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There is sunlight on his skin, warm and soft. Everything in this part of the Temple is light and gentle, something baked into the walls and floors that resonates with a quiet calm.
Even here in this alcove, tucked out of sight from students and teachers alike that might happen upon them. The bustle of the creche cannot touch them here. Pulled away from it all for the briefest of moments, Obi-Wan knows that this is what serenity feels like. Peace and harmony, he has it under his fingertips right here.
Anakin grinds slowly into the kiss, bringing their hips together. He makes a good show of patience, doing his best not to move too fast, ask for too much and scare Obi-Wan away but Obi-Wan knows him too well. He knows exactly what Anakin wants and just how much he can’t have it right now.
When Anakin’s gloved hand starts to play at Obi-Wan’s belt, dragging them even more flush together, hinting at its removal, Obi-Wan decides that’s enough of that. He threads his fingers through Anakin’s hair and pulls their faces apart. Anakin leans in again, refusing to take the hint, and Obi-Wan leans away. He strokes the sides of Anakin’s face, petting his hair to mollify his pout.
“We should get going,” says Obi-Wan.
Anakin doesn’t have to voice the do we have to that Obi-Wan can hear ringing in his ears. His face says it all.
With a sharp tug to Anakin’s ear, Obi-Wan quirks a smile at him. “Yes, we do.”
In a breath, Obi-Wan checks to make sure everything is in order. They didn’t get very far in their impromptu assignation—not for Anakin’s lack of trying. A quick straightening of his tabards and a hand through his hair and Obi-Wan is as good as new. Anakin joins him mid-stride a second later; annoyed, definitely, but following anyway.
“This is so dumb,” Anakin mutters, low enough so that only Obi-Wan beside him can hear. It isn’t the first time he has said it today but it will be the last. They turn a corner side by side and find themselves in the wing of the creche containing classrooms, where the Mynock Clan is waiting for them in the third room on the right.
“Come now, Anakin. Lending your time and wisdom to the youngest of our Order is a cherished duty of knighthood.”
Anakin spares him a glance and Obi-Wan can feel the lecture die away in his throat. Though he means every word, Obi-Wan is also at somewhat of a loss as to why they have been assigned this particular task while on rare and limited leave on Coruscant. Offering their guidance to the younglings is important, yes, absolutely, but is it the most important thing for the two of them to be doing right now? With a war raging in all corners of the galaxy?
“Some of us have other things we would rather be doing,” says Anakin with a meaningful glance at Obi-Wan. “And other places we would rather be. Some of us even have friends that don’t get to see us very often and are very busy themselves, leaving the window of opportunity in which we might get to see each other very small.”
Where Anakin’s tone began sly and joking, his good humor quickly fades into something more genuinely annoyed. Obi-Wan sighs, knowing full well the ‘friends’ that Anakin is not-so subtly referring to. Yes, he supposes it would be difficult for the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic and the honorable Senator from Naboo to rearrange their schedules at the drop of a hat.
“How good of you to place your duty to those friends so highly on your list of priorities. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that level of devotion from you.”
Anakin scoffs. “That’s because you’re different. I don’t have to fit you into my schedule, you’re always just… there.”
“Is that so?” Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow.
They reach the door to the creche and Anakin pauses. “I know you’ll be at my side no matter what, Master. That isn’t friendship. It’s something else.”
He opens the door before Obi-Wan has time to interrogate whatever that means. And really, what does Anakin mean by that? His reluctance to talk about his friendships outside of the Order, the still somewhat new physical nature of his relationship with Obi-Wan, the uncertainty of it all must be getting to Anakin’s head. Obi-Wan knows that he and Anakin get on each other’s nerves sometimes but it almost sounds as though Anakin is saying they aren’t friends.
They are friends. Of course they are.
Aren’t they?
The classroom they enter is a bright and warm space, a world unto itself as the door closes behind them. Not precisely the room Obi-Wan remembers as a child but close enough. Cream colored walls lined with wood panels are filled with art made by the children along with posters and the markers of their classroom activities. There is a large carpet at the head of the room and a round table with chairs for everyone to find a place around. At the back of the room is a set of shelves with baskets of toys and room for the children to spread out and play.
The crechemaster for the Mynock Clan is seated at the front of a cluster of younglings on the carpet and looks up as they enter. The Trandoshan’s face brightens immediately.
“Alright, my Mynocks, we have a very special treat today,” Crechemaster Oreck announces to the children. “Master Kenobi and Knight Skywalker have come to help us with our Arch-Vaalentide’s Day cards! Why don’t we gather around the table and you can tell our guests all about them?”
The clan hurries to take their seats around the large table with all manner of crafting supplies laid out at the ready in the center. Obi-Wan gives Anakin a look and they both move to take the last remaining seats opposite each other. The chairs are sized for younglings. Obi-Wan finds it more comfortable to cross his legs in a lotus position beneath the table than truly wedge himself into it but he has to hide a grin behind his hand when he sees Anakin across the table with his knees bent so that they stick out above the tabletop.
“Now, who can tell Master Kenobi and Knight Skywalker what they learned about Arch-Vaalentide’s Day?” asks Oreck.
A humanoid girl with short pink hair raises her hand quickly.
“Yes, Wira?”
“It’s a holiday to celebrate all of the people we like!” she chirps.
“Sure,” Oreck agrees easily. “We read the story of Archduke Vaalentide from the days of the High Republic and learned that his planet of Galdiphar used to celebrate bonds of love and friendship during a special festival once a solar rotation. Can anyone tell me why it’s important for us to talk about Arch-Vaalentide’s Day as Jedi?”
The room goes a bit quiet after that question. Obi-Wan looks around at the children’s faces and sees a few mulling it over with serious expressions and several more avoiding eye contact so that they don’t have to answer.
Obi-Wan remembers a bit of this from his own childhood, though mostly he remembers all of the art supplies as everyone worked to make their cards. The most vivid part of the lesson had been Quinlan trying to stick dried pasta shapes to the back of Bant’s head with glue and Obi-Wan wrestling him to the ground to get him to stop until they both of them were sticky with glue all over. He kept finding little flecks of glitter stuck to him for weeks after.
But the objective as Obi-Wan understands it now as an adult is to talk about the difference between love and attachment. That it is okay as Jedi to show love and affection, particularly in their personal lives, but that they need to be mindful of their emotions. Love and affection is not possession, for example. You can’t control the things and people you love. If they are meant to pass out of your life, if they change over time, you have to let them. The younglings learn to guard themselves against attachments early on.
It’s also a lesson about how their actions affect others. Showing preference for one person over another might hurt someone’s feelings is one lesson the younglings might take away. Or they might learn that having strong feelings for one person does not mean that person will feel the same way as you by default. Other people have thoughts and feelings that you need to respect, just as you would want yours respected in turn. Important and nuanced lessons for younglings and masters alike, coupled with the creative outlet of arts and crafts.
Oreck works through the difficult conversation with them, giving them a place to start their discussion as they begin to work on the cards they will exchange with their classmates at the end of the day. Obi-Wan and Anakin are each given a card to decorate while they assist the students around them.
