Chapter Text
Very rarely do Anakin’s visits to the dojo come without some sort of precedent.
He avoids it whenever he can with a stubbornness that is almost comical. He has made his dislike of the dojo known ever since he had arrived at the Temple when he was just nine years old, newly whisked away from that blasted sand planet by Qui-Gon who had picked him up during one of his many excursions like a shiny new trinket to take home.
The dojo itself isn’t the problem, but what it signifies—chiefly the very things that have always eluded Anakin ever since his arrival at the Temple: friendship, camaraderie, the supposed kinship between Padawans who had spent most of their lives here at the Temple, moulded young and early, freshly plucked from the bosoms of their mothers before they could even conceive anything of the world.
None of them would remember what it was like to have a family, and it was the one thing Anakin felt was both his greatest weakness and his strength: that he had a mother and a home, far from the grimy reaches of the Order, the trappings of which he could not outrun and would always carry with him. Anakin wishes his mother could see him now—the things he’s done, the things he is about to do, a future she could never have given him on Tatooine where children were as much of a resource as anything else that was starving on the planet.
She always had some motherly admonishment on the tip of her tongue upon learning of Anakin’s often ill-advised schemes, but Anakin had accepted it with grace and often times good humour, these harmless, if a little bothersome pronouncements that would otherwise not affect his day, and now more than ever he needs her for her counsel.
Well, among other things.
Anakin has a problem, and this problem is precisely what brings him to the dojo in search of his more-or-less best friend Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin thinks of Obi-Wan as such only because he is still fuzzy on the notion of friendship. There’s always been Obi-Wan, and then others, the distinction marked by the amount of time Anakin has devoted to hounding Obi-Wan’s footsteps ever since Qui-Gon had introduced him to his former apprentice. He had been the most interesting thing to look at, then, and that has never really changed. Anakin still thinks he’s the only thing worthy of holding his attention, at least at the Temple, because outside of it there is Padmé the shining silver thread that runs through all of his dreams.
There is no other person Anakin trusts with the plans he is about to set into motion.
Obi-Wan is a terrific keeper of secrets, if only because Anakin likes to tell him some truly embarrassing ones, things that Obi-Wan can’t divulge without looking like a lying fool to others. Then there are other secrets which Anakin keeps to himself, but these are locked up and shored in his mind indubitably out of fear that they would reveal him. It’s best to ration these little glimpses of himself else he risks rousing Obi-Wan’s suspicion. Obi-Wan already looks at him like he can somehow intuit his deepest desires, his eyes far too knowing and old for someone his age. Anakin resents the fact that he thinks about them, often, at night before he goes to sleep or when he is away on missions, Obi-Wan’s eyes like a shining golden beacon in the dark stillness of his mind, another pesky distraction to cull on his path to becoming a true Jedi Knight.
Anakin finds Obi-Wan easily on the training mats, practicing his battle stances against Pax who is much older and experienced than both of them combined but has yet remained an apprentice. Obi-Wan’s form has improved since Anakin has last witnessed him in a match against someone else, that someone being Anakin himself. Anakin’s opinion of Obi-Wan’s skill is this: that he is good for someone of his breadth and height and temperament, but good is not great and he’ll never outmatch Anakin who still holds the most victories at the dojo in matches both supervised and not.
Anakin watches Obi-Wan for a few more minutes.
It’s unclear whether Obi-Wan has noticed him, too engrossed in his footwork to pay any real attention to anything other than his opponent. He cuts, weaves, and dodges blows expertly, his forehead scrunched tight with the ferocity of his concentration. Obi-Wan’s fighting style is smooth and elegant, a one-two-three-step that’s a lot like a synchronised dance. It’s practiced, refined and much like him entirely too predictable. Every action is carefully considered, a counterpoint to how Anakin likes to fight: with the strength of a military tank barreling straight through everything, giving everything he’s got. His Master often tells him that his technique requires finesse, but Qui-Gon is not the one whose name is up on the holo boards at the dojo, tallying his many victories against his snot-nosed peers.
Obi-Wan turns, then, to swing his practice sabre and deflect an attack, their eyes meeting for a split second before he moves once more and evades an incoming blow. His hair is a distraction: flying everywhere, loosened from its plait. Obi-Wan spits out tufts that catch in his mouth, and Anakin’s attention is briefly riveted by that too, the wet pink furl of his tongue and the flashing white of his teeth as he laughs, joyous even in the midst of battle.
Eventually, Anakin tires of waiting for him and rigs the match by tripping Pax with use of the Force, a sleight of hand that would have otherwise escaped anyone’s notice if they had been anyone but Obi-Wan who by now is well familiar with Anakin’s tricks.
Obi-Wan is rightfully upset when the match is duly concluded, fuming as much as his stoicism will allow which means he nods at Pax once before making his way stiffly towards Anakin. His expression may seem unreadable to an outsider but Anakin knows all his tells: he’s holding in some nasty remark, hands trembling from the effort of keeping it to himself.
- Because Obi-Wan has and always will be a good boy, eating up every frivolous teaching fed to him by his Master, living by the very edicts of the Jedi Code. His mouth has no room for malice. He is kind, and so easily led by the leash. This is why he’s perfect for what Anakin has in mind.
“You’re back,” Obi-Wan says to Anakin by way of greeting, as if Anakin had not commed him ten times the second Qui-Gon’s shuttle had docked the hangar. All of his messages had gone unanswered, and he’d had to ask around for Obi-Wan’s whereabouts.
Anakin smiles breezily, before taking Obi-Wan’s sabre from him, twirling and spinning it around in a move that has Obi-Wan looking blankly unimpressed because he’s seen Anakin do it enough times in the past. Anakin rolls his eyes and tosses the sabre over his shoulder where he floats it away to its resting place on the shelf jutting out of the far wall.
Obi-Wan hates it when Anakin uses the Force on what he likes to call matters of personal interest, therefore Anakin makes it a point to do it often—to rile him up just a little and see the indignant flush rising in his cheeks, so red that it almost often matches the colour of his hair.
“I thought you were on a mission,” Obi-Wan says, as they fall into step together, heading towards the communal showers attached to the dojo.
“Yeah, well, clearly it finished early.” Anakin gestures to himself with a flourish. “I’m back. Did you miss me?”
Obi-Wan scrunches his nose at him which is answer enough. Anakin is tempted to pinch his cheeks, but even he is self-aware enough to recognise what he can and cannot do now that he’s nineteen years old and not still nine, allowed to crawl in the same bed as Obi-Wan after every night terror. Now, they are both young men, though sometimes Anakin feels as if he were constantly volleying between the past and present, stuck between how things used to be and how they ought, never able to pull himself from the murk.
“I commed you,” Anakin says, right before Obi-Wan slides the fresher door shut in his face. Anakin leaps back to avoid his nose from colliding with the door, glaring at Obi-Wan through the barrier separating them and hoping pettily that he slips on a bar of soap and hurts himself. Only: he doesn’t really mean it, and doesn’t wish him any real harm. Most of the time.
He can hear Obi-Wan in there, puttering about and fiddling with squeaking knobs, pointedly ignoring him. The door is made of a frosted glass material, like the windows of their old dormitory. If Anakin squints hard enough, he can almost make out Obi-Wan’s familiar silhouette. Below the door is at least a foot and a half of open space, affording Anakin a glimpse of Obi-Wan’s feet moving across the tiled floor. He hears the ensuing rustle of clothing, and whips around before Obi-Wan’s robes can hit the floor, saving himself from having to witness Obi-Wan’s full undressing routine.
The showers are empty save for a newly apprenticed Padawan with twin braids warming her hands on a wall dryer. Anakin cuts her a menacing look and she takes the hint and leaves eventually, but not before sneering in his generation direction and muttering a few choice words. Anakin trips her on her way out with a flick of two fingers.
Finally alone, Anakin turns to the shower door. “I have a favour to ask you.”
Silence, which Anakin already expected. The shower starts running without preamble; the dojo has real, running water, to aid in healing and encourage relaxation after long hours on the practice mats. It’s a luxury not extended to the dormitories where younglings sleep on matchstick beds crammed wall to wall; Anakin is lucky he was never taken to the Temple as a youngling, and had always slept in a room of his own in Qui-Gon’s apartment, alone sure, but in relative comfort. He hated the others almost immediately after his arrival.
