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From what little Anakin could make out through the muted light leaking from the doorway, Obi-Wan’s quarters were clean, and his bedsheets barely disrupted, despite his just having departed from them. Obi-Wan was calm. He stood in his nightclothes, as disheveled as his someone with his level of baseline dignity could be. His face, softly backlit by the hallway, wore a concerned expression.
“Something in the force stirred me. Has it happened again?” Obi-Wan spoke barely above a whisper. There was no judgement in his tone. A stray lock of hair dangled against his eyelashes, and he blinked it away. “Is that it, Anakin?” His voice was hoarse and hushed with sleep. The hallway, otherwise dead silent, seemed to be revived by his words. They both knew exactly what he meant.
Anakin could only nod. He shut his eyes, wishing not to see Obi-Wan studying his face.
“Well,” Obi-Wan did not hesitate with his answer. He passed a wave of calm through their force bond. “Come here.”
Anakin stepped inside, trailing his master. In the soupy darkness, Obi-Wan sat down at the head of his bed cross-legged, and gestured for Anakin to join him.
“Lay down and put your head in my lap.”
Anakin didn’t blink. He would have been apprehensive were it anyone else. He laid down on Obi-Wan’s thin mattress, one hand cast over his chest and the other sprawled, and immediately relaxed at Obi-Wan’s touch. The bed was warm, and his feet hung off the end. He could feel himself entering Obi-Wan’s sphere of energy, a sort of white noise that seemed to be suspended in the air, washing over his spirit and tempering his fear.
After a moment, Obi-Wan spoke, just higher than a murmur, only compassion in his words—“You are holding so much tension right now.” He lightly pushed his fingers through Anakin’s hair. “I need you to try a light meditation.” His voice was low, and he did not look down at Anakin; he only stared, for a moment, across the room, then shut his eyes. Anakin drank in what he could of his expression through the darkness that blanketed the room. He felt utterly childish, but he could not hold onto whatever guard he put up any longer, not in front of Obi-Wan, and not at this hour.
As Obi-Wan’s fingers brushed his forehead, a memory flashed before him: a far younger version of himself, gripping the dangling sleeve of a youthful Obi-Wan, eyes wandering and mouth agape, as the two of them made their way through the light-flooded streets of Theed on Naboo. Obi-Wan’s lightsaber dangled winsomely from his hip. Anakin’s eyes blinked open, amazed, despite himself, to find the same man from his memory hovering over him.
“Was it the same dream, today?”
It took Anakin a moment to process Obi-Wan’s question. “Yes.” He started at the sound of his own voice. Obi-Wan gently carded his fingers through his hair, and gradually, Anakin felt some great knot within him begin to unravel.
“And you knew it was coming, correct?”
Anakin knew Obi-Wan was scouring his memories, tabbing through and reading his mind in the most literal sense, but it didn’t upset him. In reality, it was incredibly comforting to not have to sit alone with his demons. He had little, if anything, to hide from him. “Yes,” he said.
Obi-Wan hummed in acknowledgement. His hands moved to the sides of Anakin’s head, and, ever slightly, he pushed into the force. He was not reaching very far, nor trying to dig into or rearrange the depths of Anakin’s psyche--he could not, would not--he was only soothing what had been burned. “Please breathe, Anakin.”
Anakin immediately sucked in a breath. The room smelled like cinnamon. Obi-Wan traced a finger behind his ear, and a tingling sensation dripped down Anakin’s spine. Wicked fear, which had gnawed at him so viciously moments ago, now seemed to liquefy.
“Beginning with your toes, I want you to relax every muscle in your body, one by one.” Obi-Wan was still pressing into the force, which had bubbled around them quietly since they entered the room. “Until you get to your head.”
Anakin smiled at the realization that, in that moment, Obi-Wan could have asked him to lob off one of his limbs, or to fly out the window, and Anakin would have done it. He focused first on his feet, and moved up his body as Obi-Wan held him steady. Catching Obi-Wan’s eyes on him for the briefest moment, Anakin was suddenly struck by the sheer intimacy of their situation. He felt Obi-Wan’s fingers in his hair all over again, as if they’d just been placed here, along with the soft pressure of his head on Obi-Wan’s lap, the warmth of his bedsheets and knowing in his words--all of it seemed to snap into focus. Whatever pain had been there was now gone. Anakin’s voice hitched in his throat.