Obi-Wan looks at the folded piece of flimsi on the table and the marker in his hand, and is struck by a sudden strong sense of surreality. He is a general. Elsewhere in the galaxy, the rest of his brethren are fighting a war. What is he doing here, devoting precious time to arts and crafts?
But then the Twilek boy beside him reaches over with his own writing implement and says, “I’m drawing a racing speeder on mine!” and smiles toothily up at Obi-Wan revealing a gap in his teeth.
Obi-Wan blinks and comes back to himself. “I have a very good friend who likes podracing. Shall we draw something for him?”
The Zabrak on Obi-Wan’s other side pipes up with, “Ooh! Eena can draw a podracer and I can draw cool flames coming out the back.”
The Twilek boy nods sagely. “Tovak is the best at drawing fire.”
“That sounds like a lovely idea,” says Obi-Wan and the three of them get started on their masterpiece. He asks them and the other children seated nearby about who they are giving their cards to and about their decorations. He has to stop more than one child from extending their artistic aspirations towards themselves—painting their hands and faces and clothes instead of the cards in front of them. And amidst all of that, he guides them back to the lesson at hand, asking them about their friends and what they make of the holiday.
“Well, Billi’s my best friend,” says the boy drawing a podracer for Obi-Wan. His name is Pol and he is doing a very good job. “But Billi is also friends with Tala.”
“I see,” says Obi-Wan. “And are you also friends with Tala?”
Pol shrugs. “Yeah, but Billi and Tala are more like best friends than me and Tala. Whenever we go out into the courtyard to play, they always want to play tag.”
“And you don’t?”
Pol shakes his head. “I like grav-ball better. But that’s okay, because I can play with Stev and Mabor.”
“And I’m sure you all have a lot of fun,” agrees Obi-Wan. “Liking one person over another is as natural as liking tag instead of grav-ball. What matters is what you do with those preferences and how you treat others in the face of them. You and Billi can be best friends and also like different things. You can be best friends even when you are spending time with other friends too. That’s very wise, Pol.”
Pol seems to glow with pride at the praise. A few students eye him a little enviously but Obi-Wan also notices a few big smiles amongst the other students, perhaps from Tala and Stev and Mabor.
“Knight Skywalker, do you have a best friend?” the little Mon Cala boy sitting next to Anakin looks up at him with wide eyes. The others closest to them look up from their coloring to listen in, as does Obi-Wan, looking on, amused.
Anakin glances up at him quickly and perhaps he catches Obi-Wan’s smirk because his eyes dart away just as fast.
He and Anakin share an incredibly close bond, firmly established through their years of training together and it has only grown stronger since the beginning of the war. The fact that they have grown more physically intimate too, what began as a simple act of taking comfort in each other while away on a difficult mission has grown into a habit, has brought them even closer together.
Obi-Wan thinks the galaxy of Anakin and the Jedi he has become and he has a strong suspicion that despite his lingering teenage angst and the way he guards his vulnerable emotions, Anakin might hold him in similarly high esteem. Neither of them is ever quick to actually voice that out loud though. Hearing Anakin admit that Obi-Wan is his best friend should be funny.
Anakin clears his throat awkwardly. “Well, it’s like your teacher was saying. I have people that I’m close to, people that I see all the time like my padawan, Ahsoka, or my captain, Rex. I have a stronger bond with them because we have gotten to know each other well through living and working together, much like you and your clan here. As Jedi, we are friends to all so I’m not sure it would be fair to call anyone my best friend.”
The boy looks a little disappointed at that non-answer. “But if you had to pick one, who would it be?”
Ha, not going to get out of answering the question that easily. Anakin fails to fully hide his grimace.
Then his eyes light up. “How about this: since we’re all friends, you can be my best friend for today.”
“Really?” His voice goes so high at the end it might be ultrasonic. The boy’s mouth falls open and if his eyes could get any rounder or wider they would.
“Really,” says Anakin. “What’s your name?”
“Benji,” says, apparently, Benji.
“Alright then. Today, Benji is my best friend.”
The boy, Benji, and Anakin get about half of a second to celebrate their newfound best friendship before the rest of the clan zeroes in on them.
“Wait! That’s not fair!”
“I want to be your best friend! Can I be your best friend too?”
“Me! Me! Me!”
“Why would you pick Benji?”
“Please let me be your best friend! Please, please, pleeeeeease.”
Anakin nearly falls backward out of his youngling-sized chair. Obi-Wan has seen this look on his face before, most recently when they were being chased by a nest-full of gundarks through a cave-system and their safe place to hide turned out to be the dark corner most favored by the largest one of all.
He looks up at Obi-Wan, panicked, but Obi-Wan has no help to give him. Anakin got himself into this mess, he can get himself out of it too.
Then Oreck expertly comes to Anakin’s rescue. “If Benji is Anakin’s best friend for today, why don’t we set up a schedule so that each of you gets a chance to be Knight Skywalker’s best friend too.”
The kids go quiet at that, thinking hard about whether or not that seems like a satisfactory plan. Oreck doesn’t wait for them to decide. Instead, they get out a large sheet of flimsi and begin setting up a chart with everyone’s name on it. Once everyone sees their name on the schedule, the tension in the room lessens by a few degrees.
They go back to decorating their Arch-Vaalentide’s Day cards with markers and crayons, glitter and paint. These children are fairly young though, so they only get another twenty minutes or so out of the activity before they move onto the next lesson in their day and Obi-Wan and Anakin have a chance to escape.
A Council meeting calls Obi-Wan away directly after the lesson, leaving Obi-Wan without the chance to ask Anakin about what he said. He isn’t even sure he knows exactly what he wants to say.
The heart of it is: why didn’t you just say that I was your best friend?
But that sounds even more childish than the younglings they just left. Frankly, Pol and his perfectly well-adjusted friend group would probably laugh at him if they heard Obi-Wan voice such a thing. Obi-Wan and Anakin part ways without addressing that strange reluctance and Obi-Wan has plenty time to worry over it on his own instead.
After the Council meeting, Obi-Wan and Master Yoda head to the Room of a Thousand Fountains to continue their discussion and meditate before late meal. Obi-Wan informs Yoda about his and Anakin’s trip to the creche. As Grandmaster of the Order, one of Master Yoda’s special duties is to ensure the training of younger generations of Jedi, making sure that teachings are passed down thoughtfully, that traditions are maintained and refreshed where appropriate.
“Always an opportunity to learn, working with the younglings is,” Yoda says as they stroll through the gardens filled with wide green leaves and the constant steady burble of water.
Obi-Wan hums his agreement. “Certainly.”
In all honesty, Obi-Wan suspects that some part of Anakin was right about their trip to the creche. Sure, devoting time to nurture the youngest members of their Order is important. And yes, all of the many different kinds of work done at the Temple matter, from the weapons masters to the teachers to the mechanics and cooks and guards. But with the war on, coloring with the younglings is not high on Obi-Wan’s list of priorities.
“A new perspective, the mind of a child provides.”