“Always with the favours,” comes Obi-Wan’s weary, muffled reply, above the din of water hitting the tile. “What is it this time, Anakin? I am not letting you cut my hair again for some harebrained science project of yours. You know how I feel about my hair.”
Unusually attached for someone who calls himself a Jedi, Anakin thinks with a huff, but instead he says amicably, “I was twelve, and it was for a mission. That was a long time ago, Obi-Wan, come on. It’s different this time. This is important.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Yes, but—” Anakin begins, and tamps down the urge to bang his fists against the door, or worse, pry it open with the Force, which he had done before and had spooked Obi-Wan. What Obi-Wan doesn’t know can’t hurt him, and Anakin leaves out the fact that when he’d asked for a lock of Obi-Wan’s hair back then he’d meant for it to be a token, something that he would take out of his pocket and draw comfort from while he was on that barren moon with Qui-Gon hunting down Sith zealots. Then he had done all of that and more, and the rest of it was probably best left unsaid. He still has Obi-Wan’s hair stored in a leather pouch under his pillow after all these years, and he likes to think that it holds some power to keep the dark dreams at bay, at least that ones involving the future.
Anakin pitches his voice low to humble himself to Obi-Wan, a surefire way to stoke his sympathy of which he has a seemingly endless well, a trait as equally ridiculous as it is endearing. “Come on, Obi-Wan,” he says, wheedling. “I need you. You’re the only one who can help me.”
No response, but Anakin knows how to interpret Obi-Wan’s silences. The water is still going, but Obi-Wan’s feet have stopped moving. Why are his ankles so pale, Anakin wonders. And then: is the rest of him just as pale?
“Please.” Anakin is not below begging, at least not when it comes to this, which is a matter of life of death as much as anything concerning Padmé is. He will prostate himself if he has to; he will kneel and he will beg. “Obi-Wan, come on, you’re my only hope. Help me, please. This’ll be the last time I’ll ever ask you to do anything for me. I swear it.”
Anakin has to jerk away from the door when it slides halfway open without preamble, revealing Obi-Wan’s unamused sud-covered face. His wet hair is plastered down the sides of his head, his eyelashes clumped together in dark, wet spikes. His chest is wet, as is the rest of his body, but Anakin dutifully keeps his gaze level, knowing sneaking a look southward won’t help his cause any.
Obi-Wan jabs a finger in his face, as if he can hear Anakin’s thoughts anyway. “Fine, all right, I’ll help you, ” he says, begrudging as always because this is too is part of the whole song and dance, Anakin weakening every one of his defenses until they all come tumbling down. “But it better not be illegal, or involve podracing because I can’t keep covering for you and lying about your whereabouts to Master Qui-Gon. He’s onto you, Anakin. I don’t know how you keep getting away with it.”
“You know I only have you to thank for that,” Anakin tells him with a grin that goes completely unreciprocated. But that has always been their usual pattern: gentle ribbing from Anakin, reluctant acceptance from Obi-Wan, and somehow, someway, they meet in the middle, always parrying. It’s a strange kind of friendship, but Anakin has no point of reference for what constitutes a friendship anyway. He has no other friends at the Temple. The other Padawans who don’t openly whisper about him treat him with detached civility and keep him at arm’s length. They know about the supposed prophecy, but who doesn’t.
Only Obi-Wan has ever been kind to him without some ulterior motive, holding his hand and helping him change his sheets the night he’d wet the bed on his first night at the Temple.
Anakin waits for him to finish getting ready.
Obi-Wan, for all his strict adherence to the Code, can be terribly vain about his appearance, his attentions focused on taming his hair with gentle swipes of his fingers. It’s a soft wheat colour that deepens when the light hits it, reminding Anakin a little of sand—not the coarse, distasteful kind that gets absolutely everywhere, but the kind that slips through the fingers, fine-grained and smooth. Obi-Wan wears it long and loose around his shoulders, though he used to put it up in a ponytail when they were both much younger. Anakin would pull on it, distracted during his lessons by its resemblance to a fathier’s tail; Obi-Wan hadn’t been a fan of that. It’s probably part of the reason he stopped wearing it up.
Anakin watches him preen and primp for a good ten minutes before yanking him away from the mirror and towards the general direction of the apartment he shares with Qui-Gon, empty now while Qui-Gon reports on their mission to the Council. Obi-Wan elbows him in response for manhandling him, but lets Anakin sit him down on the sofa with minimal protest otherwise, crossing his arms expectantly in anticipation for Anakin’s spiel.
He still doesn’t look entirely convinced this is going to be a good idea, but Anakin knows none of his ideas ever appeal to Obi-Wan anyway because they often involve breaking the rules. And Obi-Wan, bless him, is a stickler for rules. The only time he would ever tell a bold-faced lie, Anakin thinks, is to get Anakin out of trouble.
“I overheard Master Qui-Gon being briefed on our next mission,” Anakin says, though that’s only half the truth: Anakin had a curious habit of actively eavesdropping on all of his Master’s holocalls, and this time he’d happened on one of personal interest. “I’m seeing her again, Obi-Wan,” he says, with growing, unchecked glee. “Padmé. We’re finally being reunited. The Force has willed it. This is my destiny.”
Obi-Wan stares at him, unmoved, his lips a thin, thoughtful line. It’s hard to get a good read on him. Anakin used to skim his thoughts when he was younger and completely unaware that he was doing it, a finger brushing the smooth surface of Obi-Wan’s awareness: touch one end and it ripples outwards, and it had been another one of those things Obi-Wan didn’t appreciate that Anakin never stopped doing but tried to get better at.
Anakin delves deeper into the crux of it: his next mission would be in two weeks’ time, and it would have him and Qui-Gon providing Padmé with security detail while she travelled to the mid-rim on a diplomatic jaunt. He would engineer ways to get Padmé alone, and then dazzle her with if not his wits then with how much he’s grown, both in the literal and figurative sense. They have a lot of catching up to do. Anakin plans to make the most of this mission and foster closeness with his one, true destiny.
“This is my chance, Obi-Wan.” Anakin begins pacing the room, manic now in his eagerness. “I want to impress her. Show her the real me.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, and Anakin knows that he’s just being polite when he really means to say Anakin is out of his fucking mind.
“I’m going to court her.” Anakin meets Obi-Wan’s gaze squarely. Obi-Wan holds his stare for a few long moments but breaks it off and starts to fidget.
Anakin continues, “And then, you know,” he says, feeling awkward now as silence envelops them. “We’ll—” He flings out an arm, a vague gesture to convey his meaning, but Obi-Wan simply continues to look at him like he’d much rather be in a nest of gundarks than spend another minute in this room. “—Fuck.”
“I’m sorry?” Obi-Wan blinks at him, stunned, red-faced and spluttering. Then he sees Anakin isn’t joking and he huffs. “You know that’s not really allowed, Anakin. Look, why are you even telling me any of this? I don’t want to hear any of it.”
“But you’re my best friend, Obi-Wan,” Anakin reminds him, “and I need your help.”
“This seems more like something in your wheelhouse. I’ve not courted anybody, and I don’t ever intend to.” In a hushed voice, Obi-Wan adds, “It engenders attachment.”
“Right,” Anakin says, barely resisting the urge to laugh in bemusement. “Right, right. But what if it’s just physical? And I don’t plan to take it any further than that? You know how I feel about her majesty. I’ve dreamt about this. It’s written in my future.”
“Well, she’s not a Queen anymore,” Obi-Wan replies tightly, “She’s just a senator now.”
“Does it even matter? I want her in my bed. Or I want to be in hers. The logistics isn’t important. I want to show her I’m not that little boy anymore that she met in that junkyard on Tatooine; I’m a man; I’ve grown up. I’m nineteen fucking years old.”
“Indeed,” Obi-Wan agrees vaguely, raising his eyebrows and taking in a large gulp of air. “And what part do I get to play in all of this? I doubt Master Qui-Gon will let me come along on your mission. Master Windu wants me at the Temple to run some administrative tasks for him.”
“What are you, his secretary?”
“What?”
