Chapter Text
I was carving my name into your side, and you were calling me soft, calling me gentle. I do not think you were paying attention.
Humid, thick steam wafted up from the sewer beneath his feet, curling in lazy spirals around his face before drifting away. Gold eyes stared, unseeing, into the busy Coruscant street. His mind was buried deep in the Force, trudging through the cacophony of many minds and thoughts like one might wade through the muddy forests of Kashyyyk.
The Force loved him, this he knew. The problem with this fun little fact of his life was that it was the wrong side of the Force that loved him. He was constantly battered with the soothing touches of the Light Side, when he should be seized by the throat of the Dark – simmering in a stew of decadent, profane infidelity.
It was a persistent struggle for Obi-Wan Kenobi, as he inhaled deeply on the cigarette dangling between his lips, the nicotine laced with several suppressant drugs which dulled the Light. The Force didn’t understand rejection, so it clung onto him, marking him as something other. Obi-Wan had to find... other means of muting it to keep himself safe and sane.
Sane enough, at the very least.
He pulled out of his half-hearted meditation, running a hand through greasy bleach blonde hair, pushing it back from his face. Finally, Obi-Wan tuned into his physical surroundings: the milling of beings going about their days, the dimness of the lower levels of Coruscant where no natural light reached.
The day cycle was swapping to the night cycle. The perfect time for a hunt.
Obi-Wan’s smile was all teeth. His laugh was full bodied and just on the edge of unhinged as he sensed his most recent recruit running away from him, but not because of him. No, it was because his recruit enjoyed fear play and as it turned out, Obi-Wan quite enjoyed being on this side of it.
This recruit wouldn’t make a good Sith. Maybe they’d make a good little librarian or kitchen steward for the Sith. They had enough darkness to become a Sith, like him, but not enough to really do anything about it. Though, Obi-Wan would still deliver them to the Temple, just as he always did. Another one for the Sith to manipulate how they pleased. He didn’t much care what happened to them.
And then there was this: as Obi-Wan waited, his blood sung a predator’s song. What Sith truly enjoyed being hunted as prey?
He waited, and waited, and waited, until he was sure he would be forced to use the Dark Side and stalk his prey until he could sink his teeth in. They wouldn’t make a good inquisitor, but they’d make a great plaything.
Obi-Wan finished his cigarette, waiting for their signature to fade and disappear. He pulled the smoke into his lungs before letting it lazily drift out of his mouth, mixing with the fog wafting around him.
Sirens like him didn’t live as long as full-blooded Sith. Their jobs were to entice beings to join the Order, and sometimes those other beings were too much; too deadly. Obi-Wan hadn’t met anyone like that before; he was exceptionally talented at manipulation, and all fell under his spell in the end. He hadn’t found someone he couldn’t turn into his toy yet, and he thrived in the life of a Sith Siren.
“Ready or not,” Obi-Wan purred to himself, voice rough from the smoke. He tossed the butt onto the ground and ground it beneath his heel. “Here I come, little darling.”
He didn’t have strong powers like the other Sith, but he blended in seamlessly with the crowd as he sought out his chase and a good hard fuck before he turned them over to the Order. Something to keep him warm as he travelled the galaxy alone in his ship for the next recruit.
It was lonely living on a desert planet, on a moisture farm, in the middle of nowhere.
For Anakin Skywalker, the farm simply symbolised what was no longer there. It hadn’t always been that way. It had once been freedom, escape, potential, but it was now an empty carriage on a train he no longer wanted to be on. It was hurtling towards a life that he had never planned to be his – struggling at early hours, taking on the family mantle. It wasn’t slavery, but it smelt of something similar. Something like duty, something like obligation, which was almost as bad.
It began after a long day in the sun, his muscles aching and stomach rumbling, as he and the Lars men sat in silence around the dining table and ate paltry rations. His mother’s pots and pans remained untouched on the stove, their contents rancid by then. None of them had spoken, and Anakin had stormed from the kitchen and to his room before anyone dared to try.