That’s true as well, not that Obi-Wan necessarily appreciates the insight his trip to the creche gave him. He takes a deep breath and opens himself up to the flow of the Force in the room around him, willing himself to find some measure of calm. The last thing Obi-Wan needs is for Master Yoda to ask what is troubling him. The truth is too embarrassing to voice out loud.
Because what happened with Anakin in there, should not be bothering him. The fact that it is makes Obi-Wan feel childish in the extreme. So what if Anakin didn’t tell the children that Obi-Wan was his best friend? Why should it matter that what Obi-Wan assumed would be a simple question with a clear answer turned into a larger conversation that clearly made Anakin uncomfortable?
But... why did Anakin squirm under the question like that? Is it simply that he has a hard time voicing his affection out loud? Obi-Wan knows that they joke around sometimes; they tease and berate each other mutually. He always assumed that it was all in good fun, especially since Anakin was knighted and they now stand on more even footing with one another. When Anakin was his padawan, that kind of ribbing was edged with a sense of inadequacy, disappointment, and frustration, more so as Anakin grew older and chafed under any source of authority over him.
Obi-Wan assumed that Anakin was more than aware of the affection he holds for him. That their banter is a sign of their intimacy... but perhaps not.
Or else, does Anakin not see Obi-Wan as his best friend? Is there someone else that he is closer to? While Obi-Wan and Anakin get deployed on missions together more often than others, they are not joined at the hip. If Anakin has found a strong bond with his men or with his own padawan, or else with someone outside of the Order, Padmé or the Chancellor perhaps, Obi-Wan should be happy for him not… whatever this strange feeling tangled up inside his chest might be.
His thoughts are interrupted by a poke at his shins. Master Yoda sets his gimer stick back on the ground innocently. “Leave you here, I shall. Time to ponder this new perspective, you may need.”
No, Obi-Wan really doesn’t need more time to think himself in circles. A bit of meditative clarity might not go amiss however. “Thank you, Master Yoda. I think I’ll do just that.”
And he does. Because Obi-Wan is a Jedi and he knows how to sort through uncomfortable emotions. He cannot control the way that Anakin feels, he cannot know what caused him to respond to a very simple question in such a needlessly complicated way. What Obi-Wan can control is his response and he refuses to dwell on the matter further.
He knows what his relationship to Anakin is like. He knows that Anakin knows what their relationship is like. Obi-Wan cannot let one awkward moment determine how he acts around Anakin. He needs to quit this ridiculous mental dithering.
The best thing for him is a mission. Just Obi-Wan and the 212th, an objective in front of them and difficult odds. The truth is that Obi-Wan has had too much time for himself lately. Rest and recovery is important, of course, but Obi-Wan is fine. More than ready to head back to the front and continue the work of ending this war.
The Council sends them to the small system of Lundavi to negotiate a new connection to an existing hyperspace lane that has the potential to save nearly a day’s worth of travel time on one of the Republic’s most popular routes. They just have to secure the system’s agreement to regulate space travel in the area in order to establish the new shortcut. Unfortunately, General Grievous has an alternate plan to secure the system’s cooperation in favor of the Separatists: blockade the system’s major planetary bodies and incapacitate their space-going infrastructure. What was meant to be a diplomatic discussion quickly turns into a siege breaking campaign.
Which, though grueling, is exactly what Obi-Wan needs. A new perspective, indeed. Obi-Wan’s old perspective was just fine, thank you, Master Yoda.
That is until Master Ti comes to relieve him near the end of the fighting, sending Obi-Wan and his men off with new orders to rendezvous with the 501st near Onderon before assisting in the transport of a supply aid convoy. At first blush, it does not seem like the most pressing of missions, potentially even something that Anakin and his men could likely handle on their own, but the supplies are desperately needed on a Republic medical station.
“Give General Skywalker my best, Obi-Wan,” Shaak Ti says to him over holo before he leaves. “And enjoy the reprieve from fighting. You’ve earned it after all of the work you have done for this system. The talks should be easy once we bring a swift end to the fighting and that is entirely your doing.”
“Thank you, Master Ti.” Obi-Wan bows his head and signs off.
Another attempt by the Council to reward him with some kind of break, first arts and crafts in the creche and now this. Perhaps Obi-Wan should take a closer look in the mirror once he returns to his quarters. Does he look tired? All he wants to do is continue the fight. He has the strength and the willpower to see this through. More than that, he knows himself and his men. If any of them needed time to recover, he would ask for it. This solicitousness by the Council is not only strange, it is unnecessary.
But Obi-Wan does as he is told. His star destroyer joins The Resolute near Onderon soon enough and together they will caravan the medical supplies to the station. The trip will be long and not terribly exciting, mostly spent watching in wait in case some threat should come their way to try and disrupt the journey.
As soon as his ship is within range, Obi-Wan makes his way over to The Resolute so that they can conduct their strategy meeting in person. Though Obi-Wan was in desperate need of some time away, a re-centering of his priorities toward the frontlines, if he had the choice, he would prefer to have Anakin at his side. It isn’t that they aren’t Jedi in their own right, capable of handling missions on their own respectively, but separation at a time like this leaves room for anything to happen, including the worst. Having them close, Anakin, Ahsoka, and their men, is simply better for all involved.
But Anakin isn’t there to greet him when his shuttle touches down in the hangar bay. Obi-Wan hadn’t realized just how much he had been expecting him until he simply failed to appear. Ahsoka is there and that’s fine, it’s good to see her. He doesn’t need some kind of landing party but… he thought Anakin would be there to see him.
Obi-Wan shakes away that thought almost literally, settling his demeanor into something calm and pleasant for his grand-padawan. “Hello there, Ahsoka.”
He will not ask about Anakin. He refuses to let that be the first words out of his mouth. He will find out what has waylaid his former padawan in due course.
Ahsoka offers him a little bow. “Hi, Master Kenobi.”
They make their way into the bowels of the ship, nearly identical to The Negotiator and head for the briefing room just off of the bridge. Obi-Wan asks about their time on Onderon and gets a few evasive answers for his troubles. He knows all about their mission after going over their briefings to the Council but it is one thing to read the mission report and quite another to know what it felt like to be there, what Ahsoka took away from it as another series of lessons in her unconventional training.
“Any idea why we need two battalions to defend one medical shipment?” Ahsoka asks instead, redirecting the topic of conversation entirely.
Part of him wants to push her instead, find some way to get her to talk about the people she met, the dilemmas she faced on her last mission. He suspects that he can more than relate to wanting to help a small group working to defend their home, protect people at any cost even when it does not necessarily align with their duties as Jedi. But it is clear that is the last thing she wants to discuss. Obi-Wan might be “the Negotiator” but even he pales at the prospect of trying to get a mulish teenager to say a single word against their wishes.
“Surely the answer lies in the question,” Obi-Wan says. “The fact that two battleships have been assigned indicates that the shipment is important.”
“Yeah, but we totally could have handled it on our own—not that I’m not happy to see you of course, and Skyguy will be thrilled. It’s just a little weird, isn’t it? Like, we’re spread so thin as it is. Aren’t you needed elsewhere?”
