Suckerpunch

“Stay away from me…”

“You could have killed him, Anakin…” 

Padmé’s heated words looped continuously in Anakin’s mind, like a sweetly painful melody that he couldn’t escape, no matter how much he focused on the detached T-1 tactical droid head that lay in front of him on the workbench—no matter how hard he cringed and shoved away the memories of the previous night.

He just needed to work; in the past, fixing things had always helped to pull him away from his pain. Life had always seemed so much simpler when he’d been solving problems, with his awareness narrowing down to focus on a mechanical, logical world that made sense and he could control completely, but nothing was simple now, and everything was out of control.

He couldn’t seem to escape himself, the churning chaos of his memories. There was just so much pain, nothing physical, of course, as Clovis hadn’t managed any lasting damage, nothing like Anakin had done to him, but the mental pain was severe. His thoughts whirled and spun around him in a maelstrom, each one slashing like a knife. 

He blinked, and his vision became blurry. No, he couldn’t cry, he wouldn’t. He took a shaky centering breath and kept soldering, kept working, his chest burning like he’d swallowed battery acid every time he remembered Padmé’s pleading him to stop punching Clovis, stop breaking her furniture, stop scaring her. 

“Stay away from me…”

He rolled his shoulders back, adjusting his posture. Everything ached with the heaviness of his exhausted body, the sleepless night, the lack of food and water, it all made him almost unsteady on his feet. He’d survived sieges, been starved and sick and never felt worse than this. He squinted his frustratingly wet eyes to pay close attention to the pressure feedback from his metal fingertips. 

He failed to loosen a bolt with his fingers, and reached for his power, swearing with heated resentment as he couldn’t even jostle it with the Force. The tremulous energy field that surrounded him just wouldn’t settle enough to be controlled, but was instead almost painfully spiky and agitated around him, a noisy mirror of his unsettled mind. 

“This marriage is not a marriage with no trust… a terrible mistake…”  

He shook his head jerkily as if shaking off a fly, trying to flick away the memories of discovering Padmé in Clovis’s arms in their Coruscant apartment. The image of his wife and her old lover together in what looked like a passionate embrace still made him feel so hot, no matter how much he reminded himself that it actually wasn't what he’d thought. 

It had made him just… snap. Not just a mission. Not just spying. Cheating. He’d felt beyond crushed, trapped, helpless, and all he could do was attack the source of the pain. 

He should have trusted her. 

He hadn’t trusted her. 

Why hadn’t he trusted her? 

He wanted to be sick, but he had nothing in his stomach. He wanted to run away, but he had nowhere to go. He wanted to sleep and never wake up. He wanted to have never been born. He wanted so much, and had nothing. 

His wife was never really his, no matter their vows, there weren't even real names on their marriage certificate. Their continual separation due to the war meant she existed always beyond the reach of his fingertips. He could touch but never truly grasp her, never hold her close and keep her near—she was always slipping away, no matter how much he needed her, always gone, just like his mother, like Ahsoka, like Obi-Wan, like everybody else. 

Everybody left, nobody stayed. 

Seeing Padmé with someone else had just proved what subconsciously he’d always known, and his entire world had collapsed in an instant, and he lashed out at the truth. She wasn’t his. He wasn’t hers. It was over. It had never been real at all. 

The grief he felt was the same as he’d felt holding Obi-Wan’s limp body in a filthy, wet Coruscant alleyway, attending his funeral, screaming with loneliness and rage inside, the same as when Ahsoka had walked away from him, leaving him behind. His bond with Obi-Wan had never recovered, and Ahsoka was just… gone. His mother’s limp body had been so heavy in his arms. He could still feel the weight; he always felt it.

His mechanical hand tightened, using too much pressure, and the tool in its grip creaked and compressed slightly, finger-shaped marks bent into the metal casing. He caught himself before it was broken, and narrowly resisted the urge to throw it at the wall. It wasn’t ruined, not yet, not like everything else. 

It felt like he was slowly boiling alive—everything about being awake and aware was painful, his own consciousness weaponized against him, memories of the past and predictions of the future interweaving in a waking nightmare. He needed to sleep, forever, not deal with any of this; it was all too much. 

His feelings in the Force had become a churning feedback loop of despair, and he couldn’t escape the ache of it, like a clinging, acrid fog, it followed him everywhere, because the fog was him— he was the source and recipient of this pain, and it was driving him insane.

“Our relationship is built on lies… no relationship can survive that…” 

After being banished from the apartment in the middle of the night, he had come robotically back to the Temple, to the dusty, cluttered storage room that his bedroom had become over the past years of neglect, as he’d spent more and more time fighting or at Padmé’s. He’d moved boxes off the bed into the corner, sitting with his head in his hands for longer than he cared to admit.

Ahsoka had helped him move to the room years before, once they’d realized because of the war, he still hadn’t actually moved from his old room in the Padawan’s Hall. It was a good memory, them packing, laughing, all the teasing about how he was so young. He’d been Knighted too soon, they gave him a Padawan too soon, and they all knew it. He hadn’t been ready. He hadn’t been capable. 

He hadn’t had any luck with sleeping all night; his mind was so unsettled, nothing felt real. He’d watched the sun rise and steadily ignored the messages piling up on his comlink all day, scarcely moving from his position at his workbench. He’d been tinkering with droids for so long that the sun had sunk close enough to the far horizon to stab into his eyes whenever he looked up. 

He knew that he needed to eat, drink, sleep, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t stop working, or it all became fully real, and Padmé’s voice would ring in his ears. 

“I’m not happy anymore…”

He deliberately picked up a small plasma cutter, studying the stuck bolt and spinning the tool absently as he considered the optimal angle before beginning to cut. His nose wrinkled as he worked—the dirty air in his room was taxing the purification system, smokey and acrid in a way that he remembered finding comforting before the war. It was starting to smell too much like the aftermath of battle and the smoking piles of dismembered droids and prone bodies of dead clones. 

“I don’t know who’s in there sometimes…”

He couldn’t escape reliving the sensation of his metal fist meeting Clovis’s face, over and over, the pressure feedback singing about the way the flesh had collapsed and the bone cracked. He’d been unable to stop beating him, as if he’d been a passenger behind his own eyes as a mindless red haze descended and he’d completely lost control. 

Padmé had begged him to stop, voice broken, crying and desperate. He’d done that. Clovis had been lying on the ground, limp and defeated, as the blindness and violence receded and the ringing numbness took its place. He’d done that.

“I don’t feel safe… I'm sorry, Anakin…”

He swallowed and flipped over the head of the droid, looking for the best way to crack open the internal casing and reach the data core deep inside. If he could find a better way to slice inside the droids quickly, before they destroyed themselves, it could give the Republic a crucial advantage in the war. It was a problem he could solve, a way to be useful, for once.

He flinched as his bedroom door opened without warning, his hands tightening on his tools to avoid dropping them. He didn’t need to look to verify what he immediately knew and could feel in the Force. Nobody in the Temple other than Obi-Wan would feel entitled to open his closed door and walk in without at least knocking first. 

He tensed as Obi-Wan came closer, leaning with his customary contained grace against the side of the workbench. In his peripheral vision, his old Master looked perfectly put together, his posture casual and upright, his cream robes pressed and tidy. It made Anakin feel filthy and uncomfortable, totally unfit for interacting with anyone at all. As usual. As always.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Obi-Wan said, a light rebuke layered beneath his teasing tone, and Anakin tensed even further, knowing what was coming. Obi-Wan’s careful probing always reached deep into their shared past and grabbed tight on the part of Anakin that would always be his student. His burden.

“Something wrong?”

Obi-Wan hummed noncommittally and picked up another scrap head of a Separatist protocol droid from the workbench, absently spinning it in his hands. “You tell me.”

“Not that I'm aware,” Anakin lied tersely.

A slightly tense silence extended as Obi-Wan failed to reply, and the room filled with the quiet sound of the torch and fan. Anakin was highly aware that Obi-Wan was watching him work, giving him time to say more. It was a trick he’d seen Obi-Wan use a hundred times in interrogations, leaving a dangling pause as an invitation for people to fill it with more information, and offering an awkward silence as subtle social pressure to talk, which Anakin was not going to do. 

He clenched his jaw and carefully set down his plasma torch and picked up a hydrospanner with a little flip, working on another bolt. He had nothing to say.  

Obi-Wan sighed, finally deigning to carry the conversation forward on his own, and get to the point himself. “Master Yoda feels that your judgments concerning Rush Clovis are clouded.”

Anakin’s lip curled slightly with disdain, and he tried to wipe the expression clean before Obi-Wan could spot it. The Force around lashed out with his displeasure at the question though, giving him away. Obi-Wan shifted his weight with a disappointed little sigh at his lack of control, and Anakin hated him for a moment, a hot surge of resentment that he couldn’t crush down. 

Of course he’d been sent to check on him by the Council. Of course he hadn’t come on his own, because he actually noticed and cared if Anakin was happy. No, he’d been ordered to come, because even though Anakin had been Knighted, the Council all still treated him like Obi-Wan’s disaster of a Padawan, always looking to his Master to yank on his leash.