He had paced his room, skin tacky from sweat, dirt smeared on his cheeks, and felt the immediate urge to leave.
So, when the suns set, he did. It was easy to slip out. Nobody listened for him anymore, now that his mother was gone, and it wasn’t much of a walk into the town. Anakin preferred Tatooine at night, the cool blue shine of the sky against the dunes, the chill.
The cantina at night was something entirely different than during the day. It thrived with youth and creatures he couldn’t even name slurping on drinks which bobbed with round tapioca-pearls. Anakin popped them between his teeth, and stared at the other inhabitants from where he was leant against the bar. He felt, overwhelmingly, that if he didn’t come here each night, he would be lonely forever. Angry forever.
So, it became a habit.
The Lars’ did not mention it, though Anakin knew that they knew. They saw it on him when he snuck back in before the suns rose. They saw the dark smears beneath his eyes as he diligently rose with them to set to work in the morning. They saw the dark marks on his neck that he didn’t bother to hide. And he was sure they could smell the syrupy sweet smell of alcohol leeching from his skin as they worked beneath the suns. But they did not mention it.
And because they did not mention it, Anakin began to push his luck a little. His morning diligence, his show of respect, began to dissipate. Mornings that he didn’t spend sprawled in his bed, awake with the suns but unmoving, he spent in the beds of strangers or slouched in a bar stool sharing death-sticks with a Dug. Sometimes he simply did not return home at all.
And one day after the Lars’ had knocked his door down and dragged him out of bed, tugging him to the flats, Anakin decided he was going to go somewhere and not come back. He decided that if anyone could leave this damned desert planet, it would be him.
It was simple, in principle, but harder in reality. He had no significant money – you don’t earn money, working on the farm ofthe family that bought you when you were a slave – so no way of getting off planet.
Nights dragged into days in the cantina, when one day he decided, simply, he would not go back to the Lars homestead – ever.
Anakin was filled with an intimate sense that something was coming for him.
So, he waited.
Obi-Wan sat with his eyes closed, feet kicked up on the console of his standard issued Temple shuttle as it drifted on autopilot. It was technically his, seeing as no one except for him ever ventured all the way out to the Outer Rim, and this was the shittiest looking shuttle they had. It blended in better, so he didn’t look like he had money.
He didn’t have money. But a clean, sparkly shuttle would draw unwanted attention.
This one was old and scratched up on the outside. There was a very suspicious grouping of scrapes that looked like it might have flown through a planet’s rings of space dust while making some daring escape. There was so much black scoring along the outside of it that it could have been painted black at this point.
It fit in perfectly with the scum and villainy of the Outer Rim.
Obi-Wan was searching in the Force for a pull of power, something that might be worthy of his time. After he’d dropped of his latest recruit, he’d left Coruscant immediately, ready to continue his job. He was positive that the next time he went back, he’d find… whatever the recruit’s name was… in the Temple library putting books away.
Obi-Wan’s head dropped back over the top of the chair, a sigh on his lips. The long stretches of silence between targets were less than ideal. One could only meditate so much while trying to ignore the bright shining beacon in their peripherals. The Light Side was so persistent in its endeavours to try and convince him to risk his life when he so clearly had no interest in—
Wait. His feet slid off the console, eyes still closed, brow furrowing. It wasn’t just the Light Side being a twat; it was an actual Force user nearby. Bright and strong enough to be confused with the Force itself.
Obi-Wan’s eyes snapped open.
Quickly, he checked his map, observing where the autopilot had taken him. Tatooine. He made a noise of disgust, though he would have made that noise had it been any other Outer Rim planets. Changing course, he aimed for where he felt the strong signature, letting the ship guide itself for most of the way before he was forced to dock it himself.
He was nearly salivating by the time he landed, paid the outrageous docking fee, and blindly followed the signature. It led him to a cantina, much to his great relief; this was an environment he could easily manipulate, unlike if this Force being was sitting at home with a family having supper.
