Work Text:
The Skywalker-Kenobi household was fully furnished and decorated beyond belief as far as the eye can see since the start of December. This was done in courtesy of Anakin, who declared that Christmas is the best holiday ever, even better than Halloween and demanded that their first officially joint Christmas had to be perfect and over the top to be fully enjoyed.
So he dug out the sparkly Christmas lights from his childhood, the glittery banister ornaments, the old and falling apart stockings to hang on the fireplace (which they thankfully have in their new home), crates of tree ornaments and dumped them all on the living room floor, making a huge mess. Literally dumped them out of their boxes into a cluttered and jumbled mess where they all got mixed and tangled together. Anakin then looked up sheepishly and asked for help.
Thinking that this was absurd but head-over-heels and desperately in love with his new husband, Obi-Wan agreed without question and spent a blissful and ridiculous afternoon organising the small chaos while snuggled up to Anakin's larger frame. During the time, they planned the coming days; where each decoration will go, if they should buy even more lights to hang on the outside of their house, who they should invite over for the Christmas dinner other than the obvious ones (Ahsoka, Satine, Padmé, Rex and Cody), how big of a pine tree they need to buy for it to actually fit in their living room, things like that.
Anakin became more and more exuberant with each point, eyes shining and barely restrained glee as be imagined the newly decorated house that was probably going to be a fire hazard soon. He wanted every inch of the house to scream holiday cheers, for mistletoes to be hung on every entryway, doorframe and hallways ceilings so that Obi-Wan would morally be obligated to kiss his darling husband silly, which was just adorable and heart-melting for the other man. He would spend the rest of his living days doing nothing but kissing Anakin at every opportunity if they didn’t have ridiculous things like jobs or other obligations.
Nevertheless, they spent weeks carrying out every aspect of their plans. Anakin, the engineer, and Obi-Wan, the master planner, drew up the house and actually measured how much christmas lights they’d need to line every ceiling lining and the outside of the house, to buy even more garland to furnish the staircase banister with, wreathes to hang in every room and red ribbons to wrap each door to make them look like presents. Some of the ideas were stolen from TikTok at Anakin's insistence, but some were traditions he held on from his childhood when his mother was an even bigger Christmas enthusiast. Most of it passed down in the form of an elaborate Christmas dinner: full roast turkey with mashed potatoes and veggies on the side, a half a leg of home baked ham, mountains of grilled cheese, some roast beef, sardine gratin and chocolate chip ice-cream sprinkled with crushed gingerbread cookies and topped with whipping cream. Shmi, while not well off, made sure to save up for the Skywalker’s infamous Christmas and shared it with everyone else who could come. When Anakin started dating Obi-Wan, he was put into the kitchen as well so they could all learn how to keep the tradition going. And unfortunately for the three of them, it soon turned out to be necessary.
So they spent the first two weeks of December furnishing the house to the smallest details and spent the next week entirely outside of their homes, visiting the local Christmas market and other seasonal celebrations. There was a slight alarm when Anakin started to show to signs of the sniffles, but Obi-Wan immediately drove him home, bundled him up in thick soft blankets and supplied him with an endless train of teas and soups to banish the illness away. And it worked like a treat! Anakin woke up two hours later from a short nap feeling better than ever, all nice and toasty and begging for Obi-Wan to join him in bed so that he could show his appreciation to his amazing and wonderful husband.
Completely powerless to say no to Anakin's pleading eyes, Obi-Wan fell into his beloved’s arms and took his usual role as a pillow princess to be fucked nice and gentle, just like how he took care of Anakin. When they were done, they kept snuggled under the sheets and took another nap, reminding each other that Christmas was only three days away and that they needed to buy the dinner feast ingredients soon. They would need a lot – Anakin by himself ate quite a bit more than the average person but Rex and Cody somehow ate even more.
So after the short nap, they got dressed again to protect themselves from the freezing winter winds and toddled off to the local supermarket, topping off their trolley to such a degree that even the cashier remarked that they must be hosting a huge feast. They came back home giggling all the way, knowing that the rest of their week will go perfectly.
As soon as Anakin said that out loud, his phone rang. He picked it up with a bright smile, wishing a merry christmas and a happy new year. Obi-Wan wasn’t really paying attention, too busy putting away all the meat and vegetables in a neat pile. He only noticed that something was going wrong when Anakin was silent for a while, and his face had contorted into a frown as he listened to the person on the other end.
“What? No, I already finished all that. They said it was good and that there was nothing else to fix. No , that’s not my responsibility. Well it’s not . It’s literally three days until Christmas, you’re joking right?” Obi-Wan watched worriedly as Anakin kept pacing around the kitchen, stress-gripping his hair and gritting his teeth. Sensing the impending fallout, he quickly put the kettle on and located Anakin's favourite blanket. Snuggling in it together always managed to lift his moods.
“ Fine .” Anakin finally snarled through clenched teeth and hung up, throwing the phone away to the sofa, then screamed into his hands.
“Oh my darling,” Obi-Wan cooed, enacting the first step in his ‘calm Anakin down’ plan and wrapping his partner in the fuzzy blanket while also slipping inside. The taller man simply melted into his arms, his own worming around his waist and face tucked into Obi-Wan’s shoulders. “What happened? Is it bad?” Anakin doesn’t have the best boss, someone who’s less intelligent or skilled than Anakin is but also painfully aware of it so that his brilliant husband takes the brunt of the misplaced self-hatred.
