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When Obi-Wan wakes up, the first thing he says is, “Anakin?”
They ask him if he remembers anything, but he doesn’t hear them. “Where is Anakin?”
Mace says he’s fine, then repeats the questioning about remembering.
“Yes.” Obi-Wan remembers returning to Coruscant, seeing the Jedi Temple aflame, and going to the Senate building anyway, because that’s where Anakin was. He remembers fighting Darth Sidious, and realizing he wouldn’t be able to defeat him. He remembers making one last stand, a final chance; reaching for Sidious, pulling him against his chest, and plunging his lightsaber through the Sith Lord’s back until it pierced through his own skin, and he was sure they were both dying. The last thing he remembers is the sight of Anakin, incapacitated and still twitching from the lightning, but alive.
That’s not what they mean, though. It’s after that—that’s what they’re curious about.
They show him the security footage, and he watches the light leave his own eyes. Then, he watches Anakin regain consciousness, crawl over to him, and do something that makes the light come back.
Obi-Wan doesn’t remember, but the twin scars on his stomach and back, along with his beating heart, make it real.
Obi-Wan keeps waking up, and Anakin keeps on being the first thing he thinks about. He’s gone, now; ran off to Naboo to live the life Obi-Wan had spent the entirety of the war hoping he’d get to see. For so long, he kept himself full on the thought of when he actually tells me, I’ll surprise him. I’ll be so happy for him, and I’ll surprise him. He’ll think it was foolish to not trust me. I love him and I’ll surprise him. Now, the only thing that fills him is bitterness. There’s not room to be happy for Anakin.
He tries to be, though. Or, he pretends to.
Anakin calls, and Obi-Wan soaks up all his rambling. They don’t talk about it, and Obi-Wan is okay with that. Let him talk to his wife about it. Let it ruin her every waking second like it does Obi-Wan’s. When Anakin gets around to asking things like how are you how have you been what are you up to? Obi-Wan says he’s good. Obi-Wan lies through his teeth and says a lot of things.
It’s not really any of Anakin’s concern that Obi-Wan doesn’t leave his quarters, most days. Or that he’s asked to be placed on indefinite leave from the Council, and all of his duties in general, really. It’s not his concern that Obi-Wan is falling into habits that he knows are bad for him—but feel so good.
He doesn’t mean to stop eating, but it happens. The depression took his appetite, just like it did after Qui-Gon died, but it’s different now. Back then, there was someone else to make sure he ate well. Anakin’s fullness was Obi-Wan’s, and their too-thin frames made from slavery and sadness disappeared together. It’s just Obi-Wan now. No one left to eat well, so no one does. After a while, it stops being a symptom and becomes sadistic. The hollow place in his guts begs, and Obi-Wan denies it. He doesn’t know why it’s so satisfying to hurt himself like this—it just is.
Saying I deserve it is too melodramatic for him to admit. Obi-Wan doesn’t know if he deserves it. Obi-Wan doesn’t know anything.
He lays in bed most of the day. He keeps the blinds closed. He looks up a list of the most violent horror holo-films and watches them all.
All the time, he is so tired, no matter how much he sleeps. The bright flashing visuals from the holo are so intense that he can see them even when his eyes are closed, and he thinks he’d be fine to be found dead like this, curled in on himself in his bed, bloodcurdling screams washing over him. In one of the holos, a dead girl is come across and she is so small they mistake her for an innocent sleeping fawn. In his utter jealousy, Obi-Wan cries until his head pounds.
Attempts at normality are made, or maybe offered to him by his friends. They never quite work. The Jedi Knight he used to be, whose friends could make his stomach hurt from laughing feels like a stranger. So does the man who could have a drink, or get laid, or hold eye contact. Obi-Wan has poured all of the fancy liquor he’s been gifted over the years down the ‘fresher drain, and he thinks he’ll sooner fuck Master Yoda than go out and sleep with a stranger ever again. Even if he could stomach going outside, he’s almost positive his dick no longer works.
They give up on making those kind of suggestions, and it is such a relief that he actually agrees to meet them for midday-meal in the refectory. Obi-Wan almost feels normal, sitting with his legs crossed over each other, two hands holding the disposal cup filled with green tea he’d brought from his quarters. A million times, he’s done this.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Quinlan asks. They all have plates except for him.
“I already did,” Obi-Wan lies.
Quinlan looks like he doesn’t want to say what he’s about to, but he says it anyway. “What did you eat?”
Obi-Wan almost felt normal. He remembers he’s not, and stands without another word, leaving the table, ignoring the calls of his name and then the irritated hurls at Quinlan. Without finishing his tea, he tosses it in the waste receptacle. As he walks back to his quarters, his anger at being seen through so obviously is so humiliatingly strong that he doesn’t even feel hungry. When the door to his quarters shuts behind him, the anger fades, but he’s still not hungry, because self-loathing fills up every nook and cranny inside of him so completely he fears he might burst, and so he slams his head back into the door to try to break himself open and release it.
The days pass, and Anakin’s calls are the only proof he has that the planets keep turning. Obi-Wan’s lying to him is the only proof he has that he can still speak.
Eventually, Sahar comes over and watches one of his violent holos with him. Obi-Wan doesn’t offer anything else, even though he sees her covering her face most of the time. A few days after, it’s Garen. Then Elio, then Sab. Quinlan stays away, and Obi-Wan doesn’t blame him. There’s a part of him that wants to protest the whole thing, wants to tell them the pseudo suicide watch isn’t necessary, but that would probably lead to them expecting him to speak more than emotionless pleasantries at them, so he lets it go.
One day, he gets an unexpected knock at his door. Garen had just been over the day before, so there’s no chance it’s one of his friends. Obi-Wan sticks his hand out from under his bedsheets and calls his lightsaber to him. It’s dusty. He doesn’t ignite it, instead pulling it under the covers with him like it’ll protect him that way, clutched to his chest so hard his sternum aches. Quickly, it becomes stuffy and hot, and he realizes he’s pulled the blankets all the way over his head, and that he’s curled up again. He lifts a corner of the sheet, listening. Perhaps whoever it is has left. Perhaps they’ve moved on and are cutting down the Jedi in the room next to him as Obi-Wan cowers.
Another knock. “Master Kenobi?”
It’s Plo Koon. Obi-Wan hasn’t seen him since that day. He darts out from under the covers, picking up his proper clothes from where they’re strewn about his room, putting them on and hoping Plo doesn’t notice he’s beginning to swim in them. It feels like wearing a costume. When Obi-Wan slides open his door, the other Jedi’s back is turned.