Obi-Wan pushed through the doors, loud music being the first thing to greet him. A droid server swivelled behind the bar and blinked beady eyes at him. He walked up to the countertop, a wide smile on his lips.
Droids couldn’t be charmed, not really, but he would put on the airs anyway.
The Force being was somewhere nearby.
“What can I get ya, old sport?” the droid asked.
“Oh, you’ve been programmed uniquely,” Obi-Wan said, amused. The droid was not phased in the slightest. “I’ll have an Antakarian Fire Dancer.”
“Ah, a Coruscanti drink. I’ll see what I can do,” and the droid was off to mix up the blue concoction. Obi-Wan turned to lean backwards against the bar, eyes scanning the dim room. It was full of dusty workers and far off travellers, all chatting away with each other. No one was particularly worried about a Sith in their midst.
He searched for the signature, but it was so strong. The being was a gravity well, drawing in both Light and Dark. That would make his job infinitely harder. Maybe if the being left, Obi-Wan would sense the receding presence and could follow—
“Are you from Coruscant?” someone behind him asked.
Obi-Wan looked over his shoulder. There stood the source of his fixation, easy as that. Obi-Wan turned around entirely, leaning forward on his forearms to take a good look at the boy. There wasn’t anything special about him, except for the way the Dark Side and the Light Side danced around him, both unsure yet undoubtedly drawn to him.
Obi-Wan smiled, much more toned down than the toothy thing he’d given the droid when he entered.
His blue drink was set by his arm and equally blue eyes drifted down to look at it curiously.
“Yes I am. Would you like to try?” Obi-Wan asked, pushing his drink over to the other before taking the first sip for himself.
The other took the proffered glass, their fingers brushing together against the stem. Obi-Wan felt a jolt of the Dark slither down into his nerves, chasing away his ever-constant Light with beautiful shadows. Obi-Wan swallowed a gasp and watched him take a gulp of blue, lips looking cold in the reflected light. Barely a wrinkle of the face, Obi-Wan noted with delight, as his drink was passed back to him.
“Tastes like gasoline,” said the boy, licking his bottom lip enticingly. “Are you going to set my world on fire?”
A tug at the corner of his mouth, a smirk. This might be easier than Obi-Wan had thought, maybe he wouldn’t even really need to use any of his Force tricks on him, either. Which meant he could use them on the boy for fun, as opposed to just manipulation.
Obi-Wan idly wondered what the inside of his head would look like.
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan said, throwing back the rest of the drink. “Do you have any matches?”
“Sure,” the other grinned. “Let’s go outside.”
Obi-Wan grabbed his wrist before he could disappear into the depths of the cantina. “What’s your name?” Eyes twinkled with anticipation as they looked at each other through the haze of the room. Then, “Didn’t your mother tell you not to go anywhere with strange men?”
It was like a switch. A shadow fell across his face, and the Force presence in the room grew heavy and electric like an oncoming storm. Obi-Wan’s hand was shaken off the other’s wrist. The cantina stilled in empathy, everyone aware and seeking something that none of them could even begin to understand as the Force fizzled with static. Glasses popped and shattered in people’s hands as those stormy eyes bore into Obi-Wan for what felt like hours, days, years but was really less than seconds.
Then the storm cleared.
“Anakin Skywalker,” the boy said. “And my mom’s dead.”
“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” the Sith replied. “And you promised me a cigarette.”
Anakin squinted at him then nodded. They pushed through the crowded cantina. The room was so packed that moisture dripped from the ceiling. Someone stumbled into Obi-Wan, and he shoved them away with a sneer that twisted his pale features, golden eyes flashing. Then they were outside and the deep blue of the Tatooine night was all encompassing and cold.
They slumped against the sandstone building. Anakin pulled two cigarettes from his pocket, sticking one between his lips which was half crumpled from his pocket. It stuck up like a mast. Obi-Wan took the proffered second cigarette and pressed it between his lips.