Obi-Wan’s over-eager heartbeat jumps a little at the thought that Anakin might be excited to see him. He should know better based on the fact that Anakin wasn’t there to see him arrive. But knowing and feeling appear to be completely different propositions for him at the moment.
“Of course, but as we will discuss in the briefing, the medical shipment contains a great deal of bacta. Highly effective but difficult to produce. Practically the entire galaxy is under a shortage. If even the smallest word has gotten out about it, we can be sure to expect trouble before it reaches its destination.”
Ahsoka nods, accepting that. They reach the briefing room where Captain Rex is waiting for them but Anakin is still nowhere to be found.
Despite Obi-Wan’s promise to himself, this seems as good a time as any to ask where his former padawan might be. “Does Anakin plan on joining us any time soon?”
With a grin, Ahsoka says, “I’m sure he’ll be here any minute now. He’s just a little caught up with his new best friend.”
“New best friend?”
The grin grows wider. “Okay, so you know how Anakin started that whole thing with the younglings last time you were on Coruscant? Well, word spread throughout the creche and the Temple and somehow one of the men found out, so of course the entire 501st had to get in on it. I think Anakin has a rotating list of best friends through next year some time. That is, if the 212th doesn’t also start up a list.”
Obi-Wan gapes a little at that. It was one thing to appease a classroom of younglings with this kind of tactic but what could Anakin’s men possibly want with such a thing? Obi-Wan fails to understand much of the workings between the men on the best of days, all of the different rituals and superstitions, nicknames and slang terms passed among them.
“And what does that… mean, exactly?” Obi-Wan asks carefully.
Ahsoka shrugs. “Not much usually, but some of the men go all out especially when we’re on a boring mission like this one. I think Jesse has Anakin running a sabaac tournament? They spent the morning working out in the drill hall and then had lunch together and I think that’s where they’ve ended up now.”
That’s not so terrible, Obi-Wan supposes. It might even end up being good for morale. The explanation fails to rid him of the slow churning in his gut but Obi-Wan can always pin that on a lack of emotional calm—it has been some time since he last meditated—that or his caf and ration bar this morning are sitting poorly.
“Still, he shouldn’t let it interfere with more important matters,” says Obi-Wan.
He is about to ask where Ahsoka falls on this rotating schedule of best friends when the doors to the briefing room open and Anakin steps in. He waves to a clone trooper over his shoulder. “See you, Jesse,” he says, giving the clone a salute that gets returned in kind almost like a secret handshake.
“See you later best friend!” Jesse calls, laughing as he heads off.
Anakin grins and shakes his head before sobering up to greet the room. His eyes land on Obi-Wan and he straightens up a little. “It’s good to see you, Master.”
The term still falls so easily from Anakin’s lips over a year after he was knighted and their apprenticeship ended. Obi-Wan can’t speak from experience but after knowing Anakin for so long and the more contentious days of their time together, Anakin always eager for more responsibility, more independence, more, he would have thought that Anakin would be quick to shed that marker of being inferior to Obi-Wan. He would have thought Anakin had had enough of masters.
And yet Obi-Wan can’t necessarily say that he minds it. Because it’s something, a lingering marker of their time together. Something to prove that it happened at all, that connects them. They will never be able to erase their apprenticeship, no matter how many years or lightyears stand between them. That much is solid ground for them to stand on, that proves they mean at least that much to each other.
Obi-Wan clears his throat. “Yes, it’s good of you to join us. The rest of us are ready to begin.”
If his tone is slightly sharper than he means for it to be, there is no changing it now. They carry on with the meeting, organizing their expectations for the ferrying operation. Obi-Wan tries to catch Anakin on his way out, perhaps as a means to make amends but mostly to catch up the way they did not have a chance to earlier, but Anakin leaves almost as soon as they adjourn.
He has to go catch up with his best friend, after all.
If Obi-Wan sees less of Anakin than he thought he would during the mission, he bears that absence with grace and dignity.
It’s a good thing, Obi-Wan tells himself. Anakin’s men love him, would do anything for him, follow him anywhere. This list of best friends is merely an inventive way to recognize that comradery. He should applaud Anakin for his initiative. Admire the way he handles the responsibility of knighthood and his role as general as a confident and independent young man. Ahsoka was right, they don’t necessarily need Obi-Wan and his men here for this mission. On top of that, Anakin doesn’t need Obi-Wan. They fulfilled the task of their apprenticeship together, Anakin can now head off into the galaxy prepared for anything he might encounter. He doesn’t need Obi-Wan and that’s a good thing.
Once Obi-Wan gets tired of trying to find a moment to speak with Anakin alone only to find him busy with some new antic concerning his best friend of the day—hand-to-hand sparring, playing pranks on the corps, even a group sing-along—he then spends most of their mission in his quarters trying to meditate this hollowness in his chest away.
He spends long hours seated on his mat, lying in bed, focused on his breathing and emptying the mind. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot manage to submerge himself deep enough in the Force to rid himself of it.
When Anakin does seek him out, their interactions are entirely physical. Reaching for him at the end of a long day. Heated kisses turning to something more before Obi-Wan can get a word out. Anakin pulls him into a storage closet and begs to put his mouth on Obi-Wan’s cock, saying that it has been too long. And what is Obi-Wan meant to say in the face of that?
He looks down at Anakin as he works him over, his eyes drifting closed as he takes Obi-Wan in. His lips wrapped so perfectly around him. The small noises of satisfaction he makes as he pulls back and tries to take him in deeper. How could Obi-Wan deny him?
Because if this is as much of Anakin as he can get, he will take it. The only problem here exists inside Obi-Wan’s head and his heart. Nothing has fundamentally changed about who they are, what they are to each other based on one conversation for the benefit of a classroom full of younglings.
None of that can erase the history they have together, the bond that they have forged over time. None of that can erase what Obi-Wan feels here, in moments like this when they are together. There is no one else that could fill the shape left in Obi-Wan by Anakin.
That has to be enough.
The next time Obi-Wan sees Anakin is several weeks later. They are back on Coruscant for the first time in almost two months—Obi-Wan was called back to advise the Senate on a new piece of wartime legislation and Anakin is on leave for a few days while his ship undergoes repairs in the Republic Navy yard.
He sees Anakin but just as he was on their last mission, Anakin is far too busy with a whole host of new best friends to pay Obi-Wan any mind.
It seems that Anakin’s list of daily best friends has grown even longer in Obi-Wan’s absence. Some of the clones must have taken on the scheduling because it is now truly out of control. Since Anakin has duties as a Jedi that mean he cannot be with the clones or with the younglings in the creche at all times, the schedule can now be amended to account for who Anakin can devote the most time to on a given day and who has not yet had a turn to be Anakin’s best friend. Obi-Wan does not fully understand the mechanics of how such a decision gets made but he does know this: the Council is now in on it.
He learns this when he tries to reach out to Anakin on one of the few days when their leave manages to overlap with one another and finds him busy for the evening.
Obi-Wan receives a message on his datapad that Anakin and Mace Windu of all people are going out to a bar tonight. Because Mace is, of course, Anakin’s best friend today.