“Obi-Wan,” he said. He exhaled, and looked Obi-Wan, who seemed to rise out of his concentrated state.
“Yes?” Obi-Wan looked down at Anakin for a moment, then slowly began tracing circles over his scalp.
Anakin could only blink back at him stupidly. “I don’t—” he trailed off. He didn’t have any words. A stray lock of hair dangled past Obi-Wan’s eyes, and Anakin clumsily reached to push it back into place.
Obi-Wan let him. A smile spread across his face. He whispered, just barely audible: “What’s wrong?”
Anakin felt like he was going to melt. Nothing. He couldn’t stop himself any longer. He slowly sat upwards and twisted around, and the bed creaked beneath him. Absolutely nothing. He didn’t know where he was going, but he was going. He brought his legs around until he was facing Obi-Wan, each of them mirroring the other, and looked him right in the eye. “Nothing is wrong,” he said, as steadily as possible.
Obi-Wan didn’t shy away from his gaze. The force hissed and cracked and sputtered between them, but Obi-Wan’s persistent serenity remained. The mutual understanding was very much apparent, but Anakin was still unsure of himself. “I see.”
This was a stand-off, in a way, a very physical one, with Anakin deciding that they were done dancing around the other, and Obi-Wan resisting his persuasion. Anakin searched Obi-Wan’s face for any sign of encouragement. He found none. He slid closer.
Obi-Wan didn’t flinch, but he sat up straighter. Anakin could feel him putting up a wall. “Anakin,” he whispered. It was a warning.
Heat pooled in Anakin’s stomach. Through the warm, hazy darkness, he watched Obi-Wan’s gaze waver. “Don’t pretend,” he said, because he knew Obi-Wan was pretending. This was Anakin firing first, Anakin telling Obi-Wan to stop pretending, to stop dancing around him, to stop telling himself that he could see through what was before him--what had been there for months, years. Anakin wanted to scream at him, to punch something, to tell him to cut it out, because he knew how he felt. He had seen it, felt it, heard it, known it, for what felt to him like ages. It was always there, in his eyes, whenever they looked at one another. Anakin lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t want to pretend anymore.”
Obi-Wan turned his head and stared blankly across the room. When Anakin brought himself closer, he didn’t protest, and when Anakin slid a hand onto his leg, he didn’t push it away. He leaned into it.
The heat in Anakin’s gut deepened. “And neither do you,” he whispered.
Obi-Wan faced him again. The two of them hovered there for a beat, until Anakin felt the wall come down, excruciatingly slow. He could taste the desire there, the need, just hidden below the surface. Obi-Wan reached up, and quietly pushed his fingers through Anakin’s hair. He couldn’t make eye contact. “You’re right.” His voice was miniscule.
This was the facade crumbling. Anakin knew he was not fully processing the weight of this development--right beside Obi-Wan’s repressed needs loomed beside his own. He let his hand slide farther up Obi-Wan’s leg.
Obi-Wan met his gaze. He looked almost pained. “I don’t.”
Anakin took in a shaky breath. Around them the force was scattered, buzzing angrily with tension, ready to snap. “Then don’t. ”
Obi-Wan let his hand drift to Anakin’s face. He, ever so gently, brushed his thumb along Anakin’s bottom lip, watching it as it went. Anakin only followed along as Obi-Wan drank him in. He was visibly uncertain. He stilled his hand and kept his gaze fixed at Anakin’s mouth for just a moment, before looking back at him. His eyes, wide with apprehension, asked if it was okay.
Anakin inhaled slowly. Something in his chest felt like it was straining. “Please,” he begged.
Obi-Wan leaned in and kissed him tenderly on the mouth, swiftly violating in a single action a dozen or so tenets of the Jedi code. When Anakin leaned right back, pressing a hand to Obi-Wan’s chest and getting a fistful of his nightshirt, Obi-Wan hummed low in his throat. Tentatively, he took Anakin’s face in both of his hands and deepened their kiss, and Anakin melted against him. His hands were warm, his lips soft and wet, his touch, which only seconds ago had been so familiar, now completely new. The force rose, warm and kind, sparking at their lips and their fingers. Anakin pushed his legs up until they were bent over Obi-Wan’s thighs and slid his arm over Obi-Wan’s shoulder, compressing the space between them until it no longer existed. Anakin felt Obi-Wan smile against his lips.
