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“Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s voice was stern, and Anakin bristled. “To me, please.”
The other padawans sitting with Anakin in the refectory had gone quiet, and a few of them were smirking.
Anakin shifted, turning his back to Obi-Wan. He was nineteen kriffing years old.
Obi-Wan wasn’t even Anakin’s master. Though, Anakin thought with a small flash of shame, Master Qui-Gon would have scolded him in much the same way if he had heard what Anakin had just said.
Anakin could swear at the table if he wanted.
Though that wasn’t all that Obi-Wan was taking him to task for, of course.
“Anyway,” Anakin said to the table full of padawans, turning his shoulder away so that his back was intentionally to Obi-Wan. “As I was saying, the pod race was—”
“One.” Obi-Wan’s voice cut through the conversation.
Oh, kark this and kark him.
“The pod race,” Anakin said loudly. “Was between two criminals who worked for different Hutt syndicates, and—”
“Two.” Obi-Wan was standing right behind Anakin now.
Anakin could feel him there, but it was too late now. He had gone toe to toe with Obi-Wan before and it had never gone well for him. Or for his backside, which clenched now involuntarily. And it wasn’t like it was just the swearing. Or even about the swearing at all. It might maybe be about the fact that Anakin was meant to be staying in his rooms because he was grounded, not sitting in the refectory eating with his friends after racing around the practice hangar all morning.
“So when I entered the race—yes, I did build the pod myself,” Anakin continued, his cheeks bright red now and his voice so loud that other padawans and knights and masters were turning to look now. “No one thought anything of me. They thought I’d be another human racer who got out as soon as—”
“I thought I heard your cheerful tones,” Master Quinlan Vos interrupted him, just as Obi-Wan reached—
“Three.”
Obi-Wan’s hand closed under Anakin’s bicep and he hauled him roughly to his feet. “I will put you over my knee right here,” he said quietly. “Come to our quarters now.”
Quinlan was closer now, shouldering his way in so that his large frame blocked Anakin from view of the table. “Obi-Wan,” he said cheerfully. “I might be mistaken, but I thought Anakin had been grounded as well as Aayla.”
“You are not mistaken,” Obi-Wan said, his eyes hard when he looked at Anakin.
“I just—”
“I wouldn’t,” Quinlan said easily, tousling Anakin’s hair with one hand. “Come on, kid. Best to head on upstairs and get it over with.”
Anakin flushed bright red.
Obi-Wan exchanged a look with Quinlan, weighted with meaning and history that Anakin could not quite decipher.
Then Obi-Wan hauled Anakin forward and swatted him firmly across the center of his backside.
Anakin yelped, and he heard a snicker from the padawans at the table. Quinlan was still blocking their view, but he knew they had heard it. And Quinlan certainly wasn’t blocking everyone’s view. Jedi at other tables were watching now.
The chosen one was always a spectacle, no matter what he did, but never more than when he was causing trouble.
Anakin jerked his arm away from Obi-Wan, letting out a stream of Hutt curses that made several surrounding tables go silent.
“Ah,” Quinlan said. “It’s one of those, then.”
“Very well,” Obi-Wan said with a tight nod, and then he sat down on one of the stools at a nearby empty table and hauled Anakin brusquely over his knee, bringing his hand down hard on the center of Anakin’s backside. “That is enough,” he said sternly, bringing down his hand in sharp, rapid swats that covered Anakin’s backside.
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin said desperately. “Obi-Wan, please, no, stop, everyone is watching—”
He was sure the entire refectory was watching, actually.
The sound of hard swats echoed through the space, halting conversations and turning heads all across the room. Necks were craning to look, and Anakin’s backside felt as if it were on fire already.
He squirmed sharply. “Let me up,” he said.
“Why?” Obi-Wan said. “So you can continue to run off while you are grounded, leaving Master Qui-Gon and I worried sick?”
Oh.
Anakin felt the first hint of guilty worm at his conscience.
“So you can continue racing around the training hangar and causing all kinds of mess?” Obi-Wan continued, smacking the top of Anakin’s right thigh three times in quick succession. “Or—” he switched to the left side, landing several hard spanks in the same spot—“So that you can continue cursing at me when I tell you to come back to our quarters?”
“Please, I’m sorry,” Anakin said desperately. “Everyone is watching.”
“And everyone was watching when you cursed at me just now,” Obi-Wan said, continuing to rain down smacks that covered everything from the top of Anakin’s backside to the tops of his thighs. “An audience did not stop your poor behavior then, and it will not stop the consequences of them now.”