It isn’t as though Obi-Wan expects he and Anakin to spend all of their time together. He is under no illusions that their relationship is anything more than one of obligation. They are bound to each other by time and loyalty, destiny and prophecy. The proximity of having known each other for so long. Without those things, who knows what they would be to each other. There are plenty of people whom Obi-Wan knows have a far greater claim on Anakin’s time.
It’s just that… Obi-Wan has grown so used to having at least some of Anakin to himself. Perhaps he took for granted that Anakin would seek him out to talk or complain or simply be near him whenever he happened to be bored. And then they would spar or take tea or meditate together. Once, while traveling between missions, they even managed to fall asleep together, side-by-side on the command deck. Anakin’s head had fallen to rest on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, Obi-Wan woke with an unseemly bit of drool at the corner of his mouth. Thank goodness no one happened to come across them while they were out. Just being near him, no matter what they happen to be doing, is often enough to lift Obi-Wan’s spirits. That should be ridiculous, that something so simple can accomplish what should be an impossible task in the midst of everything else. But so long as that constant is there, Obi-Wan is fine. And he hoped the same might be true of Anakin too.
Perhaps not. But all the better for Anakin then, that he can take comfort in other things, other people. Obi-Wan should be happy for him.
He permits himself to feel some small amount of loss at the realization. Sure, the moments he looks back on with Anakin are mostly small and trivial, but they meant something to him, the comfort of their comradery, their bond. Some amount of grief is warranted then, even if it also makes Obi-Wan feel as hopeless and needy as a youngling.
But once that small moment of self-pity has passed through him, Obi-Wan knows it is time to pull himself together. There has to be someone else Obi-Wan could turn to, to help occupy his time in place of Anakin. Obi-Wan has loads of friends. They might be scattered to the far corners of the galaxy thanks to the war but there must be someone on Coruscant who can show him a good time tonight.
He swipes through the list of contacts in his datapad. Bant is eternally busy in the Halls of Healing, if not called away off-planet. Quinlan would be a great person to turn to at a time like this but alas, he is deep undercover in the Outer Rim. And then Obi-Wan comes across the perfect friend for the evening. He taps on the contact and pulls up a holocall, then waits for it to connect.
“Bail,” Obi-Wan says, when the blue figure of his friend appears in front of him. “Are you free tonight?”
Senator Bail Organa obligingly makes time in his busy schedule to have dinner with Obi-Wan that night. Obi-Wan is sure that the ask is a tremendous imposition on his time but they have known each other for so long and Obi-Wan asks so rarely that Bail simply waves off his minor concerns and gives him the name of a restaurant and a time to meet that evening.
The dinner is lovely. Bail meets him there, dressed smartly in a trim blue suit, and greets him with a kiss on the cheek. He took the liberty of ordering for the two of them and there is a glass of Chandrilan whiskey waiting for him when they sit down, something Obi-Wan is somewhat partial to.
They make small talk while they wait for their food to arrive, though with the war on and the towering responsibilities hanging over both of them, it’s hard for that talk to remain small for long. But it has been ages since he and Bail have gotten together like this and they cover plenty of ground simply discussing Breha and Alderaan, Anakin and the Temple, as well as the shared stories of the past that crop up along the way.
Obi-Wan can charm with the best of them and Bail Organa is certainly that. He delights in the twinkle that comes to Bail’s eye when he makes a quip and the low sound of his laughter. There is a skill in making someone feel like they are the only one to glimpse a particular side of you, even among close friends. Something secret and familiar and shared. Obi-Wan likes to think he has a measure of that ability himself and perhaps he does from the way that Bail eyes him over the rim of his drink or holds himself, relaxed and easy in Obi-Wan’s presence.
It would be all too simple to indulge the simmering attraction there is between them. It wouldn’t even be the first time. Strict monogamy is not popular on Alderaan and while Bail and Breha are devoted to each other, they are perfectly happy to indulge in more casual relationships when it suits them.
But Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to cross that line tonight between a casual get-together of old friends and a more intimate encounter.
Which Bail has undoubtedly picked up on, though he does Obi-Wan the courtesy of not mentioning that realization until after they have finished their meals. When the question does come, Obi-Wan is shamefully unready for it.
Bail sets his glass of Alderaanian red down on the table carefully before clasping his hands together and taking a good look at Obi-Wan. “Is it time discuss the reason you asked to see me this evening? Or should we pay the bill and head back to my apartments?”
The idea there being that they either address Obi-Wan’s unusual urgency this morning or put it out of their minds altogether and pursue a more pleasurable evening. He’s giving Obi-Wan an out and part of Obi-Wan wishes he could take it.
“Is a man no longer allowed to call upon old friends without a motive?” Obi-Wan asks, tracing a finger around the rim of his own glass.
“Hypothetically, a man can do whatever he likes. You, however, are not just any man. Do you know how long it has been since we have had dinner like this?”
Know exactly? No. But Obi-Wan can guess. They have seen each other and spoken at length many times, even recently. But a dinner like this? As relaxed as it is possible for either of them to be amidst a war? Years, easily.
Obi-Wan sighs a little, caught between a desire for privacy and the honesty that Bail more than deserves from him. “I’ve been doing some reflection as of late on the value of friendship. I fear I may have been ignoring some important relationships to focus on others so perhaps you might view dinner tonight as something of an apology.”
He gives Bail a rueful smile that Bail dismisses with a shake of his head. “None needed, I assure you. But can I ask what brought this on? I can’t imagine anyone believing you to be anything less than a perfectly faithful friend.”
That’s because you’re different, Anakin said. I don’t have to fit you into my schedule, you’re always just… there.
I know you’ll be at my side no matter what, Master. That isn’t friendship. It’s something else.
“Yes, well.” Obi-Wan clears his throat. “That might be precisely the problem. I asked you to dinner tonight because I needed a bit of space, some perspective.”
A new perspective, the mind of a child provides.
Obi-Wan picks up his glass and finishes the last of it in one swallow. Perhaps he should go back to Bail’s tonight. He has far too many voices inside of his head at the moment, including his own.
But while he loves Bail, cherishes their friendship, Bail isn’t the one he wants to spend the night with. Obi-Wan is caught between his desires and reality. The wish that things were different than they are. What he and Anakin have is casual, friendly. He has no greater claim to Anakin’s time than what he has already been given. If Obi-Wan is any sort of Jedi, he would make his peace with that.
“Then I hope I was able to give that to you,” Bail says amiably. He pauses, his lips pursed as though he isn’t sure he should say what he is about to say before he decides to voice it anyway. “One last question, if you don’t mind, and then we are more than free to drop the subject.”
Obi-Wan nods. “Please.”
“Does this reflection on the nature of friendship have anything to do with Anakin?”
It takes all of Obi-Wan’s not inconsiderable skill in charm and tact not to blanch at how blunt the question is, how swiftly he has been found out, seen through.
“What makes you say that?”
“Come now, Obi-Wan. It is no secret that he is the most important relationship in your life. Has something happened between the two of you?”
“No,” Obi-Wan murmurs, feeling a little dazed. “Quite the opposite.”
Bail leans across the table to place his hand on Obi-Wan’s. “Then perhaps his perspective is the one you need, my friend.”
