Chapter Text
Obi-Wan Kenobi trudged back to the dingy hotel on Corellia. Shoulders slumped and feet tripping slightly every few steps. Maybe continuing to drink while waiting for his date to show up wasn’t a good idea, but it’s not like he knew she’d ghost him! He waited at the diner for over an hour, holding out hope and then making excuses, until he finally realized he’d been well and truly ditched.
It’s a shame. For one, the friend he had made while him and Qui-Gon are on this long stake out mission said she was wonderful, and two, he had spent way too many credits on the bundle of imported, Alderaanian Flame-Roses currently loosely grasped in his hand.
Obi-Wan was fully aware of the Jedi code. He may still be just a padawan with 23 years of life experience in this galaxy, but the Jedi code had been well and hammered into him since before he could remember.
He knows attachment is bad or whatever, for reasons that he doesn’t understand. All he wanted was a date. To finally experience one like in the romantic holonovels and holofics he reads. Sure, a meal at some random, half broken down diner with a girl he’d never met on Corellia wasn’t his idea of stellar romantic ambience, but it was something.
Obi-Wan was a hopeless romantic, but he’d never tell anyone that. Quinlan knew, but only because he’s a kriffing nerfherder who goes through other peoples personal datapads and then judges them for the certain brands of fluff and spice they like to read.
Well, Obi-Wan supposed he at least couldn’t get in trouble even if Qui-Gon did find out. Technically, no date meant he couldn’t be lectured on attachment, so that was fine, he guessed.
Ugh.
Obi-Wan blinked, suddenly coming back to himself after wallowing in his tipsy and downtrodden thoughts.
Ah kriff. He had no idea where he was.
On Corellia, in an alley, but that was about it.
At first, he tried to retrace his steps, but ended up getting even more lost since he could not remember where he had even been. Obi-Wan found himself in what seemed to be the darkest dredges in the city. He had stumbled right on into low life and scum territory. One look at his com and-
Yup. No service.
The padawan huffed, tossing his shoulder-length hair back with a groan to the sky. Well, not the sky. He couldn’t currently see it. Too much smog.
“Just my kriffing luck.” He spat to himself as he stomped down the alley, disappointed and tipsy and lost and determined to just keep moving forward-
Upon turning a corner, his body collided with another. He stumbled back, mumbling an awkward apology before stopping once he got a good look at the stranger.
Boy did Obi-Wan look.
It was a human man, taller than him by only a few inches. He wore all black, some mix of robes and and armor plating with silver accents. The man had short, wavy, copper hair that went down to the middle of his neck with dashes of pepper grey around his temples. He had some triangular, mechanical mask over his nose and mouth that strapped across his jaw. Above the mask, he had two thick brows, his right one bisected by a scar. Beneath the brows sat a pair of intense and beautiful eyes.
Golden eyes.
Ah kriff.
Of course the most handsome thing Obi-Wan had ever seen in his life was a sith. He just couldn’t catch a break, could he? The tall glass of Corellian whiskey wore all black because he was sith. He had a lightsaber hilt strapped to his belt that Obi-Wan just now noticed because he was a sith.
“Are you lost, young padawan?”
“Oh kriff me.”
The stranger seemed to flinch at Obi-Wans groan, blinking those shimmering eyes of his.
“I thought this evening couldn’t get any worse! I zapped almost all my pocket credits, got stood up on a blind date, got lost, and ran into the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life or in my dreams and he turns out to be a sith.”
Thanks to the alcohol he had earlier, that was specially made to keep someone drunk for longer, Obi-Wan couldn’t really sense this man in the force. Thus, it was hard to gage what he was thinking. The sith was just…staring at him now.
“Aren’t you going to kill me? Honestly, it’d be a good way to go, killed by such a sexy sith lord and all.”
He must need to have his mask checked out, clearly there was some malfunction for it to start sputtering briefly like it did.
What did Obi-Wan just say? He didn’t remember.
