Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes, at the end of the day, Obi-Wan liked to bake bread.

While most of the time he was glad the publishing firm let him work offsite, after a day of staring into the depths of word documents and .pdf files, he had to close his laptop, take a deep breath, and remind himself that he not only worked in this space, but lived in it. 

So. The bread.

A few minutes in the kitchen setting up and then he’d wait for the telltale sign of the yeast bubbling through the sugared water to start. Sifting in pale white flour, then adding a dash of olive oil, a pinch of salt, and a generous spoonful of fragrant rosemary, he created a soft but slightly sticky ball of dough that was gently placed on the floured countertop and pushed and prodded with the heels of his hands in smooth, repetitive motions. Kneading by hand usually took him about ten minutes, though he had to be careful not to lose himself in a near-meditative state and overwork the dough. After a little bit he was able to heft the whole thing up and pinch a corner to spread outwards with his fingers. Holding it up towards the window on the opposite side of the connected living room space, he could see light through the thin elastic stretch of the dough— but it held, and didn’t split off. Perfect.

He’d leave the dough to rise in a bowl, covered with a clean kitchen cloth, while he puttered around the kitchen and cleaned or re-cleaned the counters and stovetop. If that didn’t take him long enough, he’d move outwards into the living room and start cleaning the windows or water the plants on the sill. On rare occasions he’d just sit by the window and enjoy watching the clouds roll by far overhead. Today, he took particular pleasure in noting the changing color of the leaves on the trees outside.

After an hour, he returned to the kitchen and removed the cloth, like a magic trick, to find the dough had risen. He gently pushed it back down into the bowl before dividing it in half to make two separate loaves, then moved them carefully onto a baking sheet and sprinkled them with more rosemary. After another 45 minutes of letting the loaves rise, actually spent meditating this time, he finally baked the loaves until they turned golden brown and the whole apartment smelled of baking bread and rosemary. 

Right on time, there was a thud at the door.

Thud was a more accurate description than knock, especially once Obi-Wan opened the door only to have Ahsoka near-fall into the apartment.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Were you just pressed up against the door? You know you could have just stood there normally, and knocked. Or even just come in. It wasn’t locked.”

“It smells like baking,” Ahsoka said, completely ignoring him and bypassing the tiny hallway space for the kitchen.

“Well, I’m having a lovely day, thank you for asking, and how about you?” Obi-Wan muttered to himself as he closed the door. When he turned back into the kitchen, Ahsoka just grinned at him, already able to tell he wasn’t really annoyed. She’d always been able to do that, in the two years he’d known her. It was rather nice, actually.

“You’re gonna feed me some of this, right? Please?” She clapped her hands together in front of her face in a mock-begging gesture. After a moment she added, “Oh, and how are you?”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “Just fine, thank you. I assume you’re as well as always.”

“Except for the part where I’m starving, yeah. Now that the niceties are out of the way…?” She trailed off hopefully.

“Just a moment.” He quickly pulled out a small bowl to melt some butter and used a pastry brush to lightly brush the top of each loaf with the liquid. And with just a sprinkling of flaked sea salt to top —

Done.

“Alright, here you are,” he told Ahsoka, pulling out a serrated knife and cutting a generous slice for her. He waited, watching her face as she took the slice. He could see her eyes light up at the warmth, and she hummed appreciatively as curls of steam spiraled up from it.

It wasn’t a particularly crusty bread, so there wasn’t a crunch when she bit in, but he could tell it was soft and springy. She closed her eyes and hummed even louder as she chewed.

“Holy hellsh, Ob-Wan,” she groaned, mouth still full. “’S sss’good.”

“Thank you, I think.” Now that he’d seen her reaction, he cut a slice for himself. It was pretty good, if he did say so himself. The herbed bread was good by itself, but with the salt and butter on top? Delicious.

Ahsoka gulped down the rest of her piece in two large mouthfuls and licked the dribbles of melted butter off her fingers before Obi-Wan was even halfway through his slice.

“Are you putting this on your blog?” she asked, reaching and taking the knife from him and cutting off another, slightly uneven slice.

“Hm? Oh, no, not this recipe. It’s just baking bread, and anyway, it’s actually Dex’s recipe.”

Ahsoka shook her head. “You’re depriving the people of knowledge, Obi-Wan. Now how will I get delicious bread whenever I want?”

“By bothering poor innocent bakers in their homes until they feed you, I assume.”

Ahsoka pointed at him. “Exactly right! How did you know?”

They grinned at each other for a moment before resuming their small meal.

“You could just make some yourself,” Obi-Wan pointed out after another few bites.

“Mmm, I tried but it wasn’t as good as when you make it. That may have been because I used a different kind of flour than what you said? I didn’t have the, uh, all-purpose stuff, so I used some that said self-rising.”

That made him pause. “Why would you have self-rising flour but not all-purpose…? And in any case, the recipe doesn’t call for baking powder.”

She just gave him a blank look.

“...Which would be the point of substituting for self-rising.”

“So there’s baking soda in the flour?”

“Baking powder. There is a difference, in the ratio with the salt —”

“WELL it tasted fine, but not the same as yours. So here I am to bother you for food! And oh, yeah,” she said as she finished her second piece. “I meant to ask last time I was over, but I forgot.”

“...Yes?” Obi-Wan prompted when she didn’t continue.

“Um, do you know Anakin Skywalker?”

Obi-Wan blinked at the unexpected question. “Well, I know of him. He runs a sort of food blog, right?”

“Sort of ?” Ahsoka repeated, with air quotes.

Abashed, Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “Well, it’s very different from mine, I mean. I’ve seen some of the slow-cooker meals and budget meal-prep posts he’s put up. I confess I haven’t tried any of them, though. I don’t really keep up with the blog; he tends to ramble a bit before he gets to the actual recipe.”

“Wow. That is possibly the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

Obi-Wan could feel himself flushing a little, raising his hand and rubbing at his beard to cover it. “Yes, well. Hm. Why do you ask?”

“Uh. No reason.”

Meanwhile, one floor up in the same apartment building:

Anakin paced a circle on the carpeted floor, kicking pieces of the vacuum he’d disassembled out of the way as he went. After a minute he had a clear route, an oval that went around the coffee table in the middle of the room. He’d walked this path so often that the carpet under his feet had actually discolored a little, making the oval visible even to visitors. Like Padme, who was watching him from her spot on the loveseat, feet curled under her and looking completely comfortable.

When he made eye contact with her, she just gave him a flat look.

“UGH!" Anakin yelled. “I just, ugh, I’m gonna go bake something.”

And he stomped off his path to detour into the kitchen. He pulled the paper bag of bread flour from the cupboard along with several packages of yeast and a sack of sugar. Padme watched with a bemused expression, still not commenting even though Anakin was sure she had a comment or two to make. He ignored her persistent stare and continued.

After dumping several cups of flour into the stand mixer with the yeast, some sugar, and a generous pinch of salt, he cracked in an egg and threw in a stick of butter before turning the mixer on. He had to hold the mixer in place as it started trying to slowly rock its way across the counter, but after about five minutes of mixing with the bread hook and an added splash of milk, the dough looked like about the right consistency. He removed the mixing bowl and covered it with some clear wrap before huffing and returning to his pacing.

He was still refusing to look at Padme and her beautiful judge-y face, so he ignored her as he alternated between pacing and slinking into the kitchen to watch impatiently as the dough slowly rose over the course of the next hour.

Well, more like 45 minutes. Close enough.

When the dough had about doubled in size, he took great pleasure in using his flesh hand to punch the burgeoning dough down and push the air out, deflating it like a balloon. From there he carefully formed two dozen rolls, rounding out the balls in his palms and pushing them through the ring of his fingers to make them smooth on top. By the time he was carefully placing the balls of dough on baking sheets, he’d calmed down significantly. And also gotten flour everywhere. He’d clean that up later.

Leaving the rolls to rise again, he returned to flop on the carpet in front of Padme’s seat, humming when she reached down to pet his hair, injured pride forgotten for now. From there it was a quick half an hour before he returned to the kitchen to quickly whip together an egg wash: a mix of warm milk and beaten egg that he brushed over the top of the rolls with the corner of a paper towel, because he’d never bothered to buy an actual pastry brush. 

He was crouched on the floor in front of the oven, watching them bake through the little window, when there was a thud at the door.

“It’s open!” he yelled, and Ahsoka burst in.

“I smell bread,” she announced as she entered. She saw the top of Anakin’s head over the counter and walked around it to join him in the tiny kitchen space. “Oh hells yes,” she said as she peered into the oven with him. “Also, hey, you have flour on your face.”

He pulled up the hem of his shirt and swiped at his face. “Better?”

Her face twitched in a way that he was pretty sure meant she thought he was a combination of idiotic and amusing, but she didn’t actually answer his question. Oh well. 

"They’re almost done. Can you pull out the cooling racks?”

“Sure thing.” Ahsoka managed to pull the collapsible racks and set them up on the counter just as Anakin pulled the baking sheets out, rolls golden brown and wafting steam. The racks were momentarily forgotten as Anakin scooped up three rolls, tossing one to Ahsoka and leaning across the counter to throw another to Padme, still on the loveseat.

“Do not,” Padme interrupted before he could make the throw. “Just come over here and hand it to me. Honestly, Ani.”

So they congregated in the living area, Ahsoka claiming the other spot on the loveseat and Anakin returning to his seat on the floor in front. Anakin watched his friends bite into their own rolls before he took a bite of his own. While the tops of the rolls were a shiny golden brown from the egg wash, the bottoms were a pale yellow and the inside was creamy white from the milk.

“Ugh, it’s so good,” Ahsoka said immediately, despite the half-chewed bread in her mouth.

Padme hummed her agreement, then gave Anakin a sharp look before he could also talk with his mouth full.

Dutifully, he swallowed his bite before speaking. “It was my mom’s recipe.” He shrugged. “I dunno, baking it makes me feel better, sometimes, when I get frustrated.”

“Kill another vacuum?” Ahsoka asked, eyeing the bits still strewn at the edges of the oval.

“I don’t understand,” said Padme, who had already finished her roll and wiped her mouth with a napkin (where had she even gotten it from? Anakin just used paper towels when he needed napkins). “How can you fix just about anything mechanical except for vacuum cleaners? It makes no sense.”

“Vacuums,” Anakin muttered darkly, and shoved the rest of his roll in his mouth. He wiped his hands on the knees of his pants and stood to move the rest of the rolls to the cooling racks while he remembered. Ahsoka held her hands up in a here! motion while Padme was distracted digging for something in her bag, so Anakin threw her another one. She’d managed to stuff the whole thing in her mouth by the time Padme sat back up, but her cheeks were chipmunk-round around the sheepish smile she gave to the other woman.

Padme just shook her head. “It’s a lovely recipe, Ani. The crumb is perfect.” She didn’t comment on Ahsoka’s manners, which seemed unfair given the frequency that she commented on Anakin’s. Whatever. Ahsoka was great. Padme was great.

He really did feel a lot better after baking.

“Really, Padme? The crumb? Can’t you just say it tastes good?”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Ahsoka interjected before Padme could respond. “I meant to ask, Skyguy, do you know Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

Two things happened simultaneously: Anakin made a prolonged hissing breath, and Padme rolled her eyes and muttered, “Oh, here we go.”

“He’s that pretentious food blogger, yeah, I’ve heard of him.”

Ahsoka seemed a bit put out by the reaction. “Pretentious?”

“Yeah, I mean, have you seen the pancakes recipe he put up? It’s so ridiculous. It’s pancakes, who needs toasted pecans for that? And why make them so small?”

Padme sighed and stood from her seat to close the laptop she’d had open on the coffee table, most likely grading student’s papers. As she started packing it back into her bag, she nudged Anakin’s knee with her foot. “Didn’t you use his tutorial for making flowers out of strawberries, that one time? You have to admit he’s very good at what he does.”

Anakin made a cutting motion through the air with his hand. “Irrelevant. Pretentious. Hey, take some rolls with you.”

Although the comment had been directed at Padme, Ahsoka immediately leapt to her feet. “Seriously?” she asked, even as she moved to the kitchen and pulled out one of the large tupperware containers from his overcrowded plastic container storage cupboard.

“Well yeah, that’s the point of making rolls. They’re for sharing.”

“You’re the best!” She started cramming rolls into the tub.