“What’re you doing on Tatooine?” asked Anakin, cigarette stuck to his bottom lip as he patted the pockets of his large leather jacket for matches. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“Vacation,” Obi-Wan smirked at him.
Anakin rolled his eyes and pulled out a match, scoring it against the rough sandstone until it sparked. He brought it to his lips and Obi-Wan watched him glow golden. Once the cherry was lit, Obi-Wan slid his fingers into the hair at the back of Anakin’s neck and pulled him in close until the tips of their cigarettes pressed together. He puffed at the cigarette until it began smoking between them.
“That means you’ll be leaving at some point,” stated Anakin, smoke slithering from the corner of his mouth. The blue of his eyes looked almost silver in the low light.
Obi-Wan tilted his head and looked out across the grey stretch of sand as though he were considering staying. “Sure,” he said eventually, tapping his cigarette ash on the leather of his pants and smearing it in. He looked at Anakin with intensity in his eyes and flicked his fingers at him, slipping into the unguarded depths of his mind..
His thoughts were a delicious tangle of confused feelings, hot twisting anger, and bitter grief. It practically made Obi-Wan’s mouth water. He could feel it, even just scraping his short nails in the surface of Anakin Skywalker’s head, the blackhole looming around him.
He’d make a perfect recruit.
“You want to come back with me?”
Anakin blew smoke into his face, acrid and bitter as it entered his nostrils. A slow smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Obi-Wan had never had such an easy recruit and he was almost bored. At least the last dishwasher-recruit he’d found had put up a bit of a fight, made it interesting, made Obi-Wan have to use his tricks on him.
Wetting his lips, Obi-Wan snatched the last of the cigarette from Anakin and looked him over appraisingly. The other was looking at him with an intensity that made Obi-Wan feel excited; it spoke of want and desire. Obi-Wan stamped out the cigarette and pulled away from the sandstone building.
“Are you coming?” he called over his shoulder, beginning to walk back to his ship. The engine would probably still be warm.
He heard the footsteps from Anakin’s shoes as he eventually followed, and wondered how such a strong Force user was hidden out in the ass crack of the galaxy. Anakin felt like he would outshine anyone that Obi-Wan ran across, and Obi-Wan had seen a lot of Force users.
With a smirk, Anakin began to saunter ahead as though he was the one who propositioned Obi-Wan and was now taking him to his ship, not the other way around. Obi-Wan huffed and chased after him.
“How do you know where you’re going?” Obi-Wan asked.
“I can sense it,” Anakin said casually, and Obi-Wan quickened his pace. When they were level, Anakin snorted a laugh and waved his hands around, “Oooh the Living Force.”
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes; Anakin was obviously playing around and didn’t know what he was talking about, contrary to the static cloud of his Force presence. Obi-Wan kept following him, because despite the fact Anakin was playing around, he really was going the correct way.
“It’s real you know,” said Obi-Wan. “The Force.”
“Sure,” said Anakin, the tug of his mouth sardonic and bitter. “There’s a Living Force in all things. There’s good and bad and black and white and—”
“Pretty much, baby,” Obi-Wan agreed as they approached the space dock.
He prodded along at Anakin’s signature, trying to figure out why this boy when they rounded the next corner to the Tatooine docking bay where ships of all shapes and sizes were parked haphazardly.
Obi-Wan pushed past the younger man and walked through the chain link fence, running his black fingernails against the metal. He led Anakin towards his ship, sliding between various wandering droids and ducking underneath power cables that looped heavily from cockpits to bumbling gonk generators.
The sky above was busy with stars. Anakin trailed behind him with his head hanging backwards, curls hanging down his back, taking it all in.
“I’ve never been to space,” Anakin said softly, somehow managing to avoid every trip hazard as he stared upwards.