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin says, as nicely and as patiently as possible. “If I want to do this right, I’m gonna need experience.” He pauses, waiting for it to sink in. It doesn’t; sometimes Obi-Wan needs things to be spelled out for him, in clear ink, because otherwise they go right over his head. He takes things at face value, and has never once entertained the thought that someone could be so duplicitous, least of all Anakin, his best friend.
“I need practice,” Anakin says. “That’s where you come in. I’m gonna—” He tries to put it as delicately as possible. Qui-Gon always tells him he lacks tact, though he couches the criticism in meandering, vague solipsisms. “I’m gonna need a partner. To do certain things with.”
“Things,” Obi-Wan repeats, eyebrows climbing increasingly up his hairline. He doesn’t have to ask. Surely, it’s obvious.
Anakin had ruminated on this plan on the shuttle journey home—a whole three hours—which is enough time for an idea to take shape and ferment. There is some merit to it; it’s not completely outrageous.
There’s a wrinkle in Obi-Wan’s forehead which often spells trouble. Anakin feels his confidence waning, doubly so when Obi-Wan begins to laugh nervously and dart furtive glances at the door. “What? You want me to— I’m not doing it, Anakin.” He makes to leave the room but Anakin blocks his path in three long strides.
“I don’t think it’s right, or very proper,” Obi-Wan says firmly, attempting to shove him out of the way. But Anakin is stronger; he grabs Obi-Wan by the shoulders and steers him back to the sofa, imploring him with a long, searching look. He gets down on his knees and takes Obi-Wan’s hand in his. Like Anakin’s they’re rough with callouses from sabre training, but what’s truly surprising is the fact that they’re a comfortable size to weave into his.
Obi-Wan eyes him dubiously, but doesn’t break away. Anakin would have felt sheepish if he had any scrap of shame. “Please. You can’t go back on a promise now! You did promise— you said you’d help me. Obi-Wan, what kind of a Jedi Knight would you be if you failed to help a friend in need?”
“I know what it is you’re trying to do, and it’s not going to work.”
“Call it a scientific inquiry. I’ve never done anything sexual with anyone before.” Self-abuse, notwithstanding, Anakin thinks but doesn’t say. “And neither have you! It’s perfect, when you think about it. We’ll do it once and we’ll know what it’s like, and when we’re much older, we’ll laugh about it fondly and call it the folly of youth.”
“You’ve thought about this,” Obi-Wan says.
“I have. A lot,” Anakin says. He swipes a thumb over his nose, rueful.
“You called it a scientific inquiry the last time as well, when I let you chop off my hair.”
“Your hair grew back,” Anakin reminds him. “No one even noticed you had cut it.”
Obi-Wan’s expression can probably thaw an entire ice planet with its intensity, but it’s also the highlight of this conversation. Anakin does enjoy riling him up, backing him into a corner and bullying him a bit, because it’s only in these moments that he sees shades of the real Obi-Wan: he can be so unbearably human, childlike at times in his outbursts, but Anakin can’t even fault him for it—Obi-Wan keeps a tight lid on every other emotion he deems bad. It’s what they’ve been indoctrinated all their lives at the Temple: there is no emotion, there is peace. Well, fuck peace. Anakin will bleed every emotion out of Obi-Wan like it’s poison squeezed from an infected wound.
“I noticed it!” Obi-Wan says, red now and beautifully furious. “You did such a shoddy job of it, I had to shear it all off so I didn’t look like a hedgehog. A hedgehog. Do you know how much of a pain it was to grow back? It took me a full year, Anakin. And Master Windu was not amused, let me tell you that.”
“Well, this is going to be less time-consuming than that, I assure you. And will have a lot less of Master Windu’s involvement.”
“How?” Obi-Wan gives Anakin’s shoulder a firm shove and wrenches away from his grip to make his way to the door and to safety. But he lingers there for a moment, hesitating, before turning to face Anakin. “I’m sorry Anakin,” he says, gentle, “but I’m not doing it. I’m not comfortable doing—any of that. With you or with anyone else.”
“I’ll help you find your mom,” Anakin says, a last ditch attempt to get Obi-Wan to stay and listen. Anakin rises from his knees and hunkers down on the sofa, lifting his gaze from the floor to peer up into Obi-Wan’s face, searching for clues—signs of interest, a chink in the armour.
It’s a dirty ploy, but it seems to work. Obi-Wan doesn’t move, too stunned by this pronouncement to summon a proper response.
Obi-Wan had confessed to Anakin all those years ago while Anakin was half-conscious in his bed and delirious from a fever that he had always wondered what it was like to have a mother. Anakin had been so full of stories back then, about Shmi, because he missed her terribly in the first few years of his apprenticeship. He couldn’t shut up about her even if he tried, and this made the other Padawans resent him more than they already did. But Obi-Wan had listened to him, then, in the dark of his room, confiding that he still sometimes remembered his own mother if he closed his eyes and stayed quiet. They shared Obi-Wan’s vision, and Anakin had felt through Obi-Wan the texture of her hair, heard the sound of her voice as clear as a bell as if she were in the same room. Something had shifted in Anakin’s chest, then, like a startled bird.
Obi-Wan doesn’t say anything, but then again he doesn’t have to say anything.
“I can help you,” Anakin tells him, with a renewed confidence in his voice. He’s talking out of his ass now, but the gears in his head are turning, and he believes he can do this, he can and he will. “I know how you hate going to the under-city, but I don’t, and I have ah, I have connections there. I can ask around. My networks run deep.”
“Just what is it that you get up to, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, raising an eyebrow, “that you have networks? Not just one but many?”
Anakin flicks him a smile, shrugging one shoulder. “Little bit of this and that.”
“I doubt you’ll find her, anyway. It’s been so long.” Obi-Wan’s smile meanwhile is a brittle, steely thing as he shakes his head and lets his hand hover for a moment over the control panel by the door.
“Besides,” he says, dipping his head and turning his back to Anakin, “it’s best that I let go of that particular attachment. You should too, Anakin. I know your feelings for the senator are genuine, but they’re just that: feelings. They will pass in time, like all things. You need to learn to let go. As I have.”
Anakin doesn’t get to ask him what he means by this— his feelings for his mother, or for someone else. Obi-Wan flees without another word, the door sealing shut behind him, leaving Anakin to wonder.
But Anakin will not be deterred. Of his many and varied traits, stubbornness is the one thing his Master could not seem to wean him off of, alongside his staunch refusal to go anywhere near a large body of water. But calling it stubbornness is short-sighted and reserved for those who simply lack imagination. Anakin prefers to think of himself as determined. When he wants something, he’ll find ways to obtain it: he’ll lie, cheat, and steal, which may not be very becoming of a Jedi, true, but lately he’s beginning to realise a few things about himself and the Order. The old ways are for the old, and it is good for the old, but the new ways, well, they are the mark of true modernity.
Anakin accosts Obi-Wan the next day when he’s just come back from an errand. He’d followed Obi-Wan into the city, and then back, careful to keep his distance, and upon Obi-Wan’s return to the Temple grabbed him by the waist and hustled him into the nearest empty room, kicking and flailing. The Temple has many of those, under construction indefinitely or otherwise abandoned, whole rooms choked with dust with paint peeling off the grime-covered walls, lost to time and history. Anakin has gotten lost in a few of them; it was in these rooms that he built his droids, his only real friends for a while.
Obi-Wan wriggles free from Anakin’s grip, or at least attempts to, but he’s half a head shorter than Anakin and Anakin happens to be a great deal stronger. Anakin keeps his arm fastened around Obi-Wan’s waist while he covers Obi-Wan’s mouth with his mechno-hand, gripping him hard and shushing him in case anyone might walk by and mistake his struggling for something else.
“Stay still, for the love of—Ow!” Anakin isn’t expecting Obi-Wan to stomp him hard on the foot and so he hops around for a good few seconds, biting his tongue to keep himself from cursing at Obi-Wan as his foot throbs in unimaginable pain. He sees red for a moment, but then sees Obi-Wan’s horrified face too and softens almost immediately. He makes an effort to groan loudly to stoke Obi-Wan’s guilt, and that relieves the pain somewhat.