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin begged.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan responded calmly, beginning yet another round of smacks. Just as suddenly, he stopped. “You have had yourself a sound paddling just last night,” he mused.
Anakin had already been blushing, but now the blush reached all the way to the tips of his ears. Obi-Wan was not shouting, but Anakin was sure the words had carried.
“I ought to be sure I do not leave marks,” Obi-Wan mused, hooking his thumb in the waistband of Anakin’s trousers.
As realization of what Obi-Wan was considering hit Anakin, he began to squirm desperately. “No,” he whispered. “Please, Obi-Wan, I’ll be good, I’ll go to our quarters, please—”
Obi-Wan hesitated a moment.
“Please,” Anakin said. “Please.”
“If I let you stand up,” Obi-Wan said. “Will you behave and walk to our quarters in a civilized manner?”
Anakin bit back a response, an immediate, foolish response along the lines of would you call spanking someone’s bare bottom in public civilized? Obi-Wan would surely answer yes and pull Anakin’s pants down to smack him on his bare backside in front of everyone in the refectory.
“I will behave,” Anakin promised.
“Alright,” Obi-Wan said quietly. “Then you may get up. You are getting another spanking when we reach our quarters. Do you understand?”
Anakin let out a small whine, but he nodded his head rapidly. “Yes, Obi-Wan,” he said.
Obi-Wan tapped his backside, the warning clear.
“Yes, Master Obi-Wan,” he corrected himself quickly.
Obi-Wan pulled him up, his hand settling on Anakin’s shoulder in a gesture that was both foreboding of his punishment to come and oddly calming.
Quinlan fell into step on Anakin’s other side almost immediately, his tall frame blocking most of the stares.
“Chin up,” he said lightly. “You are not the first unruly padawan to be spanked in this very refectory. Though you are perhaps the most creative user of Huttese curses I’ve ever heard.”
Obi-Wan shot Quinlan another look before he looked down at Anakin, his eyes soft. “Little one,” he said quietly as the door to the refectory finally shut behind them. “Are you alright?”
Anakin’s eyes blurred at the kindness in Obi-Wan’s voice. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said.
Obi-Wan squeezed his shoulder. “I know you are, dearest,” he said. “We will get all this behind us, alright?”
Anakin’s shoulders drooped. “You already spanked me,” he said.
He did not have much hope of winning this argument, but he felt the need to try, every time, without fail, all the same.
“You know,” Quinlan said, eyes twinkling as he looked down at Anakin. “Once I had called one of my teachers several colorful words in a row, and when Master Tholme came to collect me—”
“Was it history class?” Anakin interrupted him.
Quinlan smiled slightly. “It was indeed,” he said. “Master Bith still teaches?”
Anakin grimaced.
“Anyway, I told my master that I wasn’t going anywhere with him, and that if he wished to spank me, he would have to do it there.” Quinlan grinned at Obi-Wan, who shook his head fondly at him.
“You’re insane,” Anakin said.
“You just got yourself spanked in the refectory, dear boy,” Quinlan said. “But yes. And I deserved what my master gave me, as you did today.”
Anakin ducked his head, shame-faced.
Quinlan flicked his shoulder gently. “I am going to check on Aayla,” he said. “You keep to your grounding from now on, young one.”
Anakin wondered if he could get away with typing into his commlink without either of them noticing. Aayla was definitely not keeping to her grounding, but if he sent her a message in time she might be able to get back before Quinlan realized.
Quinlan had been walking away, but he turned, his eyes warm when he looked at Anakin, though there was an unnervingly knowing expression on his face. “Oh, I’m aware,” he said, and Anakin winced. “She and I are about to have our own conversation shortly. Obi-Wan, do you want to meet later when these conversations are through?”
Obi-Wan nodded, and then steered Anakin towards the quarters he shared with Qui-Gon.
“I will comm your master after we are through,” Obi-Wan told him quietly as he typed in the code and pushed open the door.
Anakin’s shoulders hunched, but he walked to the corner of the room without being asked and stared at the paint, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other.
“Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s voice was soft. “Come here please.”
Anakin trudged over to him, eyes on the floor. “I really am sorry, Obi-Wan,” he said quietly.
“Are you, dearest?” Obi-Wan asked wearily. “Or are you simply sorry you got caught?”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Anakin said. “I really am sorry about that.”
“I punished you for that part already, Ani,” Obi-Wan said.
The nickname made Anakin’s eyes sting. “Oh,” he said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
Obi-Wan took his hand and squeezed gently, and then he reached out and began removing Anakin’s saber belt before tugging at the drawstring of his trousers and lowering them and the shorts to mid-thigh, before guiding Anakin over his lap.