A fond smile pulled at Anakin’s mouth. “Anyway. The only thing I need to know about Obi-Wan Kenobi is how he makes a grilled cheese sandwich. And you know how he makes one?” He paused, mostly for effect since neither member of his audience bothered to ask how? “He spreads butter on one side of each piece of bread before he puts it in the pan.”

“Okaaaaay…?”

“Spreadable butter!” Anakin exclaimed, waving his arms. “That’s ridiculous! Just put a pat of butter in the pan while it’s heating up and soak it up with the bread when you put it in! Spreadable butter. Ugh.”

Both women stared at him.

“I don’t get it,” Ahsoka informed him bluntly.

“Tch.” He shook his head and flopped over so he was lying on his back on the carpet. Granted, when he made grilled cheese he had to balance the half-grilled sandwich up on whatever utensil he was using, which was sometimes a butter knife, so he could melt more butter in the pan before he could flip the sandwich to the other side. Or sometimes rather than trying to balance it while he attempted to get more butter melted, he just held the whole thing in his prosthetic hand. Was it the most dignified way to grill a sandwich? Maybe not. Was it delicious, and not at all pretentious, like some methods were? Definitely.

“Anyway,” Padme said as she hoisted her bag, “maybe you should keep an open mind, hm? I’m sure he’s not that bad.” For some reason, she shot a weird look at Ahsoka in the kitchen, who shrugged in return.

Anakin made a rude noise, which just made Padme dig her foot into his ribs and step on him on her way to the door. Oof. Ahsoka joined her in the entranceway, reaching over to stash the tub of rolls into Padme’s bag.

“We’ll see you later, Skyguy!”

“You just got here,” he grumbled, but stood up to give both of them a quick hug. He would have told them they could just stay and do Snips’ thesis stuff here, but knew from experience they would just distract each other, even under the watchful eye of the polisci professor.

“Yes, well, Ahsoka got here late,” Padme explained.

“I got distracted!”

Padme just sighed. “Double dipping,” she muttered, then gave Anakin a soft kiss on the cheek before exiting the apartment.

Ahsoka followed, waving goodbye, and he could hear her saying, “Oooh, we should get some chips and dip from that place down the street.”

“You just ate! How are you still hungry?”

Anakin smiled, and closed the door after them.

One floor down:

Obi-Wan had just finished washing the last of the dishes when there was another knock on the door. Drying his hands with a tea towel, he opened it to find Padme, with Ahsoka right behind her.

“Hey Obi-Wan!” was Ahsoka’s enthusiastic greeting, as if he hadn’t just seen her less than half an hour ago.

“Hello, Obi-Wan.” Padme was more reserved, but her smile was sweet and genuine. “We’re on our way out to work on Ahsoka’s project, but we were visiting a friend in the building and I wanted to make sure to say hello to you, too.”

They chatted for less than five minutes, mostly small talk, before Padme excused them. As they were headed down the hall, Ahsoka turned and called back to him.

“You should try making that bread recipe into rolls! That way they’d be easy to share, and maybe you could take some into your actual office sometime!”

He couldn’t see Padme’s expression but he could picture exactly how hard she would be rolling her eyes in the face of Ahsoka’s infamous appetite.

Obi-Wan just smiled and waved, closing the door.

Turn Dex’s bread recipe into rolls...now there was an idea.

And he wondered who it was that Padme knew who lived in the same apartment building.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan’s day started out well. 

It was the first day of his “weekend,” which, working from home, could be any two days of the week he wanted. He’d picked Thursday and Friday this time, so he could go to the farmer’s market on a less crowded weekday. The market was still bustling with activity, but it was less chaotic than the crowds that typically descended on the weekend.

This particular market was a permanent fixture, open every day. There was a long building that housed shops for things that needed to be refrigerated — dairy, seafood, meat — but also a selection of freshly canned fruits and spreads and such, plus one very good bakery. Outside of those, a long covered walkway was set up with the tables of produce that arrived fresh every morning from the farms.

 He’d started at the permanent indoor shops to pick up some chicken from the local fowl raiser, as well as some of the goat cheese from the family-run dairy farmers’ shop right next door. With these safely wrapped in his insulated container and then tucked into a canvas bag, he’d moved on to the outdoor produce stands.  

This was the part he was really excited about, because it was the start of apple season, and already there were piles and piles of golden, pinkish red, and shiny green apples to look through. 

This was also the part where things started to get , not bad per se, but odd.

There was a man staring at him.

Although glaring seemed like a better word, what with the intensity of the gaze. Just from his peripheral vision, Obi-Wan didn’t think he knew this person, but he also didn’t want to look at him straight-on to confirm because he didn’t want to make eye contact. So he did his best to ignore it as he carefully selected a variety of apples in sunset hues, cradling them and examining each one thoroughly. For some reason, this seemed to make the stranger’s gaze bore into him even more.

It was possible this stranger recognized him, he supposed. There was a small picture of himself on his blog, which Padme had insisted made the site look more professional. He’d been recognized on occasion before, but typically those people would say something . Just when he thought he might actually spontaneously combust from the glaring, the stall owner interrupted.

A regular at the market, he was a diminutive man with wispy white hair and a sturdy cane that seemed to always be in hand. “Good to see you both, it is. Shopping together, you are?”

Startled, Obi-Wan reflexively looked over at the person in question. His immediate thought — oh no, he’s cute — he immediately stomped down and covered over with a charming smile. “We’ve never met, actually.” But he got the feeling that the old man knew that already, if the glint in his eye was anything to go by.

“Oh? Young Mister Skywalker, made one of Mister Kenobi’s recipes last month, did you not? Seem to recall you talking about a blackberry pie, I do.”

Which answered two of his questions: one, this person must be Anakin Skywalker. Two, he apparently did know who Obi-Wan was, and had even made one of his recipes, which was flattering. But the question remained, why was he being glared at so intently?

Fascinatingly, Skywalker’s face had turned a sort of Pink Lady shade.

Skywalker huffed and finally turned away to snap something at the shopkeep, but Obi-Wan missed what it was as he appraised the man.

Tall and lanky, wearing all black clothing, including a T-shirt so faded that whatever was originally printed on it had become indistinguishable. The black jeans were ripped but more in a threadbare manner than in the deliberate, stylish way of most fashion jeans. In comparison, the black boots were well-taken care of. The black jacket he was wearing (why? the temperature had just barely dropped from summer into almost-fall) was too big and the sides flapped open where it hadn’t been zipped up. The wavy hair was shaggy in a way that suggested a haircut was overdue, but for some reason Obi-Wan was caught up in the way it brushed down across one eyebrow and drew the gaze toward a spectacularly blue eye lined with thick lashes.

In short, Skywalker was not at all his type. But he was somehow hard to look away from.

Whatever the man had been ranting about was cut off when a small girl approached and determinedly cut him off, waving a small sample cup of yogurt around. Her hair was pulled into multiple haphazard buns, and she had a tray of the yogurt cups in one arm. “Wanna try it?” she demanded. It didn’t really sound like a question. Skywalker gave her a baffled look but took the cup. The girl nodded and turned to Obi-Wan. He felt her press one of the cups into his hands, but he was occupied watching Skywalker’s brow furrow as he stared into the cup and poked the yogurt with his tiny sample spoon.

“It’s just yogurt,” the girl said, obviously exasperated. “I made it myself, with strawberries.”

Skywalker took a hesitant bite and the furrow twitched briefly before his face relaxed and he licked the spoon. “Oh, it’s good.”

“I made it myself ,” the girl repeated. “And you can buy some at the dairy shop inside. Here,” she gave a cup to the stallkeep before she huffed and ran off in the direction of another cluster of shoppers.

Obi-Wan watched her go for a moment but found his gaze drawn back to Skywalker. For the first time he noticed that the hand holding the cup was a prosthetic, matte black with articulated fingers.

Unfortunately, Skywalker caught him looking. In a move not dissimilar to that of the little girl, he huffed and turned to the stallkeep to announce, “I’m looking for kale.”

“A fruit stand, this is.”

Skywalker made a frustrated noise and stalked away without a further word.

Obi-Wan shared a look with the stallkeep, who just gave him an enigmatic smile.

Besides that one blip in his shopping experience, he was cheered by the haul of apples he bought. After a quick detour for some shallots and herbs — and a container of yogurt — he made his way back to his apartment building, ready to put the incident out of his mind, only to find that Skywalker had arrived at the building at exactly the same time. He was holding a large bundle of kale, with a separate bundle of what looked like cilantro on top.

Is he stalking me? was his first concern, followed by why would anyone stalk me over my cooking blog, calm down. And then, but why is he here?

Skywalker gave him a disbelieving look before turning and slamming through the door to the stairwell. Watching him go, it looked like he’d stashed several limes in the pockets and even in the hood of his jacket.

Obi-Wan decided to wait for the elevator.

Anakin’s day started out terribly.

Padme kept telling him that starting the day with a more positive outlook would vastly improve his mood, but it was Thursday, which was basically his Sunday, which meant he had to go back to work the next day, and anyone would be justified in having a bit of Sunday (Thursday) blues, right?

She’d also told him that she already had dinner plans.

“Who would you rather be having dinner with than me ?” he’d whined into the phone.

“I’ll eat dinner with you! ” he heard Ahsoka yell in the background, apparently already at Padme’s office. So at least he had one dinner guest.

He was planning on putting this one up on his blog, so he’d gone to the farmer’s market to get the required produce, because he kept hearing stuff about people getting E. coli from supermarket lettuce or something.

He liked the farmer’s market, although there was an unavoidably large crowd of hipster and hipster-adjacent people wandering around. There was some guy looking at apples who was wearing a freaking button-up shirt, albeit with the sleeves pushed up. He also had several canvas bags and even a freezer bag, presumably for meat or dairy. (Anakin had his chicken defrosting from the grocery store, like a normal person.)

He was about to walk right by when just a small motion — the man moved his hand to stroke his beard — drew his attention and he realized oh holy shit that’s Obi-Wan Kenobi.

So instead he’d made a sudden detour over to the stand, without any kind of plan in mind. And he just. Stared. He knew he was staring but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to stop. Kenobi didn’t look at him but the set of his shoulders went more rigid, so obviously he knew he was staring. Fuck. (The picture on the guy’s website did not do him justice.)

“Good to see you both, it is. Shopping together, you are?” the stall owner asked. This finally made Kenobi look over at him, eyebrows arched in surprise over pale, rainwashed eyes. 

“We’ve never met, actually,” he said and smiled, blandly polite. 

“Oh? Young Mister Skywalker, made one of Mister Kenobi’s recipes last month, did you not? Seem to recall you talking about blackberry pie, I do.”

Double fuck. He could feel himself flushing, and saw that smile twitch. Hastily, he turned to the guy — Yoga? something like that — “No, I was just referencing, I mean, I wasn’t actually using his recipe. I don’t even know who this guy is. Or I didn’t until you said. Also we’re obviously not here together. Why would you even ask that? And I’ve never made one of his recipes in my life.”

Yoga just kind of smirked at him, which was irritating beyond belief, but Anakin’s further protests were cut short by a very persistent miniature yogurt salesperson. By the time he looked back up from this distraction, he saw Kenobi staring at his arm, and he wasn’t about to put up with that.

“I’m looking for kale,” he told Yoga, deciding to take the high road and not challenge Kenobi to a fist fight in the parking lot.

“A fruit stand, this is.”

Manfully biting back the incoherent yell he could feel at the back of his throat, he turned on his heels and left to find some fucking kale.

“And I think! He lives! In this apartment building!” he told Ahsoka, punctuating each exclamation with a shake of the bag of rice. He’d cut the corner off but apparently had made the cut too small; the grains were piling up and getting stuck rather than going into the bowl of the rice cooker. He poked at it a bit, scowling, until they broke loose and poured out.

“Uh-huh,” Ahsoka said, drawn out and distracted as she mutilated the limes in her attempts to squeeze out as much juice as possible. Anakin paused in his rant to watch her, amused, before turning back to dump a can of coconut milk in the cooker. A handful of roughly chopped cilantro later, he replaced the lid and got it going. With that out of the way, he was able to turn his attention to the chicken.

“Gross,” Ahsoka muttered as he pulled the chicken breasts out of the ziploc bag he’d frozen them in. Now thawed out, they were still cold and kind of slimy on his flesh hand. He’d replaced his nicer prosthetic with the more basic one, which was really just good for holding things in place, but was much easier to clean after cooking with meat.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re gonna love it once it’s done, though. You can just stick that over next to the rice.”