“Sorry,” Obi-Wan says, looking absolutely mortified. “I thought you were someone else!”
“You know other people with a mechno-hand?”
Obi-Wan has the good grace to look sheepish. Good. Then he narrows his eyes at Anakin suspiciously, which is the opposite of good. “What do you want, Anakin?”
“I thought about what you said,” Anakin says, inverting and averting his foot until the pain subsides. “About letting go.”
And? Obi-Wan’s expression seems to prompt. His arms aren’t crossed, but Anakin can tell that he’s tempted.
“And I think this will help me get over Padmé.”
“The senator,” Obi-Wan says, without inflection.
“Yeah,” Anakin says, a little peeved Obi-Wan had reduced her to her title. “Yes.” Then he layers the icing onto the proverbial cake: “So clearly you will be instrumental to my healing.”
“Your healing.”
Is Obi-Wan going to simply parrot everything back? Here’s Anakin, baring his soul. Obi-Wan should not look so distrustful.
“My heart’s broken,” Anakin tells him, thumping a hand over his chest to drive his point home. “Because I can’t have her, clearly. But once it’s out of my system, then I can move on. Become a better Jedi.”
Obi-Wan snorts. “Do you ever listen to yourself?”
Anakin rolls his eyes and cuts to the chase. There goes his tact out the window as he crosses the room and seizes Obi-Wan by the elbows, shaking him hard Obi-Wan gives him a firm shove in return. “Come on, Obi-Wan. Help me let go. I need this. Please. You’re the only one who can do this for me. You’re the only one I trust.”
Obi-Wan sighs, a deep theatric sigh that lets Anakin know two things: that his resolve is slowly weakening but also that Obi-Wan has grown tired of Anakin’s antics. This may very well be the last time he can ask him a favour of this magnitude.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Obi-Wan says, scrunching his nose in clear disapproval. “But if it will help rid you of your attachment—” And here he makes a point of widening his eyes in sheer disbelief, as if he doubts the authenticity of Anakin’s request, “—then I suppose that’s something.”
Anakin grins. Silently, he crows in victory. He loosens his hold on Obi-Wan’s elbows, but does nothing to remediate their proximity, keeping himself close with Obi-Wan still backed up against the wall. There’s something alluring in having him pinned like this with no means of escape, completely under Anakin’s mercy. He’s leaner than Anakin, but not gangly, and his features are softer, more delicate, which will make practicing with him easier.
“What are you doing?” Obi-Wan asks, squeaking in alarm and leaning out of the way as Anakin makes his move and swoops down to level their faces together.
“What does it look like? I’m trying to kiss you,” Anakin explains. He braces his arm against the wall next to Obi-Wan’s head, caging him in with his body. “Ever been kissed before?”
Anakin knows the answer to this, but he has to ask anyway, because he likes the flush of embarrassment spreading across Obi-Wan’s face that speaks of his inexperience. Anakin is new to this too, but he’s more worldly than Obi-Wan is, whose idea of a good time is probably bird watching and meditation. At least Anakin knows which parts go together; he’s seen some holoporn, though most of it is of questionable quality and broadcasted on unofficial channels.
Anakin tries to kiss him again but Obi-Wan stops him mid-way with a hand on his chest. “You mean to do this now?”
“I don’t see why we not. We’re alone, and it’s a good time as well as any.” Anakin’s patience is beginning to wear on the edges, the longer Obi-Wan keeps stalling. He’s biting his lip in anxiousness, his gaze pointedly fixed to the door behind Anakin as if he’s already planning his escape.
“What’s the matter?” Anakin asks, a little meanly, and he loves that Obi-Wan is no longer so easily buoyed by his candidness, “You want me to wine and dine you too?”
“You know, for someone who needs my help, you’re being unnecessarily aggressive.”
“Sorry,” Anakin says, purely out of habit. If it sounds insincere, it’s only because he’s had to apologise to Obi-Wan over a thousand times since he’s met him for some perceived slight. One of these days he should just record himself saying it so he could play it as a sound byte, over and over.
“I just want to get started,” Anakin says, forcing more calm into his tone than he feels. “Soon. Now. So please hold still and let me kiss you. This won’t take long.”
Obi-Wan does actually hold himself still, despite his obvious and very vocal misgivings, his whole body tense and waiting like a clenched fist. His eyes are scrunched shut in nervous anticipation, and he wets his lip in a purely unconscious gesture that has Anakin already getting excited for what’s to come. He’s breathing hard, marvelling over the fact that he hadn’t thought about doing this sooner.
“Hold still,” Anakin says again, more to himself than to Obi-Wan. Anakin’s heart is racing, and he can feel sweat dampening his armpits and he hasn’t even kissed Obi-Wan yet. Their faces are bare inches apart. Anakin can smell the combined scents layering Obi-Wan’s skin: soap, and the lazy tang of the Coruscant summer, and something else too, a third thing that seems to define him, rich and heady like a faraway rainforest.
Obi-Wan blinks one blue eye open, oblivious to all of Anakin’s musings, remarkably calm in contrast. “I’m holding still,” he points out.
Anakin flicks him in the forehead. Obi-Wan rubs at the spot with a finger, glaring at him openly.
“I said hold still, not stop breathing. Honestly, Obi-Wan. Padmé would know what to do in this situation.”
Probably that’s the wrong thing to say because that glare intensifies even further.
Anakin clears his throat and swiftly backtracks. This needs delicacy, he reminds himself. He can’t just strong-arm his way into this like he always does everything else. Even Master Qui-Gon would agree. “I would assume she would,” he says, and pats Obi-Wan’s shoulder in apology. “Anyway: here we go.”
“Oh goodness, I thought I’d have to grow a beard first before—”
Anakin kisses him. Or more accurately, he bumps his lips against Obi-Wan’s who freezes mid-sentence wide-eyed like a frightened animal. Anakin knows this part at least, and he rubs their lips together for a few moments more until the friction becomes too much and he pulls away, panting.
Obi-Wan’s lips are soft, but Padmé’s would probably be softer. Hers won’t be as chapped from biting all the time, or taste bitter like Tarine tea, and her hair won’t be everywhere in her face but styled artfully in braids like double helixes. But Anakin can make do; Obi-Wan isn’t so bad to look at after all, even with that slight divot in his chin Anakin sometimes wonders what it would feel like to press his teeth against. Obi-Wan’s cheeks have gone pink from just one tiny kiss, and as soon as Anakin pulls back, he sways forward like a metronome, crashing against Anakin.
Anakin catches him, but there’s hardly any space separating them so he ends up wrapping his arms around Obi-Wan’s waist instead. The shiver that runs through Obi-Wan’s spine flows into Anakin, as if he too is feeling it. Anakin doesn’t feel particularly changed, but now that he’s gone and done this new, brazen thing, he’s seized by the unbearable impulse to do it again.
So he does: crashing his mouth into Obi-Wan’s once more without finesse or warning, tightening his grip around him when he feels Obi-Wan’s answering gasp. Anakin doesn’t know quite yet what to do with his tongue, or his hands for that matter, so instead of looking like a complete novice, he kisses Obi-Wan everywhere all at once: short pecks on the cheeks, on the jaw, and right below his ear where the skin is surprisingly the softest. A flush has spread all the way down to Obi-Wan’s throat, a lurid pink that has Anakin resisting the urge to kiss him there too, afraid it will be the one thing to tip him over the edge of control when he’s already trembling and wanting more. It takes so little to kill a man. It takes even less for someone who’s never kissed another person before.
“What does that feel like?” Anakin asks Obi-Wan, who keeps swallowing, dazed, like a landed fish. Anakin is still holding onto him, and he lifts his organic hand to flick Obi-Wan’s hair out of the way. He tucks it behind Obi-Wan’s ear and doesn’t miss Obi-Wan’s resulting shiver.
“It tickles, a little,” Obi-Wan says, drawing his eyes up from Anakin’s mouth and back to his face as if he’s thinking about kissing Anakin again too, the way Anakin is thinking about kissing him—this time with purpose and a little more tongue.
“Where does it feel good when I kiss you?”
Obi-Wan seems both annoyed and mystified by the question. Anyone would feel like they had the rug pulled from underneath them when faced with Anakin’s unforgiving straightforwardness. But this Obi-Wan takes in stride after he has a moment to gather himself. “Do really you have to ask?”