“Master Plo,” Obi-Wan greets stiffly.
Plo Koon turns around, and Obi-Wan is glad Kel Dor’s expressions are unreadable to humans. Now that it’s too late, he realizes putting on his robes is not enough to hide the state he is in. His beard is overgrown and untidy. He can’t remember the last time he did anything in the shower other than stand under the water until it ran cold. Embarrassment heats his ears as he thinks about how his quarters must look to the other Jedi.
“May I come in?”
Obi-Wan nods, and Plo is kind enough not to say anything about the mess he walks into before he sits on Obi-Wan’s small couch and gestures for him to do the same.
“I apologize for not telling you I was coming. We got the feeling that you—,” Plo pauses and sighs, which is an odd gesture, for him, “—that you might make yourself scarce if you were told in advance.”
If there was anything in Obi-Wan’s stomach to turn, it would. We, he said. The Council. They’ve been talking about him. Talking about the mortifying reality of what he’s become and what to do with him. He should’ve stayed under his bedsheets.
Forcing a small smile, Obi-Wan exhales shakily and hope it sounds like a laugh. “I apologize—I haven’t been myself lately.” Plo nods, and Obi-Wan gets the feeling the other man is entirely aware Obi-Wan is putting on a show for him.
“I understand, Obi-Wan.” Master Plo adjusts, sitting so he is turned toward Obi-Wan. It feels like his eyes are boring into him, even through the black plates. “I want you to know I am not here to push or to pry—I know how you dislike that. It is Council business. But, I also want you to know I would enjoy nothing more than to actually speak to you afterwards. As Jedi, as friends. If you would like.”
Obi-Wan already knows he’s going to reject the second part, but he nods like he’s thinking about it. “What does the Council want?” He asks.
“It is the new Chancellor.”
Just the word Chancellor makes Obi-Wan suddenly uncomfortable, like he isn’t meant to sit in his own skin, like it’s not safe in his own body. After the wave of initial nausea passes, Obi-Wan wonders how long it has been since he killed Sidious. The broken state of the Republic could not have been put back together very fast, especially to the point where a new Chancellor has been elected. How long has Obi-Wan been hungry?
“He’d like to meet you.”
For the first time since that day, Obi-Wan feels like he has enough energy to actually do something. Hearing the words make him absolutely sure he could run, run run, as fast as he can, as far away as possible right now.
Plo immediately raises soothing hands with the words. “You do not have to if you do not want to. We have no qualms telling him that your leave extends to such matters, Obi-Wan. We only didn’t want to make the choice for you. It is entirely in your hands.”
It makes sense—the Chancellor wanting to meet him. He is probably the only Jedi of such high rank the man hasn’t met yet, and whenever his friends attempt to make him feel something, they tell him how the Republic sees him as a hero. The brave Jedi that saved them from a slow strangle of tyranny. They drink in his name and toast to his health. It makes sense that the Chancellor wants to meet him and show Obi-Wan he is not Darth Sidious.
Obi-Wan imagines going back to the Senate building, and his lungs seem to lose function for a moment. Worse, he imagines the new Chancellor walking the halls of the Jedi Temple, and it is so horrible his eyes begin to sting, and he has to get up so Master Plo does not see him wipe them.
“May I think about it?” He asks eventually. Plo takes a beat longer than he should to respond, so Obi-Wan shakes his head and offers, “Just the night. Let me sleep on it.”
“Of course, Obi-Wan,” Plo agrees. He’s still sitting.
Obi-Wan hates the Jedi he has become, the kind of Jedi that knows Plo and everyone else who has ever cared about him are desperately trying to get anything out of him other than apathy, but still turns them away.
“Is that all?” Obi-Wan asks, nose starting to tingle strangely. Once again, he is glad for the lack of expression. He doesn’t want to see the disappointment on Master Plo’s face as he stands and bows.
“That is all. May the Force be with you.”
Obi-Wan cannot say it back. When the door closes behind Plo, the tingling in his nose crawls up to his eyes, and then he’s crying; hot, heavy tears that are so abundant they soak his beard until he can taste the salt. His chest is rising in a rhythm that is not a rhythm at all. I’m hyperventilating. You’re hyperventilating. Knowing what is happening does not make it any less painful. There is no air and there is too much of it. He’s choking on it. He’s drowning in it. The tears are still falling, in an amount that he did not know a person could hold inside of them at one time. When he makes it back to his bed, he tries to get it over with by letting himself choke out heaving, ugly sobs. He doesn’t remember the last time he cried out loud.
It’s strangely satisfying. It feels like he deserves it.
When Quinlan finally comes around, it’s not pretty. They apologize to each other, but then Quinlan just keeps fucking talking, and Obi-Wan can’t take it.
“You know we’re just worried about you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t always know what to do, or what to say, because you’re the strong one. It’s usually you picking me up off the ground.”
“It’s fine.”
“The last time things were anywhere near this bad was after Qui-Gon died—“
“Quinlan.”
“—but I know things are different now because—“
“Stop talking.”
“—back then you had him to take care of.”
“Get out.” Obi-Wan’s hands start to shake around the now empty glass of gin Quinlan had brought over for a peace offering.
“Obi-Wan,” Quinlan sighs. It sounds like be reasonable, but Obi-Wan doesn’t want to be reasonable. He needs Quinlan to get out.
“I said, get out,” he repeats, glaring across the table.
Quinlan must decide this isn’t a battle worth fighting, because he raises his hands in a quelling gesture and stands, making his way to the door. Before he leaves, he turns, and his eyes are pitying. “I know it hurts that he’s gone, but Anakin—“
Hearing someone else speak his name feels like dying all over again.
“Get the fuck out!” Obi-Wan snarls. Mere inches from Quinlan’s head, glass shatters against the wall, and he realizes he’s thrown his cup, most likely only missing Quinlan’s skull because of the righteous vitriol clouding everything.
Without another word, Quinlan is out the door, and Obi-Wan sits back down, burying his head nearly between his knees, covering himself with his arms as he shakes violently. Once again, his lungs aren’t working, and his nose tingles, and then the tears come. They only stop after he drags himself over to the door and picks up all the broken glass with his bare hands.
It’s late, and he has nothing in his stomach except gin, nothing in his head except the bitterness.