Ahsoka grinned and plunked the small cup of juice down next to the cooker before scurrying around to the other side of the counter, putting her chin in her hand to watch him. “This part is still gross though,” she said as he seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, and a generous dusting of curry powder. 

“Well concentrate on something else, then! Like how Obi-Wan Kenobi apparently lives in my apartment building.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were in the landlord business. Your apartment building, huh?”

“You know what I mean!” he gestured wildly while Ahsoka watched his chicken juice-covered hands with mistrust.

“Yeah, okay, but what’s wrong with Obi-Wan? Besides the fact that you think he’s pretentious, which considering you’ve never met him until today, I think is kind of a snap judgement.”

Not really knowing how to articulate his reasoning into words, he just grumbled. “Whatever. Hey, can you spread out a bunch of that shredded coconut — from that bag, yeah — just spread it out on a sheet pan and we’ll put it in the oven in a minute.”

Ahsoka saluted and grabbed the bag of coconut.

He could almost feel his metaphorical hackles lowering, with the calming sound of someone working in the kitchen with him. He glanced over at the cast iron pan heating on the stovetop, with a thin layer of oil coating the bottom. Ahsoka caught him looking and he gave her a mock glare, but it faded into a fond smile after just a few seconds.

“I didn’t know!” she protested, smiling right back at him.

She was referencing an incident where she’d attempted to put his cast iron cookware into the dishwasher. He shuddered to think of it.

“The dishwasher, Snips.”

She just rolled her eyes at him as she dumped a pile of coconut out onto the sheet.

Skirting around her, he carried the plate of chicken over to the stove and carefully laid out the pieces in the pan. There was an immediate, gratifying sizzle and the smell of the curry powder intensified. Leaving it to cook for a few minutes, he dumped the dirty plate in the sink and used his elbow to turn on the faucet to wash his hands.

“You know,” he told Ahsoka over the sound of the water running and the oil spitting, “my mom used to tell me when I was a kid helping out that the reason cast iron was so heavy was because it was an extraterrestrial metal.”

Ahsoka looked immediately delighted by this information. “A what?”

“Extraterrestrial metal, like it was recovered from crash-landed spaceships and reformed into pots and pans. I thought it was super cool.”

“That’s adorable.”

“Uh, I’m still adorable — hey, come on, I just washed my hands!” he protested as she shrieked and ducked away when he attempted to poke her.

“Chicken hands!” she hollered. “Stay back!”

Someone cleared their throat politely. “Am I interrupting?”

They both looked over to see Padme in the entryway.

She caught his eye and barely had time to say, “Anakin, you should really keep your door locked even if you’re home —” and then Ahsoka was jumping behind her and saying something about chicken hands again.

Padme looked unimpressed. (She was very good at that look.)

“I thought you couldn’t come over!” Anakin smiled, pleased to see her.

“Well I still do have dinner plans, but I did want to stop by and see you, of course.”

“You stopped by my apartment building to say hi on your way to dinner?”

Padme and Ahsoka looked at each other. And maybe it was a combination of that look, and his ability to jump to the worst conclusion, and the fact that he’d seen the guy today, but the realization struck him like a bell.

“Are you having dinner with Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

For all her famed stoicism, Padme immediately crumbled. “Oh, Ani, don’t be upset —”

“I’m not upset!” he told them, obviously upset, even to his own ears. He bit his lip and then said, with as much dignity as he could muster, “Excuse me, I need to flip the chicken.” And he retreated back to the stove and used the tongs to do exactly that. He could hear a brief bout of whispering, then Padme said, “I’ll come by afterwards okay? And we can talk?”

He didn’t answer but he did look over and give her a curt nod before staring back down at the chicken. With the curry powder, it was turning a pretty bright yellow-brown.

He heard Padme leave and then, after a moment, Ahsoka tapping a finger on the edge of the counter. When he looked up again, she was giving him a look. What, was she taking lessons from Padme?

“You know it’s not cool that we felt like we couldn’t tell you we know him, right? Or that she was worried about your reaction to having dinner with a friend?”

“I didn’t mean to —!” He cut himself off, hating how whiny he sounded. He sighed and pulled out his phone to take a picture of the chicken cooking.

“Skyguy, seriously, jealousy is not a good look on you. Or anybody.”

“Not! Jealous!”

He was obviously jealous.

They both knew it.

But — 

“Wait,” Ahsoka said slowly. “ Wait.”

Oh no.

“Who are you jealous of?”

Fuck.

“Are you jealous of Padme?” Ahsoka’s volume had risen back to a shriek. Anakin whipped around and brandished the tongs at her.

“No! That’s not what’s happening here!”

“You’re jealous of Padme because you want to have dinner with him, oh my god!”

Yeah, there was no stopping her now. He groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“I mean, Padme mentioned you’ve made stuff from his blog before, but the way you talk about him, I didn’t realize you were a fan!”

“I’m not!” he protested immediately. “Yeah, okay, I can appreciate that he’s a good cook, but I could just tell from the way he writes his posts, he’s just, he’s — pretentious! And yeah, I’ve commented a few times, you know, anonymously —”

Ahsoka had gone from looking disappointed in him to looking positively thrilled at his embarrassment, and he was pretty sure that was worse.

And wait, if Padme and Ahsoka both knew Kenobi — 

“Don’t you dare tell him about this.”

The little hellion just grinned at him. “I accept bribes in the form of food.”

Ugh. He had the worst best friends.

(The bribe went over well, though. Once the chicken was cooked through he used the pan to wilt the kale, which was then thrown into the rice along with the lime juice and a pinch of salt. They sliced up the chicken — he ignored Ahsoka’s cheery needling about his poor knife skills possibly taking his other hand off — and he served it on the rice with toasted coconut, peanuts, and extra cilantro and lime. And Ahsoka only complained minimally during the wait while he took a ton of pictures of the plated food.)

Later that night, after a raucous discussion with Padme and Ahsoka about his non-existent food-crush on Obi-Wan Kenobi, he pulled up the man’s website to read his newest post.

Huh, he thought. No apples.

Obi-Wan had timed his cooking preparation so the meal would be on the table precisely when his guest arrived.

He’d used a newly-sharpened knife to cut a decent-sized pocket into the chicken breasts, filling each one with a dollop of soft goat cheese. Each piece was then generously seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder before being quickly browned in a large pan. After the initial sear, he flipped them each a few times to keep the melting cheese from oozing out.

The chicken was then set aside in a baking dish so he could cooked down the shallots, waiting for them to turn soft and translucent and fragrant. To these he added sour balsamic vinegar, sweet pomegranate juice and brown sugar, savory chicken broth, and a pinch of salt. He watched carefully and stirred constantly, waiting for the mixture to come to a boil and start to reduce. After just a few minutes it was thick enough to pour over the chicken in a near-glaze, and from there the whole baking dish was ready to go into the oven.

He set the table while he waited. Elegant pink and white plates, red napkins, gold-toned flatware, all intended to emphasize the color of the meal. By the time Padme arrived, he was finishing up taking pictures. 

“Hmm. Some green would be good contrast,” she pointed out.

He hummed in agreement, eyeing the food with a critical eye. “Some basil, maybe?”

Several artfully shredded pieces of basil later, he had several pictures of the golden-brown chicken, drizzled in the sauce and topped with basil and pomegranate arils, cheese just slightly oozing out.

“It looks lovely, Obi-Wan,” Padme enthused.

“And tastes good, too, I hope.” He smiled at her as he put away his camera. 

“It always does.”

He pulled out a bottle of wine, roasted asparagus from the oven, and Padme’s chair for her, and they sat down to eat.

Padme was, as ever, a delightful dinner companion. She supplied multiple anecdotes about the odd characters she met in academic life, and her comments on his own rather mundane accounts of his work were a fun balance of acerbic and warm. When he came to the story about his meeting at the fruit stand that day, she paused.

“Actually, Obi-Wan, since Anakin just found out about this, I suppose I should tell you, as well. You know that I have a friend who lives in the building?”

“Yes? Oh. Oh, I see. Well I suppose it’s good to know he does actually live here and was definitely not stalking me. Although apparently he’s read my blog.”

Padme sighed. “Well at least you’re taking this well.”

He paused, fork in midair. “Implying that he didn’t take it well?”

“He’s...sensitive,” she said.

They both stopped to consider how much that sounded like a cop-out.

“Just, if you see him again, give him the benefit of the doubt, please?”

“I suppose if I trust anyone’s opinion, I trust yours. Alright. I’ll ignore his dubious wardrobe choices. For you.”

That succeeded in making her laugh, at least. The rest of their dinner conversation was more along their usual lines, but afterwards, once she’d made her goodbyes and left his apartment, he thought back to her expression when she’d mentioned him: exasperated, but undeniably fond. And he really did trust her judgement, so surely he couldn’t be all that bad.

Out of curiosity, he pulled up the man’s blog.

It looked like he’d just posted a recipe. Obi-Wan immediately noticed the use of kale, and felt his lips twitching into a smile. A fruit stand, this is.

He navigated to his own site, ready to put Anakin Skywalker out of his mind. Apparently they’d been living in the same apartment building for a while, and he’d only run into the man once.

So it seemed unlikely they’d have another encounter any time soon.

.

.

.

.

.

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(Anakin leaving anonymous comments on Obi-Wan's blog)

Chapter Text

Sometimes on days off, Anakin would wear his more basic prosthetic and not the nice articulated robot one he’d designed himself. Or he just wouldn’t wear one at all.

This particular day, though, he was wearing the basic one, which was basically just a fake hand attached with a harness. It was good for helping to pick up things that weren’t too heavy or pushing open doors and such, but.

Not so good for fine motor skills. 

Or even basic motor skills. 

Like opening a jar of spaghetti sauce.

He inhaled deeply, breathing out through his nose as his lips tightened in a barely-repressed scowl. He was not going to get upset about this. He was not getting worked up over a jar of spaghetti sauce. He was not going to get so frustrated he smashed a jar of spaghetti sauce all over the counter. Again.

No, instead, he took out his phone.

padme come help me open a jar :( 

I need you and your big strong arms

Anakin, you are an engineer. 

Come up with a better solution than calling me over to your apartment to open jars for you.

:((((((

Sorry dear but I’m in the middle of something and can’t drop it to come rescue you. 

And before you ask, yes, Ahsoka is with me and she can’t come open your jar either.

so basically neither of you love me

nowimgonnastarve.gif

Anakin pouted down at the screen. 

fine gimme kenobi’s apartment number I’ll go ask him

There was a pause before he got a response.

Ani do you PROMISE to behave yourself if I tell you?

yah whatever

>:|

I PROMISE OK I WON’T THROW THE JAR AT HIS STUPID HANDSOME FACE

Good. It’s 306.

Handsome?? :P

Anakin didn’t bother to dignify that with a reply.

Instead he all-but hurled himself out the door, jar in hand, and descended to the 3rd floor.

It didn’t actually catch up with him what he was doing until he was in front of the door to 306. Is this a good idea? The tiny rational voice in his mind was asking. Are we about to disappoint Padme? Do we have a plan for this interaction?

His other inner voice scoffed. Since when did he need a plan? He was just asking a neighbor for a quick favor. This would take a minute or two tops, and he was reasonably adept at smalltalk when he had to be. No problem.

Jar held in his flesh hand, he knocked the prosthetic against the door a few times. It took only a few moments for Kenobi to answer the door, wearing glasses and looking unfairly good for someone dressed like a beige professor in his own home. Anakin was annoyed by how much he was into it.

He saw Kenobi open his mouth to speak, which for some reason prompted him to immediately speak over him.

“Hey can you help me with this?” He brandished the jar.

“Oh. Of course.”

Anakin watched Kenobi attempt to open the jar in awkward I’ve-just-accosted-you-in-your-home-and-neither-of-us-know-what-to-say silence. Gratifyingly, the jar didn’t open for him either.

“Just a moment.” Kenobi retreated back into the apartment with the jar. Although the apartment was bound to be the same layout as his just a floor above, Anakin took a few steps in and tried to look around discreetly.

The furniture matched, which was an advantage over the eclectic collection he had, but it was all very beige . Comfortable looking, though. There was a set of framed maps artfully displayed on one wall, and he was pretty sure he recognized one of them as Middle Earth. Huh. 

There was also a very nicely arranged charcuterie board on the coffee table, laden with cheese and fruit and little slices of prosciutto. Huh .