Of course he hasn’t, Obi-Wan thought somewhat cruelly; Anakin had a heavy accent that was pure Outer Rim and the dark tan of someone who laboured beneath two suns. He looked like the sort who had only just discovered the lure of alcohol, the type who was probably coughing on smoke less than a week ago. He looked green, and that drove Obi-Wan crazy. Green was malleable – was soft and stretchy and gave easily to him and to the ways of the Sith. He could practically taste the delicious cocktail of barely contained anger, bitterness, grief – and then, too, vanity and self-possession.
“It’s not all it’s cut out to be,” Obi-Wan said.
When they reached Obi-Wan’s ship, a loud scoff fell from Anakin’s mouth.
“No wonder you hate space travel,” Anakin said, looking deeply unimpressed, the Force around him rippling with disgust, “when you’re travelling in this piece of shit.”
Anakin walked around the craft, running his hand along the deep scores in the hull, the blackened wings. He dropped to a crouch to assess some blaster holes and when he reappeared his face was marred with a pretty sneer.
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at the kid and propelled himself up onto the wing. He stood for a moment, hips angled outward. Appraising Anakin from way above, Obi-Wan shoved a hand in the tight leather of his pants and adjusted himself, scratching his nails into the short hairs.
“You getting in or not?” Obi-Wan asked boredly, stretching up before they were stuck in a ship for the next few days, his shirt lifting above his ribs and flashing a pale line of stomach at Anakin. The twin piercings on his hip bones glimmered like a predator’s tooth in the moonlight.
“Can it handle the both of us?” Anakin shot back, leaning against the curve of the hull. “Looks like it’ll fall out of the sky.”
Obi-Wan snorted and crouched down on the wing, arms on his knees, hands dangling between them. “Guess the only thing we can do is find out—”
“Wait,” Anakin interrupted. There it was: the hesitation. The indecision. Finally, some sort of self-preservation was kicking in and was telling Anakin not to get on a ship with a stranger. Obi-Wan was almost proud of it, even if it was endlessly annoying. “Prove to me you aren’t a quack.”
Obi-Wan stared for a moment. He could be a dick and force Anakin onto the ship, but that seemed like a waste when the boy so obviously wanted to get off this shithole planet.
“Fine,” Obi-Wan sighed, pretending like it was a bother. He used the Force for stupid shit all the time, why not this too? Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes at the boy, who flinched a little like he expected the Force to hit him. But Obi-Wan only looked over his person, deciding he didn’t want anything from Anakin except… “Do you like your jacket?”
“Uh, yeah,” Anakin answered, unsure where this line of questioning was going.
“Do you want to give me your jacket?”
“Fuck no. I put a lot of time and effort into this. You see these patches? I won this one in a podrace—”
Obi-Wan tuned him out. It was perfect, especially if Anakin was so worked up over the thing. He cleared his throat to interrupt the tirade. Anakin shot him a glare but wisely shut his mouth.
This, out of everything, was easy to do even on his suppressants. It felt like a friend welcoming him in, happy to finally have his attention. Obi-Wan’s Force signature reached out to Anakin’s, starting off with a gentle touch.
After all, he didn’t want to scramble the kid’s mind.
With a caress along Anakin’s thoughts, Obi-Wan pushed want and desire through; the absolute need to do what Obi-Wan wanted him to do. He hopped off the ship’s wing and hummed in thought as he stood nearly chest to chest with Anakin. The distant look of being immersed in a Force suggestion was slowly creeping into Anakin’s eyes. Obi-Wan touched his chest, just because he could.
“You will take your jacket off, and you’ll put it on me,” Obi-Wan told him, ecstatic as that glazed look fully settled across Anakin’s features. His face smoothed out as all emotion dripped from his features.
Anakin began shrugging out of the jacket he so dearly loved.
“I will take my jacket off…” Anakin trailed off and Obi-Wan soothed the turmoil that erupted in his mind. Anakin fell under the spell again. “… and I’ll put it on…”
The jacket was off Anakin, in his hands like he was about to toss it over Obi-Wan’s shoulders. He could feel the body heat that lingered along the liner of it, almost there – but Anakin froze.