“For science,” Anakin tells him, though the truth is he wants to refine his technique for later. He wants feedback, authentic and constructive, but mostly, he wants to know if Obi-Wan felt that strange frisson too, a bolt of energy like swallowing lightning.
Obi-Wan presses his lips together before answering, lifting his shoulders and un-slouching. “It’s better on the lips,” he says, sounding neutral, despite the fact Anakin can feel the pulsing of his signature, so loud in the Force Anakin wants to kiss him again just to calm it, never mind that it will probably have the exact opposite effect. “But we keep bumping heads.”
Anakin nods, and nods. He angles left, then, instead of right, and catches Obi-Wan seemingly off guard when he cups Obi-Wan’s jaw with his organic hand. Obi-Wan looks visibly discomfited by this sudden display of tenderness, and he looks to Anakin for some sort of explanation. Fuck it if Anakin knows what he’s even doing here, but it feels good so it must be right. He’s always trusted his instincts before, and they’re the only things to have never betrayed him in the past. Therefore: onwards they will go, without a glance backward.
This time, when Anakin leans down to kiss Obi-Wan, their mouths meet on a shared sigh, and he’s not awkwardly clutching Obi-Wan’s waist though he leaves his mechno-hand resting there to brace himself. This next kiss lasts longer—at least two minutes. Anakin licks the sweat from Obi-Wan’s upper lip and traces the wet seam of his lips with the point of his tongue.
Obi-Wan makes a face at that, but he doesn’t move away and Anakin considers that a step in the right direction.
“Your tongue,” Obi-Wan points out, when Anakin forces it between Obi-Wan’s lips, but his tone lacks the usual admonishment behind it, already sounding dreamy the farther they sink into this exercise. His next words are muffled after Anakin brushes their tongues together in a surprisingly coordinated move despite his slobbering overeagerness. He feels like a hungry dog, lapping at Obi-Wan like he’s a most prized treat, but it’s actually rather nice, enjoyable even, building up into a lazy rhythm that has Anakin thinking he can do this for hours.
“What about my tongue?” Anakin asks, in between rasping breaths. “Do you like it? Is it too much?” He finally has an excuse to lick the dimple in Obi-Wan’s chin, which is rough with the feeble beginnings of a scruff. Anakin is a little peeved by that because even at nineteen years old he has yet to grow any substantial facial hair. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan is only a few months older, and he’s already surpassing Anakin in physical maturity. Anakin takes comfort in the fact that he’s still shorter than Anakin, enough that Anakin can stand on his toes and hook his chin on top of Obi-Wan’s head—not that Obi-Wan will let him, of course, but Anakin can do that, theoretically. Still, even that may change too. Obi-Wan is fast transforming in other ways: Anakin can feel the new strength of Obi-Wan’s muscles which flex beneath his palm when he brings his organic hand down to stroke his back.
Obi-Wan nods bashfully in answer to the question, eyes half-lidded and pink-faced, his mouth arousingly wet. His lips are fat from the friction of Anakin kissing him so intently. Anakin thinks of other ways his lips can look like that too, and they involve Obi-Wan on his knees and his mouth full of the gift of Anakin’s cock, a curious thought that snags his brain like a pesky burr and won’t seem to extinguish.
“Is kissing supposed to feel like that?” Obi-Wan asks, sounding out of breath.
“Like what?”
Obi-Wan huffs out a frustrated sound as he attempts to articulate a thought. “I don’t know,” he says, mumbling. “I don’t know, it’s—you’re licking me a lot, and it’s hardly hygienic, and yet.”
“Feels good doesn’t it?” Anakin says. “Makes you want to do it more.”
Obi-Wan peers at him sheepishly and nods, flushing harder.
Anakin slides his knee between Obi-Wan’s thigh, presses it there, snug, keeping Obi-Wan’s legs spread—a replication of the smut he’s seen on those back alley channels where the smaller ones seems to enjoy being rendered helpless by someone much bigger than them.
It surprises him when Obi-Wan doesn’t protest it, though his eyes widen a fraction and his shoulders tense up before finally relaxing incrementally in surrender. He lets Anakin direct the flow of these proceedings, naturally, and it must have something to do with his naïveté, Anakin thinks, his fumbling need to always please his betters because he follows Anakin’s lead even when Anakin deepens the kiss, squirming closer so that the lengths of their bodies are pressed hip to chest. Anakin wishes he’d do something about his hands though, like touch him too, because Obi-Wan still has them curled at his sides like this is something that he must endure, though Anakin has started to notice his tentative attempts at participation.
He’s warm all over, shivering slightly, but the same can be said of Anakin, whose insides are lighting up with the same smouldering desire that he always feels when he looks at Obi-Wan, an altogether different yearning from the one he reserves for Padmé.
Anakin groans into the kiss when he feels himself beginning to harden. He manages to stop himself from humping Obi-Wan’s leg like some desperate virgin, even if he technically is, though his organic hand has somehow made the ascent from Obi-Wan’s shoulder to his hair. It feels even finer between his fingers than expected which makes it that much harder to grip. Anakin miscalculates his strength and yanks too firmly. Obi-Wan lets out a sharp cry and elbows him in the ribs in retaliation, and Anakin leaps away from him and out of the general orbit of his wayward limbs to avoid getting a faceful of elbow.
Obi-Wan is breathing heavily, his eyes accusing but wet with same confused arousal blazing through every cell in Anakin’s body. Anakin is so hard he wonders how he hasn’t keeled over from blood loss. When did that happen, and how, he wonders. He adjusts himself in his trousers, smoothing his hair just to give his hands something to do other than pump his cock in front of Obi-Wan who probably won’t appreciate it if he just took his cock out without warning.
Obi-Wan is similarly not as visibly unaffected, thankfully, but unlike Anakin, he’s only half-hard. Anakin either has to try harder, or Obi-Wan may simply just have a smaller cock than him because the erection tenting his trousers isn’t exactly encouraging Anakin’s confidence.
Anakin is about to ask if he can see it, when Obi-Wan follows his line of sight and presses his thighs together stiffly. He’s tense, unhappy again, which is not a good sign. Obi-Wan crosses his arms, and Anakin knows for a fact that that means the exercise has ended: the store is closed for the day even though it’s only mid afternoon and neither of them will be needed elsewhere. Qui-Gon leaves Anakin to his own devices most days; he’ll be free to do what he wants, but what he wants right now is to kiss Obi-Wan again until their knees shake from the effort of keeping everything family-friendly and appropriate.
Anakin will most likely think about this for the rest of the day. He’s already looking forward to being alone in his quarters where he’ll be jerking off indulgently to thoughts of Obi-Wan, his smell, his hair, the pink pebbled texture of his tongue. Or maybe he’ll be thinking of Padmé, though Anakin has never truly thought of her in this context before. Most of his fantasies concerning the senator are tamer in nature, dramatic in scale like the plot of a holodrama: a once upon a time boy-meets-girl epic, with a relatively happy end. Of course Anakin wants to kiss her; that part hasn’t changed since he was nine years old and still a slave on Tatooine.
But now Anakin’s thinking of kissing Obi-Wan too, among other things. He can do both things at once, can’t he.
Anakin knows that the moment is ruined now, however. There’s no point in salvaging it, but he tries anyway, reaching for Obi-Wan who neatly steps out of the way. Right: message received. There will be no more kissing. Terrific. Great job, Skywalker. You blew it.
“Are we done?” Obi-Wan asks, rubbing his elbows and edging closer towards the door. “Can I leave now?”
Anakin mirrors Obi-Wan’s stance and crosses his arms as well.
“By all means,” he says magnanimously. He gives Obi-Wan a theatric bow but Obi-Wan doesn’t even see it, already halfway out the door in a rush to get away from him.
The truth is, an embarrassingly large percentage of Anakin’s pre-teen years have been devoted to what others might call self-abuse but in his opinion are actually acts of self-discovery. He’s not proud of it, but he knows for a fact it’s normal to want to explore one’s own body during puberty though perhaps not to the degree that he has, scrounging up pornography wherever he can get it, and shoving his dick in tight, questionable orifices it’s a miracle Qui-Gon never caught him fucking the service droid that delivered their meals every day. It had a tubular vocalizer on its lower segment, which had been both tight and smooth on the inside, as Anakin discovered.