He looked back at Kenobi just in time to catch his gaze as the other man gave him a tentative smile from where he had the jar under running water from the faucet.

“Nice weather, isn’t it?”

Oh boy, the smalltalk. He could do this. “Not really. It’s too cold.” Okay he could not do this.

“You think so? I’m just glad it’s finally cooled down for the fall.”

“Anything below 80 degrees is too cold if you ask me,” Anakin grumbled. 

“Eighty?”

“I’d settle for 75 if I had to.”

Kenobi actually gaped for a moment before collecting himself and giving a noncommittal hum, clearly not agreeing but apparently not willing to get into a discussion about it.

Small talk isn’t supposed to be aggressive, idiot, Anakin told himself. He promptly ignored himself.

“So, having a party or something?” he asked.

“Hm?” Kenobi looked at where he was eyeing the charcuterie board. “Oh, no, actually I just threw that together for myself. Sometimes it’s nice to just have a sampling of finger foods when I don’t feel like cooking.”

This was unbelievable. “You made a charcuterie board...for yourself.”

Kenobi looked briefly hunted. Did he think Anakin was angling for an invitation? Please. He just couldn’t believe this guy thought the easy solution to a lazy night in alone was to make a freaking charcuterie board. But! Whatever! He could restrain himself from commenting. Out loud.

Luckily  this was the point where Kenobi managed to get the jar open.

“Oh, there it goes. That was really stuck on there.” He returned to hand the jar over.

“Yeah, look, I can usually open things one-handed with some maneuvering but it was really tight. Or I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Right, I didn’t mean —” He stopped and changed direction abruptly. “You run a food blog, right? You know, I’d think you would have better taste in sauce than this.”

“...What.”

“This jarred sauce.”

“Well I don’t always feel like making tomato sauce from scratch.” Was this guy serious?

“Still, as far as tomato sauce goes, it’s one of those things that it’s better to avoid the generic store brand.”

Unbelievable. “Sometimes, things that are expensive,” he said slowly, “are worse.”

Kenobi just gave him a confused look. “And sometimes they’re not?” he ventured. “I have a jar of a better variety, if you’d like —”

“I left the stove on!” Anakin announced. He grabbed the jar, turned on his heel, and left.  

“And I’ve never seen someone look so offended by tomato sauce in my life,” Obi-Wan told them, cell phone held awkwardly between his shoulder and his cheek as he watered the potted plants on the windowsill. It was pouring rain outside, but he was pretty sure the noise he could still hear over the line was Ahsoka muffling laughter.

He’d called to check in with Padme and her favorite grad student, and had promptly been put on speaker phone. The two of them had been holed up in the professor’s office in an intense round of edits for most of the last two days, and he’d stopped by earlier to drop off some of the roll version of the rosemary bread recipe. After briefly being roped into looking over a few paragraphs, he’d escaped to go grocery shopping and come back to his apartment. Now it was nearly dark and they were apparently still at it.

“You did kind of insult his taste, you know,” Padme pointed out.

“That was not at all my intention. And anyway, if anything I should be insulted by his behavior but I am not letting it get to me.”

“Seems like you kinda are,” came Ahsoka from the background again.

“Eat your rolls.”

“Okay.” There was a brief silence where Ahsoka presumably stuffed another roll in her mouth. It didn’t last long. “Look,” she said, “if you wanna feed him so bad —” that was not what was happening here, “—maybe just make him something you think he’ll like without the snarky comments?”

“I was not being snarky.”

“Obi-Wan, you’re always snarky.”

“Ahsoka’s right,” Padme cut in. “I have to say, with all this complaining you’re doing, it really does sound like you want to feed him.”

Again, muffled in the background, “Like a big lanky stray cat!”

Obi-Wan huffed. “I don’t know. He just stood there being rude, while asking for my help, the total opposite of charming. And yet.”

His eye caught on movement on the sidewalk below. Speak of the devil — Anakin Skywalker was half-jogging through the rain towards the building. He was wearing the ridiculous overly large black jacket again, and his hair was just starting to stick to his forehead, not completely soaked yet. He really was very lanky.

“...and yet I find myself charmed.”

Oh, he had an idea. “Since you gave out my apartment number so readily, you can give me his, right?”

He managed to extricate himself from the phone conversation with only a moderate amount of additional teasing. Then he headed to the kitchen.

Skywalker had been complaining it was cold, hadn’t he?

Pulling ingredients together rapidly, he soon had onion and garlic sauteeing in a pot while he ground up some diced potatoes and corn with some chicken broth in the food processor. He added the puree into the pot along with more broth, potatoes, and corn, plus diced carrots and chicken. He didn’t currently have the traditional seasoning for this soup stocked in his pantry, so instead he added oregano, thyme, and a few bay leaves. This combination simmered for just under half an hour, already fragrant. 

As the soup simmered, he blended up a combination of habanero peppers, cilantro, green onions, and tomatoes to just past-salsa consistency. Combined with a generous splash of lime juice, some vinegar, and salt and pepper, it became an aromatic green hot sauce.

By this time, a quick test with a fork showed the potatoes and carrots in the soup were tender. He fished out the bay leaves and added in a dash of lime, more cilantro, and salt and pepper. 

A quick taste test and a pause to admire the color, and he was confident that this was exactly the statement he wanted to make. He pulled out a thermos and a small container for the hot sauce, doling out a generous portion.

And then he went upstairs.

Apartment 411 had the exact same style and color door as the floor below. Obviously, as this was an apartment building. But there was a piece of paper taped to it with WELCOME TO MY DARK AND TWISTED MIND written on it in what looked to be Ahsoka’s handwriting. Alright, he wasn’t even going to question that.

Obi-Wan knocked briskly and heard a brief crash inside. Several moments passed before Skywalker opened the door. His hair was still slightly damp and extremely disheveled, like he’d attempted to dry off but only briefly.

“Hello, Anakin!” he said cheerfully, enjoying the slight eye twitch he caught at the overly-familiar use of his first name. “I saw you running in the rain earlier, and I thought I’d be a good neighbor and bring you this.” He held out the thermos, with the little container of sauce balanced on top.

Skywalker just looked at it.

“Soup,” Obi-Wan clarified, very helpfully.

“You brought me soup.” Skywalker hesitated but reached out and took the soup.

“Yes, well, I thought it might be just the thing for a day like this.”

Skywalker just stared at him. “Soup.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.” Skywalker opened his mouth to say something else, but Obi-Wan cut him off. “Oh, actually, I think I left the stove on.” He turned smartly on his heel and left.

Satisfied with a job well done, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling when he heard Anakin actually laugh behind him.

“And I’ve never been so offended by soup in my life!” Anakin exclaimed, slamming the door to the dishwasher closed (and then patting it apologetically).

“Why, was it bad?” Ahsoka asked, sounding entirely too amused.

“No, of course not, it was delicious! He gave me this little sauce thing that I put on top, and I also put in some sour cream to balance out some of the spice, but it was really damn good. How dare he.”

Padme looked like she was attempting to stretch her spine out over the arm of the loveseat. “You know,” she said, then groaned as something popped, “you’re, ugh, you’re complaining about getting food from a pretty well-known food blogger. Meanwhile, Ahsoka and I have been mostly living off takeout while we worked on edits.”

“Well, I mean, not to sound ungrateful,” he protested, aware he sounded very ungrateful, “but he just told me I have bad taste in tomato sauce. And then he brings me soup? It’s suspicious.”

Padme snorted. “Suspicious soup,” she muttered, then fell silent as she slowly slid over the loveseat’s arm and onto the carpet. Wow, she really had to be tired. Anakin eyed her for a moment but it actually looked like she was about to take a nap right where she was.

He directed the next part of his tirade towards Ahsoka instead. “He apparently thinks I’m useless! Can’t make my own tomato sauce, can’t make my own soup, can’t even open a jar. And I saw him looking at my arm, and I can guess what that asshole was thinking!”

“Can you?” Ahsoka asked doubtfully. “Look, I know that sometimes Obi-Wan has some, uh, preconceived notions about things. But aren’t you maybe assuming the worst about your arm? Slash his motivations for giving you soup?”

“No,” he grumbled.

“I mean, yeah, he can get weird about things! Once, he got on me for using the ‘wrong’ measuring cups for a recipe, which is ridiculous, but —” 

“Ahsoka, please tell me you weren’t using liquid measuring cups interchangeably with solid ones again.”

“Oh come on, not you, too!”

“They’re not the same thing! ”

(An aside with Padme: as Anakin started his rant about different kinds of measuring cups, Padme looked over to see Ahsoka gesturing at her wildly. When Ahsoka saw that she had her advisor’s attention, she switched gears. A hand over the heart while she looked off into the distance stoically. What ? Fingers in the air around her head, miming — what, rain? A different, dramatic and lovelorn expression while she took several steps forward, then the miming of rain again. 

Oh, Pride and Prejudice. Ha.)

Anakin turned back in time to see Ahsoka quickly put her hands behind her back and shoot a grin at Padme. He squinted suspiciously but Ahsoka just smiled.

“Yeah, okay, measuring cups, got it.”

“Well...yeah. Good.”

“Why don’t you make him something for him, Ani?” Padme asked drowsily from her spot on the floor. “That would show him, hm?”

“Yeah!” Ahsoka immediately latched onto the idea. “Show him you’re not just some weird fanboy!”

“Yeah, because  I’m not!”

She just hummed.

And, well, it was almost time for dinner.

Muttering to himself, he went to the kitchen and pulled out his soup pot, vaguely aware of Ahsoka watching him with interest.

He had an onion he could chop up, okay, and he soon had that cooking in some olive oil with a pinch of brown sugar, plus some salt and pepper. Once the onion was soft and fragrant, he added in a splash of apple cider from the jug in the fridge, and stirred as the onions began to caramelize. He roughly chopped some of the honeycrisp apples he’d bought a few days ago then never eaten, plus some dried thyme. After the apples softened up a bit, he added in more cider, some chicken broth, and a little cayenne. Finally, he upended a bottle of beer into the pot and brought it to a simmer to cook until the apples were tender.

He brought out the immersion blender which technically belonged to his old roommate but that he’d never returned. He used to to blend the soup into a smooth consistency, apple chunks disappearing as he went. He whisked together some milk and flour to add in and thicken the broth. While it did, he grated a big chunk of cheddar cheese and diced up the round of brie he’d been saving, threw it all into the soup, and stirred until it was creamy and smooth again.

“This’ll show him!” he announced, pleased with himself. When he looked up, Ahsoka was staring at him, wide-eyed, from across the counter.

“You just dumped a beer in there?” she asked.

“Trust me, it’s good. And you’re going to go take some to Obi-Wan.”

“Oh, Obi-Wan, is it?”

“Yeah, it is now, whatever, don’t make it a big deal. Oh, and take some of this granola to put on top.”

“Granola?”

“It’s good!”

Ahsoka shrugged, but looked eager. “I’ll take your word for it.”

He bundled her off with two containers of soup and a bag of homemade pecan and brown sugar granola to go with it, plus instructions to make sure to make a note of his reaction and don’t let him eat dinner alone or he’ll just make a freaking charcuterie board.

That done, he made his way over to Padme, who had in fact fallen asleep on the floor.

“Hey,” he said as he gently nudged her shoulder. “You want some soup? We can watch a movie or something while we eat. Something real lowbrow that you don’t even have to focus on.”

Padme yawned and stretched as she sat up. “That sounds lovely, Ani. And that was a very nice thing you did for Obi-Wan.”

“Uh, no, it really wasn’t. This was spite soup.”

She just rolled her eyes at him and accepted a hand to stand up. 

Cuddled up on the loveseat with mugs of soup (topped with granola, because it was good!), he let his mind wander from the movie as he wondered what Kenobi — what Obi-Wan thought of his food.

Having Ahsoka show up at his door had been a bit of a surprise, but the food she was carrying was an even bigger one.

“He made me soup,” Obi-Wan repeated, as Ahsoka opened the containers and then shook a healthy sprinkling of what looked like granola over each of them from a bag.

“Yeah, he dumped a whole thing of beer in! And a bunch of cheese.”

“Oh, I see. I had a beer and cheese soup at a pub once.”

“A pub,” Ahsoka muttered, then shot him a teasing look. “Come on, I wanna try this!”

“Yes, yes, alright.” He grabbed two spoons from their drawer and returned to the table.