He shrugged mechanically, trying to appreciate that Obi-Wan appeared to not have heard about the beating the night before, his tone had been much too civil for that. He wasn’t sure what Obi-Wan wanted to hear, what would make him go away. “I believe Clovis can't be trusted.”

“Yes, but there is more, isn't there?” Obi-Wan asked, too knowing, and it made Anakin’s jaw clench and nostrils flare, proving his point. Obi-Wan nodded slightly. “I sense a deep anger in you from my simply saying his name.”

Anakin glared at him and pushed away from his workbench, turning toward the far wall, voice tight. All the reasons he loathed Clovis flashed through his mind, and his fists tightened, the leather of his glove creaking. He picked a reason, the foremost of Clovis’s many crimes. “He almost got Senator Amidala killed yesterday. I would have been responsible.”

Obi-Wan set down the droid head with a clunk, and Anakin felt him focus his attention entirely on his back, giving him a gentle rebuke. “The Senator has risked her life many times. She's quite capable of taking care of herself.”

Anakin numbly took a model ship off the shelf, delaying his response as long as possible. He’d constructed the model as a Padawan, dreaming of building it, a unique combination of the Delta-7B Aethersprite and an Eta-2 Actis. He’d been so innocent then. He hadn’t almost beaten a man to death because… “They had a relationship once.” 

He looked over his shoulder to see Obi-Wan’s deceptively mild and curious expression. “I feel she is vulnerable to her emotions.”

”She is…?” Obi-Wan tipped his head to the side, eyes narrowing. “Or you?”

Anakin scowled. “What are you implying?”

“Anakin…” Obi-Wan sighed his name, an entire lecture in three syllables. 

Anakin sat heavily on one of the storage crates he’d stacked in the corner, waiting for a response. He wanted to get as far away from Obi-Wan as it was possible to get in the small room, so the corner would have to do. He felt trapped, like he’d happily gnaw off a limb to escape this conversation.

Obi-Wan was quiet for a moment, evaluating, and then he sat on the foot of Anakin’s bed, facing away from him, as if to minimize the threat of any confrontation with any potential eye contact. He was holding himself back at such a distance, hiding his face, his presence in the Force, everything. Coward. 

“I understand to a degree what is going on. You've met Satine…”

Anakin glared at his back, trying to keep the hot sticky feeling of resentment to himself. Obi-Wan sounded sympathetic but still intentionally detached. He was giving the slightest possible offering of vulnerability to elicit vulnerability in return, and Anakin hated it.

“You know I once harbored feelings for her. It's not that we're not allowed to have these feelings. It's natural.”

“Senator Amidala and I are simply friends,” Anakin almost snarled, as if he wanted to be reminded that Obi-Wan loved other people, on that day of all days. He was too kriffing cold to love like Anakin loved. It wasn’t remotely the same. 

Obi-Wan turned his head, finally looking back over his shoulder. His eyes were so full of understanding, his face serious and insufferably kind. “And friends you must remain. As a Jedi, it is essential you make the right choice, Anakin, for the Order.”

How lucky for Obi-Wan, then, that choice had been made for him last night in a red haze of fury, violence without restraint. He’d lost it, he was losing it, he was… 

He set the model down hard, and the stand bent slightly with the force of the impact. Obi-Wan’s eyes flicked between the model and his face, and Anakin clenched his jaw, voice tight. “I understand my responsibilities.”

“Responsibilities that must be observed whatever relationship develops between Clovis and Senator Amidala.” 

Anakin needed him to leave; he couldn’t do this for another second. He moved fast, crossing the room to loom over Obi-Wan and pressure him with the direct confrontation that he clearly didn’t want. He couldn’t shake off the burning, boiling feeling inside, the tightness in his throat, the pressure behind his eyes. “They have no relationship. It is simply business between them.”

Obi-Wan stood up slowly, refusing to be loomed over. He was too comfortable with lingering in Anakin’s personal space from thousands of hours of sparring. He held his ground as he studied Anakin’s expression, and whatever he saw there made him frown. He gave a command in the form of a question, his inflection flat and final. “Then we should have no problems, should we?”

Anakin didn’t answer, he couldn’t, and Obi-Wan pressed his lips together, his expression as difficult to read as always. He turned to leave, walking away with his hands clasped behind his back, his posture tense and uncomfortable. Anakin stood dumbly, watching him go. He got what he wanted, but did he want it?

He lifted a hand as if to stop him, but let it fall, because what was the point? What would he even say? Stay, I’m sorry, I need help? Stay, I can’t do this? Stay, I’m falling apart? Stay, stay, stay….

Obi-Wan left without another word. 

The door slid closed with a firm, final swish and Obi-Wan’s warm, concerned presence in the Force began to fade away. The sensation was completely devastating, and Anakin felt everything inside give way, his heart dropping through the floor, through the basement, and he was in agony. Alone, alone, alone. 

He curled forward in on himself and began to sob, not even thinking of the volume, or what his presence in the Force would do. He covered his face with his hands, pushing on his eyes, wishing to collapse and disappear.  

He was so alone.  

Obi-Wan stepped out into the hallway, letting the door to Anakin’s room slide closed behind him, frustration and disappointment churning low in his gut. 

He hadn’t truthfully expected the interaction to go any differently, but he’d felt a need to try. Listening to Yoda and the other Councilors express their concern about Anakin’s stability and attachments activated a need in him to protect him from their judgment, even if his behavior was not his responsibility anymore. He would always be responsible for the boy he trained, even as an adult, little though he acted like one. He took a long, deliberate breath, gathering himself, and exhaled even more slowly, releasing the tension in his shoulders. 

This Clovis situation had thrown light on just how fractured things were between them, how far Anakin had pulled away in the past few months since the mission to protect the Chancellor, since Ahsoka’s trial, frankly since the beginning of the war. He was such a blasted secretive hypocrite sometimes. He couldn’t reach him, couldn’t get him to be honest, couldn’t get him to…

He shook his head hard, clearing his mind, and took several steps toward the communication center to check on the Outer Rim sieges, before he heard the faint sound of a sob through the door behind him, and a shock wave of unhappiness rolled out into the Force. It was almost strong enough to make him feel physically sick, his stomach turning at the intensity of it, the magnitude and urgency of it. 

He spun on his heel, rushing back and reopening the door as fast as he could. The acrid scent of smoke washed over him, the dim light making him blink fast, his eyes wide. Anakin was exactly where he’d left him, but curled in on himself. His arms were wrapped around his chest, hugging himself tightly, head bowed as he wept. He was weeping… 

Obi-Wan was drawn slowly toward him, as though he was approaching a wounded animal ready to lash out. There was a cold edge to his grief, his presence in the Force laced with hatred and despair. Hints of darkness were oozing out of the secret places in Anakin’s heart that Obi-Wan had seen only once before, when he’d found Anakin in the well of the dark side on Mortis—eyes glowing gold and voice husky with promised violence.

“Anakin?”

Anakin froze, muscles tensed and locked, mental gears grinding to a halt as reality didn’t behave in the way he expected. His throat was too tight to swallow, his chest too tight to breathe, nothing made sense. Obi-Wan’s luminous presence in the Force was back, surrounding and testing him, and he wasn’t pleased with what he found.

”Anakin?”

Obi-Wan’s tone was alarmed, almost horrified as he repeated himself, and Anakin curled in on himself more at the sound of his voice, turning away. He was almost hyperventilating, his feelings were completely out of control in the Force, and he knew he was radiating pain, that must be why Obi-Wan came back.

Would he give him a lecture for being such a failure of a Jedi? Was he disappointed in him? Probably, he always was, he didn’t understand…

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan repeated again for a third time, and Anakin felt him approaching his back with caution. “Are you alright?”

Anakin sniffed loudly and wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands, voice quiet and tight. “Go away, Obi-Wan.”

“Not until you calm down.” Obi-Wan brushed up against him in the Force before laying a firm hand on his shoulder. 

Anakin jerked out from under his touch, shrugging him off. He spun around to face him again, shooting him a wet glower, and Obi-Wan crossed his arms across his chest, brow furrowed with concern. “Will you explain what’s going on?”

Anakin shook his head blankly, unable to even begin. “It’s fine.”

“It’s clearly not,” Obi-Wan pointed out, intently focused on studying Anakin’s face, and the scrutiny was unbearable. Anakin squeezed his eyes closed, ignoring the heat of tears dropping down his cheeks, hating the sound of Obi-Wan’s probing. “If Clovis and the Senator—”

“Stop,” Anakin cut him off weakly. He didn’t want to hear the name ever again, didn’t want to discuss this at all. He clenched his fists so tightly it hurt, the metal fingers grinding, trying to burn off all his desire to bolt. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

Obi-Wan’s disapproval and displeasure bubbled around him for a moment before retreating. “I can’t do that, Anakin. I’m very concerned about your present lack of control.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Master.”