Still, it’s hardly Anakin’s fault. One true thing about him is that he can be wildly curious when something unknown catches his interest. This trait extends to sex, and other adjunct subjects, where his expertise is sorely lacking due to an absence of experience.
Anakin can bend the Force to his will without batting an eye, can take down half a dozen other Padawans in a match at the dojo; he had gone on a few solo missions before, as young as seventeen (a bad idea at the time, but Qui-Gon had vetted it), and he knows for certain that his path to becoming a Jedi Knight will be a sure, easy thing, but when it comes to real world experience, he has none, and he blames it solely on the Council’s staunch refusal to teach them anything of real, practical value.
The higher sciences they leave to those training to become part of the AgriCorps, but even then most Padawans are clueless on how to conduct themselves socially, unless at formal senate functions where stealing the cutlery could make a man rich, in which case Padawans just stand a little to the left and act as wall decor.
The facts are these: Obi-Wan let Anakin kiss him. It’s Anakin’s first kiss in his life, and therefore formative. Ever since that day, Anakin has been furiously jerking off to the memory of him just standing there like a limpet, letting himself be devoured, letting himself be held. Naturally, Anakin has to kiss Obi-Wan again. As practice for the real thing.
The problem is, Obi-Wan has been refusing to see him. Comms go unanswered. Requests to meet are ignored. Anakin has to resort to following him around the city again but with Master Windu hanging around lately and eyeing him distrustfully, he can hardly make his move. He finds his lucky break, however, when he stumbles upon Obi-Wan at the Temple Archives, leafing through journals of old Jedi Masters as part of some research he’s been preparing for Windu. At least that’s what the Padawan with the braids had said; Anakin paid her a substantial amount of credits to tail Obi-Wan and report back to him. She better not disappoint.
Anakin waits until Obi-Wan is alone and most everyone else has drifted to the farthest corners of the Archives. At least a dozen arched windows highlight the ocean of marble flooring that Anakin has to cross before coming close to Obi-Wan’s workspace. He lingers in the periphery for a few more moments, standing there, just watching him, before pulling up an empty chair and sitting down next to Obi-Wan.
The sound of the chair scraping the floor jars Obi-Wan out of his concentration, and he jerks up to look at Anakin with immediate suspicion which Anakin thinks may be half-deserved.
“Hello,” Anakin says.
“Did you lose your way?” Obi-Wan asks testily. “The Archives aren’t your usual haunt, Anakin.”
“I’m trying to expand to my mind,” Anakin says. He swings his chair around so he can hook his feet over Obi-Wan’s footrest. Obi-Wan doesn’t immediately get up and leave like he should, so Anakin goes for it before he loses the nerve. “Sorry about your hair,” he says, when he sees the exhaustion in Obi-Wan’s face. He’s probably been in here for hours; he tends to get lost in whatever assignment he’s been given, always wanting to prove himself and be the star pupil. Anakin understands, but where Obi-Wan’s wheelhouse is of more of an academic nature, his is of raw, brutal strength. “I know you can get a little sensitive about that.”
Obi-Wan’s expression softens exponentially, and he offers Anakin a genuine smile.
“Anyway, I got you something,” Anakin tells him abruptly, impatient to dispel this sudden, strange atmosphere and the rising feelings of empathy that accompany it. He pulls out a bag of honey cakes from the pocket of his cloak, the paper covering already sodden from the oil used to fry them. They’re the only things Obi-Wan can tolerate from the under-city where he hardly ever ventures even on the days they’re allowed such freedoms from lessons and assignments.
Anakin had dragged him there once several years ago to bet on a podrace, and he’d bought Obi-Wan an entire bag to keep him occupied so he’d stop his nervous fidgeting. He’d loved them ever since, the only indulgence he allows himself besides the fragrant oil he uses to tame his hair. Anakin knows he still feels some guilt for having more than one piece, which is why he made it a point to buy him five.
“I’m not going to be bribed by honey cakes,” Obi-Wan says, but it’s obvious he’s on the verge of wavering, sliding his gaze down to the bag Anakin has innocuously situated on the desk.
“They’re not a bribe,” Anakin assures him, which is only half the truth. “They’re a peace offering.”
Obi-Wan nods and then darts another final, guilty look at the bag. He has protective gloves on because he’s handling sacred, Jedi texts—leather-bound tomes with worn, cracking spines and pages so brittle Anakin can hear the rustle of them each time Obi-Wan turns a page. He sits there, waiting for Obi-Wan to acknowledge why he’s really here, but whole minutes pass and all there is is the intermittent beep of a holo-keypad while Obi-Wan documents his findings.
Anakin slouches in his chair and sighs loudly, but even that is not enough to pull Obi-Wan’s attention away from his research. Anakin rolls his eyes and seethes in silence while Obi-Wan works obliviously, chewing on his bottom lip in a way that has Anakin impatiently jiggling his leg.
Finally, Anakin decides enough is enough and he inches his seat closer. He purposefully places his hand on Obi-Wan’s knee, under the table, inches it higher and higher for as long as he can get away with it, or at least until Obi-Wan notices—whichever wins out.
The beeping noises stop altogether, as Obi-Wan cocks his head to look at him. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Anakin says.
Obi-Wan’s breath is shaky, and his cheeks look warm, flushed. He swallows, once. Anakin doesn’t miss the subtle flaring of his nostrils, either in indignation or annoyance. “Your hand is on my thigh, Anakin,” he hisses, because even though they’re alone, they’re still at the Archives where Jocasta Nu holds dominion and has zero compunction kicking out misbehaving Padawans. “That isn’t nothing.”
“I’m well aware, Obi-Wan. I put it there,” Anakin says snarkily. “My hand’s tired.”
“Your face is tired.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Look,” Anakin sighs, and picks up the bag of honey cakes. He frees a piece from its sticky, crumb-coated brethren to present to Obi-Wan who scrunches his nose at it dubiously as if it might be anything other than deep fried pastry. “Can’t you take a break from all that research and try these honey cakes while they’re still fresh?”
“This isn’t about the honey cakes, is it,” says Obi-Wan.
Anakin breaks off a piece and grins, chewing with an open mouth. “No, it isn’t.”
“Well?” Obi-Wan prompts, and now he’s the one with the gall to seem impatient when Anakin has dutifully waited for him to finish his work with minimal complaint.
“I want to do it again. Kiss, I mean,” Anakin says, in case his intention isn’t clear enough. “I feel my thoughts…uh, straying.”
Obi-Wan blinks at him. “What does that even mean.”
“It means—if you don’t let me kiss you right now I might start thinking about Padmé again. So: hurry up already.”
Obi-Wan powers off his datapad with more force than necessary before getting up to collect his things. “You should try to meditate more often,” he says, hefting his heavy books in his arms, despite Anakin’s half-hearted offers of assistance. “That might actually help you with your predicament, you know.”
He elbows Anakin out of the way—again with the elbows—and heads to what is probably the dustiest section of the Archives. The shelves are massive and towering, filled with moth-eaten books published over a millennia ago, furred with cobwebs and untouched until overeager Padawans like Obi-Wan disturb them from their sleep. Light from the high windows throw spots of light on the floor, but otherwise the area is secluded. Dark.
Obi-Wan starts returning books on the shelf with the kind of meticulous care that would have otherwise been endearing if Anakin was a sentimental person and not half-hard in his trousers. Anakin does him a favour and starts floating the remainder of his books high up on the shelf where Obi-Wan can’t reach without standing on his tiptoes.
Obi-Wan, who hardly ever appreciates Anakin’s rare moments of thoughtfulness, snatches a tome from thin air and slides him a look.
“What,” Anakin says, feigning innocence. “I was trying to be helpful.”
To demonstrate his sincerity, Anakin plucks the book from Obi-Wan’s grip and goes to slot it reverently on the shelf above Obi-Wan’s head. He pauses, then, with his arm braced on the shelf behind Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan freezes, anticipating his next move, and who would Anakin be if he failed to meet Obi-Wan’s expectations.