It was almost a physical thing as Anakin ripped from Obi-Wan’s hold on his mind, almost like a punch to his gut. Anakin snatched his jacket back and glared angrily at Obi-Wan as he huffily put it back on.
“That was shitty,” Anakin muttered.
“You asked for it,” Obi-Wan shrugged, reaching forward to dip his hands into Anakin’s jacket pockets where he saw him pull the cigarettes from before. He found the pack and pulled it out, knocking Anakin’s last cigarette from the box. Obi-Wan tossed the empty pack on the ground.
Anakin watched him with angry eyes, jaw clenching and unclenching.
Obi-Wan lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply, and cocked his head to the side to reassess Anakin.
Anakin was taller than Obi-Wan by almost a head. Blue eyes just as piercing as they were in the cantina. His hair was curly, framing his delicate features prettily. Obi-Wan reached out to drag a finger along Anakin’s jawline.
The boy didn’t flinch or shrink back, letting him touch. Obi-Wan grabbed his chin, turning his face this way and that to see if the Force did anything about it.
Anakin let him.
Still, nothing special.
“You gonna check my teeth too?” Anakin asked, a smile on his lips even though his voice was sharp. “That’s what they do at the slave market.”
Obi-Wan sneered, letting Anakin go.
“I’m not interested in owning you,” Obi-Wan told him, but still continued to appraise him.
“Then why do you want me to come with you?” Anakin asked again.
“I can’t want to bring a pretty thing like you back to my ship with me? Have a little fun?” Obi-Wan laced the suggestion with as much innuendo as he could, voice dipping lower.
“Give it to me straight, why are you interested in some Outer Rim nobody like me?” Anakin pressed a palm to Obi-Wan’s chest, hand trailing down between his pecs, down his sternum, and then just a finger was dragging down his navel.
“You’re powerful,” Obi-Wan said simply, looking down and watching the path Anakin’s hand made on his torso.
“And because of that you want to whisk me away to Coruscant?” The question was supposed to sound defensive, but it sounded wistful. So instead of using any more mind tricks, Obi-Wan inhaled deeply on the last bit of his cigarette. He lifted up on his toes, wisps of smoke trailing out the corners of his mouth as he held it in.
Anakin’s eyes went straight down to his lips, going to meet him halfway. They didn’t kiss, but their lips were close enough that they shared the last bit of smoke from the cigarette.
“I’d like to take you to Coruscant, yes,” Obi-Wan finally told him. “But not as a slave. I want to take you to have fun. You don’t exactly look like you fit here.”
“No?” Anakin asked, and Obi-Wan saw the way the Force darkened for a moment around him before he continued, “why don’t you show me a place I’d fit better, and I’ll think about coming away with you.”
“That’s a bad pick-up line if I’ve ever heard one,” Obi-Wan laughed softly, but grabbed Anakin’s wandering hand and brought it up to his lips to kiss the top. “Inside, then?”
Anakin nodded in agreement, and gently knocked his knuckles against Obi-Wan’s kiss.
Then he turned away and got in the ship, and because Anakin didn’t really want to stay on Tatooine, he followed.
The inside faired only a little better than the outside in that it was tidied up. Not clean, per say, but there weren’t piles of clutter in the corners and that seemed like an achievement.
Anakin paused just inside the ship, like he was considering, eyes wandering the interior.
Obi-Wan walked to the pilot’s chair and sat down heavily, swivelling to face Anakin. The door to the outside was still open, the last chance for Anakin to escape if he decided to. They were grounded until he was sure Anakin’s panic wouldn’t explode the transparisteel in the cockpit as soon as they breached atmo.
It wasn’t exactly how Obi-Wan wanted to go.
He shoved his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a pill. This was more how Obi-Wan wanted to go. He chucked it into his mouth and swallowed it dry.