Maybe this is why he thinks it’s a good idea to dress in civilian clothes and his robe and leave the Temple, walking through the halls with his hood up—Jedi speak for leave me alone. Obi-Wan goes through the motions of descending to the lower-levels on auto-pilot, and it almost feels like he’s just awoken from a dream when he finds himself at a dark bar, letting a man buy him a drink. A Pantoran, with thick arms, and broad shoulders, and a beard cut in strange, swirling patterns on his cheeks.
Whatever the man is saying is mostly lost on Obi-Wan. He knows he’s being flirted with, and he knows he’s flirting back. The last bit of him that is thinking clearly feels a brief moment of happiness—he still know how to negotiate, he still can talk circles around people even when he is inebriated, he still has a use.
“Oh, no—I can think of a lot of uses for you.” There’s a grip on his waist, and Obi-Wan laughs hazily. Had he said all that out loud?
The drinks keep coming. When the man pulls a small see-through bag filled with tiny crystals out of his pocket, Obi-Wan remembers he is a Jedi. He is a Jedi, and this is illegal. He is a Jedi, and he flinches when the man crushes the crystals with the big ring on his middle finger. He is a Jedi, and he leans down and snorts up the powdered crystal when the man offers. It burns like venom, and Obi-Wan retches simply because it feels so unnatural to do such a thing. He watches the man scoop up what’s left and swirl it into his drink, before offering that, too. Obi-Wan drinks, because he can’t do anything right, not even drugs, apparently.
Everything is fuzzy, soon after. Or, he is underwater. Or, he’s not anywhere at all. Where is he? Obi-Wan can’t remember. Blue fills his vision but it’s not the right color of the sky, especially not from down here. Blue is all over him, caging him in, shoving him against a wall. Obi-Wan looks up. He can’t figure out if the night sky is really that dark or if he’s seeing black spots.
“Look at me.”
The voice booms but it’s also very far away, and it feels like it takes every muscle in Obi-Wan’s body to obey. Blue fills his vision again.
“Fuck, you’re pretty.” Something wraps around his waist, and he’s floating, maybe. “Tiny, too.” Claws are on his face, shaking his head, making him want to cry. “And so, so out of it. Fuck.” His cheek stings, and Obi-Wan almost registers that he’s just been slapped, but then he is being kissed, and Obi-Wan does cry. His swimming head skips like a disk, telling him over and over, a lot more uses a lot more uses a lot more uses.
Finally, he feels something other than the bitterness, or the self-loathing, or the hunger.
Obi-Wan wakes in his bed the next morning, but doesn’t remember how he got there—or much at all, really. Until his head feels like it is splitting, he tries to remember. The last thing he vividly can recall is the venom crystals, but a few half-formed, foggy memories begin to come back. Being moved around like a rag-doll. Not protesting. How strange it was to feel so, so cold while having sex—that had never happened to him before. But, other than that, he has nothing.
How lucky he is, though, that his body seems to remember everything.
When he moves, it all hurts. When he gets out of bed, there is nothing but aches. As he walks to his refresher, he realizes he is sticky and sensitive between his legs. The shower doesn’t help much, other than washing away the grime; it only calls more attention to the parts of him that are in bad shape—which is most parts. As he cleans himself, Obi-Wan feels more and more dirty, especially when he spreads himself open with one hand and holds the running shower head over his ass with the other. Even the lukewarm, soft pressure makes him hiss. He thinks the water by his feet might have a pink tint, so he squeezes his eyes shut.
Afterwards, he goes back to bed, sleeping on his stomach, wet hair sopping his pillow. When he wakes again, it is because Garen has let himself in.
Obi-Wan knows he notices his wince as he sits down on the couch.
“What the hell happened to you? You look like you got mauled by a Nexus.”
Not that Obi-Wan would know—he avoided looking in the mirror while he was in the refresher. He glances down at himself and sees bruises. The color blue might be ruined forever, he thinks.
Garen continues, “Did you—get laid?” It’s awkward, which should be strange. Obi-Wan is no stranger to dalliances, and Garen knows this. But, it’s not strange, because Garen must be of the mind that Obi-Wan is not of the mind to be having sex. His awkwardness is warranted, but Obi-Wan still wishes he wouldn’t ask at all—he just nods in return.
Looking him up and down, Garen asks, “A guy?”
“Yes.” Perhaps if he gives verbal answers, it will end this quicker.
“That’s not usual for you—especially that way.” Garen’s voice is light, like he’s asking a question, prying but attempting to seem like he’s not. Regardless, Obi-Wan can sense the anxiety in him as easily he can infer what his friend is trying to say—that way being the way that left Obi-Wan limping. He’s never been discriminatory about gender in general, but always found himself drawn to women more simply based on their higher rate of decency than most men he’s met. In his rarer encounters with other men, Obi-Wan didn’t like to be taken. He didn’t trust anyone enough for that.
There’s not a good answer for Garen’s question-that’s-not-a-question, so Obi-Wan avoids his eyes and says, “I did not want to make choices, and he did not seem to be bothered by that.” It’s the best he can do, given that he doesn’t clearly remember a single second of the sex. The longer he sits with it, the dirtier he feels. Everything hurts, and I did not want to make choices sounds a lot like I did not have a choice—at least not after I snorted random crystals from a stranger off a bar top. He did not seem to be bothered by that sounds a lot like he never asked in the first place.
Obi-Wan wonders if he even came.
As he finds himself stuck between trying to remember, and forcing himself to forget, Garen gets up, walking over to Obi-Wan and crouching down in front of him. He takes his hands, and when Obi-Wan looks up from their joined fingers, confused, he sees tears in his friends eyes.
Garen opens his mouth, but words don’t come out on the first try, and he takes in a shuddering breath before trying again. “Please, don’t,” is all he says.
A lump forms in Obi-Wan’s throat, and suddenly he feels very, very guilty. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” he says quietly; small. “It just—happened.”
“You let it happen.”
It should be rage-inducing—the accusation. Horrible and hurtful. It really can’t be, though, when Obi-Wan knows he is right. As much pain as he is in, he can’t bring himself to wish it would stop. It feels right, to hurt this much. To inflict this much damage on himself, to let others join in.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Garen, wanting to curl up. I’m sorry you came over. I’m sorry I didn’t hide it better. Forgive me, and I’ll learn.
“Don’t be sorry.” Garen squeezes his hands. “Just don’t do it again.”