If only Obi-Wan knew how to get it. He smiles at Bail and the two of them stand from the table. “Thank you, Bail. A wonderful evening as always.”
The opportunity to get Anakin’s perspective doesn’t come until the next time the two of them are sent out on a mission together and of course, comes at the least opportune moment.
“We should be safe in here,” Anakin says. “At least until the herd passes. Then, if we can climb the mountain a bit, I should be able to get a signal on my comm.”
A rampaging herd of wiltarbeasts, a surprise Separatist bombardment, and getting separated from their men while traversing a mountain range. All in a day’s work for The Team.
It’s a solid plan, indeed. Which makes it all the more unfortunate when the blast from a Separatist bomb rattles the whole of the mountain range and collapses the tunnel they’re in. The earth shakes beneath them and what starts as a few stray rocks falling from above their heads becomes a thunderous, rolling deluge. Obi-Wan grabs Anakin’s arm to keep them from being separated and trusts in the Force to guide them to a safe place to ride out the aftershocks.
By the time the ground stops moving, Obi-Wan is lying, half-propped up against a wall of rock. His hand is still threaded through Anakin’s.
He blinks, coughs. Waving his hand through the cloud of dust that chokes his breath, Obi-Wan cannot see a single thing. The light from the cave entrance is blocked entirely. They’re trapped.
His utility belt is equipped with a small glowrod that he flicks on to check the damage. He feels fine; a few bumps and bruises but no worse for wear considering that they could have died. There is a scuffling sound against the debris on the tunnel floor and Obi-Wan’s light reveals that Anakin survived the collapse admirably too.
“Well,” Obi-Wan says. “We’re certainly safe in here. Safe until we run out of oxygen, that is. I’m not sure how our men will fare against the Separatists either, if we fail to join them soon.”
Anakin scowls and shakes his head but says nothing, just pushes himself up onto his hands and knees and begins to poke around at the wall of rock behind them. There are a few that give way easily, he tosses them over his shoulder without a second thought. But the rest are bigger and wedged in tightly against one another. With both of them working together, they should be able to shift them. The greater challenge will be figuring out which ones to move without making their predicament worse. The explosion could have made the entire cave system unstable.
But they don’t have any other option. Without comms, no one knows precisely where they are. They have no supplies or equipment, no other way out. Obi-Wan settles in at Anakin’s side and the two of them get to work.
They shift the smaller stuff first, hauling away rocks that are big enough to require both hands and steady footing in order to lift. The Force helps, gives them added strength and stamina to make the task easier so long as they submerge themselves in it. Obi-Wan sets his glowrod safely to one side to light their way as they work and their shadows dance along the cave walls and shroud the rocks directly in front of them when they go back to grab more.
Then they have to start thinking strategically, once the smaller bits of rubble have been cleared away and much of what is left is weighed down by thousands of pounds of mountain. This work is harder, more strategic, and even the Force can’t keep them from the sweat and grime and sheer exhaustion of their efforts.
They manage to make at least a small dent in the mound of rock, with the faintest hint of light glimpsed from between the stones. But they are both gasping and tired, so Obi-Wan calls a break before they go any further. One false move and everything could come down on top of them. Better to take a break now and conserve their energy before they do something they won’t live to regret.
Obi-Wan takes a swig of water from the pouch on his belt and offers the last of it to Anakin. He tries to wave it away but Obi-Wan insists. “We’ll either find our way out or we won’t. Saving it for later will hardly be of any use to us.”
Anakin eyes it skeptically but takes it anyway. “There has to be someone headed to our last known location. They might not have our current signal but they wouldn’t just leave us.”
Optimistic in the extreme, but Obi-Wan doesn’t have it in him to take that halfhearted hope from him. “I’m sure your best friend of the day would never think to leave you behind, to say nothing of Taungsday and Centaxday as well.”
“Ha ha,” Anakin says rather than laughs.
Obi-Wan eyes him, trying to decide if now is the time to ask what has been on his mind for weeks now. Despite all appearances, very little of him really believes that the two of them are going to meet their ends in this cave. But if they are going to spend their last hours here, he wants to clear the air between them first—as much as it can be cleared what with the slow death by suffocation currently planned for them.
“What possessed you to put up with all of that nonsense anyway?” Obi-Wan asks, making light of it. “Surely the joke has run its course by now.”
The glowrod casts Anakin’s face in pale blue and shadow. Obi-Wan can’t get a good read on him as he looks down at the floor and Anakin is as closed off as he ever gets in the Force.
“It’s… not all bad,” Anakin says slowly. “I mean, yes, it did get a little out of control. But it’s been nice too, getting to spend time with some of the younglings and a few of the men. I didn’t—I didn’t know it could be like this.”
“Like what?”
Anakin heaves a large sigh. “You know what it was like for me when I first came to the Temple. There was so much to learn and everyone else was so far ahead of me. I tried my best in everything but…”
But there were some things that it seemed Anakin was never going to truly understand. Perhaps if they had more time—not just in the sense that Anakin would have understood if he had been raised in the Temple like the other younglings. There was this sense, and Obi-Wan felt it too, that Anakin needed to get his training up to speed with the other younglings as soon as possible. They needed to prove that he had a place, that all of the trouble surrounding him was worth something. No way for a child to be raised, a child that had so recently left his mother and entered a war and stepped into a life almost entirely dissimilar from the one he had been living.
“What does that have to do with this?”
A breath of laughter. “The fact that I still don’t really understand? I meant what I said in the classroom the day all of this started. Jedi aren’t supposed to have best friends. They aren’t supposed to have lovers or enemies. They aren’t supposed to have the kinds of feelings that make those relationships possible.” Anakin shakes his head at himself. “And then Mace Windu added his name to the list of people wanting to be my best friend.”
Ah yes, their infamous and extremely secretive night out on the town. Obi-Wan holds tight to his curiosity and the strange way his stomach seems to clench upon hearing the barest whisper of it. “So I heard,” is all Obi-Wan says.
“We went to this bar on the lower levels. Tiny little dive, really quiet. The bartender knew him and kept serving us drinks all night without either of them exchanging a word. Do you know what Mace said to me?”
“I can’t imagine.”
Anakin swallows a little thickly. Obi-Wan can hear his throat working around it from beside him. “He said he was proud of me.”
Anakin’s voice is small, as though even now he can’t quite believe what he heard. Like he isn’t sure that it was real.
“He said, he didn’t know how I got myself into this mess but that he had seen the way I was getting along with the younglings, the way I was making a point to socialize more around the Temple, and he said it made him proud. He said that the Order, at its foundations, is built on love and friendship and brotherhood. There is a reason that the Jedi Order is a union of many while the Sith are a brotherhood of two. Togetherness is what separates the light from the dark. And he was glad that I had found some of that in the midst of everything else.”
Obi-Wan tries to look at Anakin through Master Windu’s eyes. While the best friend list has annoyed Obi-Wan more than it ought to over the last few weeks for reasons he refuses to name, what might it look like to Mace?