Anakin didn’t move. Obi-Wan slouched in the chair, an elbow on the arm rest, chin in hand, legs spread. Blue eyes drifted down. “I was waiting for someone, and you were apparently it.”
“For someone that makes fun of the Force, you seem to follow it blindly,” Obi-Wan hummed. “You’re untrained, that much is painfully obvious.”
“You going to train me?” A challenge more than a question.
Obi-Wan laughed. “Gods, no. That’s not my job. Someone else will do that.”
“Someone else? Like who? There’s more of you?” Anakin scowled, like he didn’t know. Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes when he realized Anakin probably didn’t know.
“I’m a Sith,” Obi-Wan spoke slowly, waiting for some spark of recognition at the name. There was none. “We have an entire Order on Coruscant. Someone there will train you.”
“What’s that, like a cult? Can’t say I’m super interested in joining a cult,” Anakin deadpanned, his body angling towards the exit now. Obi-Wan couldn’t remember a being he’d met that didn’t recognize his gold eyes for what they were.
“It’s not a cult, you Outer Rim di'kut,” Obi-Wan huffed. “It’s—”
“You know Mandalorian?” Anakin interjected, sounding too awestruck for someone who just interrupted a Sith. He took a deep breath in, waiting for whatever the pill did to kick in. Maybe it’d calm his nerves that this kid was already stomping on.
“I know several languages.” And then because this was taking too damn long, Obi-Wan pushed himself back up out of the chair. He walked to Anakin, wrapping an arm possessively around his waist and tugging him further inside the ship. Obi-Wan gazed up into unafraid blue eyes. “Listen, darling, I personally think you’d look beautiful with eyes like mine. Come with me, I can promise you a good time—” whatever the pill was made his limbs feel light, a tingling running through his body, though that might have been from where their bodies were touching, “and I can guarantee you won’t have to troll cantinas in backwater planets anymore.”
Anakin stared down, seeing something Obi-Wan wasn’t sure of, but the Sith spotted the moment the Force pulsed around Anakin with his decision.
“Can I fly the ship?” Anakin asked, immediately drawing a laugh from Obi-Wan. So entitled. He’d fit in perfectly. Obi-Wan flicked his hand behind him, using the Force to close the door to the ship, shutting them both in.
“How about I show you what it feels like to be really mind tricked, hmm?” Obi-Wan purred, like that was some kind of reward. Anakin tilted his head, then shrugged in acquiescence. Either Obi-Wan had been right to call the kid an idiot, or he had no sense of self-preservation.
“Open yourself to me,” Obi-Wan murmured, making Anakin furrow his dark brows.
“I don’t know how—” Anakin was cut off as Obi-Wan pushed their lips together, literally opening Anakin’s mouth as he bullied his tongue in. It wasn’t exactly what he’d meant, but this close to Anakin, he’d caught a glimpse of something there. Anakin didn’t even hesitate to kiss him back, his enthusiasm making Obi-Wan stumble a bit until strong arms wrapped around his middle. They were flush against each other now, Anakin’s signature reaching out for Obi-Wan’s without restraint. It tried to thread its way into Obi-Wan’s as he ran his tongue along Anakin’s to find… Obi-Wan pulled back, breathing harder than he normally would be from a mere kiss.
“Oh, we’re going to have fun with that,” Obi-Wan cooed about Anakin’s tongue piercing. He went back in for another filthy kiss, this time aggressively wrapping his Force signature around Anakin’s in a tight hold. When he pulled back once more, his voice was dripping with Force suggestion.
“You’re going to sit in the copilot’s chair,” he whispered to Anakin. “And stay silent until we’re through hyperspace.”
Anakin’s eyes went glassy, he repeated the phrase monotonously, and went to the copilot’s chair. Obi-Wan went back to his pilot’s chair and started the take-off sequence with Anakin staying dead silent in his own chair next to him.
It was seven hours to get from Tatooine to Coruscant.