Obi-Wan does it again. And again. And again, and again. He never sees the Pantoran man again, though—which is fine. He’s not sure he’d want to face him anyway. Or any of the other men he lets into his body. They’re dead to him before he even meets them, and by the time Obi-Wan is well drunk and hurting, they’re decomposing inside of him. All the memories of them muddle together to the point that the only way he can tell one night from the next or the last is the rising sun that shoves itself between each of them. That is the only indication his life is not just one long, dreadful, and poisonous night.
After so many times, his ability to hold his liquor and other substances improves, and he begins to grow used to the proverbial beatings he puts himself through, until he manages to not collapse the second he gets home, and instead goes to the shower. He doesn’t truly wash until the next day—it’s more about rinsing his skin only enough so the sheets don’t stick to him.
One night, he crawls in his bed, still nude and wet from the shower, and falls into fitful sleep for what must be a very short time, because he’s come back to the Temple only a few hours before the sun should be rising, and when he wakes, the moon is still in the sky.
The moon is in the sky, and Anakin is here.
Sat on his bed, head looming over Obi-Wan with an odd look on his face. Incandescent joy sparks like it does every time Anakin appears to him like this.
“Master?”
“You’re here,” Obi-Wan mumbles, lifting a heavy hand to cup his warm cheek. How vivid his dreams have become, that he can feel the slight stubble on his most beloved face.
“Are you alright?” Anakin asks.
Obi-Wan gurgles out a noise. In his dreams, Anakin usually doesn’t ask such useless questions.
Anakin leans away, and Obi-Wan opens his mouth, trying to make an answer come out of himself so Anakin will come back, but gnashes it shut again once the light next to his bed is turned on. It’s dim, yet it burns—so Obi-Wan recoils, turning away.
“Master, look at me.” There is a hand on his face, rolling his head on the pillow back to where it was before, but Obi-Wan keeps his eyes squeezed shut and lets out a small sound like a whimper. Why is Anakin so worried? In his dreams, there is nothing to worry about. In his dreams, there’s nothing at all, except the two of them. Fingers pull at the skin under his eyes, and he gives up, going slack and letting Anakin search for whatever it is he’s looking for.
“Did you take—“ Anakin starts, then sighs. “Oh, Master. What did you get yourself into now?” He sounds far away, like he’s not really speaking to Obi-Wan, and it briefly reminds him of how the decomposing men talk. The thought makes him cagey, and he tucks his shoulders in, trying to make himself small. If he can make himself small enough, maybe Anakin will mistake him for a sleeping fawn.
You’re dreaming, you’re dreaming. For all the times you’ve dreamt of him, it makes sense that one might be strange and unpleasant.
The light flicks off, and the bed shifts next to him. When he feels brave enough, he uncurls to lay on his side, and opens his eyes to see Anakin mirroring the position, looking back at him. Obi-Wan watches him until his eyes burn. He doesn’t know which blink will be the one that makes Anakin disappear.
“Go to sleep, Master. I’ll be here in the morning,” Anakin says.
Perhaps this is his mind’s payback for all the drugs he’s been taking and frying his braincells with. It’s crueler than Obi-Wan believed himself capable of being, but he’s misjudged a great many things, really.
Obi-Wan shakes his head. “No, you won’t.”
Anakin’s face pinches. “Just go to sleep.”
“You’re not real,” Obi-Wan tells him, inching closer until he can lift a hand and draw a finger down the scar across Anakin’s eye. “You never are.” His cheeks are too warm and he tastes salt—he’s started crying. What a vivid dream this is.
“I’m right here,” Anakin says in a pleading voice, but Obi-Wan doesn’t believe him, because he isn’t.
“You’re not,” he chokes out, and when he curls in on himself this time, Anakin is close enough that Obi-Wan’s head nudges into his sternum. He’d very much like to wake up now. The tingling in his nose begins, making Obi-Wan cry harder. This never happens in his dreams. His dreams are the one place he is safe from the looming, shuddering fight for air that sneaks up on him quite often now when he is awake. Not anymore, apparently. The space where he is tucked against Anakin grows humid as he struggles to breathe and his tears keep coming.
Around him, the arm tightens, but Obi-Wan is too far gone to notice. Nausea swirls up his throat but comes out his mouth in the form of whispers between wet breaths and his trembling.
“Sometimes I wish you had just let me die.”
The arm tightens, and Obi-Wan’s eyes flutter.
“I keep thinking, it feels like I’m dying, but then, I remember—no, I’ve been through that,” he mumbles, sobs running out of steam. “This is worse than that. This is the worst thing I’ve ever felt.”
Obi-Wan barely registers the move, but blinks his eyes back open after Anakin has settled on his back, with Obi-Wan resting on his chest, flesh arm still around him. Looking up, the last thing he sees is Anakin’s mech-hand, plastered over his own mouth, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. Obi-Wan can hear how harsh his breath is puffing out his nose. Under him, Anakin’s chest shakes faintly.
Obi-Wan is lulled back to sleep by it, even though he was never awake to begin with.
In the morning, Obi-Wan wakes slowly, and his head throbs even more painfully than it usually does in in the morning. He completes his pathetic excuse for a routine after a night out, limping to the shower, soaping up, rinsing off, wincing all the while. Afterwards, he rubs a towel over his hair and only uses his fingers to brush through it, before putting on a pair of grey lounge pants that haven’t been washed in Force knows how long.
The next part of his routine is going to his kitchen unit and looking inside the conservator like he’s actually going to eat something out of it. He never makes it there—Anakin is sitting on his couch.
A sinking feeling comes over him. It’s so ugly in contrast to the happiness that comes over him when he sees Anakin in his dreams.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan breathes out, shaking his head in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Anakin’s eyes shift. “I—um, I came last night.”
The sinking feeling turns around and starts crawling right back up his throat like vomit.
“I saw you,” Anakin says.
Obi-Wan furrows his brows, swallowing despite his mouth being bone-dry. “I don’t understand.”
On the couch, Anakin shifts, and Obi-Wan’s crosses his arms, mirroring the clear discomfort he’s projecting.
“In the lower-levels. With…” he starts, then pauses, sighing, “With some guy. I thought, maybe, it wasn’t—you know,” Anakin gestures vaguely with his hands, not meeting his eyes. “But, then it seemed, uh—consensual.”