It definitely smelled good, he noted as they sat down. And he could see what looked like a little bit of thyme in there. The man did also run a food blog, so he had to be at least a halfway decent cook.

The first spoonful was a revelation. It was cheesy and warm, yes, perfect for a soup, but also it was just a little sweet. 

“There are apples in this,” he said slowly.

“Oh yeah, that’s your favorite, right?”

“It is…”

Huh. Must have been a lucky guess. He’d have to try and figure out what Anakin liked and make him something in return.

Smiling, he continued to eat.

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan had been having a bit of a rough day when the two of them showed up at his door. After a particularly exhaustive round of edits, he’d practically thrown himself onto the couch to have a lie down, arm over his eyes because he couldn’t be bothered to turn off the lights. He would have liked to have tried dozing off, but his mind was whirring with punctuation and composing emails and would not stop.

So the knock—bang—on the door was a welcome distraction.

The person knocking let themselves in, so he assumed without looking it was Ahsoka.

His suspicion was confirmed when he heard a low whistle and she asked, “Rough day, huh?”

He sighed. “Ahsoka, I love you and, at this point, am very invested in your project, but please don’t ask me to look over anything today.”

“Not to worry! Actually, I just came to ask if I could use your printer because mine is broken and I don’t have any printing money left on my school account. Not the whole thing, I promise, just the latest updated pages. And I just need a few minutes to look over it one more time before I print. Hopefully. But I won’t waste a whole bunch of paper or anything!”

Obi-Wan waved his other hand in the direction of his laptop. “Have at it.”

“Thanks! Oh, and I brought Skyguy.”

This made him open his eyes and sit up.

Ahsoka shot him a quick, mischievous look before she skedaddled over to the computer.

Sure enough, Anakin Skywalker was standing awkwardly in the entryway. Awkwardly in the sense that he was a mess of tall and gangly and shaggy-haired, but his expression was decidedly wary and suspicious.

(Obi-Wan took a quick look around—there really wasn’t anything in the apartment for him to look that distrusting of, not even the charcuterie board he’d seemed to have taken such offense to last time.)

“Anakin! Wonderful to see you.” This, if anything, made his unexpected guest look even more wary. He tried to tone it back a little. “I hope Ashoka passed on my compliments on the soup. It was exquisite, and perfect for a rainy day.”

Anakin blinked. “Oh! Yeah, she mentioned, but I thought —” He shrugged. “Um.” 

(And oh. Oh, hello. Maybe it wasn’t that Anakin Skywalker disliked him. Maybe it was the other way around. Anakin cared about his opinion. A lot.)

He fought back a smile.

“Truly, it was delicious. Actually, I had meant to get in contact with you about possibly doing a guest spot on my page? Or at least allowing me to name-drop yours, a little cross-promotion.”

Sure enough, Anakin looked taken aback, and he blushed. Lovely. 

“You want to link to my page? On yours?”

“Sure. I was just experimenting with making no-churn ice cream the other day. I don’t know what it is about winter coming up that makes me want to eat ice cream but in any case, I used your praline sauce recipe on some and it was fantastic.”

He noted with some satisfaction that Anakin’s face had gone an even brighter shade of apple red.

“Oh my god, Skyguy, just agree to do something with him so I can concentrate and not have to listen to him buttering you up. Actually—” She briefly turned away from the computer to fix both of them with a huge grin. “This might take me a bit so if you wanted to try a recipe out now...I could maybe help with the taste-testing part?”

“You are incorrigible,” Obi-Wan told her.

“Pretty much.”

When he looked back at Anakin, the other man had lost most of the hostility but still seemed a bit wary.

“Did you have a recipe in mind?”

And the thing was, Obi-Wan did.

Somehow, Anakin Skywalker had guessed exactly what kind of flavor profile he liked—that soup had been phenomenal. And Obi-Wan was determined to do the same for him, and this was the perfect opportunity. He’d been thinking about it for a while, and Anakin seemed like the kind of person who would love —

“A dessert.”

“Ooooh,” Ahsoka murmured, even as she continued clicking away and staring at the computer screen.

“A kind of chocolate pie, to be more specific.”

He tried to gauge Anakin’s expression. He looked intrigued. Perfect.

It only took a moderate amount of herding to get Anakin into his kitchen, where he immediately set him to work pulling out measuring cups and bowls while he puttered around behind him finding the required ingredients.

“There should be a pie tin in the cabinet there —”

“Oh, an actual pie tin, the bottom comes off and everything. And you have a springform in here, jeez.”

“—and the mixing bowls are up on a higher shelf —”

“—over the oven?”

Obi-Wan paused. “Yes, actually. How did you guess?”

Anakin shrugged. “Kind of looks like we mostly keep our supplies in the same place.” His lips quirked up at the corner, and it very suddenly and viscerally occurred to Obi-Wan that this might be the first time he’d seen him smile. “Honestly I’m surprised you can reach these all the way on this shelf.”

“I’m not that short,” he replied drolly, turning away to pull out the bag of cookies he’d hidden away, and trying to get a hold on the sudden double-time beat of his heart.

“Shorter than me.” Smug. Cute. Nope.

“If you’re measuring in comparison to yourself, everyone is short.”

“To quote Ahsoka, 'pretty much.'”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes and slapped the cookies into Anakin’s chest.

“Hey, you’re gonna break these tossing them around like that.”

“They’re going to be broken anyway, we’re using them for the crust.”

“Ooh.”

Rifling through the shelving next to the fridge, Obi-Wan picked out the food processor and turned around to find his fellow chef wielding a rolling pin. 

“Oh, a food processor. Never mind.” And he put the pin back in the drawer.

“What on Earth was that for?”

“I don’t have a food processor? So to make crumb crusts I just put the cookies in a baggie and whack it a whole bunch.”

“Sounds cathartic. But I think this will be faster.”

Anakin quirked another small grin. “If you say so.”

Once they had all their equipment and ingredients assembled, they made short work of the crust. Obi-Wan fell into the rhythm of it: murmuring instructions to his partner, near-twirling around each other in the tiny kitchen space to melt butter in the microwave and crush the chocolate cookies into crumbs in the food processor. Adding the butter in created a moldable mixture that they carefully pressed into the bottom and sides of the pie tin, both of them bent over the counter and working near shoulder-to-shoulder.

They put it in the freezer to set, and Anakin looked at him expectantly.

“Now there’s a caramel layer.”

“Ooooh.”

Yes, that was the reaction he was going for.

Even more butter was added to a saucepan, and Anakin dumped in the required amount of brown sugar over his shoulder while Obi-Wan whisked continually, watching the sugar melt and bubble and transform into light brown caramel. He moved it to a different burner so it wouldn’t overheat as Anakin added in some heavy cream, still whisking, and watched it turn a more golden color.

While they waited for it to cool a bit—sugar burns could be particularly nasty—Anakin insisted they needed some kind of music playing because “it was too damn quiet in here” and also “Ahsoka won’t mind, tell him, Snips!” They managed to pass 15 minutes arguing about what to play and eventually settled on some Broadway album. Apparently Anakin was a big theater fan.

While his co-chef pulled up the music on his phone, Obi-Wan poured the cooled caramel into the crust and set it back in the freezer, taking care to place it so it would set flat.

“Well,” he announced. “That’ll be at least half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, so we have some time before we need to do the next step.”

“Ugh.”

He laughed a bit at the petulance. “I promise your patience will be well-rewarded.”

“Fine. Um.” Anakin was—not dancing, really, but kind of bouncing on his feet in time with the song playing. “You look like someone who’s good at small talk or whatever. I guess we can do that.”

“That almost sounds like an insult.”

“It...wasn’t meant to be?”

“You sound unsure.”

“Oh, come on!”

Obi-Wan took pity on him. Leaning against the counter, he watched the other man continue to bounce, and occasionally pace the length of the kitchen when a favorite song came on, and managed to pull out more details on Anakin’s life without setting him off like he had with the spaghetti sauce. 

He didn’t realize until Anakin spluttered to a pause that maybe he was flirting just a little.  

“You know you don’t have to be so — You’re kind of overdoing it with the — I mean, I just kind of feel like you’re trying to suck up to me a little?”

Whoops. Well, at least Anakin didn’t seem to recognize it as flirting. That would be embarrassing.

“Oh? Maybe I am trying to get into your good graces. I must confess I’m not used to people taking such a dislike to me so immediately. Believe it or not, most people find me fairly charming.” (Actually, he could think of several instances where Padme had laughed at him and said something along the lines of, “Oh you think you’re so charming,” but he wasn’t going to mention that.) 

He offered an accompanying smile to prove his point.

Red-faced again, how interesting.

“It’s not that I dislike— disliked you, I just. Well anyway, you’re not so bad. I guess.”

“High praise.” Okay so he was teasing, just a little bit. “Look, I’ll admit I had initially dismissed your blog —” he hurried onwards as he saw Anakin’s mouth twist back into a frown. “But having gone through it now I realize that was a mistake. It’s obvious, the care and skill you’ve put into it, and now I also know first-hand that your food is delicious so. Consider me a fan.”

Now his expression turned to flabbergasted. “Thanks?” he squeaked. “I’m a huge fan of yours. So.”

“This is hilarious,” Ahsoka announced. “Skyguy, you are usually so much smoother than this!”

They both jumped a little and looked over to find Ahsoka watching them, sheaves of printed paper in her hands.

“I thought you said you didn’t need to print the whole thing.”

She just shrugged. “Whoops. Hey Obi-Wan, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you guys were —”

“Chocolate,” he cut in. “And now you have to help, too.”

“I’m always ready to help with chocolate.” She gave him a knowing look but let it be.

They simmered some heavy cream to pour over dark chocolate chips, letting them sit before whisking them into smooth melted chocolate and pouring it over the set caramel layer. Anakin and Ahsoka immediately started fighting over the streaks of chocolate left in the bowl as Obi-Wan put the pie back in the freezer to chill one more time.

The noise and hubbub of having multiple people in the kitchen...it was kind of nice.

After half an hour they pulled the pie out, and after some quick pictures, he carefully portioned out some small slices to taste-test and garnished each with some flaky sea salt.

Ahsoka dug in immediately and made thrilled noises of appreciation, but it was Anakin’s face he was watching.

Lashes fluttered over blue eyes, that smile reappeared around the tines of the fork still in his mouth —

“It’s really good,” Anakin murmured. He took another bite. “You know who would really love this, though? Padme. She lives for this kind of rich dessert.”

Damn. Not a bad reaction, but not quite the one he’d been looking for.

Ah well, he’d just have to try making him something else.

By the time they’d finished eating, clearing up the dishes, chatting for a while about nothing in particular, and saying goodbye at the door? Obi-Wan had quite forgotten about the rough start to his day, and was instead thinking about what recipe to try impressing Anakin with next.

As he was uploading pictures for the blog post about the pie, he got an email from Ahsoka with a winky face subject line. There was nothing in the email except an attachment: a picture she must have taken of the two of them in the kitchen without noticing her, bent over the pie tin and both smiling down at their work. They were standing very close together.

He posted it along with the rest of the recipe.

Being in the kitchen with Obi-Wan Kenobi had almost killed him.

Despite what the other man seemed to think, Anakin did find him immensely charming. That was the problem. And he’d said the soup was good? And had tried his mother’s praline sauce recipe and said he’d liked it? He’d looked through his blog?

But he’d decided that so long as he was stuck thinking about Obi-Wan and had all this nervous energy, he might as well get a blog post out of it ( oh my god he’d posted about the pie they’d made and that picture — ) and had gone all-in on apple recipes.

He had a crockpot full of mulled cider bubbling away on the counter, and he’d started unwrapping the bag of caramels he’d bought onto a piece of parchment paper. He’d been texting on and off with Padme, mostly incoherent word jumbles on his part, but he was not expecting company when someone knocked politely at the door.

And it was the ‘politely’ part that told him it must be Obi-Wan.

At that moment Padme sent him a smiley face. He glared down at his phone in betrayal and went to open the door.

And okay, so maybe he’d gotten off on the wrong foot with Kenobi. Assumed the worst, and made every interaction afterwards fit his own opinion of what Obi-Wan must have been thinking, okay, whatever Padme! But seeing the man himself on the other side of the door, smiling and cheerful and stupidly handsome, was enough to make him melt. Just a little bit.

Just a tiny crush! He kept insisting to Padme. Not that he was ever going to talk to her again because apparently she’d sent the guy up to his apartment without warning him. 