Obi-Wan planned to spend that time in meditation. He’d learnt the importance of meditation while residing in the Temple on Coruscant; it allowed him to channel the power of the Force with greater ease, to scour through his deep-seated emotions and pull at them, inspect them, and feel their darkness anew. It was a practiced routine, the casting of shadow over the light which shone on him like a torch.
Pushing up from the pilot’s chair, he barely gave Anakin – still sat staring listlessly into the blue stripes of hyperspace – a second look as he wandered to the tiny living area he occupied.
The bed was a crushed mattress dipped into the floor, though his sheets were neat and tucked in military-like corners. Obi-Wan dropped to the mattress and crossed his legs, eyes dropping shut hazily. He could feel a sweat on his brow that must have been a side effect of the pill, a twitch in his muscles he couldn’t entirely control. He focussed on that.
The Force, bored of Anakin who was still adrift in the quiet space of Obi-Wan’s manipulation, trailed to him with familiarity. Somewhere along the way the uneasiness of its form solidified, nudging around him in warring factions of Light and Dark.
He probed at it, wanting to understand its connection to Anakin; how did Anakin have such a strong Force presence while having zero comprehension of what that meant? How did the dark flood around Anakin like ink in water, while the light struggled, hardly breaking the surface? How could one person have so much writhing blackness around him?
Obi-Wan slid into it, breathing heavily as he was shrouded in Anakin’s encompassing Force presence. It was heady with untapped power, and Obi-Wan could feel it in his lungs. But as he explored, it offered no answers. It folded in on itself, tucking away any hint of anything until Obi-Wan let out a frustrated grunt and began to rip with great, powerful hands, pulling at it to try and reach Anakin’s core. But then a figure appeared instead, hazy like an oil slick; it sneered at Obi-Wan and placed its hands on his chest and pushed. It felt like falling through cold water, his throat burning. And he fell from his meditation.
As he blinked, weary muscles twitching and sweat shining on his cheeks and his throat, his vision was flooded with that presence – that oozing black. He blinked again and it disappeared leaving simply Anakin standing before him.
Anakin, who had a thick black boot pressed against his chest, had pushed him back into the bed.
“Don’t do that again,” Anakin said. He pressed down slightly with the sole of his shoe then took a step back.
Obi-Wan stared at him from the mattress on the ground then sneered, rubbing his fingers against his chest. “You don’t get to tell me what to do when you’re on my ship.”
A tilt of the head, eyes running over him in appraisal. Obi-Wan tried to stop the shaking of his muscles as he pushed up, the Force tugging him to stand. They stood toe-to-toe but Obi-Wan had to look up to meet his gaze.
“You won’t do it again,” Anakin murmured, and the Force wrapped round him and squeezed tightly, slithering its dark fingers into his ears, and Obi-Wan’s mouth dropped in a gape as he hurriedly built his barriers. Did Anakin really just try to break into his mind, untrained as he was? He was bold, that was to be sure.
“Sure,” he acquiesced so they’d stop posturing. “I won’t do it again.”
A playful smile on a false face. A twinkle in blue eyes – the reflection of flashing hyperspace. “You know, when you drew me to this piece of shit, I thought we’d at least get to fuck.”
“Did you?” Obi-Wan asked. They were still in each other’s space and Obi-Wan resisted the sneer, the desire to push him away. It felt as though if he stood there much longer, Anakin’s cloud of existence would drown him. “Maybe on Coruscant.”
Then he pushed the younger man away and stalked to the pilot’s chair.
“We’ve got—“ he checked the navi-computer and was surprised to find that he had been in the black ooze of meditation for two whole hours, “five hours before we land. Get some sleep, you look like shit.”
“You look like shit,” snipped Anakin, but said no more.
Obi-Wan slumped in his chair and attempted to get some sleep. From the corner of his eye, he could see Anakin settle atop the neat sheets of his bed, and Obi-Wan flicked his hand to dull the lights.