He wasted no time in beginning the spanking again, bringing his hand down in a flurry of sharp swats that reignited the fire in Anakin’s backside.
In the privacy of their quarters, Anakin saw no reason to pretend this wasn’t the worst thing in the galaxy. He whined, his hips bucking forward when Obi-Wan began a series of rapid, stinging swats to the curve where his bottom met his thighs.
“Obi-Wan, that hurts,” Anakin said, kicking his legs.
The only response he got from Obi-Wan was to tuck Anakin’s legs between his.
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin whined. “I’ll be good.”
“Why are you getting this spanking?” Obi-Wan asked, continuing to cover Anakin’s already-tender bottom in hard, relentless swats, his aim unerring no matter how much Anakin whined or bucked or squirmed.
“Because I—ow,” Anakin said. “Because I’m grounded.”
“And what does that mean, young one?” Obi-Wan asked.
Anakin squirmed sharply. “It means I get my mission reports done and do necessary duties and then go home,” he said miserably.
“Does it mean racing with your friends?” Obi-Wan drove his point home with several sharp smacks to the same spot on the left side of Anakin’s bottom.
“No,” Anakin wailed miserably. “Obi-Wan.”
“Does it mean lounging around the refectory telling stories about illegal pod races to padawans younger than you, who look up to you?” Obi-Wan emphasized this with another rapid volley of smacks to Anakin’s smarting backside.
The twin suns of Tatooine themselves were not as fiery hot to the touch as Anakin Skywalker’s backside must be now.
“No, Master,” Anakin said through his sniffles.
He had been spanked by Qui-Gon just yesterday—and then grounded—and it felt as if his tender backside was now actually on fire.
“I am glad we are clear about our expectations, young one,” Obi-Wan said firmly. “Is there anything more you need to say?”
Anakin once again bit back a retort—this time something about him not needing to say anything—and shook his head no. “I’m sorry, Master,” he sobbed. “I won’t do it again.”
Obi-Wan spanked him a few more times across his sit spots, these ones harder than the last, and then he placed a hand on Anakin’s back, rubbing gently. “We are through, little one,” he said. “And you are forgiven.”
He readjusted Anakin’s clothes and then set Anakin on his knee, cuddling him close and stroking his hair.
“I’m sorry,” Anakin said against Obi-Wan’s chest. “I really, really am.”
“I know, dearest,” Obi-Wan said, dropping a kiss on the top of Anakin’s head. “I know how hard grounding is for you. It was never easy for me, either.”
“Was,” Anakin snorted. “As if you weren’t grounded a few months ago for that mission on Planet Raxus.”
Obi-Wan chuckled. “You are back to yourself, then,” he teased gently, running his fingers through Anakin’s hair, mussing it up. “But I am serious, little one. Being grounded is no easy task for a Jedi, but especially one such as yourself. If you are feeling overwhelmed, you can always comm me for help. Alright? I would rather not have a repeat of today.”
Anakin shifted, wincing as his very sore bottom made contact with Obi-Wan’s lap. “Me neither,” he said fervently. A few moments later, he lifted his head from Obi-Wan’s shoulder again and said, “Master? Does it count as grounded if Aayla and Quinlan and Master Tholme come over for evening meal?”
Obi-Wan laughed. “Let us see what Quin and Master Qui-Gon have to say about it,” he said. “Since they are the ones who assigned Aayla and yourself this grounding.”
Anakin hung his head again. “Master Qui-Gon is going to be angry,” he said.
“When is he ever angry with either of us?” Obi-Wan said gently. “And besides, I will tell him I have disciplined you and it’s all done, alright? There will be no more punishment for this.”
Anakin buried his face against Obi-Wan’s shoulder again. “Okay,” he said in a small voice. “And you don’t—you don’t hate me, Obi-Wan? Even though I’m a lot of trouble?”
“Quinlan Vos has said that I very much like trouble,” Obi-Wan mused gently, squeezing Anakin’s shoulder. “And—” he gave Anakin an encouraging smile—“I am inclined to agree. Very much. Now come, little troublemaker, and help me make an evening meal so we can eat when Qui-Gon arrives home.”
Anakin stood and Obi-Wan followed. Anakin wrapped his arms around Obi-Wan tightly, and Obi-Wan returned the hug.
“I’m almost as tall as you now,” Anakin mused. “And I’m going to be taller someday.”
Obi-Wan swatted him lightly. “Little brat,” he said fondly, and they walked into the kitchen together, Obi-Wan’s arm wrapped securely around Anakin’s shoulders.