“They fucked up and now I have to fix it.” Anakin mumbled into the shirt fabric, anger evaporated and just misery in its wake. Tutting softly, Obi-Wan wriggled his hand up to poke out of their little burrito and pat the nape of Anakin's neck.
“It’s okay, my love. You’re so unappreciated in your job, I’ll use my Christmas wish to get them all fired.” Anakin giggled into his neck at Obi-Wan's threat, to his delight, but then quickly sobered up and leaned away.
“I have to leave to do it. Tonight . And I don’t know how long it’ll take, but… They said it might be more than a week.” Obi-Wan froze, staring at his love’s miserable and downturned face. “I might not make it back for Christmas.”
Crushed would be a lighter word than what Obi-Wan felt. The idea of Anakin leaving at such a critical time, when they put in so much effort to the holidays to make it extra special and already invited everyone over. When it was supposed to be their first married Christmas together.
“Oh…” It escaped Obi-Wan before he had a chance to stop it, full of disappointment and heartbreak. It only made Anakin even more upset, face crumpling down and eyes turning wet. Unable to stand such a sight, Obi-Wan straightened himself up and leaned up to give a long kiss to Anakin, thumbs brushing away at the glistening tears.
“We’ll be fine, darling. Come back as fast as you can, and we can have our own small feast, hm? We can have a big one next year as well.” Anakin nodded slightly, and dove straight back into Obi-Wan’s arms, chest heaving and radiating misery. Clenching his eyes shut, Obi-Wan did his best not to let any tears slip. There would be time for that after Anakin left.
“Still no news?” Ahsoka peeked out from the kitchen with a glass of orange juice in hand, startling Obi-Wan so bad that he nearly dropped his phone. The phone that hadn’t received any texts from Anakin in the past two hours. It might have been common for other couples, but Anakin is an oversharer and loved to text Obi-Wan about nothing and everything. The fact that he’s gone radio silent made him think that his husband of only five months got into a horrific accident or is already dead .
“Well he’s not dead so don’t make that face.” Satine also peeked out from the kitchen but with a fully topped wine glass in her hand. Obi-Wan didn’t really like how well she read him. “He’s probably stuck in traffic. Come now, the turkey is almost done and I fear both Rex and Cody will take it out if unsupervised.” Ahsoka giggled at the jab and started full on laughing at the disgruntled noises that came from the kitchen, sentences that sounded suspiciously like “will not!” overlapped with “he was already reaching for the oven mitts” and “liar!” from Padmé in there as well.
“Thank goodness he had the mind to use mitts. Dinner time, Obi-Wan. You need to get the first dibs to save some for Anakin.”
Smiling in gratitude to Satine, Obi-Wan made sure his phone was on vibration and tucked it into his pocket, then headed into the kitchen to set the dishes. All the while, half of his mind was preoccupied with listing things off to ensure that if Anakin was in an accident that he should have been contacted immediately. Others may not be so worried but this is Anakin , and he will simply perish if anything happened to him.
Setting everything out didn’t take so long in his distracted autopilot mode, assigning everyone to their respective seats and making sure the dishes were set out evenly. Except for in front of Ahsoka, the exaggerated carnivore, who only had meats in front of her. Obi-Wan had long given up on encouraging her to eat more veggies. And he also made sure to place a nice open bottle of wine near Satine and some beers to the twins. Ahsoka finally got her driver’s license and they were apparently making full use of that this holiday.
When he was done, he sat down at the head of the table and took a split second to gaze forlornly at the empty seat by his side, where Anakin should have sat and smiled at him for a job well done. He knew it was foolish, but he desperately missed his husband and wished that the miserable excuse of a boss didn’t exist. Then Anakin would be home and it would have been the best holiday ever. Instead of saying that out loud, he just fiddled with his cutlery and cleared his throat when everyone was seated.
“I hope everyone came hungry, because I’ll never be able to finish this on my own. Merry Christmas everyone, and let’s dig in!” The others chorused ‘merry Christmas’, and everyone started cutting into the feast to load up their plates with the dishes, exclaiming how everything looked so delicious and that Obi-Wan really outdid himself this time. Grateful for their compliments, Obi-Wan merely blushed and started to make Anakin’s plate first, loading it up with all the best cuts of the meats and the creamy mashed potatoes on the side. It wasn’t enough, so he stood up to get another plate to pile on the other dishes.
It was then that there was a thumping sound at the front door that made everyone freeze. Obi-Wan, having no idea who it might be, stood stock still in the middle of the kitchen and tried to figure out what was going on. It seemed that others also had no idea what was going on and confusion permeated through the room.
After a couple of seconds, there was some jangling and the sound of the front door lock turning, and hope and elation rushed into Obi-Wan, sending him running to the door. He had to confirm who it was even a second quicker.
And there was Anakin, brushing off the snow that piled on his shoulder and hat, cheek and nose a rosy red from the cold but grinning so brightly that he could be mistaken for the sun. Without saying anything else, Obi-Wan launched himself into Anakin's arms and buried his head into his chest, nuzzling and squirming like he wanted to become one with Anakin.
“Hey, hey! I missed you too baby,” Anakin laughed, hugging him tightly then lifting him up slightly yo carry him back into the house. Choruses of cheers echoed from everyone else, welcoming him back and saying that they were lucky to have him back. But Obi-Wan, safe and secure in his beloved’s arms, felt the most luckiest of them all.