Boba and Omega running ahead at the prospect of finally getting to dig in the ground.
“So,” Cody began, turning towards Obi-Wan as they walked, “Are you one of the professors at Coruscant University?”
“I am,” Obi-Wan said with a smile, the empty bucket swinging in his hands. “I’m the lead professor of archaeology at Corrie U. My colleagues here have some background in archaeology but mostly have focuses in forensics or biological anthropology. And we also have some TA’s from the various departments helping us,” he paused, looking out over the scene before them. Educators and community members all bustling around the field, “I’m in charge of this excavation and demonstrations like these on site. I love doing field work, but my favorite part is days like these. It puts everything we find into perspective and it's a unique challenge to figure out how to inform people about what we do.”
Obi-Wan turned back to him, a large smile on his face. The man’s eyes scrunched up attractively, the sunlight hitting his face and bringing out the freckles on his skin. Cody barely managed to hold himself back from swaying towards Obi-Wan, the man’s charm pulling Cody into his orbit.
“So,” Obi-Wan said as they started to move again, “What do you do for work?”
“I actually run a bakery with my brothers, we’re on 24th street,” Cody responded.
“That’s really neat,” Obi-Wan smiled, “I’ll definitely have to check it out sometime.”
“Cody? Are you finished distracting him? We want to dig now!” His brother called out from next to the unit. His arms were crossed and he had a smirk on his face, Omega looking sheepish besides him.
“Boba!” Cody exclaimed, his face reddening as he came to stand in front of his siblings. “I am not distracting him!” He whispered through gritted teeth, trying to will the blush away from his face.
“You so are!” Omega teased, her expression shifting to a sly grin.
“Am not! Now shush!” Cody responded as he turned back towards the archaeologist.
Obi-Wan finally made his way back over to where Cody and his siblings stood, a knowing gleam in his eye and smirk on his lips. He set the bucket down and hopped into the unit, helping Boba and Omega step down next to him—Cody staying on the outside to watch them and get some pictures for the rest of the family.
“Here, hold the shovel like this,” Obi-Wan instructed, placing the shovel in Boba’s hands and adjusting his grip on the handle, “You don’t want to necessarily dig straight down. Rather, you want to take off sheets of dirt, like this.” Obi-Wan said, angling the shovel to make the handle closer to the ground. He pushed into the dirt and lifted it, dumping it in the bucket before going back to watching Boba and Omega.
“Try kicking the shovel rather than using your arms, it makes it much easier,” Obi-Wan explained, showing Omega where to kick on the tool. Cody smiled at seeing the happy and determined faces of his younger siblings. He couldn’t remember the last time he brought them somewhere and they were this happy. The trip ended up being beneficial for himself as well, if he was reading Obi-Wan’s looks and actions right.
“This is fun! You should try it!” Omega said, looking up at him and smiling.
“Yeah! You’d enjoy it!” Boba added on.
“I don’t know, I wouldn’t want to take time away from you guys,” Cody responded.
“Aww come on! You should do it!” His siblings exclaimed, trying their best to give him the most effective puppy-dog eyes he had ever seen.
“When are you going to get the chance to do it again?” Obi-Wan chimed in, one eyebrow cocked up and a smile on his face.
“Alright, alright, I’ll do it,” Cody said, face breaking out into a smile as he helped his siblings out of the hole and took their place by Obi-Wan’s side.
Cody grabbed the shovel the other man held out for him and began to dig. He kept the pointers Obi-Wan had given to his siblings in mind, angling the shovel to be more shallow as he dug into the dirt. It took a second but he got used to the motion, trying to make sure everything he did was even.
“Am I doing this right?” He asked, slightly worried that he would mess up the man’s work. Cody looked up from staring at the dirt to see Obi-Wan staring at him, a slight blush on the man’s face.
“Ah- yes. You’re doing quite well, darling” He said, eyes finally snapping to Cody’s, blush spreading further over his face.
Cody felt his face burn and felt his mouth open as if trying to respond despite his tongue seemingly being glued to the roof of his mouth. ‘Darling’ still rang in his ears as he looked past Obi-Wan’s shoulder to see his younger siblings, twin shit-eating grins on their faces. He tried his best to glare at them but his bright red face wasn’t helping based on their responding giggles.
“Thanks,” Cody finally answered, focusing on Obi-Wan again. The man responded with a smile and the corners of Cody’s own mouth twitched up automatically. Fuck, he was already so gone for him.
Cody climbed out of the unit and stood next to Boba and Omega, ruffling their hair. They squealed and ducked out of the way, their laughter sparking his own. “Unfortunately, I think it's time to go, kids,” he said, checking his phone to see the time.
“Aww,” Omega said, “Goodbye Mr. Kenobi! It was nice to meet you!” she said as she waved.
“Yeah! This was fun, thanks!” Boba added on.
“Thank you for showing us around, and for letting us try this stuff out. You did a great job,” Cody said, a sadness washing over him as he realized he would likely never see the man again.
“Of course, thank you for coming to see us and learn,” Obi-Wan replied, ducking his head at the compliment. “It was lovely to meet you.”
‘It’s now or never,’ Cody thought, a moment of boldness suddenly coming to him. “Why don’t you two go ahead and head towards the car,” he said, getting his keys out of his pocket and handing them to Omega, “give me a moment with Mr. Kenobi.”
“Ooooohhhh!” His younger siblings chorused, Cody shushing them and ushering them along. Once they were out of earshot, he turned back towards Obi-Wan.
“I- uh, hope I was reading everything right today, but uh- would you want to go out with me?” He asked, holding his breath.
“You were,” Obi-Wan smiled, “And I would really like that.”
Cody beamed and held his phone out for Obi-Wan to enter his number into. The man took his phone and added his number in, texting himself to make sure he got it. “When are you free?” Cody asked.
“I can do next Friday at 6:30 if that works for you?” Obi-Wan responded, checking his own phone.
“Sounds great, we can work out the details over the phone.”
“Lovely,” Obi-Wan answered, “I hope your siblings don’t tease you too much.”
“Oh they will,” Cody chuckled, “but it was worth it.” he smiled, making Obi-Wan blush.
“Goodbye Cody, I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah, Goodbye Obi-Wan,” Cody replied, turning and walking over to where his siblings stood a distance away, likely eavesdropping on his conversation.
“So, did you ask him out?” Omega asked as she handed back his keys and walked towards the car.
Cody sighed, amused at his siblings meddling. “Yes, I did.”
“See, I told you that you would like this!” Boba laughed.
Both Cody and Omega joined in on the laughter. “I guess I did.” Cody responded, heading towards home with a lightness in his chest and a certain pretty archaeologist on his mind.