Understanding overcomes Obi-Wan, and he wants to melt into the floor. Visibly, he cringes, looking away from Anakin and rubbing at his forehead and the bridge of his nose to fight off the urge to claw his own skin off.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, Anakin,” he manages to say. It is the first time he’s seen Anakin since that day, and he only wants him to leave. Obi-Wan hates himself for it. It’s his own fault.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I went home, so I came back here. You were pretty messed up,” Anakin explains, and Obi-Wan freezes. There’s something digging it’s claws into the back of his mind, trying to warn him of something, begging for realization, but he can’t grasp it anything except the horror beginning to mount within him.
“What did I say?” Obi-Wan asks in dread.
As he says it, he remembers. The floodgates open up, and maybe divine intervention from the Force itself, punishing him, forcing absolute clarity on him in the moment he wants it least.
The tears, the touching—and the cherry on top, suicidal ideation. Anakin must think him pathetic, must be looking at him and wondering how he has fallen this far, sunk this low, debased himself this much.
“I’m so sorry, Anakin. That was—that shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan forces out, throat feeling almost too thick to talk. Go home, go home, get away from me, he thinks. He doesn’t want to be looked at anymore. To avoid the nose tingle, he closes his eyes and imagines himself curled up. It’s not as quelling as the real thing, but it does make him feel less like a worthless thing in the shape of a man. In it’s place, he feels nothing at all, really.
“Don’t say you’re sorry,” Anakin says, sounding on edge. Not the edge of raw aggression Obi-Wan had grown used to during the war, but the I refuse to cry edge from Anakin’s early teenage years. He finally looks at Anakin and finds he’s right—his eyes have gone glassy as he stares up at Obi-Wan.
“I—“ Obi-Wan begins, then shuts his mouth, because Anakin just told him not to apologize.
Then, Anakin stands quite suddenly, and closes the distance between them, taking Obi-Wan into his arms and holding him so tightly it aches in his chest. Anakin breathes out shakily, and Obi-Wan feels it against his ear. In his numbness, he can’t bring himself to lift his arms and clutch Anakin in return. He simply lets it happen.
“You told me you wish I’d let you die,” Anakin gasps out, truly crying now. He sounds scared.
Somewhere, in Obi-Wan’s mind, he knows he wants to hold Anakin. Oh, my Padawan, he knows he wants to say. He knows he wants to kiss his forehead and tell him everything is going to be alright. For some reason, he can’t.
“I’m sorry, Anakin.” It comes out of his mouth automatically, whether Anakin wants him to say it or not. “I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t in my right mind.” If his voice is sounding droid-like to himself, he is sure Anakin hears it as well. Obi-Wan wants to cry, somewhere in his mind.
Anakin leans back, still gripping him tight but looking him in the eyes, face wet and nose red.
“But you meant it, didn’t you?”
“I haven’t been myself lately,” Obi-Wan tells him, and then his nose begins to tingle. “I’m not the Jedi I should be.”
Anakin doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, only responding by clutching him tighter, and Obi-Wan is grateful for the ensuing silence.
It’s like pulling teeth getting Anakin to leave. But he does, eventually.
The next day, he is back. Much earlier in the day, and he doesn’t say a word about what transpired before. It seems like he might be trying to raise Obi-Wan’s spirits by going on as if everything is completely normal, because he suggests going to Dex’s.
“Perhaps we could just order in,” Obi-Wan counters. The idea of leaving the Temple has him tensing up, feeling unsafe in his own skin again. He entertains telling Anakin about a new word he’s learned—agoraphobia, but when Anakin speaks again, he loses the courage.
“It has to be ages since you’ve seen him, Master. It’ll be good for you. Think about it—maybe the thing you need to appreciate life again is for me to almost kill you in a speeder.”
Anakin’s smiling at his own joke, and just for a moment, it’s just like it was before. Obi-Wan and Anakin, wiling away their seemingly endless days together by throwing meaningless jabs back and forth until one of them cracks a laugh. In this tiny moment that isn’t made of anything tangible, Obi-Wan forgets why he’s so afraid of leaving the Temple. What is there to be afraid of, when Anakin is near?
Soon after, he remembers—just about everything.
The ride in Anakin’s speeder isn’t terrible. He’s got a new one that’s enclosed with tinted transparisteel. The most uncomfortable thing about it is that he knows exactly whose money it was bought with. It’s when he exits the speeder that is legs begin to feel funny—like there’s some animal inside of him that’s confused why he’s walking casually toward the restaurant door rather than turning on his heel and fleeing.
Flo greets them happily, ushering them toward their usual booth by the window. Anakin looks over the menu even though he’s likely to get the same thing he’s been ordering since he was twelve, while Obi-Wan stares out the transparisteel, gagging on the smell of the place. He used to like it—the waft of greasy comfort food that hit him every time he entered. When did he stop liking it? When did his nerves become so fried that he’s trying to count how many green speeders there are in the sea of traffic to distract himself from the nausea?
The green speeder thing doesn’t seem to be working. Obi-Wan switches to naming off animals in his head in the order of the aurebesh alphabet. Acklay. Bantha. Cy’een. Dewback.
He gets all the way to rancor before Anakin says his name, sounding far away.
“Yes?” Obi-Wan answers, still staring at the window. He folds his hands and tucks them between his knees under the table, then applies as much pressure he can with each leg, focusing on the ache of it.
“You alright?”
The answer gets stuck in his throat, and he seems to gag on that too. It’s as if his jaw has been wired shut. He forces himself to look back at Anakin, and that seems to loosen something.
“Yeah.” Yeah is not a word Obi-Wan uses, and he doesn’t know where it’s come from. Yes has always suited him and his posh accent just fine. Maybe Anakin left some things inside of him when he did whatever he did that day, idiosyncrasies that didn’t belong to Obi-Wan.
Anakin surely notices the change of vernacular, because he tilts his head curiously and opens his mouth to speak—and is then interrupted by Flo returning to ask what they’d like to drink. While Anakin inquires about milkshake flavors, Obi-Wan’s eyes scan the room—no, not scan. Dart. So harshly his head begins to ache. Despite looking all around, he doesn’t register much, just that the lights are very bright and that there’s too many people, even though the restaurant isn’t even half-full.
Flo says his name, and when Obi-Wan tells her, “Just water,” he is sure his voice sounds even more droid-like than hers.
She leaves, and in her wake, Obi-Wan forgets how to breathe again. In an attempt to hide it, he stares down at the menu on the table, but can’t keep his thought together for long enough to even register a single fucking thing on it. His eyes sting like venom in response, and he tries to push whatever this feeling is into the Force, but it doesn’t seem to be there. There’s only the rancid smell, the pressure in his knees, the green speeders, the sketto, the tauntaun, the unark, the varactyl…
“Master.”