“You know, if anyone deserves these imported flowers, it’s you.” The younger man said, holding them upright and extending them out for the sith to take. “I’m actually glad I got ditched, if it meant I could see you and give you these before I die. There are all these lines written in holonovels where the protagonist meets their eventual match, and has this moment where they are completely overcome. I’m feeling that way right now, I have to say.”
Obi-Wan gave a little giggle as something occurred to him. “Kriff, could you imagine if the council found out I said that? I think they would actually kill me on the basis that I thought the gold in your eyes was prettier than any sunset I’d ever seen alone!”
Obi-Wan stared at the man who had finally taken the flowers from him, staring at them silently before lifting his eyes back to the padawan. The pair just stood there under a half broken neon light, staring at each other.
“What’s your name, young one?” The Sith asked in that delicious voice of his. Was it wavering slightly? Nah, he just needs that mask looked at.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“Hm.”
“Do I get to know your name?”
“Darth Vader.”
Obi-Wan stuck out his bottom lip in a pout, Vaders eyes immediately moving down to look at it. “That’s your made up dark side name. What’s your real name?”
“Maybe more flowers will pry it out of me.” He said it so deadpan, but Obi-Wan could recognize joking sass when he heard it. After all, he was a master at it.
“Will more flowers turn you back to the light?” He asked with a small smile and a lift of his brow.
“Maybe, Obi-Wan.”
Vader stepped forward, lifting his free hand not holding the bouquet and gently caressing Obi-Wans jaw. The leather was warm from the heat of his hand, and then everything went black.
“Maybe.”
***
Obi-Wan blinks blearily awake, groaning at the dull throbbing in his skull. Luckily the room he was in was pretty dim, so his eyes didn’t feel overwhelmed. His whole body felt like goo, formless and gross. He smacked his lips, hating the taste stuck to his tongue in his dry mouth.
Ugh, what happened last-
“Last night!”
The padawan shot upright only to immediately wince in pain and clutch his skull. It took a handful of seconds for the sharp pain to die down enough for him to open his eyes again. Obi-Wan found he was in his hotel room. Still in his nondescript, plain clothes from the evening before, tucked under his covers.
“What…?”
He saw his lightsaber had been removed from his belt and placed on the nightstand by the bed. Next to it sat a sealed bottle of water and a small packet of pain pills. What really drew Obi-Wans attention though, was the small, folded piece of flimsiplast.
Padawan,
Thank you for the flowers. I will keep them alive as long as I’m able.
~ Vader
For a few moments Obi-Wan thought that maybe, just maybe, Qui-Gon had miraculously found him and hauled his passed out ass all the way back to their hotel.
But no. It was worse. Or, was it better? Obi-Wan couldn’t decide, too much blood was being diverted from his brain to his cheeks as they rapidly reddened.
“Holy kriff, I actually did meet a Sith Lord last night!” He placed his hand over his mouth, eyes roving over each hand written letter on the small note over and over.
One. Vader had lovely handwriting. Each twist and curve and line was beautiful and Obi-Wan wanted it tattooed on his skin yesterday.
Two. Everything that happened last night was real. Everything.
Not that Obi-Wan regretted it. Not at all - Vader was and still is the most handsome man Obi-Wan had ever seen - but he was just so brazen in his flirtation! Drunkenly giggling and being so candid and-
“Oh kriff.” That meant there was no way Obi-Wans mental shields had been in tact. Vader could probably sense every single thirsty, horny and unhinged thought being directed his way!
With a mortified whine, the padawan flopped down onto his back onto the rudely hard hotel mattress, blushing furiously. He lifted his arm, looking at the note until it registered with him.
He was holding a note from Vader.
The sith lord brought him, carried him, all the way across the city. He somehow either already knew or figured out which hotel and then which specific room Obi-Wan was staying in. He then broke into it with the force, no doubt, tucked the padawan into bed and making sure his weapon wouldn’t dig into him uncomfortably while he slept. Then, the sith found water, pain pills, and flimsi and a pen to write a note for Obi-Wan to find when he woke up.