Anakin has never been a familiar face around the Temple and part of that had to do with his unconventional training. He spent his time with Obi-Wan and in classes and almost nowhere else. He had trouble making friends with his age mates through differences in experience and temperament. He was far too busy trying to play catch-up in his studies, with homework assigned by Obi-Wan and his other teachers as well as self-imposed training sessions that Anakin used to bring himself to the level of his age mates and beyond.
As someone raised in the Temple, it has always been second nature for Obi-Wan to look at the many faces that filled the halls there and see them as his family. He never guessed that even after all of this time, the same might not be true for Anakin.
“He’s right,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “It is good.”
Anakin gives him a self-effacing grin. “Yeah, well. I probably could have found a better way to learn that lesson, right? It is exhausting trying to be everyone’s best friend.”
“You always had to learn everything the hard way,” says Obi-Wan.
Voicing even that much criticism feels like taking a bit of a risk. Obi-Wan still isn’t sure where he stands with Anakin. Whether he can chide him the way that he used to or if it would be better to offer Anakin space. What he really wants to do is run his hands through Anakin’s hair and wipe the smudge of dirt from his face but Obi-Wan is used to ignoring that particular impulse, the desire to do what he wants.
But Anakin chuckles a little and looks down at where their hands sit side by side, almost touching. “I didn’t realize it was okay for me to be your best friend,” Anakin says quietly. “I wanted to be. After I was knighted, after you let me kiss you, I thought we were. But I also thought that wanting you to myself meant there was something wrong with me. That I couldn’t want to be a Jedi and want to be yours at the same time. I’m still not really sure how that works but I’d like to find out.”
“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan starts but the rest of his words fail him. Now isn’t the time for a lecture.
Instead, he takes Anakin’s hand in his and then turns himself so that he can take more than that too. He reaches an arm around Anakin to pull him awkwardly into an embrace. His chin hooks over Anakin’s shoulder and he holds onto Anakin tightly for a few moments, staring off into the dark.
They don’t do this. Obi-Wan might have allowed Anakin into his bed but he has never allowed him into his heart, not like this. In hindsight, he should have known better: Anakin was always already there.
But Obi-Wan doesn’t really know how to do this, how to offer comfort, how to open himself up. The thought of telling Anakin about the personal torment of the last few months makes Obi-Wan feel physically ill. It’s a grounding sort of nausea to offset the giddy elation of putting an end to that unease once and for all. Anakin wants him. Anakin loves him. He might not have put it into words just yet but what other name could there be for this feeling?
“I had hoped this went without saying, and I’ve realized only recently that perhaps it does not,” Obi-Wan says, still locked into their hug and with no real desire to be anywhere else. “But you are my best friend too.”
Anakin huffs a laugh and Obi-Wan can feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath his arms. If it sounds a little wetter than such a childish statement might usually call for, Obi-Wan does him the courtesy of pretending not to notice. Despite his best efforts, he is far from unmoved himself. The cave is dark and it’s just the two of them here. There is no one around to judge them.
Obi-Wan angles his head to press a kiss to the side of Anakin’s head. He gets mostly hair on the first try but he gets a second chance and a third and then Anakin is crawling into his lap. Obi-Wan looks up into his face and in the dark, he can just barely make out the glint in his eyes, dark and fathomless.
Best friends. It doesn’t seem like enough for all that they are, for all that they might be. But it will do for now, as long as Obi-Wan gets to have this.
As far as Obi-Wan is concerned, they are good now. They have made sense of all of this best friend-of-the-day business and Anakin learned an important, if belated, lesson about the ways of the Jedi. The nonsense about Anakin’s extensive best friend list might continue on for a some time yet but the novelty will wear off soon enough. Ultimately, the matter is settled. Anakin can let it go.
Or else, Obi-Wan will let it go. At some point. Definitely.
The thought of Anakin spending quality time with all of these acquaintances and relative strangers shouldn’t bother him. Doesn’t bother him if he really thinks about it with all of what he and Anakin talked about in the caves together in mind. The fact that all of this understanding still hasn’t brought them any closer together, to the way things were, the way part of Obi-Wan always thought they would be—that bothers him.
Knowing that he is being childish doesn’t help the feeling go away. Obi-Wan rather suspects that he might just simply have to get used to the idea of feeling a bit foolish about Anakin.
Until one night back on Coruscant, the entrance to his apartment chimes to let him know that someone is there.
It’s late, most of the Temple is quiet aside from the nocturnal species now going about their days in the shared spaces, the refectory and classrooms and training salles far from the sleeping quarters. Obi-Wan has only been back from the front for a day and a half. He’s trying his best to adjust his internal clock but time of day still means very little to him after so much traveling.
None of that means that it is particularly polite to go knocking on someone’s door at this hour. Not unless it is an emergency. Not unless it is about something important.
When Obi-Wan opens the door to find Anakin standing on the other side, he has to take a moment to blink back his surprise. “Anakin. What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?”
Obi-Wan waves him past and has to stop himself from thinking about a time when Anakin wouldn’t have bothered to ask, wouldn’t have needed to. He counts himself fortunate that Anakin is here all the same but there is still some small measure of loss that he has to inhale and exhale to rid himself of.
Moving to the kitchen to put the kettle on, Obi-Wan contemplates Anakin out of the corner of his eye. He takes up a place at the end of the counter to watch Obi-Wan in turn as he busies himself. He worries his lip with his teeth and can’t seem to settle on what to do with his hands but whatever is bothering him isn’t urgent. Obi-Wan just needs to wait him out while he decides how to say it.
But then, the water has boiled and the tea is now steeping and Anakin still hasn’t said anything, so it’s up to Obi-Wan to take pity on him. “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
Something that couldn’t wait until morning? Obi-Wan almost wants to add but it isn’t as though Obi-Wan had anything better to do this late at night. It isn’t as though Obi-Wan hasn’t been waiting weeks to see Anakin like this, without the distraction of anyone else around.
“I have something for you,” Anakin says without looking at him.
Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow that Anakin can’t see, gaze too fixed on the whorls of the countertop. “Do you now?”
“It’s…” Anakin looks up at him, a self-effacing little grin curling the corner of his mouth. “You’re going to think it’s silly. But after what you said in the cave, I just thought—here.”
He sifts through the pockets of his robes and pulls out a packet of flimsi. He slides it across the counter towards Obi-Wan and he realizes it’s an envelope. A familiar one at that. It has his name scrawled across the front of it in Anakin’s jagged handwriting, written in red marker.
Obi-Wan saw plenty like it in the creche on the morning they went to assist the younglings. He didn’t realize that Anakin actually made a card during that visit, let alone that Anakin made one for him.
He eyes Anakin curiously as he opens the envelope up and inspects the card inside. There are pink and red hearts across the front, all shapes and sizes, overlapping and messy in places. It’s clear that the younglings on either side of Anakin must have had some input into how the card would be decorated. Obi-Wan is going to keep finding glitter on his countertop months from now.
“Just open it,” says Anakin, like a man asking to be put out of his misery.
The inside of the card has a small cartoon drawing of the two of them—and it is them, Anakin’s hair, his scar, Obi-Wan’s beard, the colors—flying side by side in their starfighters. It’s...adorable really. But nothing compared to what is written on the other side.