“Padme tells me there’s cider?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Because she’s a snitch,” insisted Anakin, and let him in.

“Oh, excuse me, is it supposed to be secret cider?”

“No, she’s just. Nevermind. Come try it, then, I know you love apples.”

Obi-Wan gave him a considering look he wasn’t sure what to make of. “Yes, I do…”

The kitchen smelled like autumn. 

He opened the lid of the crockpot and was hit with a blast of humid cinnamon steam. He fished around with the ladle he’d left lying next to it to pull out the pieces of ginger and the citrus slices floating on top, along with the tea strainer he’d used to hold the spices. Grabbing a mug—Jack Skellington-themed, a gift from Ahsoka, “he’s almost as skinny as you,” wow—he ladled out a portion and handed it over to Obi-Wan, who took it carefully with a  murmured thanks.

“Not having any?” And then after taking a sip, “Oh, this is perfect.”

He could feel himself smiling at the reaction, but he tried to play it cool. “I’ve already got some hot chocolate.” He gestured to his own mug--a recent addition from Padme with a picture of Matthew Mcfayden as Mr. Darcy on it, why —and told him, “Another one of mom’s recipes. Two tablespoons of brown sugar, two tablespoons of cocoa, and a cup of milk in the microwave for two minutes. One of the first things I could make myself, easy to remember with all those two’s.”

“I noticed the section on your site dedicated to the recipes you have from your mother. She must have been a fine cook.”

Anakin cleared his throat around the lump that still, after years, formed when he thought of Shmi Skywalker. “Yeah. When I feel like I can I’ll pull things from the recipe card box she left me but. That’s really just for special occasions.” He took a sip of the cocoa, hummed around the nostalgic taste, and made himself smile again. “The rest of this, believe it or not, I’m making up as I go along.”

Obi-Wan smiled back. “I can believe it.”

“What about you? Where’d you learn to cook?” He put his mug down and busied himself pulling out cookie ingredients as he listened.

“Actually, I was in school to become a chef as a teenager so I do have some formal training. But, after my mentor died, I ended up going into copyediting. Which was...very different than what I was doing, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go back once Qui-Gon wasn’t there anymore.”

“Oh jeez, sorry, didn’t mean to bring back any bad memories.”

“Ah, don’t worry. I find that even the sad memories are well worth the time we spent together, everything I learned. Thinking about him does make me want to be in the kitchen, though. Speaking of, may I ask what you’re making today?”

“Oh, yeah, you might like these, too. Apple cider cookies.”

It was kind of cute, the way Obi-Wan perked right up at that.

“Do you incorporate the cider you’ve made into the dough somehow?”

“Not exactly.” Anakin held up the box of instant cider mix and watched the way Obi-Wan’s eyebrow twitched as he tried to stop himself from making a face. “Hey, don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”

He spread his arms. “If you’re willing to take a pupil today, I will follow your lead.”

And the nice thing was, he did.

Anakin had felt near-euphoric making that pie with Obi-Wan, learning from a cook he really admired and who was hot as hell to boot. But this was nice, too; this was someone who’d actually gone to school for this, skilled and competent but following a recipe Anakin had made up a few weeks ago. It was kind of gratifying. Pretty cool. A little hot. Whatever.

He measured out their dry ingredients in a bowl: flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon, while Obi-Wan creamed together the butter and sugar.

They ripped open all the little packets of instant cider mix and dumped them in with the butter with a bit of salt, then the eggs and vanilla, and then gradually the flour mixture.

Technically, this recipe would work better if they refrigerated the dough for a while, but he didn’t have the patience for that and just stuck it in the freezer for a little bit so it would be easier to work with.

Chatting all the while, they rolled the unwrapped caramels from earlier into the middle of little balls of dough and placed them on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets before putting them into the oven to bake.

The timer rang just as they finished their drinks.

Anakin used his prosthetic hand to pull the trays out because hey, he could, and also it looked pretty damn cool if he did say so himself. If anything, Obi-Wan looked amused by this.

So of course while the cookies cooled, he had to show him the different prosthetics he used, including the fancy one he’d designed himself, and Obi-Wan seemed suitably impressed and not at all weirded out.

Anakin barely remembered to flip the cookies over so the hot caramel wouldn’t just ooze out of the bottom.

After a few more impatient minutes, he deemed them cool enough to not burn their tongues off with molten caramel. He watched Obi-Wan take a bite, strings of gooey caramel trailing between the bite and the rest of the cookie, which was golden brown and speckled with cinnamon.

Then he made a frankly inappropriate noise.

“Anakin, that is very good.” And demolished the remaining few bites.

“Thanks,” he squeaked, and quickly shoved his own cookie into his mouth. It was intensely cider flavored—from concentrate, ha—but the caramel in the middle was what really made it. “Hey, you can take some home if you want.”

“Please. I am so glad Padme told me to come up here today.” Again, because she was a snitch. “Although I couldn’t quite tell if she was telling me because she thought you’d enjoy my company or because you’d be annoyed.”

“Knowing Padme, probably both.” And then his stupid mouth kept going and said, “You know, we actually dated in college. But we’re not now.” Why had he said that?? He hoped some merciful god would smite him where he stood.

“Oh yes, I know. I had asked Padme but she just laughed at me.”

“Ha. Ha. Yeah, of course she did.”

He had asked? 

Anakin saw Obi-Wan off with a wave and a tupperware container an hour later, after consuming another mugful of hot drinks and several more cookies. Immediately after he closed the door, he picked up his phone and called Padme.

“AHHHHHHH,” he yelled as soon as she picked up. 

She just laughed at him.

Chapter Text

So, Obi-Wan may or may not have been actively looking for ways to spend time with the cute guy who lived upstairs. He was also well aware that both Padme and Ahsoka were of the opinion he should just “walk upstairs and ask him out, like a normal person.” But these things required delicacy. So instead, he’d made a plan of attack and plotted out his course before braving the steps to the 4th floor and knocking on Anakin’s door shortly before noon. It took a few minutes but he could hear shuffling inside so he waited patiently.

The plan was promptly derailed when Anakin opened the door dressed in a shirt with actual buttons rather than his usual faded tee. And jeans without holes, even. The slightly frazzled expression was the same as usual, however.

“Obi-Wan! Hey! Sorry, I was just texting Padme about this outfit she got for me? She was really insistent on me sending her some pictures like right this minute so. Sorry for the wait.”

The shirt. It was dark blue but with subtle silvery threading in the shape of stars scattered around the torso and collar. The sleeves, however, were a darker blue-black and made of some kind of near-sheer material, loose with the exception of the buttoned cuffs at the wrists. The overall effect, with the dark blue highlighting Anakin’s tan skin and gorgeous eyes, plus those sleeves just hinting at the shape of the slim, toned arm and sleek prosthetic —

He should not have told Padme the plan. This was meddling of the highest degree and extremely unfair. 

Obi-Wan didn’t realize he was staring until Anakin started fidgeting in place.

“It looks lovely,” he hastened to assure him. “Truly. I was just admiring the sleeves there.”

“Oh, thanks. And yeah, the sleeves. Kinda weird, right? Not my usual style but Padme seemed happy enough with the pictures. Not sure where I’d wear this, though.”

An opening. “Well, I may have a suggestion if you have some time free today.”

Anakin shrugged. “Sure, it’s Thursday. What’s your idea?”

“I was just about to do some reconnaissance around town, actually, so I came up to ask if you’d like to accompany me.” 

This earned him a quick laugh and curious look. “And what kind of recon are you doing?”

“The food kind.”

A grin. “Lead the way.”

They ended up in Obi-Wan’s car, where Anakin proceeded to accuse him of driving like “the most geriatric geriatric to ever geriatric, are you serious?” Obi-Wan slowed down to five below the speed limit just to mess with him.

“Ughhhhh. Where are we going, anyway?”

“I’m trying to figure out which Mediterranean place has the best tzatziki,” explained Obi-Wan. “For research purposes.”

“...Research purposes,” Anakin repeated slowly. “Alright then. I’m always down for Mediterranean.”

Obi-Wan smiled at him, which had the gratifying effect of making Anakin’s face go pink and also stalling any more commentary on his driving until they pulled up to their first stop.

“So what’s the plan?”

“I have three contenders in mind, and we’ll try the tzatziki at each one. I was thinking I’d get pita and hummus at each one, too. Have you ever been here?”

Anakin admitted he had not, and thus began their Tzatziki Recon.

Mona’s Place was a small restaurant in a strip mall owned by an exuberant Lebanese woman who somehow always remembered Obi-Wan’s name, no matter how long it had been since he stopped in. She was thrilled to see him, especially considering he wasn’t visiting alone. He ordered pita and hummus and got two little containers of tzatziki, along with some of the warak enab Anakin was eyeing. When the other man protested Obi-Wan’s paying, he assured him it wasn’t at all expensive and it had been his idea to come out anyway.

Anakin smiled at him—and so did Mona, albeit much more conspiratorially.

The food was great, as usual, and they lingered talking to the proprietress for almost half an hour before they headed off to their next stop.

“I have been here,” Anakin said when he saw it. 

Which wasn’t surprising. The simply named “Mediterranean” was also family-owned, but was a lot bigger and a hotspot of activity for college students. While higher-priced than Mona’s Place, it was still relatively inexpensive and close to the campus. They went through the line and ordered, this time with Anakin insisting on paying. The cashier gave them a number to take back to the tiny table they just barely managed to squeeze their way to, and in short order had received a platter of hummus, pita, and tzatziki, along with a chicken shawarma wrap that Anakin ordered because “I need more than pita, Obi-Wan, I’m a growing boy.”

It was harder to converse over the chatter of the busy restaurant around them, but the food was delicious and Obi-Wan managed to steal several pieces of chicken out of Anakin’s wrap.

Their last stop was just a block down the street, and made Anakin pause as they approached it.

“Definitely never been in here,” he said.

“I know it’s a bit more expensive than the other two, so I really must insist on paying for this one.”

“Well If you insist. Good thing I’m not wearing a T-shirt.”

The Taverna was the most ‘upscale’ of their three stops, complete with private booths and mood lighting. Obi-Wan had been on a few dates here before. Which may or may not have been the inspiration behind inviting Anakin on Tzatziki Recon in the first place.

Complimentary hummus and pita was delivered to their table shortly after they were seated, so they ordered some lamb kebabs with extra tzatziki to share for their taste test.

And the food was good, of course, but more appetizing—ahem, interesting, was the young man seated across from him, who looked good enough to — okay, he really needed to stop with the food metaphors. He was getting ahead of himself. The whole point of this trip was to gauge any potential interest from Anakin in maybe going on an actual date some time. 

Obi-Wan found himself just smiling at Anakin, who was determinedly trying to coax the spice blend for the lamb out of their poor waiter.

By the time they exited back onto the street, they both firmly agreed that while Taverna’s kebabs had been the best food they’d eaten that day, Mona had provided the best tzatziki.

“Now what you’re going to do with that information, I have no idea.”

“This may come as a surprise to you, but I do have a kind of reputation for being knowledgeable about food. I get asked for local recommendations quite a lot, and now I can inform people where they can go for the best tzatziki.”

“Okay, but we didn’t go around to the back.”

Obi-Wan gave him a blank look. “The back of what?”

Seeing that Obi-Wan didn’t know what he was talking about made Anakin’s face light up. “No way, you gotta try this last place. This is my go-to recommendation.” And he grabbed Obi-Wan’s hand and started pulling him along to...the back of the restaurant?

He firmly told himself that he was too old for having his hand held to be making his heart pound like this.

At the back of the restaurant was a small courtyard, and what seemed to be another, different restaurant attached to the same building, although with no indication of a name. It just barely counted as a room, long and narrow with most of the space taken up by a grill behind the counter. There wasn’t even enough room for chairs, so they stood and watched while a young, very disinterested looking teenager asked them, “Two?” and took money from Anakin before pulling some skewers off the grill and loading them up in a paper basket with a hefty amount of fries and a giant dollop of what he assumed was more tzatziki—plus a little plastic container of what looked like baklava.

“I honestly don’t know that I can eat all this,” Obi-Wan said as they exited and sat down at a bench in the courtyard. 

“You gotta at least try the sauce.”

Which he did, and— wow. 

“Oh, this is a clear winner, isn’t it?” Despite his earlier protest, he managed to devour his portion right alongside Anakin.