“What is the matter?” Obi-Wan asked, exasperation creeping into his voice. He stepped even closer, peering into his face. “Are you truly this upset at the very idea that your ‘friend’ might find companionship elsewhere? Are you so possessive of her attention?”

“No!”

Obi-Wan looked so skeptical. “Really? This all reeks of a deeply inappropriate attachment, Anakin, it—”

“Doesn’t matter!” Anakin said loudly, losing control over his volume. Obi-Wan’s face was so unimpressed, Anakin wanted to strangle him. He slashed his hands down and out emphatically, his voice cracking. “It’s not an attachment. There’s no more attachment.”

Obi-Wan tipped his head to the side, narrowing in on Anakin’s slip of the tongue. “No more?” 

“Stop digging,” Anakin whined. He stumbled back two steps and sat down heavily on his bed, tears coming again and he couldn’t keep them inside. He pressed his face into his hands, hiding as best he could, voice muffled. “Stop pushing. Stop it. Go away!”

“Anakin, you must tell me what’s happening.”

Anakin’s radiating despair in the Force carried Padmé’s words like a whisper on a breeze. “I’m not happy anymore… This marriage is not a marriage with no trust… a terrible mistake…” 

Obi-Wan’s jaw dropped, a whole cluster of Senator Amidala’s distress and rejection washing over him in the Force in an instant, a toxic mixture with Anakin’s overwhelming regret and burning resentment. He felt so totally aghast, his voice hushed with horror as the implications flooded through him in a cascade. “What have you done?”

Anakin shook his head, cringing at the question and weeping quietly. He looked so small sitting on the side of his narrow bed, face in his hands, his shoulders slumped. He looked completely overwhelmed, so young as he cried. All his posturing and swagger had vanished, as if he were too little for his oversized dark clothes. And yet… Married, apparently. Not just fucking a Senator in secret, but married. He’d betrayed his vows formally, intentionally. 

Obi-Wan blinked quickly, trying to process and set aside his deep offense. He couldn’t help but see through the handsome facade of the man in front of him to the small, willful and reckless boy he’d trained. There was so much about Anakin in the Force that was familiar bone-deep, but he was now darker, deeper, sharper. He was such a liar, faithless and selfish. 

He drew closer until he stood over where Anakin sat, close enough to grab the leather on his shoulder and squeeze it tight, shaking him slightly and making him tip his face up. “Not just involved, you’re actually married?” 

Anakin’s chest heaved as he suppressed a sob, his flushed face going so tight with grief, eyes squeezing closed. He shook his head hard, denying it.

“You were married,” Obi-Wan clarified with a deeply unimpressed scowl, and Anakin nodded and sniffed, clearly beyond words to hear the truth spoken out loud. 

Obi-Wan let go of his shoulder roughly and took several steps back, feeling a bit weak and unsteady. He leaned back against the edge of the workbench and stared across the small room at this stranger who was still somehow his best friend. “How long?”

Anakin took a deep, pained breath, his voice thick. “This whole time.”

“What?”

“Since the beginning…”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said on an exhale, his heart racing. What would Yoda think? Mace? “Are you seriously telling me you went back to Naboo after Geonosis and got married?” 

Anakin nodded, and Obi-Wan nodded back, numbly mirroring him as though the information didn’t shock him to the core and worry him greatly. It made too much sense, validating what he’d always suspected. The two ‘friends’ had been too close, but Obi-Wan had always let it go, cutting Anakin a little slack and giving him time to figure himself out on his own. 

He’d trusted him to do what was right—he’d trusted that Anakin understood his responsibility as a Jedi Knight, and would respect his commitments to the Order. How foolish of him… He should have remembered that Anakin always considered himself to be the eternal exception to the rules, and it seemed that the Senator joined him in that delusion. 

Obi-Wan vividly recalled a very frustrating and emotional conversation with Senator Amidala directly after the first battle of Geonosis. She’d been highly irrational and completely unwilling to step back from ruining Anakin’s life. If she really loved him, she would have left him alone, but they were both so selfish, and more greedy than he’d known. “This is… not good, Anakin.”

“I know,” Anakin said weakly, wiping his nose on his sleeve, and how many times had he told him not to do that. “And now everyone will know…”

“Why?” Obi-Wan asked, full of a surge of dread. 

Anakin’s wet eyes flashed up before dropping again. He was radiating misery in the Force and Obi-Wan had to lean forward and strain to hear his trembling voice. “I’m such a bad Jedi.”

Obi-Wan did not like the sound of that at all. “What did you do to Clovis?”

Anakin grimaced, his hands clenching where they rested in his lap. “I did… something, but…”

Obi-Wan pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep, centering breath as Anakin trailed off. His shock had completely worn off by now, replaced by a hot, leaping feeling in his chest at Anakin’s continued evasions that he was attempting to rein in before it made him act irrationally. “What did you do?”

“I saw him try to kiss her. Last night. I just…” Anakin’s voice cracked and he stopped talking abruptly. A flurry of violent, furious sense memories frothed up in Obi-Wan’s awareness, unintentionally shared in the Force; a metal fist slammed repeatedly in Clovis’s face. Sith hells.

Obi-Wan pushed off the workbench, his feet taking him forward quickly and without any forethought, activated by the intensity and purity of Anakin’s pain—his rage, terror, so much hate. He wanted to shake him, throttle him, or turn him over his knee, and his voice carried that danger. “Tell me now.”

Anakin flushed deeply as he approached, looking up at him, his shiny eyes open wide. His absurdly long, dark eyelashes were wet, his breathing fast and shallow, his chapped lips chewed until pink and swollen. Obi-Wan loomed over him and prodded at his mind impatiently in the Force, pushing for an answer. 

Anakin finally muttered. “I hit him. A lot.” 

Obi-Wan braced himself for the worst. “Is he still alive?”

Anakin swallowed a whine as Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows and tipped his head forward in question, shame twisting in his guts like a jagged knife. “Master, how can you…”

“My faith in your self control is exactly this low.”

“He’s alive,” he confirmed shortly, sniffing and wiping his face on his sleeve. The idea of Clovis lying prone and dead on Padmé’s luxurious carpets at his hands was far too easy to imagine. It had been so close, too close, and Obi-Wan knew that. 

Obi-Wan was very quiet for enough time that Anakin peered up at him with concern. He was backlit by the afternoon sun, and it was difficult to read his expression in the half-light, but of course he felt completely and totally furious in the Force. His voice had become steadily deeper in a way that made the hair on Anakin’s arm lift. “Is the mission compromised?”

“No,” Anakin said quickly, and Obi-Wan scoffed. Anakin’s cheeks burned at his reflex skepticism. His eyes were becoming wet again, and he sniffed as his nose threatened to run, his voice growing thick. “Padmé said she would handle it.” 

Obi-Wan looked at the door, his spine straightening automatically as he turned his mind toward his duty. “I best go com her.” 

He was going to walk away with the knowledge of Anakin’s mistakes, leaving him alone again, and Anakin panicked. His grief radiated out in the Force, instinctively reaching for Obi-Wan and tugging on the edges of his mind. It was like he was a child again, tangling his hands in the soft fabric of Obi-Wan’s robe and clinging on tight, crying down the decaying remains of their training bond. “Don’t leave me.” 

Obi-Wan’s head snapped back to stare at him, his expression fierce. “What?”

Anakin recoiled from his attention, sliding back on the bed toward the wall, wrapping his arms around his knees and hiding his eyes. He hadn’t meant to do that. “Go away…”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan sighed, wiping a hand down his face, his anger flaring and then easing in the Force. So easily swept aside, so trivially brushed off, so lightweight were his feelings. 

Anakin swallowed thickly as Obi-Wan moved forward, standing close enough to the side of the bed for his thighs to brush up against the mattress. His face was so stern, voice heavy with disappointment. “I am sorry that your marriage didn't work out.” 

“No,” Anakin sniffed, his voice weak. “You’re not.”

“I don’t like to see you this upset,” Obi-Wan explained as though it were obvious, watching with arms crossed as Anakin cried. His tone tipped toward a lecture, as if he couldn’t help himself. “I’m also very sorry to learn that you have such disrespect for the Jedi way, such poor decision-making skills, and such abysmal emotional regulation, Anakin. I spent a decade guiding you to be better, but you’ve made a mockery of the faith I placed in you. I expected so much better of you, Padawan.” 

“Don’t call me that.” Anakin cringed so much that he felt as though he’d been turned inside out, and his face was burning, almost scalding with embarrassment.

“Why not?”

“I’m not your Padawan anymore,” Anakin whined, and then he made a disgusted face at the sound of his voice, how it took on such a pathetic, pleading edge, and he wasn’t able to flatten it out. He tipped his head back and knocked it against the wall behind him with a dull clunk. 

“Then who are you?”

Anakin looked up and met Obi-Wan’s eyes, and his old Master’s judgment pierced through him. Obi-Wan’s obvious disappointment cut him so deeply, he felt like he was bleeding out. He hated feeling like this. He refused to continue. He bared his teeth, his anger surging to replace shame. “I’m nobody.”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “You aren’t.”