Oh, Anakin’s here too.
All Obi-Wan manages is a nod of acknowledgment, and he’s dimly aware of it going on a little too long, and then of the rest of his body nodding as well—no, not nodding. Rocking. Back and forth so minutely it’s barely perceptible; to the rhythm his lungs can’t seem to find.
Anakin says his name again, and reaches across the table to splay his hand over the menu Obi-Wan can’t read. It breaks the rhythm, and Obi-Wan looks up.
Whatever Anakin sees on his face has him standing up immediately, and telling Obi-Wan, “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”
All control of his body returns to Obi-Wan, because it’s finally on the same page of his mind, and he bolts up. Still, his legs are shaky from keeping them tensed, so much so that he almost tumbles to the floor—but Anakin is there, taking him by the elbow like Obi-Wan is truly the old man he was always saying he is.
Once they’re back in the speeder, Obi-Wan’s face scrunches and his nose tingles. It’s a wonder he’s held it back this long. At least he still has enough dignity to not do this to himself in public, though doing it in front of Anakin isn’t much better. He can feel Anakin’s eyes on him again. Staring. Probably wearing that same look he’d had on his face on that day, right before he brought Obi-Wan back from the dead.
“I’m having a panic attack,” he gets out eventually, after what feels like hours of choking on his words again. He’s not as good as soothing his Padawan as he used to be, but it’s an explanation, at least.
“What—?” Anakin asks quickly, unsure and afraid.
“Take me home,” Obi-Wan responds even quicker, the words no longer stuck but rushing like rainwater to the shitty Coruscant storm drains that always overflow. “I’d like to go home, please.”
“Okay.”
Obi-Wan can feel his eyes return to him several times during the trip back to the Temple. He shrinks away from it, shrinks away from everything, trying to make himself small in his seat; leaning against the door, legs tucked together, arms crossed, every muscle tensed. Curling in.
One of the benefits of being on the Jedi Council means you get your own landing platform, and despite his absence, the Council haven’t taken away Obi-Wan’s privileges. It saves him the disgrace of walking through the Temple in his state, though it’s still unpleasant to have Anakin witnessing it, and continuing to witness it as he walks inside Obi-Wan’s quarters alongside him, tall and long-strided, while Obi-Wan has become so anxious he’s walking with a limp. He collapses onto his couch, resisting the call of his bed for the sake of his pride.
“You can go now. I’m sorry, Anakin.” During the ride back, tears had streamed so constantly down his face it felt unnatural, even as he stayed quiet other than his staccato, offbeat breathing. The tears are all gone now, though, and his face feels sticky. His nose no longer tingles. He just feels tired.
Anakin doesn’t go. The couch dips next to Obi-Wan and he almost screams because the simple movement makes the tears threaten to come back.
“Is that why you wanted to stay in?” He asks.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan answers plainly.
Anakin’s swallow is so harsh Obi-Wan can hear it. “Does that happen a lot?”
“Recently, yes.” At least he’s not saying yeah anymore.
Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Anakin’s slow nod. He doesn’t say anything past that, but he does stand and walk over to where Obi-Wan keeps his holo-projector, messing with it until it’s showing a program Obi-Wan recognizes from Anakin’s early Padawan days. It’s for children, and a pair of animated creatures are explaining the difference between being hot-blooded and cold-blooded.
They watch until the sun goes down, and Obi-Wan barely misses the blood and guts of his usual viewings. And when Anakin leaves, it barely hurts—but that might be because the panic attack drained him of everything, including his ability to register his own pain.
When he sees Anakin next, it’s on a night he’s decided to stay in. He’s still awake though, in the middle of the night, standing in his kitchen unit eating pre-sliced fruit from a can, thinking that a small offering to his shrinking stomach might be enough to grant him the sleep that’s evaded him tonight. Obi-Wan doesn’t mean to scarf down the entire can, but he does, and he’s drinking the remaining juice straight from it when his door slides open. It surprises him, making him turn his head without thinking about the open can still pressed to his lip—it cuts him open, slicing through the inside of his upper lip.
The pain is forgotten when he lays eyes on Anakin. Who is wearing a very expensive looking suit.
“What in the blazes are you wearing?”
Anakin looks down at himself, sticking his hands out in front of him. Obi-Wan can tell the suit isn’t just expensive but tailored by the the way the sleeves still cover his wrists.
“A tux.” Obi-Wan gives him a look to say go on, and Anakin shifts on his feet. “Senate gala,” he shrugs.
Reflexively, Obi-Wan responds, “Ugh.” The taste of blood in his mouth grows bitter.
After sighing, Anakin admits in a mumble, “My thoughts exactly.”
It’s shameful, how a tendril of smugness winds through Obi-Wan after hearing that. Many of his thoughts about Anakin’s wife are quite ugly nowadays, and he often finds himself thinking things like she stole him she stole him on a loop. Anakin still finding political events abysmal, just like his Master always has, rather than switching sides and enjoying them with her feels like a victory, no matter how small. “Here on furlough then, are you?” He asks.
Anakin laughs, and that’s a victory too. “Not exactly. More like digging my way out with a spoon.” The amusement fades from his voice and his smile grows rueful, or something like that. “She probably hasn’t even noticed I’m gone, though.”
Obi-Wan wishes he knew what to say—a thought he’s had many times over the years concerning Anakin. As his Master, he usually found something of worth to spit out even in his most clueless moments, but he’s truly and utterly lost at what to do when faced with Anakin venting about his no-longer-secret marriage. Perhaps he should comfort him, tell him that it’s all going to be alright, but that tendril of smugness has grown stronger, and he finds he doesn’t want to smooth over whatever it is between Anakin and his wife.
And luckily for him, Anakin doesn’t let Obi-Wan’s silence sit; he undoes his bowtie with his mech-hand and asks, “Got anything to drink?”
Less luckily, Obi-Wan hasn’t acquired any more alcohol since pouring all of it down the drain out of shame, weeks ago. For some reason, being plied with drinks by a stranger felt different than pouring them himself, so he had uncorked every expensive bottle of wine he’d been gifted, unscrewed all the hard liquor he would share with friends, even popped the tabs on the few old beers in his conservator, and dumped them all into his sink.
“No,” Obi-Wan answers, and before Anakin can question him, he adds, “How about a smoke?”