“I think the same people own place who own the Taverna? But the only thing this side does is souvlaki, plus the slightly-squished baklava they don’t wanna sell over there.  Good, right? And nowhere near as expensive.”

“Yes, well, sometimes, as they say, things that are expensive,” he paused to wink at Anakin, “are worse.”

Anakin just grinned at having his words quoted back to him. 

They meandered slowly back to the car, and drove (“so slowly, Obi-Wan, why?”) back to the apartment building. 

They got distracted in the parking lot debating the merits of different kinds of pastry, picking at the baklava while they talked. By the time they started to head inside, it was nearing time for dinner.

“I don’t have my own tzatziki recipe, but uh. Do you want a sandwich?” Anakin asked.

Obi-Wan, who’d already been thinking of excuses to spend more time together, simply said, “Please.”

In Anakin’s apartment, he watched him melt a pat of butter in a large skillet--although for some reason he was giving Obi-Wan a sideways look as he did it. Then he crammed a few pieces of plain sandwich bread into the pan.

“I don’t have a toaster,” Anakin explained, “so remind me to flip those before they start burning.”

He instructed Obi-Wan to grate some cheese from a block of gouda in the fridge as he deftly sliced up some honeydew apples and grabbed some ready-made bacon. Once the bread was lightly toasted on each side, they sprinkled each slice with cheese and placed the bacon and apple wedges on top. Then the whole pan went into the oven under the broiler, until the cheese was melted.

When Anakin pulled them out, he slid all the toasts onto a wooden cutting board and topped them with a drizzle of honey and light sprinkling of thyme. With the board sitting between them on the counter, they ate standing up.

“For someone who professes to hate anything too ‘fancy,’ you do make a very good tartine,” Obi-Wan said, knowing full well the reaction this was going to get.

“A what?”

“A tartine? An open-faced sandwich? That reminds me, there’s a lovely French place I was thinking of going to next week, if you’d like to come along again. For research purposes.”

Anakin was still stuck on the tartine bit. “What do you mean, a tartine, it’s toast. It’s apple toast. Why are you calling it that?”

“Tartine does literally mean toast in French, yes, but the terminology for a sandwich like this — ”

“It’s not a sandwich, it’s a toast.” He accentuated this point by smacking Obi-Wan on the arm, which just made a piece of toasted apple fall off the bread and onto the counter. “Nobody calls it a tartine, there’s avocado toast, there’s tomato toast— tartine, are you kidding me?”

Obi-Wan internally reveled in small chaos he’d created, but it was Anakin’s next sentence that made him smile.

“And yeah, of course I’ll go with you.”

“So you’re going on another date this week?” Ahsoka asked.

“Again, that didn’t count as a date, and technically I told him next week’s outing would also be for research purposes.”

Obi-Wan turned away from her expression of absolute disbelief to look at Padme. Unfortunately, she was giving him a similar look.

“Anyway, I still need to figure out exactly what he likes. I thought I had it with the chocolate pie but seems like maybe something lighter would work better?”

Padme just sighed. “You’ll figure it out, Obi-Wan.”

“Sure, but a hint would be appreciated.”

Padme just patted him on the cheek as she passed by. “Food is basically Anakin’s love language.”

He considered this. “Yes, that makes sense.”

“So just make him a sandwich, man!” Ahsoka called out, head in his refrigerator like the food thief she was.

And, oh. Oh, she was right. If food was Anakin’s love language, and he’d made Obi-Wan that soup, and the cider, and cookies, then —

“I need to go make him a sandwich,” he declared. He grabbed a pomegranate out of his fruit bowl and booked it out of the apartment.

.

.

.

“Alright then. Wanna help me raid his fridge?”

“I think I saw some leftovers in there we could steal.”

“Yesssss. It’s hungry work, being the supporting characters.”

“But the real victory of this story is that you’ve finished your thesis! Oh, and true love, I suppose.”

“But mostly my thesis.”

“Right.”

Anakin had not stopped thinking about his date with Obi-Wan for the last three days. Did it technically count as four dates if they’d gone to four different restaurants? Five if you counted the toasts?? Either way, they were practically married. Practically. Maybe.

He had managed to take apart the hand vacuum to try and fix a weird flapping noise it was making, but he was not managing to put it back together. He was staring at the parts strewn over his coffee table, wondering why he’d chosen to do this in this location and also whether it would be too pathetic to just throw them all away and go back to thinking about the date(s).

Okay, no, he could go for five minutes without thinking about —

Oh, there was someone at the door, maybe it was —

Seriously. He told himself he needed to chill.

Except. It was Obi-Wan. And he had a pomegranate.

“Hello there! I wanted to make you a sandwich.”

This, of all things, should not have made Anakin’s face turn red, but he could feel it happening anyway. It just made Obi-Wan smile.

“May I come in?”

“Yeah, of course. Also why do you have a pomegranate?”

Obi-Wan fucking winked at him. “You’ll see. Do you still have some of that nice bread from the bakery I brought up?”

“Yeah, sure, have at it.”

A bit bemused, he trailed behind Obi-Wan to his kitchen. “Need any help?”

“No, no, that’s fine. Let me make this for you.”

“If you say so?”

Anakin watched Obi-Wan bustling around in his kitchen like he belonged there. He pulled out the bread, a stick of butter, the tiny jar of almond butter he kept on hand for Padme, and the stash of chocolate he thought he’d hidden but apparently all three of the people who regularly visited his apartment could find it no matter where he tried to hide it.

Obi-Wan gave him a quick smile before putting a pat of butter into the pan to melt while he cut open the pomegranate and assembled what appeared to be a pomegranate, almond butter, and chocolate sandwich. Which he then set to frying in the pan. Fuck.

After flipping it over to cook on the other side, Obi-Wan carefully removed the sandwich to a plate and cut it in half.  He picked up one piece and nudged the plate towards Anakin to get him to take the other. 

“Cheers.” They toasted sandwiches. Anakin paused, looking back at Obi-Wan looking at him, watching for his reaction to his cooking. He felt a small rivulet of melted chocolate running down his hand so he quickly ran his tongue over his wrist and moved up to take a bite of the sandwich.

It was—bread fried in salted butter but with fruit and chocolate.

He may have made an embarrassing sound.

Obi-Wan was still watching him, his own half of the sandwich seemingly forgotten.

Anakin devoured the rest of his, pausing briefly between each bite to savor it.

“Obi-Wan,” he said slowly.

“Hmm?”

“This is an extremely sexy sandwich.”

“Is it?”

He was smiling. He had freckles on the bridge of his nose and his fingertips were stained pink with pomegranate juice and he had made Anakin the best damn sandwich he’d ever had.

“Anakin, I wanted to ask —”

“The answer is yes, obviously,” Anakin informed him, and yanked him forward to kiss the growing smile—and the small smudge of stolen chocolate—off his mouth.

Obi-Wan laughed into his mouth, free hand immediately coming to curl around Anakin’s waist.

Anakin took advantage of his distraction to steal the other half of the sandwich.

“Alas, he has stolen my heart and my food,” murmured Obi-Wan, which was ridiculous enough to make Anakin pull back to laugh at him, and then immediately proceed to swoop back in for another kiss.

“I'm hungry. Let’s make another sandwich,” he demanded, meaning: let’s make food for each other for the rest of our lives.

And they did.

Chapter Text

Chapter 1 Recipes:

Rosemary Bread (copycat recipe from Romano’s Macaroni Grill)

-1 Tbsp yeast

-1 Tbsp sugar

-1 cup warm water

-2 ½ cups AP flour

-1 tsp salt

-2 Tbsp rosemary

-1 Tbsp butter

-1 Tbsp olive oil

1. Place yeast, sugar, and water in large bowl or stand mixer and allow mixture to become bubbly
2. Mix in olive oil, salt, 2 cups of flour, and 1 Tbsp rosemary
3. Knead 10 minutes by hand or 5 in stand mixer with the bread hook extension
4. Add rest of flour if the dough is too sticky
5. Oil a bowl, put dough in, and cover to let rise for 1 hour until doubled
6. Punch down and divide in half, let rest for 5 minutes, and make 2 loaves, or rolls, to place on baking sheets
7. Sprinkle remaining 1 Tbsp rosemary on top and press in lightly
8. Let loaves/rolls rise about 45 minutes until doubled
9. Bake at 375F for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned
10. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with salt when ready to eat
11. **note: the original recipe uses melted butter in the dough instead of olive oil, either way tastes good but I personally like the olive oil better

Yeast Rolls (recipe passed down to my mom from my grandmother, who got it from the cook at a rural North Carolina elementary school in the 1950s-ish)

-6 cups bread flour

-3 packages instant yeast

-½ cup sugar

-1 tsp salt

-1 pint half&half

-1 egg @ room temperature

-1 stick of butter, softened

-1 egg and 1 Tbsp milk for eggwash

1. Mix all dry ingredients
2. Mix in egg and butter
3. Heat half and half in microwave until just room temperature, about 45-60 seconds
4. Mix half&half into flour mixture and knead 10 minutes, until can stretch dough thin enough to see light through it without breaking (windowpane test) *if using a stand mixer this will take less time than kneading by hand
5. Put dough in a greased bowl and let rise until doubled, about an hour
6. Punch the dough down, form rolls, and let rolls rise on baking sheets about 30 minutes
7. Brush tops of rolls with beaten egg and milk wash
8. Bake at 350F until browned, about 10-15 minutes depending on size *helps to rotate the pans halfway through

Obi-Wan’s Silver Dollar Pancakes with Toasted Pecans and Bourbon Molasses Butter (actual credit to Bobby Flay)

For pancakes:

-1 ½ cups AP flour

-½ cup finely chopped toasted pecans

-2 Tbsp granulated sugar

-1 Tbsp light brown sugar

-1 tsp baking powder

-½ tsp baking soda

-¾ tsp salt

-2 eggs

-1 ½ cups plus 3 Tbsp buttermilk

-3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temp, plus extra for cooking

-½ vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped (or just 1 tsp vanilla extract)

For Bourbon Molasses Butter:

-½ cup bourbon (entirely possible to exclude this)

-1 Tbsp sugar

-1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened

-3 Tbsp molasses

-salt to taste

For pancakes:

1. Whisk flour, pecans, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
2. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, butter, vanilla in a separate bowl
3. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix gently to combine
4. Let batter sit at room temperature for 15-30 minutes
5. Heat cast iron or nonstick pan over medium heat and brush with melted butter
6. Using 2 Tbsp per pancake, cook 2 minutes per side
7. Serve with bourbon molasses butter and maple syrup

For bourbon molasses butter:

1. Combine bourbon and sugar in small saucepan
2. Cook over high heat until reduced to about 3 Tbsp, remove and let cool
3. Put butter, molasses, salt, and cooled mixture into food processor until smooth (or just mix by hand)
4. Refridgerate at least an hour
5. Remove 30 minutes before serving on top of pancakes
6. **if making without bourbon, just combine the butter, molasses, and salt, then add powdered sugar to sweeten

Anakin’s Normal Not Pretentious Pancakes (recipe credit to Dakota Kelly)

-1 ½ cups AP flour

-3 ½ tsp baking powder

-1 tsp salt

-1 Tbsp white sugar

-1 ¼ cups milk

-1 egg

-3 Tbps butter, melted

1. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large bowl
2. Make a well in the center and pour in milk, egg, and melted butter
3. Mix until smooth
4. Heat lightly oiled or buttered pan over medium high heat
5. Cook with roughly ¼ cup batter per pancake
6. It’s ready to flip when you can see bubbles forming
7. Good with chocolate chips!

Strawberry Rose tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JuGd42Yx_c

Chapter 2 Recipes:

Anakin’s Curry Seared Chicken and Kale Lime Rice (recipe credit to Bev Weidner)

-1 cup of rice

-1 (15 oz) can of coconut milk

-½ cup cilantro

-2 limes

-2 Tbsp olive oil

-2 chicken breasts cut in half lengthwise to make 4 cutlets

-2 Tbsp curry powder...or more

-4 cups baby or chopped kale

-½ cup shredded coconut, lightly toasted (can just broil coconut on a sheet pan for a minute to toast but WATCH CAREFULLY)

-½ cup chopped roasted peanuts

-salt and pepper

1. In a rice cooker, combine rice, milk, cilantro. When done, put in lime juice, season with salt, and fluff. If cooking on a stove, cook rice for about 20 minutes, covered.
2. Season chicken cutlets with salt, pepper, and curry powder.
3. Heat a Tbsp of oil in a large pan, sear chicken on both sides once hot and cook through (should be about 3 minutes per side).
4. Move chicken to a separate dish and cover in aluminum foil to let rest before cutting them up.
5. Add remaining Tbsp of oil to pan and wilt the kale, then add kale to the rice and toss to combine.
6. Serve chicken with rice, peanuts, coconut, cilantro, and lime wedges!