“Am too!” Anakin’s voice was thick, heavy with accusation, sitting up straighter and throwing out heated words to push Obi-Wan back. “I’m nobody to you! I remember when I thought we were friends, but we’re not!” 

“I suppose you’re right,” Obi-Wan said waspishly, turning the accusation around. “Friends typically share when they get married, Anakin. Friends don’t keep that kind of secret.”

“You’re one to talk about secrets,” Anakin hissed, all the weight that had been crushing him lifted as he filled with indignation. “You don’t tell the truth either!”

“Anakin…” Obi-Wan’s voice was low and forbidding, his breathing rigorously controlled. “Might I remind you that this is a war? I did my duty, and you did yours. Clinging to your resentment like this for months is not healthy or appropriate.”

“You chose to use my pain as part of a kriffing scheme. I grieved for you! Am I supposed to just get over that? Don’t give me excuses about duty, I don’t care.”

Obi-Wan’s nostrils flared, and Anakin could sense him actively managing his frustration, releasing its hold on him. How did he do that so casually? How dare he not drown like Anakin drowned, how dare he make it seem so easy, when it wasn’t easy, not easy at all?

“Duty is not an excuse, Anakin. Duty is a reason. Duty, service to the Order and the Republic, it’s what I live for, and I thought you did too, but apparently I was wrong, and while I understand that—” 

“You don’t!” Anakin cut him off loudly, his heart pounding in his ears, and it felt like he was vibrating out of his skin. “You don’t understand anything! You don’t care how I feel. You barely even know what it means to feel!” 

“Anakin.” 

“No!” Anakin whined, his indignation swallowed by a sob into something broken, his chest was so tight it hurt, his voice strangled. “You shrug everything off so easily, like nothing matters! You can’t imagine what it feels like to love someone like I loved her. You don’t care about me, not really, you don’t care about anyone!” 

“That’s not fair.” Obi-Wan sounded very stung. He backed away and then turned, moving to Anakin’s window, looking blindly out over Coruscant, arms crossed defensively. “I do care. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t care, but I don’t want to ‘love’ in the same way you ‘love,’ if it is the kind of attachment that makes you wantonly break your commitment to the Order and almost beat a man to death out of jealousy.” 

“That’s not—”

Obi-Wan kept talking over him, his volume level but his words increasingly pressed. “What do you want from me, Anakin? Do you want me to be broken down, quit and fail and give in to rage and despair? Is that what it means to love? I don’t have time to indulge my ego and wallow in my pain, which I do feel, by the way, but I have a job to do as a General and a Jedi, and so do you!”

Anakin’s head snapped back as though slapped. “You’re calling me selfish, then?” 

“Yes!” 

“Sorry for caring about you!” Anakin spat, glaring fiercely, his eyes wet. Obi-Wan huffed with frustration, rubbing his temples with thumb and middle finger, and Anakin sniffed. “Would you even be sad if I died? Would you even care?” 

Obi-Wan returned to the side of the bed, his expression long-suffering. “Of course I would be sad. It would grieve me deeply. Don’t be an idiot.” 

“And then if it was a lie?”

Obi-Wan explained, as if it were simple arithmetic, “I would forgive you for hurting me, especially if it was for a good reason. No matter how despicably you act, you’re still my best friend, my family. I forgive you constantly.” 

Anakin frowned with confusion. “No, you don’t.” 

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said crisply, smoothing his hands down his chest, straightening his already straight clothes. He was presenting a calm front on top of a large pool of hurt and anger that was slowly radiating out in the Force. “I forgive you all the time. You say I don’t care, but I do. I do have strong feelings, Anakin, and I do feel pain. It hurts when you disrespect me, ignore me, lie to me.” 

“I don’t…”

“You do,” Obi-Wan said mercilessly. “Constantly. And yet I forgive you every time. You can’t be bothered to return the favor, but that’s because you hold everyone else to a higher standard than you hold yourself, and demand special treatment.”

Anakin shook his head, disliking this very much. “No…”

Obi-Wan gave him an unimpressed look. “You’re married, Anakin, and I sense there are more serious things that you’re not telling me. Lies of that magnitude are extremely disrespectful. I’m very hurt that you haven’t come to me. You clearly haven’t trusted me for years, for about far more than just the Senator.” 

Anakin went silent and still, eyes going wide, and Obi-Wan nodded as though it confirmed everything. “Until you are completely honest with me, you have lost my trust too, I’m afraid. I must report your marriage to the rest of the Council, and let them be the ones to investigate your other probable… transgressions.”

Anakin gaped at him, blinking rapidly as memories of violence flooded through him too fast to cohere. “You can’t!”

“You’ll find that I can,” Obi-Wan said flatly. He crossed his arms across his chest, clearly prepared to be disappointed. “But if you stop lying to me, I might reconsider turning you over to the Chamber of Judgment.”

Anakin shook his head, anxiously pushing on the mattress with his feet and pressing his back against the wall behind him, hating that he was trapped with Obi-Wan between him and the only exit, with no way to flee, hide, die. “But I can’t tell you, that’s impossible…” 

“Why?”

Anakin licked his lips, his mouth so dry, he felt barely able to breathe. He looked past Obi-Wan, staring fixedly at the door. “It’s too much. Too much to tell.” 

Obi-Wan sighed, considering him with a hand on his chin, thoughtfully stroking his beard. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside Anakin’s feet, placing a hand on the blanket halfway between them. His voice was low and intimate, almost coaxing. “I will listen, Anakin. I need to know the truth. You cannot surprise me like this again. Tell me everything, Padawan.” 

“Master, please,” Anakin begged quietly, cringing away, sick to his stomach. “There are things I can’t say.” 

“Why not?” Obi-Wan said intently, and he was too close.

Anakin shook his head dumbly, speechless at the impossibility of sharing something so horrible. “Because you can’t know.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ll hate me,” Anakin whispered, roughly wiping his eyes and swallowing a whine. “I can’t…” He broke off, unable to continue and finish the thought. I can’t lose you too, Master, I just lost Padmé, I lost my mom, I lost Ahsoka, I’m losing everyone, I’m dying, please, I can’t…

Obi-Wan nodded as though he heard, and Anakin realized that the old training bond was humming between them, and that it was a gap in his shields that he couldn’t fill, that Obi-Wan had direct access if he pushed, and he was going to push. He was going to find out.

He began to cry in earnest again, and Obi-Wan sighed, hand twitching like he wanted to reach out but thought better of it. “You won’t lose me, Anakin. I already told you. You’re my best friend, my brother. I promise you that I will not walk away from you, no matter what.”

“Hah,” Anakin laughed weakly, sniffling loudly and wiping his nose on his sleeve, noticing Obi-Wan’s slightly aggrieved expression at his lack of proper hygiene. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Obi-Wan shook his head dismissively before refocusing. “Anakin, please. Trust me.”

“It’ll ruin everything.”

Obi-Wan hummed negatively, correcting him at once. “If everything requires a lie to keep going, then it’s already ruined, Padawan, and we just don’t know yet. Lies never stay buried forever. It will come out. Does anyone else know?”

Anakin nodded reluctantly, chewing his bottom lip anxiously, only naming names when Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows and tugged on his mind in the Force. “Padmé knows. The Chancellor too.”

Obi-Wan’s head rocked back with offense, his eyes growing sharp and displeased. “You won’t tell me something that you’ve already told the Chancellor of the Republic? Are you serious?”

“He’s… supportive,” Anakin defended himself weakly. 

He felt a deep spike of pain from Obi-Wan ripple out in the Force, and his stomach dropped with regret. He shook his head preemptively, already denying it as Obi-Wan asked sharply. “And I’m not?”

“You are,” Anakin said quickly. “But you…”

“Have moral principles, no doubt, is the issue,” Obi-Wan ground out. He subtly squared his shoulders, looking vaguely ill. “Whatever it is, Anakin, I already told you. I will not walk away.”

Anakin felt paralyzed, on the verge of just giving up. He couldn’t keep avoiding Obi-Wan’s questioning forever, now that he knew there was something to find out, he couldn’t avoid the truth coming out. It didn’t matter what happened to him next. Maybe they would lock him up and forget about him, or maybe even kill him, put him out of his misery. He wouldn't have to fight anymore. Nobody outside would even miss him, except maybe the Chancellor.

“I…” Anakin licked his lips, trying to decide on the best way to describe what happened. “After my mom… I lost control. I was so angry and…” He grimaced and faltered, struggling to continue, mind full of words he couldn’t say. I killed and I liked it. They didn’t deserve to live.

Obi-Wan gave him a pointed look and he forced himself to keep talking, squeezing his arms where they were wrapped around his knees. “I know I… I touched the dark side, and… I… I killed some…” he trailed off, and Obi-Wan nodded once, his face blank, acknowledging the words and prompting him to keep going.

Anakin dropped his eyes to his pants, studying a fraying seam, his volume barely above a whisper. “I killed a lot of them. All of them.”

“Them?” Obi-Wan asked, equally quiet.