“I didn’t think I’d ever give it to you. I thought I would just throw it out. But then you agreed with everything Master Windu said about friendship and love. And you said I was your best friend. I never really thought that those words could apply to us. I want them to.” Anakin looks at him earnestly and in full as he says that. “I hope that they do.”
The message inside the card reads:
Best friend, brother, partner in crime
the other half of my soul, master, mine.
And then scrawled underneath in what has to be the handwriting and questionable spelling of one of the younglings who graciously helped Anakin with his card: Happy Arch-Vaalentide’s Day, Obi-Wan!
“You can see the moment I stopped and realized it would never see the light of day,” Anakin says. “But then we talked and then I missed you.”
He looks up at Obi-Wan with wide, pleading eyes that beg him please tell me this is alright. Please tell me what I mean to you.
Instead, Obi-Wan says, “come with me,” and leads Anakin to his bedroom.
He can’t be entirely sure that he still has it. Like Anakin, he never really intended to give it to him. If they had more time together after the class, if Obi-Wan hadn’t had to run off, if they had managed to find a moment to themselves, he might have given it to him then. If Obi-Wan had been even the slightest bit more certain as to where they stood with each other after the fiasco of that lesson, perhaps he would have.
But there it is, crumpled at the bottom of his closet. He carried it around with him for a few days and across the galaxy on a mission at least once by accident before it made its way onto a set of drawers and finally onto the floor. Obi-Wan flattens out the edges of it nervously in his hands. It is no masterpiece, all it says inside is: to my best friend, happy Arch-Vaalentide’s Day, Anakin. Love Obi-Wan. But Obi-Wan made it and he meant it, and if nothing else, it is a start.
He hands it to Anakin with no further preamble. He can make no excuses for it.
Anakin looks it over, the picture the younglings drew, the message inside, the mess of marker and paint and glitter.
“Is this supposed to be me?” Anakin asks, amusement coloring his voice.
There is in fact a small cartoonish Anakin in a podracer winning a race on the front cover of the card. And the flames coming out of the back do indeed look very cool.
“I think you look rather dashing,” Obi-Wan says stoutly. The younglings did a fine job.
Anakin presses his lips together like he is trying to suppress a smile. “I meant it, you know. Friendship, even best friendship. That isn’t enough to explain all that you are to me. I’m not sure there are words for what we are to each other.”
As if to say what words cannot, both of them are slowly drawn together. Obi-Wan’s hands find Anakin’s hips and Anakin’s sit on his chest, not quite ready to fully grab hold of his robes and pull them the rest of the distance.
The first kiss is soft and gentle. A statement of fact. Something secure and safe for both of them to hold onto.
The second takes them further. Obi-Wan’s hands trail up Anakin’s sides and Anakin’s fingers grip tight to Obi-Wan’s tabards. He presses into the kiss and then pulls away, each of them chasing the other. They rise and fall with the beating of their hearts, with the ebb and flow of every breath.
And then Obi-Wan’s hands catch and hold on Anakin’s belt. Anakin gasps for air and in the scant space between their faces, he nods before diving back in for more. Obi-Wan’s fingers work expertly at the belt and in seconds it falls to the floor at their feet.
They kiss and kiss as more layers come off. Robes and tabards, boots and belts and undergarments. Everything ends up on the floor along with Anakin’s card but none of that matters as much as the body beneath Obi-Wan’s hands, the man he can finally call his own.
Obi-Wan presses Anakin back onto the bed, bracketing his hips with his knees, breathing hard from nothing at all and everything at once. He can’t help pausing for a moment to simply look at him, lips parted and spit slick, eyes wide with Obi-Wan alone as their sole focus. This isn’t the first time that the two of them have come together but it is the first time that it has happened like this: in a bed bigger than a bunk on a star destroyer, with hours to spend before being called away again, with something more than urgent need and circumstance to bring them together.
When Anakin is ready and Obi-Wan eases inside him, the feeling takes his breath away all over again. The wonderment on Anakin’s face. The tight, heady pressure on his cock as he enters inch by inch, feeling the way that Anakin responds to every movement. The hitch in Anakin’s breath when Obi-Wan goes to far too fast before settling into his inexorable advance. The groan that wants to escape his throat when he finally bottoms out.
Anakin’s mouth hangs open, his bottom lip full and kiss-swollen. Too tempting not to capture again. There is something different about their coupling tonight, something raw-edged and almost painful in its sincerity. It isn’t the first time they have had sex but it is the first time they have come together with any real sense of what they mean to each other. The intensity of that feeling colors every move they make together. Every sound, every touch, is amplified.
Obi-Wan rolls his hips forward and sets their pace. Anakin’s arms are draped across his back, seeking purchase. His blunt nails scrape across his shoulder blades. One hand settles in the longer hair at the base of Obi-Wan’s neck and grips tight. And Obi-Wan fucks him steadily, all the while trying desperately not to lose himself to the feedback loop of their pleasure in the Force. Something has opened between the two of them there, a link, a bond. Obi-Wan senses Anakin and his pleasure there just as well as he knows his own. Everything heightened, overwhelming, new.
The sensation builds, both the physical pleasure that Obi-Wan is more than familiar with and this new mental-emotional refracted sort, more exhilarating than anything Obi-Wan has known before. He crests his orgasm at nearly the same time as Anakin, their two voices joined in crying out together. Anakin spills across his stomach and Obi-Wan comes inside of him. The aftershocks leave Obi-Wan trembling and breathless and dizzy.
He opens his eyes to Anakin’s chest, his forehead sticking to the skin there with sweat. It takes effort to remind himself to pull out but the prospect collapsing onto the bed with Anakin there beside him is too perfect to deny a moment longer.
Obi-Wan finds one of Anakin’s hands, it happens to be his flesh one, and holds it up above them both, studying the two of them in the low light. “I love you,” he says, marveling at the two of them, joined. “Whatever we call it, whatever we are. I love you.”
It matters that he is the first to say it. That, if nothing else, even if Anakin does not say it back, that much of his heart is clear.
But Anakin threads his fingers through Obi-Wan’s and brings them both to his lips to kiss the back of Obi-Wan’s hand. “I love you too,” he says. As though it is simple, as though it is obvious. A fact as clear and unchangeable as the existence of the Force itself. As though it has always been true.
And perhaps it was always true, only Anakin didn’t think he could say it. He didn’t think he was allowed. What a shame it would have been, after everything they have felt tonight, if they never managed to find the words? If they were best friends in name only, their hearts entirely unknown to each other?
Obi-Wan rests his head on Anakin’s chest and lets their legs tangle lazily together—he’ll get up in a minute, surely. For now, he listens to the beat of his slowing heart matched with the steady pulse of Anakin’s thudding beneath his ear. Perhaps Obi-Wan can learn to love Anakin’s list of best friends, the annoyance and aggravation and heartache that came with it, so long as it brought them here.
So long as Anakin knows that his best friend, his brother, his soulmate, his master, his love, his, is Obi-Wan.
And always will be.