Chapter Text
Anakin had never seen Obi-wan look this expressive before. He had worked out early on that overt emotions were not something his master was comfortable with, and had tried to adjust his behavior accordingly. He was not a serious personality by nature, sometimes he slipped and did something overly familiar, but while Obi-wan had never seemed to hold it against him he had never looked at ease in those moments either. So Anakin had stayed withdrawn, and tried to treat Obi-wan the same way Obi-wan insisted he treat other jedi masters - with a solemn deference he suspected Obi-wan didn’t need to fake as much as he did. He had thought he might crack Obi-wans calm facade one day, but he hadn’t wanted it to be like this.
To stall, he began dragging the statue out of the hallway and toward his bedroom. He didn’t look at Obi-wan’s face, too afraid of what he’d see, but instead fixed his eyes firmly on his bedroom door. His bedroom was his, and he hoped Obi-wan would continue to honour that unspoke agreement if he didn’t get kicked out of the order for being a thief and a vandal. His progress was stalled, however, when the statue caught for a second on a raise in the flooring. He stumbled to the floor, too tired to even attempt to continue, his already raw hands slapping painfully on the hard surface. He felt perilously close to crying, which would just cap off what had been possibly his worst day at the temple so far. Just this once Anakin wished he knew how to let go of something after he’d decided to do it. If he’d left the statue in the clearing after finding himself unable to budge it the first time, he wouldn’t be in this mess.
“Are you done?” asked Obi-wan, sounding less than amused. After stepping back to let Anakin through the door he hadn’t moved from his position of disapproval beside the nook that housed their couch, seeming content to let Anakin dig himself deeper. Anakin had done his best to ignore the force rumbles of approbation that accompanied his pitiful attempt at defiance in trying to cross the living area and hide in his room, but the weighted glare of a disappointed Jedi Master is something that only grows heavier if you try to pretend it doesn’t exist. It seemed as though all the emotion Obi-wan had been suppressing until this point was now directed into judging Anakin’s actions without fair trial or hearing him out or anything else his exasperated tutors had tried to convince him was very important. If Anakin wasn’t being very Jedi right now, it was only because he was following his mentors example.
Abandoning his statue for now, Anakin stood up tall, shoulders back like Master Wendyam showed him in diplomacy class. He did his best to straighten his tunic, though it was not much use given how grubby it had gotten, then turned back to face Obi-wan.
“Sorry, Master Obi-wan,” he apologised, because that sort of thing was always best to get out of the way before people demanded you do it.
“Sorry for what, padawan? Disappearing? Your dirty clothes? The scratch marks leading right from the central west tower garden to the front door of your bedroom?” Obi-wan’s eyes seemed to narrow with each new charge, perhaps so he didn’t have to look at the mess Anakin had made of their living area.
“Uh, all of them?” Anakin replied. This was apparently not the right answer, because if at all possible it caused Obi-wan’s eyes to narrow even further. How he managed it in combination with his raised eyebrows Anakin had no idea.
“Do you understand what you did wrong, Anakin?” Obi-wan asked.
“Yes,” said Anakin. “I broke the rules.”
“Anakin,” Obi-wan sighed, “you don’t even know what the rules are.”
Obi-wan held Anakin’s eyes a little longer, as if searching for understanding. Anakin wanted to give him what he needed, but that was hard when he didn’t actually know what that was. It definitely didn’t seem to be enough to convince Obi-wan. Anakin hadn’t seen anyone deflate like that in a long time, as if all the energy keeping him going had just left all at once. Obi-wan sighed once, visibly giving up, and collapsed on the couch. He wasn’t looking at Anakin any more, but Anakin didn’t like it any more than he’d liked Obi-wan being mad at him. It would be so much easier if Obi-wan just told him what he wanted.
Anakin reviewed that thought, then quickly squashed it. He only had to do what Obi-wan wanted if it was what he also wanted. He got a say too, and Obi-wan being sad didn’t change that.
“Anakin, you didn’t talk to me,” said Obi-wan, addressing the ceiling rather than the padawan he was in the process of lecturing. “You’ve obviously been planning this for a long time, but not only did you not talk to me about your problems, you went out of your way to avoid having me noticing them.”
“I don’t have problems,” said Anakin, all evidence to the contrary. So he stole a statue, big deal. He only wanted his room to not look like nobody even lived in it like Obi-wan’s room did. He’d only caught a glimpse once or twice, but he hadn’t seen anything to disprove his theory that outside his role as a Jedi Knight, Obi-wan Kenobi was the most boring person ever.
“So if you don’t have problems, why is there a statue from the gardens in our living room?” asked Obi-wan. His eyebrow was doing that thing again, but Anakin wasn’t about to let it intimidate him. Unfortunately, he didn’t have an answer to that question that didn’t involve telling Obi-wan things that he didn’t want Obi-wan to know. About how, while he did want to be a Jedi, there were things about being a Jedi that he didn’t think he would ever understand.