Anakin closed his eyes, and decided it was easier to avoid using words that were so heavy and damning. He let the weight of his mother’s body fill his arms again instead, and shared it in the Force, feeling the heat of the fire beside him, the smell of her blood and sweat, the dryness of the air of Tatooine, the surge of loathing for the animals who captured her, tortured her to death, his mother, how dare they kill her so badly…

“Oh,” Obi-Wan gaped. “So you—”

Anakin felt like he was ripping his chest open to remember this clearly, but he showed Obi-Wan anyway, sending him the memories of how the icy, intoxicating wave of the dark side had buoyed him forward in his slaughter, fueling the hate that he expressed with every slash and swing of his lightsaber, regardless of who it cut down, men, women, children…

“Anakin…” Obi-Wan was almost drowning in Anakin’s infinite hatred, the swirl of icy darkness wrapping around and suffocating him, filling his lungs until he was drowning. “Stop. Please.” 

Anakin’s memories of his atrocities vanished abruptly from the Force like an exploding star collapsing in upon itself, leaving a black hole in its place, a dense nothingness that absorbed all light. A deafening silence rang in Obi-Wan’s ears, and the planet swayed beneath him. 

He understood completely why Anakin had hidden this all from him. It absolutely surpassed his worst nightmares; it was the worst case scenario. His former Apprentice was falling to the dark, was soaked in hatred, and he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t known, how hadn’t he known? 

Why hadn’t he let himself know?

He swallowed, his hands trembling. “Anakin…” 

“I’m sorry,” Anakin said so quietly, almost mouthing the words, and Obi-Wan knew that he was only apologizing for how his actions had hurt Obi-Wan, not for the indiscriminate slaughter he’d perpetrated itself. His memories had contained absolutely no remorse about his crimes—he didn’t regret anything, only that it was going to have consequences.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan echoed himself again, numbly, unable to fully process. His mind kept stuttering and looping with the memories of Anakin’s slaughter, the darkness had been so exultant and heady, the small bodies falling and falling. He blinked rapidly and opened his mouth, but all he could say was, “Anakin…”

Anakin’s face crumpled, his handsome features a mask of grief. “Say something else, Master, please.” 

Obi-Wan took another moment to gather himself, watching blankly as tears dripped down Anakin’s flushed cheeks, the light making the tracks on his dewy skin almost shimmer and glow, and his handsome face was made even more lovely in his distress. He just didn’t understand it: how was someone so beautiful capable of such evil?

Anakin was the child of the Force, so filled with joy and love and kindness, when had he been perverted into something horrible, a nightmare? If he’d been falling slow for years, falling away from Obi-Wan and the light, into the gradual sinking embrace of the dark, if this continued much longer, who would he become?

Obi-Wan’s words came out slow and full of disbelief. “You have disappointed me greatly. More than I can say. You’ve murdered…” he forced himself to say it, “children.”

“Are you going to arrest me?” Anakin asked quietly, his eyes so wide and full of pain, as if expecting the worst, and Obi-Wan felt equally devastated.

“I really should. This is… so far beyond the pale, Anakin. It would be for your own good.” 

Anakin curled in on himself, squeezing his legs closer, making himself small. He was so vulnerable, sweet, and wounded looking. Obi-Wan couldn’t reconcile him with what he’d witnessed. He just couldn’t make those acts fit with the world he understood, the man he thought he knew, but he didn’t know him. 

“I understand,” Anakin said quietly, his lip pouting sadly, his eyes wide and pleading, and Obi-Wan felt caught and held in his gaze, unable to look away.

The idea of Anakin falling to the dark side had haunted him since Mortis, but he’d always justified it to himself—yes, he’d seen Anakin lost in its thrall, and he hadn’t been able to break through, but it had just been a trick, a delusion of the Son, it hadn’t been… He hadn’t chosen it. Right? He’d been so sure that Anakin was capable of handling himself, but he’d been so wrong. He was married, so reckless and selfish, a murderer of children, and had been for years.

Anakin’s crying got louder with a jagged sob, and Obi-Wan remembered his promise, remembering asking for his trust. Unlike Anakin, he wasn’t faithless. He set his jaw, and laid a hand on Anakin’s gloved forearm, squeezing reassurance. “I’m not reporting this to the Council because I’m rejecting or abandoning you, I promise. I think this is the right choice because I… You’re in danger and I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Anakin looked baffled through his tears. “What?” 

Obi-Wan’s heart was pounding, and he shakily reached out to wipe the tears off Anakin’s face, cupping his cheek. He held him still to add emphasis to his words, making him meet his eyes, needing him to listen. “Don’t fall to the dark side, Anakin.” 

Anakin panted, almost vibrating in his hold, his eyes going wide. “What?” 

Obi-Wan used his other hand to wipe off his other cheek and then pushed both hands into his soft curls, grabbing and cupping his head, and pulling him closer. Anakin whined quietly in confusion, and Obi-Wan held him still, forcing him to pay attention. “Don’t… go where I can’t follow. I need you not to fall to the dark. I can’t lose you like that… I can’t…” 

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked, his voice so breathless. “What—”

“No, Anakin, be quiet,” Obi-Wan said roughly, fingers tightening slightly in his hair. Anakin went limp, his head entirely resting in Obi-Wan’s palms, and Obi-Wan tugged him even closer. “I thought better of you, and I was so proud of you, don’t you understand? I was so proud, but I was wrong to be, wasn’t I?” 

Anakin made a low, pained noise as though punched, his eyes squeezing closed. His hair was so soft, his head so heavy, he was trusting him. Obi-Wan cleared his throat, when had it gotten so difficult to breathe? “I wasn't sure you could handle the power you wield, but over the years, you proved to me that you could, but now? Now I understand that it’s been a lie the whole time, hasn’t it? You’ve never been able to handle it. You failed me.” 

Anakin cringed, pulling back, but Obi-Wan didn’t let him. His words sped up, low and accusatory. “You’d already failed the most important test, hadn’t you? You should never have been Knighted, never sent away alone. I knew you weren’t ready. I told Yoda and Mace, but they trusted you, do you understand?” Anakin whimpered and nodded, and Obi-Wan huffed with frustration, fingers gripping even tighter, shaking him slightly. “They overruled me because they trusted you. The Council has always trusted you. I did the Hardeen mission because I trusted you. I believed in you and thought you could handle it. It didn’t occur to me that you couldn’t.” 

Anakin’s eyes slowly filled with tears as Obi-Wan lectured him, and Obi-Wan swallowed, his mouth dry as he watched Anakin’s tears drip down his cheeks. He felt almost lightheaded and dizzy with the scope of Anakin’s crimes, his heart racing. His voice had grown so low and admonishing. “We’ve all believed in you so much, but you just couldn’t handle your responsibilities. You weren’t ready. You failed me, failed us all, but that’s because you were alone, and you still needed me, didn’t you?” 

Anakin nodded as best he could with his head in Obi-Wan’s hands, whimpering quietly and sucking on his bottom lip, and Obi-Wan could feel his aching need in the Force, his loneliness and his pervasive fear of being left alone, at having nobody to help him stay sane. He had no idea what would happen if Anakin actually lost everyone, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. 

He shuddered, stroking Anakin’s cheekbone with a thumb, smearing the tears absently, rubbing them into his flushed skin. “You need to stay by my side, always.” 

“Master, yes,” Anakin said on a shaky exhale, agreeing with so much relief. “I know, I’m so sorry, I tried, but I… I failed…”

Obi-Wan sighed, and he slid a hand down and grabbed Anakin firmly by the back of the neck, squeezing as he tugged him forward against his chest, gathering him into a hug. Anakin went easily, letting Obi-Wan move him around, collapsing against him and whining with relief as Obi-Wan folded him in his arms.

“Master,” he murmured gratefully, burying his face in Obi-Wan’s neck and tangling his fingers in his tunics. “I’m so sorry.”

“We will figure this out,” Obi-Wan promised, his heart hurting as Anakin started to weep freely, the Force overwhelmed with his complex spiral of grief, exhaustion, and relief. Obi-Wan felt a strange urge to kiss his hair, and frowned at himself. “Master Yoda will know what to do.”

Anakin shuddered. “I hope so.”

“I know so, young one,” Obi-Wan said with quiet confidence, perhaps more confidence than he truly felt. 

He stroked a palm up and down Anakin’s long spine, trying to soothe and calm him as he cried, his own mind racing. The Council was going to do what, exactly? Lock up the Chosen One, the war hero? Where, the Citadel? Not exactly an option. Some shadowy cell, like where they’d kept Ahsoka? He exhaled hard, wanting to cry at the idea of his beautiful apprentice trapped in a place like that for long. He needed to be under the sun, under the stars.

Anakin struggled to breathe steadily, sobbing against Obi-Wan’s chest, and his hot tears smeared on the skin of Obi-Wan’s neck, making him shiver. Everything felt fragile and precious, simultaneously more and less real than ordinary life. Their proximity was making him feel flushed and oddly shaky in a way it usually didn’t.