They paused only to gather themselves, staring the other down, and Obi-Wan leaned back to take in the sight of him. Watching quietly, he let a hand travel down the warm expanse of Anakin’s chest, pausing over his heart. Obi-Wan flicked his eyes back up for a moment, recognised the look in Anakin’s eyes, and suddenly shoved him backwards until his back met the mattress.
Something buried deep within him had finally come to the surface. He was no longer hesitant, timid, cautious—he planted a hand in the mattress by Anakin’s shoulder and pressed their mouths together without reserve. His opposite hand tipped Anakin’s chin back so that he could kiss his mouth, his jaw, the arch of the adam’s apple in his neck. Anakin arched into his touch, breathing heavier and heavier, mumbling Obi-Wan’s name. His hand slid around Obi-Wan’s back and took another fistful of his shirt.
Obi-Wan straightened himself for a moment, hovering over Anakin and eyeing every inch of him. His chest lurched, and he had to duck his head. “Goodness, Anakin,” he whispered. He took Anakin’s hand and brought it to his mouth. They watched one another.
Anakin had surely won their standoff, but, equally, Obi-Wan had not lost. There was a backlog of months upon months upon years of longing in him, in his touch and his gaze and the softness with which he pressed Anakin’s fingers to his lips, in the way he thumbed over Anakin’s jaw and traced his fingers through the loose strands of his hair, only now allowed to come forth. It was almost painful for Anakin, to watch him, and to realize how deeply his counterpart had buried this trove of emotion within him. Anakin reached out to Obi-Wan through the hazy dim, pulling on his dangling shirt sleeve. Some semblance of anger welled up in Anakin, quietly, layered beneath the intoxicating warmth of Obi-Wan’s bedsheets and the lowered lights of his quarters. He pressed a palm to Obi-Wan’s chest, marveling at even the most basic tangibility of him. Anakin shut his eyes, and the questions came, as poetic as the warmth of Obi-Wan’s hands on his body: How are we supposed to shun this? What living thing, having a beating heart, could outlaw this?
Obi-Wan leaned down and kissed his neck again. Anakin found hold around the back of his shirt, feeling, with growing awareness, the movement of muscles in his torso. Anakin had known him for what felt like his whole life; he had laid hands on him and dueled him and held him and seen all there was to see of him, picked every corner of his brain and said to him all he’d ever had to say, without reservation; he had felt, until now, that he had witnessed his entire being. This was untrue.
He had always been aware that there was a spark of ferocity in Obi-Wan, sometimes showing a glimpse itself in the heat of combat. He habitually gave ground, fought defensively and delicately, but on rare occasions he’d take a barbaric swing at a foe or indulge in a loose interpretation of the Jedi laws of force use. It was a stray piece of him that the Order had failed to tame. It showed itself again, now, a roaring hunger belonging to a wilder man--one who was allowed to have and to love and to feel and to fight with whatever savagery possessed him, and one who Anakin, until now, was only ever able to imagine.
A piece of the Jedi texts came to him: A Jedi shall not know anger, nor hatred, nor love. Anakin, high on sheer defiance, could not help but smile. He had known all of these things and more, and now held in his very arms one of them. This fundamental tenet of his humanity had been bridled up until now, to the point where Anakin had wondered from time to time if he had ever had any of it to begin with. He did, without a doubt, and now knew of this deeply and unshakably, the fact of his ability and impulse to love suddenly seeming as innate to him as the stirrings of the force in his soul. He could not imagine, from any point now on, unweaving what was being woven here, nor even finding it within himself to make an attempt at it.
He called his anger to action, and kissed Obi-Wan deeper and more desperately, fingers laced through his hair, chest-to-chest and legs entangled. Their fervor here was almost absurd compared to the stern chastity of their daily lives. Beyond his new, vivid understanding of this portion of the human experience, Anakin could almost grasp at why this was disallowed. He eagerly lifted his arms up as Obi-Wan began to tug the shirt off of him.
Having known indulgence in another, he could not picture himself refusing it.