The young man felt overwhelmed for many reasons at that moment, but among all of the emotions he was feeling, the most primary was cherished. He felt…cared for by the sith who owed him nothing. A man who should hate him just based on his status as a jedi in training.
Would a truly evil man do something like that?
Was there…maybe, possibly, a way back to the light for him?
Obi-Wan slowly sat back up as the thought occured to him. With this war, he had already seen his fair share of savagery. The padawan had seen far crueler creatures than the sith he met last night. Beings like the slavers on Zygerria and Jabba the Hutt. Soulless chunks of matter that do nothing but spread misery and pain.
Vaders eyes may be golden, but Obi-Wan saw a soul in their depths. One that cared about some tipsy and flirty padawan he’d never met enough to see him to safety.
Oh kriff I think I’m in love.
He had read a lot of romance holonovels with a similar through line. Some misguided, dark haired, brooding soul was saved and redeemed though the healing power of care and affection from his love interest. If it worked in those stories, if it seemed to work a little last night, could it keep working?
Could he, a padawan, maybe, just maybe, being a Sith back to the light? Turn the tide of the war? Get a boyfriend out of the whole ordeal? Husband? Love of his life?
Well, Obi-Wan thought as he looked at the flowing curves of the word ‘Padawan’, he was going to for sure as kriff try.
***
“That’s a kriffing terrible plan.”
Obi-Wan groaned. “I knew better than to come to you about this.”
“And yet, you did, because I’m your only best friend.” Quinlan pointed out.
“Aren’t best friends supposed to support each other?”
“Not when one of them is hatching up some spice-pot scheme to romance a sith lord he’s only met once!”
Obi-Wan tossed his hands in the air. “He carried me all the way back to my room safe and sound! I told you that!”
“Yes and you also told me he was a sith lord!”
Obi-Wan huffed, crossing his arms and looking to the side at some nondescript spot on Quinlans wall. “It’s just a title.”
“Just a-!” Quinlan smacked his forehead with his hand. “Obi-Wan, buddy, pal, I love ya and all, but this is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Yes, you’ve made that sentiment known. It doesn’t chnage the fact that I intend to go through with my plan of romance!”
“By giving him a tracker so you know where he is at all times?” He raised his brow, looking across the living room at his dumbass friend.
“I told you, it’s a one way com that just happens to have tracking capabilities. Plus, do you just expect me to wait until our paths mystically cross again during this war? How do you expect me to get him more flowers? No. I cant sit idly by. What if he catches someone else’s eye in the meantime?!”
“What if he murders more people in the meantime? Which he probably will do! Sith! Lord!”
Obi-Wan had the balls not to look sheepish. Or maybe it was insanity. Quinlan couldn’t tell. “Eh, I mean, technically we’re murdering people too right now. It’s a war.”
Another slap to the face. His forehead was in the fast track to turning bright red. “So there is absolutely nothing I can say to change your mind on this?”
“Nope.”
“Nothing at all?”
“I’m pretty sure I love him.”
“Oh my kriffing force.”
“So are you gonna have my back with this or not?”
Obi-Wan looked so pathetic, pouting like a child still waiting to be given a master to train him. Quinlan also knew, that despite how he looked, his friend was one of the most bullheaded, determined people he knew. “For the record, I don’t, at all, condone the wooing of a dark lord of the sith who could be twice your age for all you know.”
“He’s no-“
“But- you’re my friend. My insane friend who reads way too much holoporn-“
“Hey!”
“And because of that, I want to make sure you don’t die. So, yes. I will help you.”
Obi-Wan leapt up from his seat, wrapping Quinlan up in a gundark hug. “You’re the best!”
“Yup, I know.”
He releases his friend from the hug to hand him the two pieces of tech in his tunic pocket. “So you’ll make sure the com gets fixed before my next mission?”
“It’ll be ready for you to give to your prince charming.”
***
Somewhere, across the galaxy, a sith lord has a bad feeling.