He inhaled deeply through his nose to center himself, but the scent of Anakin’s hair only made him feel more dizzy and lost. His Padawan just smelled so familiar, and so good, a heady mixture of leather, musk, and motor oil, it made him shudder and clutch him tighter. Years of comfort and home was carried on his scent, but Obi-Wan couldn't remember the last time they hugged. He almost lost him. He still might.

Anakin curled closer to him, so clearly starved for the reassurance of touch; his relief at being held was palpable in the Force, his overwhelming delight radiating in waves of warmth. His soft lips dragged on Obi-Wan’s pulse as he spoke, and his husky voice was rough and low from crying. “Thank you, Master.”

Oh, no…

Obi-Wan’s eyes widened and he froze, suddenly and mortifyingly aware that his cock throbbed thick and heavy against his leg, half-hard already, and he hadn’t registered it at all. He stopped breathing, going still as a statue as his heart pounded in his ears, all his muscles tensed in horror. He didn’t… Anakin was… 

His mind struggled to accommodate the unexpected twist of desire for someone he’d never considered desirable before. He was struck with this new and terrifyingly strong impulse to push Anakin down on his back on the bed, kiss him deeply, strip him, and fuck inside him. He wanted to claim him for himself, take and have him, show him he was not the Senator’s, not the dark side’s, just his, his Padawan…

Oh, no.

Anakin frowned as Obi-Wan went rigid, the circle of his arms tightening slightly, locking him in place. He exhaled hard, nudging Obi-Wan’s neck with the bridge of his nose, nestling closer against him. “Obi-Wan?” 

There was no response, so Anakin reached out with the Force as well, brushing curiosity against Obi-Wan’s heavily shielded mind, seeking a clue. He could sense that Obi-Wan was filled with mounting horror, that much was escaping out into the Force around him, and he didn’t know why. 

He inhaled sharply as an image bloomed before his mind's eye into a vivid spectacle, tangled up with a hot, sticky mess of Obi-Wan’s desire: Anakin naked and covered by his Master on the bed, legs spread wide, eyes so wet with tears, crying with pleasure as Obi-Wan fucked his thick cock into him, biting his Master’s neck and groaning as he came apart beneath him.  

Anakin moaned with surprise, his cock throbbing, reeling with the intensity of the want in the image as Obi-Wan tried to push him away. What? The loss of contact as Obi-Wan pulled away felt devastating and impossible for Anakin to allow. “What was that?” 

Obi-Wan opened and closed his mouth, but he had no answer for him, and just shook his head, attempting vainly to remove Anakin’s hands from his clothing and stand up. His cheeks had gotten so red beneath his beard with embarrassment, or maybe with desire.

Anakin refused to let his hands drop, fresh tears welling up in his eyes as Obi-Wan attempted to pull free, and a blink sent a tear sliding down his cheek. Obi-Wan noticed and went still, his eyes tracking the progress of the tear, and then flicking down to linger on Anakin’s lips before being ripped away. Fuck.

Obi-Wan’s voice was so deep and rough. “Let me go, Anakin.” 

Anakin whined as his stomach turned upside down, a fierce pulse of his own desire for his Master made his cock twitch and fill. He bit his bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth. Would Obi-Wan kiss him? Could he kiss him? Could he… He explored down Obi-Wan’s strong chest with his flesh hand, seeking a hard length in his trousers, his mouth feeling suddenly far too dry as he actually found it, voice raspy. “Can I suck on this?”

“What?” Obi-Wan yelped, yanking Anakin’s wandering hand off his cock. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” Anakin whined and pushed the vivid image he’d seen back, changing it so he was kneeling between Obi-Wan’s legs with his lips wrapped around his cock, sucking happily, swallowing his come. He watched with satisfaction as Obi-Wan’s throat moved as he swallowed thickly, a blush spreading down his neck. “Please, Master?” 

The afternoon light was striking Obi-Wan’s sandy hair, catching and highlighting the auburn and copper strands. He was graying slightly at the temples, and he was so much more handsome than Anakin had ever noticed before. His light blue eyes were so dark with desire, and Anakin could see his lips, and they looked soft, he wanted to kiss them more than anything. “I want you to do what you wanted, Obi-Wan. I want you to fuck me like you wanted.” 

Obi-Wan exhaled sharply, shaking his head as if to shake off drowsiness, his voice like gravel. “No, Anakin.” 

“Why not?”

Obi-Wan tried to remove Anakin’s metal fingers from gripping his tunic with a harassed expression, hastily catching and holding Anakin’s free wrist to prevent his hand returning to his cock. “Stop this now. Let me go.”

“Why?” Anakin tugged on his hand, wanting to get his hand back on Obi-Wan’s cock more than anything. Or his mouth, or in his ass, his Master inside him, a new, excellent idea. “I want it, please, Obi-Wan.” 

“Don’t be absurd,” Obi-Wan growled as he finally pulled free, taking a stumbling step back from the bed, staring down at Anakin reproachfully. “We can’t do that!”

Anakin tried to swallow a needy whine, looking intently at Obi-Wan’s hard cock, and it seemed even harder the longer he stared, even larger. He wanted to lick it, take it. He’d never done that before, never been with anyone but Padmé, but he wanted to more than anything…

“Why can’t we? I can see you want me, and sense it in the Force. Why not?”

“You cannot possibly be serious, Anakin!” Obi-Wan sounded like he was questioning Anakin’s sanity. “That would be the worst possible idea. I know you have no respect for Jedi ethics, but I do, and I’ve literally never thought of you in this way before. I cannot start now.”

“But you already have,” Anakin argued, and sat up on his knees and reached out for Obi-Wan, trying to pull him back, get him on top of him on the bed. His world was falling apart, and this was the first solid ground he’d seen. He needed this. “You already want me.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” Obi-Wan resisted being pulled, but he also wasn’t leaving, standing stubbornly still. “It doesn’t change what I will do about it, which is nothing.”

Anakin pouted, and let his hands fall away. Obi-Wan’s rejection was perfectly sensible, and he knew that it was a bad idea, but he wanted him anyway, and to be denied once he’d thought of it made him ache deeply. He took a shaky breath, wiping his face again on his sleeve, and sat back on his heels. He felt raw and unwanted, and tried to crush his despair down into the dark pit at the bottom of his heart where he stored everything he wasn’t allowed to feel.

“Okay.” 

“Anakin, don’t…” Obi-Wan was staring at him, his eyes so intent and concerned. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Anakin asked morosely, looking down and studying the creased leather of his glove, brushing off Obi-Wan’s soft touch in the Force. Obi-Wan’s forehead creased at Anakin’s rejection, and whatever he was doubtless leaking into the Force. Obi-Wan’s deep, admonishing voice was making Anakin’s cock leak too, his precome making him feel messy and wrong; he always wanted more than he could have, a failure of a Jedi, pathetic and useless and greedy and—

Obi-Wan cut off his thoughts, his concern rich and potent in the Force. “Don’t let yourself dwell in this much darkness. Accept and release your emotions, don’t keep them inside. You really must meditate more.” 

Anakin laughed bitterly. “Your cock is hard and you’re telling me to meditate? I really hate you.” He swallowed and looked up with wide eyes, telling his deepest truth. “I’m drowning, Master. I need your help.”

Obi-Wan’s face twisted as though pained. “Help?”

“I’m alone,” Anakin whispered, rubbing his chest where it ached with loneliness with the heel of his hand. “I’m so alone.”

“You aren’t, Anakin. I am here for you, I just can’t…”

“Touch me,” Anakin completed the sentence dully. “You won’t touch me.” He slumped over to his side and then lay back on the bed, his head finding his pillow, staring at the ceiling instead of Obi-Wan’s simultaneously aroused and devastated face. “Okay.”

Obi-Wan felt extremely conflicted in the Force, and Anakin wished that his powerful rationality would lose just for once, and that he would give in to an impulse. He always used his better judgment and denied himself any selfishness and greed. “Be greedy about me,” Anakin thought, offering his plea to the Force, and he knew Obi-Wan could sense his thoughts. “Be selfish about me. You can. You can take me. I need you. I’m dying.”

“You’re not,” Obi-Wan dismissed the thought immediately. “You’re just falling. You’ve already fallen so far.”

Anakin rolled his head to the side, seeking and holding eye contact. “Stop me then.” 

“That’s not fair,” Obi-Wan said quietly, but he drew closer as though trapped in a tractor beam, standing at the edge of the bed again, close enough for him to touch. “You can’t put that on someone else.”

Anakin felt too hot, too hidden, and he licked his lips nervously before he reached for the fastening of his belt, undoing it and pushing it off, letting it fall to Obi-Wan’s feet, and Obi-Wan warily watched it drop. “What are you doing?”

