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And it's always been this...
Obi-Wan Kenobi's gentle smile and Anakin Skywalker's padawan braid and the trickling fountains inside the Jedi Temple and the setting sun of Coruscant and the two just on the cusp of becoming men together, though Obi-Wan 16 years Anakin's elder, yes, but neither touched by the scraping, looming doom of war vibrating to etch, crack, and break this little bubble of peace they have created with one another.
It's always been Anakin's laughter and his goofy smile and his need to be praised, and Obi-Wan standing close by, withholding all the kindness and love he has because he cannot vocalize this pride that simmers beneath his skin, hot and beaming. If he spoke, if he moved simply an inch in tandem with that whispering Force, he'd reveal all of those little weakpoints that hide in the crevices of every single midichlorian that calls him to Anakin Skywalker.
Obi-Wan stays put because he cannot realize this. Obi-Wan shakes his head, and sighs, because Anakin cannot laugh.
And when the war is over, Obi-Wan, standing amidst the fire of Mustafar, aches with it, choking on the smoke and all of this feeling he'd kept locked up inside -
I loved you.
But not enough. He hadn't loved enough. It's always been this.
So Obi-Wan suffers from this love unrealized until realized too late, burdened with this incomprehensible fate, unforeseen by any cell in his body that fights to see Anakin Skywalker breathe like he's made of something fluid, like there is no significant difference between himself and the Force, like he has become Life itself - which is maybe why Obi-Wan can no longer live when he steps foot off Mustafar, can feel himself dying the further he stumbles away from this other half of him.
Obi-Wan Kenobi dies the day Anakin Skywalker does, but the Force refuses to be done with them yet.
So when Vader pulls Ben through the fire, when he rasps, I am what you made me, and when Ben feels the obsession, his own mirrored, flipped and turned upside down, brimming within the aura of this Sith Lord before him, Obi-Wan wants to cry out, wants to beg for forgiveness.
Ben, in a singular moment with Vader's looming presence and the fire eating at his skin, feels every second of Anakin Skywalker's life living under the teachings of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He prays for absolution and among the smell of Vader's hatred, he tastes the burning of his own flesh and hair, and thinks, I deserve this.
And so, it's always been this...
Kenobi's love will be his undoing.