Anakin raises a brow. “You’re kidding.”
Obi-Wan gets on his tiptoes and feels around the top of his conservator until he feels a small box in his hand. It’s still wrapped in plasti—the opened pack is tucked inside his bedside drawer, along with his lighter, so he grabs matches as well. “I’ve still got a few surprises left in me,” he tells Anakin, tossing the plasti in the waste receptacle, before beckoning him to come out to the landing platform.
The first time Obi-Wan ever smoked a cigarette, he was seventeen, and it was Garen’s idea. He barely took one inhale, and then he was coughing and sputtering, lungs and throat in Hell. That’s vile, he’d told his friend. After that, Obi-Wan never touched a cigarette again, until Garen came around for one of his check-ins and lit one up. Obi-Wan remembered the burn, and asked to try again. This time, he welcomed it—he deserved it.
Anakin sits next to him on the edge of the landing platform, their legs dangling over the entirety of Coruscant, and watches in fascination as Obi-Wan lights his match and then his cigarette. When he pulls one out of the box for himself, he looks back and forth between the cigarette and Obi-Wan many times, like he’s being tricked into it, like Obi-Wan will snap at him for being a disobedient, reckless Padawan.
Obi-Wan doesn’t do any of that—maybe he would if he thought Anakin was smoking for the same reasons he was; for the pain. But for everything that’s recently come to light and has Obi-Wan thinking he might not know the younger man at all, he is confident in his assessment that Anakin would only be interested in smoking a cigarette for the purpose of looking cool. Wizard, he’d say. So, when Anakin places the cigarette between his lips, Obi-Wan leans over and lights the end of it with his own that’s still hanging out of his mouth. This close, he can smell whatever spicy, overpriced cologne Anakin’s wife has bought for him, so Obi-Wan puffs out a breath, the smoke swallowing the scent of it.
When Anakin inhales, Obi-Wan waits for the hacking, but it never comes. Anakin makes a strange face, and sputters only a tiny bit, but both his inhale and exhale are fairly smooth, especially compared to the eye-watering agony Obi-Wan remembers from when he was seventeen.
“Have you done this before?” He asks, eyeing Anakin curiously.
“No,” Anakin says.
After everything, he’s not sure why Anakin would feel the need to lie about this, of all things. So, Obi-Wan believes him, taking another drag himself and looking out to the sky—it’s full of artificial clouds tonight, so it’s like staring into an endless void. For a while they smoke in silence, the two of them tapping ash, letting it float into the void while Anakin kicks his feet, shiny shoes swinging. Obi-Wan stubs his out on the platform when he grows used to the burn, uncaring of the nasty smear of ash. Anakin watches him do it, then slides his eyes back up to meet Obi-Wan’s gaze. “You would’ve killed me for this, when I was a Padawan.”
Obi-Wan hopes his sharp inhale is not too obvious, though it’s probably a lost cause when combined with the even sharper turn of his head away from Anakin. Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that, he bites back. After a moment, he shrugs, then tilts forward to rest his elbows on his knees, leaning into the wind in a precarious way that has his Jedi reflexes on alert—it’s nice to know they’re still there, at least.
“I was worried about the wrong things, I suppose,” Obi-Wan says. In the Force, he can feel how Anakin dampens at his response.
“Master… Don’t say things like that. I can’t bear it.”
Obi-Wan’s mood sours slightly too—he’s upset Anakin. “I’m sorry,” he offers, turning back to him.
Anakin tosses what’s left of his cigarette into the night, and rolls his eyes very exaggeratedly, “And the apologizing.”
“Is there anything I am allowed to do, Anakin?” Obi-Wan sighs, rubbing his forehead.
“You could lend me some clothes, so I can burn this shit.” Anakin gestures to his tux, and the slight tension is broken.
Obi-Wan gets to his feet, and he’s only a little dizzy. In the second it takes to gather his bearings, Anakin stands too. “Don’t people usually rent tuxedos? Surely you can’t burn a rented tuxedo,” Obi-Wan muses aloud, heading back inside and to his bedroom.
“I thought so, too, but since I’m a full-time trophy husband now, it makes sense to just buy. Or, so I’m told,” Anakin replies, following him until he comes to a stop, standing nearly in Obi-Wan’s blindspot, barely in his periphery as he pulls clothes from his drawers.
“A waste of your talents.” It comes out of Obi-Wan’s mouth without him really thinking about it, and he winces before turning around to give Anakin the lounge pants and soft tunic he’d picked out.
Anakin doesn’t seem offended, though. He just snorts, and begins taking off his suit.
When he leaves a few hours later, after more holo-projector animations, it’s in Obi-Wan’s clothes; the tuxedo left in a crumpled heap on the floor. Even the shoes.
Every time Obi-Wan is shoved against a wall by a stranger that doesn’t care about him, he wonders if Anakin is watching. He’s sure he’s not—but to his addled, inebriated mind, it’s comforting. Obi-Wan is certain that if the men were truly being so terrible to him, Anakin would intervene.
So he lets them keeping hurting him—gets better at acting like it doesn’t hurt at all, so they try harder. He changes the code to his quarter’s so his friends can no longer drop in whenever they’d like, but assures them via comlink that he’s still alive.
Anakin keeps coming over, never announcing his arrival beforehand.
Once, he comes over during the day, and Obi-Wan is heaving into the toilet. He doesn’t say much, just pulls Obi-Wan’s sweaty hair away from his face as his body rejects whatever he allowed someone to give him last night. Afterwards, he practically carries Obi-Wan to his bed.
“You don’t have to keep coming here. You don’t have to do this for me,” Obi-Wan tells him, shivering and ashamed.
Anakin looks at him for a long moment, so long Obi-Wan is nearly asleep again when Anakin says, “Maybe it’s not for you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Anakin asks him. They’re smoking again, this time inside with the windows open. Anakin is laid on the end of Obi-Wan’s bed like a dog, while Obi-Wan is curled up at the head of it, leaning against the wall.
“Tell you what?” Obi-Wan replies, even as he pulls his blanket tighter around himself out of embarrassment. It’s half useless. Maybe it covers up his body that’s wasting away in it’s skin, covered in bruises and scratches, but it does nothing to hide his unwashed and overgrown hair, nor his bloodshot, dull eyes.
Anakin takes a drag, then lolls his head to the side to look at Obi-Wan. “The way you talked on coms—you were lying. I thought you were happy. I thought you were getting on just fine without me.”