“Getting more comfortable. I didn’t sleep last night, so…” he trailed off, shrugging off his leather tabards and pushing them to the floor too with a soft thump. He sent a wave of need out in the Force, tugging on him intangibly. “Want to sleep with me? You look tired, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan laughed, a single, incredulous exhale, his eyes following Anakin’s hands as they untied his outer tunic, parting the fabric to reveal the softer inner shirt, and Anakin breathed in Obi-Wan’s cloud of helpless, guilty need in the Force as if it were fresh air. “Want me, take me, have me, Master, please…”

Obi-Wan swallowed, his mouth so dry. He couldn’t think, he was dizzy, there was no blood in his brain to think, his cock hurt. He needed to have left. He couldn’t move. “Anakin, I…” 

Anakin huffed and stripped off his inner tunic too, leaving himself bare chested in the golden afternoon light. His collarbones were almost delicate and yet his chest so strong, littered with faint scars from years of war, the injuries so severe that even bacta couldn’t erase the evidence. He’d been through so much pain and trauma, this beautiful boy, he hurt so much, he’d done heinous things. 

Obi-Wan’s eyes slid from his impossibly long neck to where a light trail of hair disappeared into the waist of his pants, and saw that Anakin was hard too. Anakin noticed where he was looking and unfastened his pants, opening them slowly, teasingly pushing them down to reveal light brown curls and the flushed skin of his hard length. He wrapped his long, slender flesh fingers around his cock and pulled it out, squeezing it gently, the head leaking shiny precome, and… fuck. 

Something snapped deep inside Obi-Wan’s mind, some important part of his self control yielding the field without a fight. Anakin’s crimes had shattered him, and he was sliding downhill toward a disaster that he couldn’t avoid. He didn’t want to avoid it, didn’t want to stop it. Anakin needed his help; he needed him, wanted him… He reached down thoughtlessly and stroked his fingers up the smooth skin from Anakin’s navel up between his strong pectorals, making his stomach contract and his hand moved up and down on his cock. 

“Please,” Anakin begged so sweetly. “I need you, Obi-Wan, please.”

Obi-Wan met his lust intoxicated eyes, and everything else in the galaxy blurred and faded away. Gravity seemed far too strong, and he put a knee on the bed to stay upright. Anakin sat up, his hands jumping to Obi-Wan’s chest, grabbing and tugging him close, kissing him hard, and Obi-Wan met his lips and kissed back desperately, the kiss immediately deep and sloppy, all restraint left behind. He sank a hand into Anakin’s messy curls and tugged, and Anakin whimpered and fell back, pulling Obi-Wan on top of him, trapping him between his legs. 

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan breathed, breaking the kiss and immediately kissing down the long column of his neck, appreciating the scent of his sweat, the taste of his skin. His hand fell to wrap around Anakin’s cock, holding it and feeling its weight in his hand. Anakin’s hips rolled up, seeking more, and Obi-Wan smiled against his skin despite everything. Of course he'd be like this in bed, always rushing, so impatient. “So eager.”

“I need you,” Anakin panted, tipping his head back and pressing his neck against Obi-Wan’s mouth, desperate for contact. “Please, Master.”

Obi-Wan bit him gently, holding him with his teeth for a moment, making him whine, and then sat back, letting Anakin strip him down too. He gave space for Anakin to kick off his boots and pants, appreciating his long, lanky body, all the exposed skin, so tanned and gorgeous in the golden half-light; he was so strong and beautiful, like a work of art.

Anakin ran a hand down Obi-Wan’s chest hair and groaned, his eyes fixed down. “Your cock is perfect, Master.”

“What,” Obi-Wan laughed, kicking his own pants off and climbing back on top of the bed, covering Anakin again, unable to stay away. He pressed a firm kiss to his lips and then pulled his head back, smiling wryly, so fond of Anakin, his earnest, artless intensity. “Thank you, I suppose.”

“I want it inside me,” Anakin confessed, smiling back and squirming against him in a maddeningly perfect way, making his cock throb. “Just like you imagined. I want that.”

Obi-Wan bent down and sucked hard on one of his nipples, making him twitch and whine. “Have you ever done anything like that before?”

“No,” Anakin whimpered. “I’ve only…”

“Been with your wife?” Obi-Wan asked, acid creeping into his tone, and he bit down a little harder. Anakin made a little surprised, pained noise, and Obi-Wan's cock ached as he sucked a row of dark marks on Anakin’s chest, making him cry out. Padmé had seen this, heard this. Obi-Wan couldn't stand it. He grabbed and squeezed Anakin's ass, fingertips digging in to the soft curve. “She never fucked you here?”

“What? No,” Anakin said, breathless with surprise. “She could’ve done that?”

Obi-Wan was filled with so much fondness at his naiveté. “Yes, darling.”

“She didn’t, nobody has, Master, even I haven’t, not really, but…” He whined and linked both of his hands behind Obi-Wan’s neck, pulling his face back to kiss, his eyes wide and begging. “Please.”

Obi-Wan sighed and kissed him, taking control and pushing him down, his cock aching, far too excited by the idea that Anakin’s ass was untouched. Something that was his. He wasn’t allowed to think that. He didn’t care. He licked between Anakin’s slightly chapped lips, tasting his mouth and running his tongue against his teeth. 

Anakin shuddered and his legs fell open on instinct, jerking his hips up and rubbing his cock against Obi-Wan’s bare stomach. He broke the kiss, gasping. “Please, Master. I want it.”

“You might not like it.”

“I will,” Anakin vowed confidently, always so reckless and daring. “I know I will.”

Obi-Wan sat back on his heels between Anakin’s spread legs, grabbing the backs of his thighs and roughly pushing his legs apart, tipping his hips back, exposing him to his sight. Anakin’s embarrassment flared in the Force as Obi-Wan looked at the pink, tight swirl of his hole. He whined unhappily, “Master…” 

“You’re good, so good,” Obi-Wan said roughly, smiling at him reassuringly and surrounding him with warmth in the Force, stroking his thumbs in circles on his thighs. Anakin slowly relaxed, his legs splaying open wider as he pushed through his bashfulness. 

He rocked his hips impatiently. “Please, Master.”

Obi-Wan brushed his fingertips lightly against the soft skin of his entrance, making his breath catch. “Do you have some kind of oil or bacta, anything to ease my way?”

“Umm,” Anakin blinked at him blankly, and Obi-Wan’s heart filled with affection; it felt almost too full, spilling out and around them both into the Force, meeting and intensifying the feeling of need between them. Anakin licked his lips slowly, eyes clearing as the words finally processed. “Bacta, yes. I have bacta.”

“Very good,” Obi-Wan praised him warmly, letting his legs drop and sitting back on his heels. “Where?”

“In the ’fresher,” Anakin pouted at the loss of contact, his hand jumping to his cock, squeezing the head gently.  

Obi-Wan shook his head at his inability to wait, and went to fetch the half-full tube of the thick, clear, slightly sticky substance that had such potent healing abilities. It was not an ideal lube, but it did make the recovery process for the person who had been fucked easier, so there was some benefit. He wouldn’t hurt him, he refused to. He wanted to help him, please him, keep him, and do this a thousand more times. He wasn’t allowed to think that. He didn’t care. 

Anakin was pouting as he came back, displeased at how long he was taking, and he had to laugh at his impatience. He resumed his position between Anakin’s legs, and Anakin adjusted himself, spreading his thighs and offering himself up. Obi-Wan stroked the soft skin between his legs, the almost invisible golden hair, appreciating the almost ethereal beauty of Anakin spread out beneath him. 

“Master,” Anakin scowled, his back arching, hips wiggling. “Hurry up.”

“You’re lovely,” Obi-Wan replied simply, making him blush. 

He opened the bacta and liberally coated his hand, wrapping it around Anakin’s flushed cock, stroking it up and down, spreading the gel and then letting go. Anakin whimpered, keeping his hands at his sides, grabbing the blankets. “Very good, my darling.”

“Please,” Anakin gasped, and he moaned loudly as Obi-Wan’s slick fingers stroked down and around his balls, dragging down toward his hole. He swore in Huttese as Obi-Wan circled his rim lightly. “Gi shatta gasha, Master…”

Obi-Wan gathered himself for a moment, and then let a single slick finger ease inside Anakin’s body, groaning quietly at the unbelievable soft heat of Anakin, even just around a fingertip, he felt so perfect. He was going to feel absurdly perfect around his cock…

Anakin made a surprised, confused noise at the intrusion, reflexively tightening around him, and Obi-Wan rubbed his thigh in reassurance. “Bear down, darling. Let me in.”

Anakin swallowed and nodded, his brow furrowing in an adorably focused expression, his entire attention focused on where Obi-Wan was touching him, and Obi-Wan pressed his finger in deeper. He took it so well, Obi-Wan was able to smoothly slide it in and out, sinking deeper inside each time. Anakin’s chest was expanding and contracting so fast, his breathing so fast and shallow, his head tipped back, eyes rolled back, and Obi-Wan smiled. “Does that feel good, Anakin? Do you like that?”

“Master,” he moaned almost obscenely, his greed insistent and immediate. “More. Give me more.”

Obi-Wan slipped his finger out and Anakin’s head snapped up in horror, confused by the sensation. Obi-Wan remembered his first time. “My finger, darling. I’m getting more bacta, I’ll give you two.”

“Oh,” Anakin exhaled with relief, collapsing back. “That felt good.”