Notes: Curry powder the heck out of the chicken, yum.

Obi-Wan’s Blackberry Chocolate Pie (recipe credit to Molly Meehan)

For pie crust:

-24 oreos

-pinch of salt

-3 Tbsp melted unsalted butter

OR just buy an Oreo pie crust from the grocery store

OR any other kind of pie crust, I made it with a graham cracker crust once

For filling:

-10 oz blackberries (or other berries! Used raspberries once, used dewberries once…)

-4 oz dark chocolate

-¼ cup of powdered sugar, or more to taste

-1 tsp vanilla

-8 oz mascarpone cheese, softened

For decoration:

-extra berries

-powdered sugar

-mint leaves

1. If making the crust from scratch, pulse cookies and salt in a food processor (or put into a bag and whack with something like a rolling pin) until down to fine crumbs. Add melted butter and mix in.
2. Press mixture into a 9 inch pie pan and evenly coat bottom and sides. Chill for 45+ minutes.
3. For the filling: puree berries in food processor until smooth, then push through a fine mesh strainer to get rid of the seeds.
4. Put fruit juice/mush into a saucepan over medium heat and add powdered sugar, whisk well to combine.
5. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, or until juice is thickened and reduced by half.
6. In a heat safe bowl, pour hot berry juice over chopped dark chocolate and let rest for half a minute before stirring until smooth.
7. Add vanilla and then mascarpone cheese, stir until smooth.
8. Pour filling into crust, decorate with extra berries, chill for at least an hour. 
9. Serve topped with mint leaves and powdered sugar!

Obi-Wan’s Goat Cheese and Pomegranate Chicken (recipe credit to Taylor Kiser)

-1 pound chicken breasts (in 4 pieces)

-4 oz goat cheese

-salt and pepper

-garlic powder

-1 Tbsp olive oil

-¼ cup minced shallots

-⅔ cup balsamic vinegar

-2 Tbsp pomegranate juice

-¼ cup chicken broth

-¼ cup + 1 Tbsp brown sugar (original recipe calls for coconut sugar but either works)

-½ cup pomegranate arils

-¼ cup basil

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Cut pocket into center of each breast (don’t cut all the way through)
3. Stuff each pocket with goat cheese (about 1 oz each, or less)
4. Season chicken with salt, pepper, and garlic powder
5. Heat olive oil in a large oven-safe pan over medium high heat
6. Brown chicken for 1-2 minutes on each side, then transfer to a separate dish and set aside (don’t cook all the way through yet)
7. Reduce heat to medium and add shallots, cooking until soft, about 2-3 minutes
8. Add in balsamic vinegar, juice, broth, sugar, and a pinch of salt and bring to a boil
9. Whisk constantly until just beginning to reduce and thicken, about 4-5 minutes
10. Add chicken back in and baste in balsamic reduction before baking for 15-20 minutes, until cooked through
11. Serve with extra sauce, pomegranate arils, basil, and extra cheese

Note: Keep an eye on the balsamic while cooking, if reduces too much it hardens.

Chapter 3 Recipes

Obi-Wan’s Rainy Day soup (version of a Columbian Chicken and Corn Soup) (recipe credit to Kevin @ Closet Cooking)

-1 Tbsp oil

-1 onion, diced

-4 cloves garlic, chopped

-4 cups chicken broth or stock

-1.5 pounds potatoes, diced

-2 cups corn

-2 carrots, diced

-2 cups of chicken (can use precooked or just cook chicken with soup)

-1 tsp oregano

-½ tsp thyme

-2 bay leaves

-1 Tbsp lime juice

-¼ cup cilantro, chopped

-2 Tbsp white miso paste (optional, and I’ve never actually used this, can use fish sauce)

-salt and pepper to taste

-4 tablespoons of aji picante hot sauce (see next recipe)

-for serving: avocado, capers, sour cream

1. Heat oil in large sauce pan or pot over medium high heat and cook onion until tender, about 3-5 minutes. Then add garlic and cook about a minute.
2. Puree ⅓ of the potatoes and ⅓ of the corn in a cup of the chicken broth in a blender or food processor, then add to the pot.
3. Add the rest of the chicken broth, potatoes, and corn, plus the carrots, chicken, oregano, thyme, and bay leaves. 
4. Bring to a boil before reducing the heat and simmering about 20 minutes until potatoes and carrots are tender.
5. Remove the bay leaves and add the lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper.
6. Serve with aji picante, sour cream, avocado, and capers (per preference).

Hot Sauce for Obi-Wan’s Soup (version of Aji Picante) (credit from above recipe)

-1 red habanero pepper (or more or less to taste)

-½ cup cilatro, chopped

-¼ cup green onions, chopped

-¼ cup tomatoes, diced

-1 Tbsp white vinegar

-2 Tbsp lime juice

-salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix everything or puree to desired consistency!

Anakin’s Apple Cheese Beer Soup (recipe credit to Teighan Gerard)

-2 Tbsp olive oil

-1 sweet onion, chopped

-pinch of brown sugar

-salt and pepper to taste

-⅔ cup apple cider

-2 small honeycrisp apples (or one big one)

-2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped (or ½ tsp dried)

-1 beer (12 oz)

-2 cups chicken broth

-¼ tsp cayenne pepper

-¼ cup flour

-1 cup milk (recipe calls for whole milk but I just used 2%)

-1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

-8 oz brie with rind removed, cubed

1. Heat olive oil in large soup pot over medium heat. Add onion once hot with a pinch of brown sugar and some salt and pepper, cook about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
2. Add enough of the cider to coat the onions and keep cooking the onion until they caramelize, adding more cider as you go.
3. Add apples and thyme and cook until the apples soften, about 8 minutes
4. Add any remaining cider, beer, broth, and cayenne, and simmer 5-10 minutes until apples are tender.
5. Puree soup with an immersion blender (or move the whole mix into a regular blender like me) until smooth or whatever desired consistency before returning to pot.
6. Whisk together flour and milk in a separate bowl before adding to soup. Should thicken up after about 5 minutes.
7. Stir in the cheeses until melted and smooth, simmer another 5 minutes, then done!
8. Serve with granola (see next recipe)

Anakin’s Granola to go with soup (same credit as above)

(I’ve never actually made this one but the soup recipe does give instructions for this)

-1 cup old fashioned oats

-1.5 cups whole raw pecans

-2 Tbsp flour

-2 Tbsp brown sugar

-¼ tsp salt

-1 tsp cinnamon

-6 Tbps unsalted butter, softened

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Use greased cookie sheet or pyrex dish to roughly combine oats, pecans, flour, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
3. Add softened butter and use fingers to crumble everything together until everything is moist and butter is evenly distributed.
4. Bake 20 minutes, stirring halfway, until golden brown.
5. Serve with soup or save and eat by itself!

Chapter 4 Recipes

Shmi Skywalker’s Praline Sauce (from my mom, unsure of origin)

-1 stick unsalted butter

-½ cup brown sugar

-½ cup halfnhalf or cream

-¼ tsp salt

-1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

-1 tsp vanilla

1. In saucepan, bring butter and sugar and cream and salt to a boil
2. Cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes
3. Remove from heat and add pecans and vanilla

Obi-Wan’s Dark Chocolate Caramel Pie (recipe credit Amanda Bottoms)

-1 package of Oreos (or  just buy a premade Oreo crust)

-1 cup butter, divided

-⅔ cup brown sugar

-1 and ¼ cup whipping cream, divided

-12 oz dark chocolate chips

-sea salt for serving

1. Crush oreos in food processor (or by whacking into crumbs in a bag), stir together with 8 Tbsp of melted butter
2. Press crumbs into 10 inch tart or pie tin, freeze 10 minutes until set
3. Combine remaining 8 Tbsp of butter and brown sugar in saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until starts to bubble, then for one more minute
4. Remove from heat and slowly whisk in ¼ cup heavy cream until smooth
5. Cool caramel about 15 minutes and pour into crust, then freeze 30-45 minutes until just chilled and set NOT fully frozen
6. Heat 1 cup heavy cream to simmer over medium high heat, then pour over dark chocolate in a heat-safe (ie glass) bowl, let sit 5 minutes before stirring until smooth
7. Pour chocolate over caramel layer and freeze about 30 minutes until just chilled and set
8. Sprinkle with sea salt for serving!

Anakin’s Slow Cooker Mulled Cider (modified from recipe by Christine Gallary)

-1 gallon fresh apple cider or unfiltered apple juice

-1 medium orange (have also used lemon), sliced into ¼ inches

-1.5 inch piece of fresh ginger, thinly sliced

-5 small cinnamon sticks

-MIX AND MATCH SPICES: whole cloves, star anise pods, whole black peppercorns, allspice berries…

-tea ball or cheesecloth and twine or even coffee filters to make a sachet to hold spices in the cider

1. Pour cider into slow cooker
2. Add orange and ginger to float on top
3. Place cinnamon and chosen spices into cloth/filter/strainer and sink into cider
4. Slow cook 4 hours on low, strain out citrus and ginger and spices before serving
5. ALTERNATE: can cook on stovetop on low heat for about an hour

Rule of Two Hot Chocolate (recipe from meeee)

-2 Tbsp cocoa

-2 Tbsp brown sugar

-1 cup milk

-spices/vanilla if wanted

1. Mix cocoa and sugar in mug
2. Heat milk in measuring cup for 2 minutes, pour slowly into mug while mixing
3. Add a few drops of vanilla and/or cinnamon or even a tiny sprinkle of chili powder as desired

Anakin's Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies (recipe credit Laura Flowers)

-3 cups flour

-1 tsp baking soda

-½ tsp baking powder

-1 tsp cinnamon

-1 cup butter, softened

-1 cup sugar

-½ tsp salt

-10 packages apple cider drink mix (usually found near instant hot choc mix)

-2 eggs

-1 tsp vanilla

-14 oz of hard caramels (I use the square ones from Kraft)

-parchment paper!!

1. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon in a small bowl
2. Cream together butter, sugar, salt, and cider mix with a mixer
3. Add eggs and vanilla into butter mixture
4. Gradually add in flour mixtures (add more flour if dough is too sticky)
5. Refrigerate dough for about an hour
6. Unwrap caramels, preheat over to 350F, line cookie trays with parchment paper
7. Wrap caramels in balls of dough, making sure caramel is totally sealed in, and place 2 inches apart
8. Bake 12-14 minutes
9. Slide parchment paper off trays to cool
10. Once partially cooled FLIP THE COOKIES OVER to cool the rest of the way, otherwise the caramel will ooze out of the bottom and get stuck to the parchment paper!!

Chapter 5 Recipes

Anakin's Apple Gouda Bacon Tartine Toast ( recipe credit to Teighan Gerard)

-2 slices of bread

-1 Tbsp butter

-½ cup shredded/grated gouda cheese

-1 apple (honeycrisp if my fave), sliced

-4-6 slices of bacon, already cooked

-thyme, honey, and sea salt to top as desired

1.  Lightly toast the bread (it goes in the oven again so not too much) and spread with butter.
2. Top each toast with some shredded cheese, bacon, and apple slices.
3. Broil until cheese is melty but don’t burn the bread.
4. Top with thyme, honey, and sea salt as desired (usually the bacon is enough salt for me but that’s the recipe).

Obi-Wan's Sexy Grilled Chocolate Pomegranate Sandwich (recipe credit to Dana @ The Minimalist Baker)

-4 slices of bread (or 2 for one sandwich, just scale down other ingredients)

-2 Tbsp butter

-4 Tbsp almond butter (or whatever kind you prefer)

-4 squares of dark chocolate (again or whatever kind you like)

-2-3 Tbsp pomegranate arils

1. Heat skillet over medium high heat and melt butter.
2. Top bread pieces with almond butter on one side of each.
3. Put 2 squares of chocolate and half the pomegranate arils per sandwich before putting into the skillet.
4. Cook 2-3 minutes per side, pressing down to compress each sandwich.