Jedi weren’t meant to own things, which meant there was nothing that was permanent, that was theirs, which in turn meant there was no way to stop things from being taken away. The small personal touches to his bedroom, the stupid statue, his opportunity to have a better life. He didn’t know how to make it so he wouldn’t lose these things. He didn’t know how to make Obi-wan understand why these were things he was afraid to lose.
“You never asked to see my bedroom,” Anakin said. It was inevitable, it had always been inevitable, and this was the only way he could even try to contain how the confrontation would go. He had wanted to wait until he and Obi-wan understood each other better, but Obi-wan is a Jedi, and that might never happen. He would resign himself to returning the statue to the garden, the flimsy maps to the Astronav lab, and the other few small bits and bobs he had picked up over the past few weeks.
“You always seemed as though you needed space,” said Obi-wan. He had lost the over-dramatic skeptical look, and seemed to be calming down now they were have an actual discussion instead of avoiding the issue. He had sat up to look at Anakin instead of the roof, and his hands were in his lap rather than gesturing around about the arm of the couch.
“I did,” Anakin admitted, “but I think you gave me a little too much. I kinda feel like you’d prefer to be anywhere else than teaching me.” This made Obi-wan pinch the bridge of his nose, but Anakin could feel no return of the previous ill feelings through the force.
“Would you like me to come see your room?” asked Obi-wan, strangely gentle.
“Um…”
Did he? If Obi-wan was giving him a choice, did he want to risk getting into an argument all over again? And if he said no what would Obi-wan do, given there was still the statue to consider? Either answer was potentially disastrous, and the force wasn’t giving him any clues.
“Okay,” Anakin said, giving up.
“Are you sure?” asked Obi-wan. “You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it.”
He crossed the room toward Anakin, and seemed about to kneel down to his level before thinking better of it. He knew Anakin resented what he saw as being condescended to.
“I wanted to show you when it was finished.”
Obi-wan couldn’t seem to help making a quick worried glance at the closed bedroom, but he recovered quickly. His face passed through a variety of emotions too quickly for Anakin to parse, but what he settled on was-
-Well, Anakin didn’t quite know what it meant, as Obi-wan seemed to be concealing himself within the force even tighter than usual.
“Anakin, I would be honoured if you would show me your room. But it is okay if you don’t want to.”
“Even if there’s bad stuff in there?” asked Anakin, more than a little disbelieving. Obi-wan almost narrowed his eyes again, but caught himself, and Anakin had to restrain a hysterical giggle. It looked like he didn’t know how to wink properly, and was doing it with both his eyes.
“What sort of bad stuff?”
“Um, some old maps I found? And the cover lid of an old journal I found in the maintenance bay?” Anakin squirmed at the faces Obi-wan was deliberately not making. Anakin had never seen him be so careful, though he wasn’t sure why. He’d messed up, and Obi-wan was in charge of him, so why wasn’t Obi-wan acting how Anakin had thought he was going to act?
“Anakin, I know you’ve been having a difficult time adjusting to life at the temple,” started Obi-wan. He lowered himself to the floor, maybe to put himself at Anakins level, or maybe because he didn’t want what he said next to be so formal. “-and that’s fine, that was to be expected. I know I probably haven’t been making things any easier for you, but if putting some old maps that nobody wants in your room makes you feel more at home, then I’m not about to interfere.”
“Really?” said Anakin. “You don’t want to check to make sure I haven’t burgled the temple’s exclusive art collection?”
Obi-wan frowned, but Anakin could tell he was secretly amused.
“The temple doesn’t have an exclusive art collection, Anakin,” he said, “and as for checking your room, I’m happy to wait until you’re ready to show it to me.”
Anakin didn’t hug Obi-wan, but it was a near thing.
“And the statue?” Anakin asked.
“Has to go back to the garden,” said Obi-wan. “I don’t care how abandoned where you got it looked, there is no way it’s absence won’t be noticed. And,” he added, “you’ll be doing it by yourself. Think of it as learning the consequences of your actions, which in this case will also involve apologising to the gardeners for the dirty great hole in the landscaping. They should be used to that sort of thing, Jedi initiates are not so well behaved as they first appear, but expect some sort of punishment from that quarter too.”
Obi-wan smiled, as if remembering his own experiences, and got to his feet. Once he had dusted his robe off, he offered a hand down to help Anakin up too.
“But that can wait for tomorrow. You’ve been up far too late already, and you will be attending you’re classes in the morning.”
As punishments go, it wasn’t a bad one, even if he would be lugging the statue all the way back to the gardens by himself.
“Okay,” said Anakin. “And Obi-wan?”
“Yes Anakin?” asked Obi-wan, already heading to his own rooms.
“Thanks.”