He shoves Obi-Wan flush against the books, fisting his tunic and sliding a knee between his thighs. Obi-Wan seems to enjoy that if the subtle shifting of his hips and the shallow skip in his breath are anything to go by, but he wouldn’t be Obi-Wan if he didn’t put up a protest first, smacking Anakin in the arm in a feeble attempt to dissuaded his advances.
Anakin smirks, leonine and amused. If that’s how they’ll play it, then that’s how it’ll go, he think, as he strokes Obi-Wan’s cheek with his organic hand. He didn’t get that opportunity to do so the first time, but now he can touch him the way he likes. Padmé’s skin would be softer, probably, but Anakin is beginning to enjoy the light fuzz of hair scraping Obi-Wan’s chin. Even his chin has piqued Anakin’s interest, with that little dimple on it.
“We shouldn’t be doing this here,” Obi-Wan says, gaze dipping to where Anakin is stroking a thumb over his lips which part for him almost readily. “Let me go, Anakin.”
“Or what? You’re going to scream?” Obi-Wan’s vague interest in the proceedings transforms into real annoyance, and he actually gives Anakin a hard shove that has Anakin staggering backwards half a step. Anakin responds in kind by pushing his knee forward, catching Obi-Wan by surprise that he gives an aborted gasp before he remembers himself and slaps a hand over his mouth.
Anakin huffs out an amused laugh. He starts dragging the knee jammed between Obi-Wan’s thighs in lazy, concentric circles, stirring Obi-Wan up with the repetitive friction until he’s trembling and red-faced with the beginnings of obvious arousal.
Ah, Anakin thinks, absolutely intrigued when Obi-Wan bites down on a needy whimper. So even perfect little Jedis like Obi-Wan Kenobi aren’t made of stone after all. That’s comforting to know.
“Come on, Obi-Wan. Don’t be stingy now. Just a little kiss to tide me over, hm?” Anakin hums, low-voiced that it’s almost a purr. It’s the first time he’s heard himself sound like this and Anakin decides that he likes it, if only for the reason that it seems to have some sort of effect on Obi-Wan who may not even realise the pathetic sounds that he’s making or the fact that his pupils are fully blown.
Obi-Wan pretends to be appalled, because if he isn’t, then he wouldn’t be himself. But his thighs are twitching and Anakin notices, his hips rolling up when Anakin applies more pressure with his knee.
Anakin doesn’t need to be a Force user to know how desperately Obi-Wan wants to rub himself against Anakin’s knee. But he won’t do it. As always, he’ll need coaxing.
“It won’t take long,” Anakin says, running his knuckles across the side of Obi-Wan’s face. His helpless expression makes him look entirely too youthful, and it tugs at something inside Anakin like a fishhook, digging fierce and sharp.
“I’m in agony here, Obi-Wan,” —and this, at least, is true, “I thought you said you were going to help me. Don’t you want to help me? We’re friends, aren’t we? So help me.”
Anakin is too pent-up to wait for a reply and ignores the skeptical look Obi-Wan gives him. Their teeth knock together when he slots his mouth over Obi-Wan’s, a jarring, bracing pain that seems to wake up all his senses and causes him to harden even further. He kisses Obi-Wan with renewed vigour, wringing noises from his mouth like coins and seizing him by the hair. This time Anakin knows better and doesn’t pull on it with all his strength. Instead he simply grabs greedy tufts of it as he drags his tongue up and down Obi-Wan’s cheek.
Obi-Wan doesn’t seem to appreciate this. Disgust mars his features for a moment before he lets out a giggle; his fingers loosen their grip on Anakin’s robes, where he’s stopped pretending to push him away.
“You’re like a dog,” he says.
“Shut up.”
Anakin licks him again, making sure to extend his tongue to the spot behind Obi-Wan’s ear where he tucks his Padawan braid. He doesn’t miss the way Obi-Wan’s breath goes audibly shaky and tight, so he does it again just so he can hear it, running his lips down the ball of Obi-Wan’s throat where he grazes him with his teeth.
Obi-Wan gurgles and swallows. Anakin bites down on his throat firmly, tempted to leave a mark, but for now he lets Obi-Wan be, content to take what he can get.
“You know,” Obi-Wan says, oddly conversational even with Anakin’s lips on his pulse point. “For someone who’s never done this before, you do seem to know a lot of tricks.”
“Thank you,” Anakin replies. “I’ve done my research.”
Research meaning he spent hours logged on watching an extensive gamut of illegal pornography.
Anakin nuzzles Obi-Wan’s throat, and that shuts him up temporarily. Absently, he notes the fact that he smells like one of those honey cakes despite never having had any today. Obi-Wan’s scent is dizzyingly, enticingly sweet, even if it’s just his sweat that Anakin is surely getting a whiff of.
Anakin used to love besting him in sparring matches because hand to hand grappling is something he actually enjoys outside of lightsaber combat, and it was rare when Obi-Wan was allowed to train against him because Windu often tried to keep them apart after that disastrous night he’d caught Anakin spooning Obi-Wan in his bed when he was twelve and still too young to understand the full ramifications of the Jedi Code and its discouragement of attachment.
What he had liked then, aside from the fleeting sense of invincibility those victories afforded him, was that he got to roll around the mats with Obi-Wan for a few short hours, flattening him to the ground with his entire weight while he wriggled underneath Anakin like a delicious little worm.
Anakin had first noticed his scent then too.
Anakin cups Obi-Wan’s chest, an absent gesture that serves no real purpose other than it’s something that he’s seen featured in smut flicks. Some people, regardless of species, like getting their chests massaged, the same way Anakin has a preference for subjecting himself to a person rather than being acted upon. He kneads Obi-Wan’s left tit while he fuses their mouths together, and it’s not until five minutes later when Anakin’s got his entire hand stuffed inside Obi-Wan’s shirt that he discovers one new and distinct feature of Obi-Wan’s anatomy.
Obi-Wan has breasts— small ones that are so perfectly-sized they can probably fit in each of Anakin’s palms. There’s a delicate weight to them, and they’re hardly even there, but Anakin knows what his own chest feels like in comparison and there’s a certain unique, pillowy softness to Obi-Wan’s that isn’t present in his. He squeezes Obi-Wan’s left tit just to be sure he isn’t hallucinating.
He’s not. Force alive, he’s not.
“Okay, that’s weird,” Anakin says, trying and failing to keep his tone level.
Obi-Wan blinks out of his daze, and seems to notice Anakin’s hand inside his shirt for the first time. Obi-Wan loses track of everything else once he gets deep into the kissing, a fact that Anakin plans to exploit many times later.
“You have—” Anakin gestures awkwardly at Obi-Wan with the hand that isn’t currently groping him already and shoved inside his robe.
It takes Obi-Wan a full second to fathom his meaning, and then he yanks Anakin’s hand viciously out of his shirt before crossing his arms in protection. A travesty, Anakin thinks, because he had barely been given the opportunity to examine Obi-Wan’s tit.
“Can I see it?” Anakin may have asked, and nicely at that, but that doesn’t mean that he requires Obi-Wan’s permission to loosen the front of his shirt. He pulls on the fastenings of Obi-Wan’s tunic holding each side together, forcing the collar loose until Obi-Wan’s chest finally springs free.
Obi-Wan doesn’t stand a chance against him, nor his wayward hands, which Anakin uses to pin Obi-Wan’s wrists to his sides so he can have an unobstructed view of Obi-Wan’s naked chest. Obi-Wan’s tits are small and dainty, which is a word Anakin doesn’t often associate with him because Obi-Wan may be kind and earnest, never colouring outside the lines, but he can be a beast at the dojo too when he flows into battle mode. If Anakin called him dainty to his face in a sparring match, he’d get his hair singed by Obi-Wan’s lightsabre for his troubles.
But on the topic of Obi-Wan’s breasts: there’s no other word to describe them. Dainty truly is what comes to mind. And now here they are, his little secret revealed, calling out to Anakin, two pink puffy nipples that stiffen under Anakin’s scrutiny.