But you’re not, goes unsaid, and Obi-Wan is sick with self-loathing. So sick he can’t find himself to answer Anakin with yet another lie.
“You were finally happy. I wasn’t going to burden you, especially after I had already failed you so terribly.”
Anakin narrows his eyes. “What would you know about my happiness? How would you know I wasn’t lying right back?” He says it so plainly Obi-Wan can’t take it as an accusation, or a confession. Then, he uses the Force to propel his cigarette out the window, before rolling up the bed, until he’s knocking into Obi-Wan’s feet.
Keeping the hand holding his own cigarette out of the way, Obi-Wan reaches down and lightly strokes Anakin’s hair. It’s greasier than it looks. In turn, Anakin reaches up, and wraps his fingers around Obi-Wan’s forearm, where a ring of black and blue flesh lies.
Obi-Wan’s stomach growls, and Anakin doesn’t say anything. He never does. He just turns up the holo-projector’s volume.
Tired from the hunger and the events of the night before, Obi-Wan slumps down the wall further and further after his cigarette is gone while the program drones on, until he’s laying down, and the credits roll, turning the room very dark. And then, just like that first night Anakin returned, his head appears in Obi-Wan’s vision, leaning over him and staring down. Obi-Wan remembers the concerned confusion that adorned his face that night, and that expression is nowhere to be found, now. Whatever it is that Anakin is feeling, Obi-Wan isn’t privy to it—so he just stares back.
Until his eyes flutter shut in exhaustion, and Anakin kisses him.
Immediately, Obi-Wan’s eyes snap open, unbelieving of what his mind tells him is happening, needing his sight to confirm it—and it does. Centimeters away from him is Anakin’s face, as he presses his lips to Obi-Wan’s.
As quickly as it starts, it’s over, and Anakin snaps his eyes open as well. He looks afraid. Even more afraid than that first night, with his hand slapped over his own mouth and eyes glimmering with tears. Anakin squirms, and Obi-Wan gathers all his strength to take Anakin by the forearms and prevent him from running away. “Why did you do that?” Obi-Wan breathes out in genuine confusion, trying to meet Anakin’s eye. The younger man fights, bucking and tugging, but Obi-Wan grits his teeth, digging his nails into his arms and shaking him until Anakin pauses, his eyes shining with unshed tears, wide like saucers with panic.
“Why did you do that?” Obi-Wan repeats, voice shaking, desperate. Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just leave me to rot?
Anakin doesn’t answer, only grunts and fights his grip again. Delirious with his confusion and exhaustion and his inability to breathe, Obi-Wan rolls him over, pinning him to the bed, and slots their mouths together again. It’s short, and awkward; their panting and crying making it feel like neither of them have kissed anyone before. When Obi-Wan pulls back, he begs Anakin, “Tell me.”
A whimper from Anakin, before he leans up to push their foreheads together, and then he’s speaking, “I can’t bear it.” The same words he’d said however many nights ago—Obi-Wan doesn’t remember exactly. Time barely exists to him, anymore, in the state he’s in.
“Bear what, Anakin?”
Anakin squeezes his eyes shut. “Anything. Anything without you, Master.”
Obi-Wan releases him, but Anakin doesn’t try to run. He wraps all four of his long limbs around Obi-Wan and pulls him down, forcing Obi-Wan’s weight down on top of himself, before he begins to cry, wet and ugly, into Obi-Wan’s neck. Because he can’t bear it either, Obi-Wan snags him by his greasy hair and kisses Anakin again, uncaring of the salt he tastes. He kisses and kisses until Anakin returns it, grabbing Obi-Wan’s face gently and panting little sounds into his mouth.
“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry,” Obi-Wan says against his lips. “Oh, Anakin,” he sighs out, pulling back for a moment to stroke his wet face and feel horrible guilt and arousal flash inside of him at the sight of Anakin’s lips, swollen and pink from his kiss. He’s just kissed his Padawan. His married Padawan.
That’s right, Obi-Wan thinks. Mine. And then, he says it, “My Padawan,” before leaning back in and licking softly into Anakin’s mouth, an act that feels so illicit Obi-Wan shivers. His body aches being presses so tightly to Anakin like this, all his bruises and scrapes aggravated, but he thinks he’d rather hurt forever than let Anakin go. “My Padawan, my purpose,” he murmurs, opening his mouth and letting Anakin suck his tongue in shy, soft pulses.
They get each other’s clothes off, and Anakin swirls his fingers in a circle around the scar on Obi-Wan’s stomach, the one that killed him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Obi-Wan takes his hand and kisses his palm. “I did it for you.”
“I know.” Anakin touches him so gently. Obi-Wan nearly forgot what that feels like.
He’d like to take Anakin inside of himself. Wishes he could give that to him, see what Anakin’s gentleness feels like that way, but he can still feel the stinging soreness left by the last man that touched him, so Obi-Wan lays Anakin back in his bed presses inside of him. Next to Anakin, well-muscled and well fed, Obi-Wan is scrawny and near sickly looking, but his Padawan runs his fingers over all his bruises and leaves soft kisses in his unkempt beard.
“Gorgeous, Master. I’ve always thought you were gorgeous,” Anakin pants, looking up at him with half-lidded eyes, smiling like he’s won the lottery.
Before long, Obi-Wan grows tired. He can’t keep this up for long in his malnourished, exhausted state, no matter how much he likes the sight of Anakin under him; no matter how much he wishes he could do all the work while Anakin gets nothing but pleasure. He slips out with a pained noise, rolling onto his back—and Anakin is on him in a flash. Nearly smothering him, pressing their hard, wet cocks together and rutting like a mutt.
“You’re so sweet,” Obi-Wan murmurs, watching Anakin’s pretty face contort with pleasure. He gets an arm around him and slips the fingers inside his lax hole.
Anakin laughs, and then gasps. “I’m really not,” he says, grinding back onto the fingers. “I’m awful. I’m horrible.”
“So am I,” Obi-Wan tells him.
Anakin comes, and then Obi-Wan tumbles after him. From the volume of the mess between their stomachs, Obi-Wan distantly registers that he probably hasn’t come once with any of the other men.
They sleep in it, and in the morning they smoke and fuck again. Anakin makes lunch, and eats with the same ferocity he always has. Obi-Wan drinks tea and watches him, happy to chew and swallow the few slices of Jogan fruit offered to him from Anakin’s hands.