“It’ll feel even better,” Obi-Wan promised lowly, pressing two fingers inside, carefully opening him up. Anakin moaned, focusing and letting him slide them inside so perfectly, Obi-Wan couldn’t help but praise him. “Good, Anakin, just like that.”

Anakin whined, his happiness flaring out incandescent in the Force. Obi-Wan pushed his fingers in harder, fucking them in and out before curling them up, seeking the spot that he knew would make Anakin moan and beg. He rubbed against it deliberately, and Anakin cried out, his abs contracting and hands scrabbling on the blankets.

His eyes were dark and wild, mouth open and wet. “What was that?” 

“You like that?” Obi-Wan smiled slowly with satisfaction, and Anakin shivered as he stroked his prostate again teasingly. 

“Yes,” Anakin moaned loudly as Obi-Wan fucked his finger in and out a few times before returning to stroke it again. Anakin whimpered, his incredulous pleasure eddying in the Force, warm and sparkling in Obi-Wan’s mind. “I didn’t know, Master. I didn’t know.”

Obi-Wan’s hard cock throbbed almost painfully at the idea that there was something more that he had to teach his Padawan. He wasn’t allowed to think that. He didn’t care. He spread his fingers, opening him up more, getting him ready to fuck. He was impressed at how quickly Anakin was figuring out how to relax his hips and pushed down on his fingers, taking him deeper and deeper. 

He kissed his stomach, fingers moving so easily. “Doing so well for me.”

Anakin groaned, nodding fast. “I want… I want…”

“I know,” Obi-Wan kissed his stomach again, sucking a small mark and then kissing the bruise. “You’re almost ready.” 

“Now,” Anakin demanded, and his pout was so cute. Obi-Wan loved him so much. He couldn’t lose him.

Obi-Wan nodded and pulled his fingers out. He spread more bacta on his cock, stroking it slowly and looking Anakin up and down, considering. “Roll over. Unless you want to sit on me, take it at your own pace?”

Anakin shook his head, almost offended, and opened his arms demandingly. “I want it just like you imagined. Like this.” 

“It’s not—”

“I don’t care!”

“Open your legs and keep them open, then,” Obi-Wan instructed him, grabbing his thighs and moving his very pliant Padawan into the optimal position. Anakin hummed and obediently stayed where he was placed, and Obi-Wan leaned forward to kiss him, hovering on his elbows over him. He was being so good. Anakin wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him closer, kissing him sloppily. 

Obi-Wan kissed him back and finally, finally let himself line up his cock, pressing the sensitive head against the soft, slick skin of Anakin’s ass. Anakin gasped, looking up at him, so much emotion in his eyes that Obi-Wan couldn’t parse it all, the Force a swirling mess of need and nerves. He tipped his head forward and pressed their foreheads together. 

“Breathe,” Obi-Wan murmured, listening as Anakin obediently breathed in, and then he pushed his hips forward as Anakin exhaled, slipping the head of his cock inside and thrusting forward as the breath left his body, punched out with a loud groan. 

“E chu ta,” Anakin swore, whimpering quietly. “You’re big.”

Obi-Wan stilled, adjusting to the incredible hot pressure of Anakin’s tight body, his cock buried inside him, and he was inside Anakin. Anakin shuddered, and Obi-Wan kissed him hard, rewarding him as he rocked his hips and pushed down against Obi-Wan’s cock, taking another inch, tentatively fucking himself on his cock. 

Obi-Wan groaned, sliding a hand into Anakin’s curls and then making a fist, tugging gently. “Good, Anakin?”

“So good,” Anakin whined, rolling his hips more assertively. “Move please, Master.”

Obi-Wan made a low pleased sound, and moved with him, maintaining heated eye contact as his hips began to slide back and thrust forward, carefully and relentlessly opening him up and making him take it; Anakin was so hot and soft and tight, surrounding and holding him inside. Fucking him felt incredible, molten pleasure sparkling up his spine and spilling out to the Force, Anakin’s mind open and sparkling too. 

“Master,” Anakin panted, his expression overwhelmed, so flushed and needy. “Master.”

“I know,” Obi-Wan nodded, fucking him harder, and he took it so well, they were so immediately in sync; Anakin knew intimately, intuitively well how to read his body, how to match and mimic him, and he was such a quick learner of all things physical. “So good for me.”

Anakin’s pink mouth opened with a gasp, eyes rolled back, his flushed face almost incredulous as his head tipped back with pleasure. Obi-Wan was so deeply familiar with his apprentice’s love of praise, he couldn’t help but smile. He curled forward and buried his face against Anakin’s long neck, kissing, licking, and biting it gently as his hips snapped forward.

One sharp, final thrust at the right angle and his entire length of his cock slid inside, and the sound of their hips slapping together made Anakin moan loudly. Obi-Wan immediately sped up his pace, the small room filling with the mixture of fucking and the slurred Huttese and whimpers he pulled from Anakin’s lips.

He leaned back enough to grab Anakin’s calves and pull his legs over his shoulders, bending forward to kiss him again and almost folding him in half. Anakin wrapped his arms around his neck to kiss him, but Obi-Wan redirected Anakin’s flesh hand from his neck down to his own cock.

Obi-Wan’s voice was slightly strained, deep and breathless. “Touch yourself for me.”

“Yes, Master,” Anakin agreed, jerking himself quickly. “But I’m going to…”

“I want you to come apart under me, remember?” Obi-Wan reminded him intently, changing the angle of his hips with deliberate care, stroking in at the right angle to hit Anakin’s prostate, making him cry out, his face overwhelmed with pleasure. His eyes filled with tears as Obi-Wan continued to fuck him, his hand going limp, taking him so well. 

“Yes, Master,” he whimpered, and he looked so beautiful, flushed and needy. Obi-Wan’s fondness flared in the Force, seeking Anakin’s mind and wrapping around it, clinging to it in a way that he knew was not allowed. Anakin was not the only bad Jedi in the room, not the only greedy one; they were made of the same thing, for better or worse. His best friend. His other half.

Anakin’s eyes widened, taking him in the Force just as well as he was taking his cock, letting him in everywhere and surrendering everything over to him with relief. He groaned loudly, and Obi-Wan slowed down, fucking him steadily and intentionaly, pushing him toward the edge. His overstimulation brought him to tears, and he began to cry as Obi-Wan kissed him. 

Obi-Wan knocked their foreheads together again, their breath mingling together, so intertwined in the Force, sharing a cresting wave of need. Anakin’s breath hitched, and he pleaded, eyes so wide and wet. “Please, Obi-Wan, please.”

“Come,” Obi-Wan ordered roughly, his own orgasm building, so close. “Come on me, that’s a good boy, you can, please, Anakin—”

“Master,” Anakin cut him off with a husky moan, his head curling forward and face going tight as he came, painting Obi-Wan’s lower stomach with hot streaks. He felt so incredible around Obi-Wan’s cock as he orgasmed, his pleasure so hot and consuming in the Force, Obi-Wan and tipped into his own almost immediately.

He slammed his hips home one last time, so deep in Anakin’s tight body, and came. “Gods,” he swore with a groan, the release overwhelming and long, so much more intense than usual, blinking away flecks of light. “Fuck, Anakin.”  His come was inside Anakin. He just came in his Padawan. The Council would damn them both. It should. He didn’t care.

“Wow,” Anakin said woozily, and his smile was so dazzling, wide and crooked. “That was wizard.”

Obi-Wan grinned back, his heart full, the Force around them a honey haze of affection. The rest of the galaxy wasn’t real in that moment—Anakin was the most real thing, the most important, the most precious, and it was right. “It was.” 

He pulled his cock out, growing slightly uncomfortable, and cleaned them both off lazily with the edge of the sheet. Anakin insistently pulled him to his chest, clinging and refusing to let him go out of reach, and Obi-Wan collapsed beside him and let him curl up on his chest and bury his face back in his neck, tangling their legs together, sighing with satisfaction. 

“What’s going to happen now, Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan barked a laugh, relaxing into the mattress, years of tension he hadn’t realized he was carrying released. The future was out of his control now, he had no way of knowing how the Council would react. They’d both fucked up, just in very different degrees. “I don’t know.”

“You always know,” Anakin frowned, and his blind faith was just as frustrating as it was endearing. “You’re usually right.”

“Usually,” Obi-Wan said, huffing slightly. “That’s very different than always. I don’t know what will happen to us now. I don’t always have a plan, Padawan. Sometimes I just jump.”

“Oh,” Anakin said blankly, nuzzling back against his neck and huffing a sigh. “So we’re in trouble.”

Obi-Wan hummed, wrapping his arms around Anakin's back and kissing his hair. “Give me time to get blood back in my brain, darling. Then we can talk.”

“I’m really tired,” Anakin confessed in a small voice. “I’ve been so tired for so long.”

“Rest,” Obi-Wan encouraged him, kissing his hair again and gathering him close. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?”

“I will be here,” Obi-Wan promised, and he tightened his arms in a reassuring embrace. Anakin relaxed completely against his chest, his breathing slowing down, his mind so calm and placid in the Force. He should always be this sweet. If only. “I’ll always be here.”