“Wow.” Anakin doesn’t blink for a long time, wanting to burn this image in the backs of his eyelids so he sees them even in his sleep. He’s never seen a pair of breasts up close, or in the flesh for that matter. He remembers reading something about Stewjon once, Obi-Wan’s home planet, but other than the fact that it rained there most months out of a standard year, no other detail stands out in memory; the text hadn’t referenced anything on Stewjoni anatomy.
“If you have something to say just spit it out,” Obi-Wan says, still with that moue of upset on his face. He’s embarrassed, even though Anakin thinks there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Obi-Wan is perfect; his tits are perfect. He has to remind himself that he’s doing this as a stand-in for the real thing but his mind’s gone fuzzy with fantasies of Obi-Wan’s tits covered in his come, and it’s hard to remember his true motives for this exercise above the static scratch of his hind brain going feral.
“Those are really cute,” Anakin blurts out. “You never told me you had tits, Obi-Wan.”
“Right,” Obi-Wan says, blushing at the compliment, and looking anywhere but Anakin, “I’m sorry that I never really had the opportunity to organically bring it up in a conversation.”
“Can I suck on them?” Anakin asks, apropos of nothing. The point is to ask, he knows, regardless of Obi-Wan’s response to the request.
“What?” Obi-Wan scoffs, and then his face falls with dawning realisation when Anakin looks back at him seriously. “Have you lost your mind, Anakin? I’m not going to let you suck on— ow! Anakin! Quit biting me! Stop it!” His voice drops into a juddering whine almost as soon as Anakin closes his lips around a pert little nipple. Anakin pulls with his teeth—gently this time— and the nub stiffens further between his lips. Interesting. He widens his mouth and tries to fit the whole of Obi-Wan’s breast in, but Obi-Wan yanks on his ear to pace him and he chokes a little as a result.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, a pleading, desperate note in his tone that Anakin confuses with pleasure. “Stop slobbering all over me. Really, this is highly uncivilised.”
“Doesn’t it feel good?”
Obi-Wan wrinkles his nose. “No, is it supposed to?”
Frankly, Anakin doesn’t know the answer to that. He leans back and examines his handiwork: Obi-Wan’s nipple glistening, slippery with his spit. He gives the nub a little kiss, a little flick of the tongue, and that’s when Obi-Wan shudders and bites his lip.
“You hid this from me.” Anakin says, casting accusing eyes at him while he fondles Obi-Wan’s breast meanwhile.
“I hid nothing,” Obi-Wan says. Anakin realises this may in fact true: they’re often fully clothed around each other barring that one night when Anakin was thirteen and long before he’d been exiled from Obi-Wan’s bed by Windu. He’d asked Obi-Wan to wash his hair as a birthday present. Neither of them had been fully formed then; Anakin was still half a foot shorter, and ravaged by acne when they’d shared a birthday bath that Anakin lied was a custom on Tatooine. Of course, Obi-Wan could not have known. It had made sense at the time to him, probably. Water was precious and scarce on a desert planet after all and he’d most likely assumed the planet’s populace only took baths once a year, Anakin included.
The bath, like most things related to Obi-Wan, had been deeply formative, but there were no curious surprises worthy of note that Anakin remembers, only that he was touched by Obi-Wan’s willingness to extend him this favour, even if Anakin had to lie to get it.
In the absence of anything substantial to say, Anakin sucks on a rosebud-coloured nipple. This is the start of a new addiction, he thinks, as Obi-Wan gasps, and curiously enough, doesn’t recoil away from him. Anakin can feel Obi-Wan’s fingers knotting in his hair, tightening but not pulling when Anakin flicks his tongue in contrapuntal swirls. Obi-Wan’s chest is shaking.
It only hits Anakin much later that he’s laughing, amused.
“Of all the things I imagined I’d be doing today,” Obi-Wan says, stroking his hair. “This is so far down on the list.”
“You mean, you’ve thought about me sucking on your tits?”
Obi-Wan flushes, his nose twitching in disapproval. “Can you please not call it that? It’s just an expression meant to express how absurd this situation is. If we get caught Anakin—”
“We won’t,” Anakin assures him and kisses Obi-Wan’s other tit, which is equally buoyant as the other one. No wonder he wore those tight bands over his chest whenever they sparred together: he had these beautiful treasures to hide. Anakin sends the thought barrelling straight into Obi-Wan’s mind, a memory of Obi-Wan and him wrestling on the dojo mats but with a new fantasy now overlaying it: Obi-Wan’s chest fully exposed and bouncing with every swing of his practice sabre.
Obi-Wan cringes as if he were getting a headache from the mere idea, and narrows his eyes at Anakin in disbelief. “Really? Must you always do that? That’s not a proper use of the Force, Anakin.”
“I think it’s far too late to care about proper now, Obi-Wan, especially when you’ve got your tits out like a schutta.”
The flush on Obi-Wan’s face turns a more livid shade of red, which has Anakin feeling some type of way. Powerful, a little excited. He likes to think only he holds the key to unlocking Obi-Wan’s untapped un-Jedi like feelings. Obi-Wan is not normally quick to anger, but Anakin has a knack of riling him up to near fury, among other things. Obi-Wan is like a sturdy tree firmly rooted to the ground whose heavy branches Anakin loves to shake to see which ones yield the most fruit.
Anakin plucks at Obi-Wan’s nipples a few more times, alternates between kissing and sucking on them, and he’s aware that he promised Obi-Wan this won’t take too long but that had meant about the kissing. This, well, this requires his utmost attention. This requires time, care. Anakin needs to acquaint himself with the shape and smell and taste of Obi-Wan’s tits, the loveliest pair this side of the Republic. He can’t imagine Padmé’s looking any better; he can’t imagine her without her clothes off at all, frankly, because that would sully his pristine fantasies.
Sweat glides down the milky valleys of Obi-Wan’s chest and Anakin follows the salty trail with his tongue, face buried in Obi-Wan’s sternum as he squeezes the mounds cushioning his ears.
Above him, he hears Obi-Wan sigh. It’s not exactly enthusiastic. “Are you satisfied?”
Not really, Anakin thinks, never, but they both hear the thunk-hiss of the archivist’s cart as she makes her rounds and deposits books back on their shelves. The sound cuts through Anakin’s thoughts like a vibroblade, and reluctantly, he steps away, rubbing his wet mouth against the back of his hand.
“Thanks,” Anakin says awkwardly as Obi-Wan straightens and re-fastens the ties and the clips and clasps of his robe and tunic, intent and impatient to re-become himself: covered, closed off, though his hair is disheveled on one side where Anakin had pulled on it, the only evidence of their earlier activities. That and his flushed face. He looks like he’d just run a marathon.
Anakin is still half hard from sucking on Obi-Wan’s tits, but it seems Obi-Wan’s interest has flagged completely—or he was never interested to begin with. Anakin can’t recall sensing Obi-Wan’s erection when he had rubbed Obi-Wan’s crotch with his knee, though Obi-Wan had aided the friction with a few tiny jerks of his hips.
Obi-Wan tucks his braid behind his ear. The rest of his hair is an uncharacteristic mess, and he looks up at Anakin, careful. “While I’m more than happy to help you in this capacity Anakin, please do try to meditate. The Force will provide the healing you seek. Let your feelings flow into it.”
It’s impulse that makes Anakin sound caustic when he says, “You’re sounding a lot like Qui-Gon right now. Is that something he used to tell you too?” It’s the wrong thing to say even after all this time, because Obi-Wan doesn’t need a reminder of how his old Master had discarded him in favour of the Chosen One. He’d been newly apprenticed when Anakin had come into the picture, Anakin with his strangeness and his bad manners and all the baggage of having spent most of his life as a slave. Anakin knows despite Obi-Wan’s acceptance of this outcome that it’s still a sore subject as he sees the abandonment as some sort of personal shortcoming.
Obi-Wan has walls, a whole long line of them like dominoes, but Anakin has never seen them more clearly than he does now.
Obi-Wan pivots on his heel without another word, and Anakin rolls his eyes at him, huffing. As he watches Obi-Wan walk away from him, Anakin’s feelings of annoyance slowly evaporate, morphing into crushing, authentic guilt that has him floundering like a survivor of a shipwreck.
But he stays standing there, rooted, refusing to chase after Obi-Wan and apologise more out of pride than anything else.