Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Anakin tries to ignore it. He smiles, politely, and then powerwalks away from the clinic. He tends to walk in front of it on his way to the shop where he buys his seeds or arranges to sell his product. Always parking his truck in a place where the clinic is in his path. Always hoping to catch a glimpse of the hot doctor that lives and works in the house.

He had not expected Obi-Wan to acknowledge him with more than a polite smile and maybe a wave. And that is if he even saw him because even if the town is small, Obi-Wan does have people to attend. Anakin can only see him when there are no patients and the weather is warm, sitting at his porch with a book, a newspaper or learning the newest medicine breakthroughs. Sometimes so focused on his readings that he doesn’t even notice Anakin walking past him – and those days are the best, because Anakin can gawk at him as much as he wants, slowing down his pace so he has a few more seconds of looking at the most handsome man Anakin has seen in his life.

On a normal day, even if Obi-Wan sees him, they don’t exchange more than a polite smile and greeting but today, today, Obi-Wan had said his name just as he was approaching the clinic, and Anakin is sure he blushed, so he is trying to hide it by walking away as fast as he can.

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan’s voice says again, and he sounds close, and he shouldn’t sound close, not when Anakin is walking away at the speed he is, unless Obi-Wan has gotten up from his place and-

A hand on Anakin’s arm stops him from going further, and when he turns around there Obi-Wan is, a bit out of breath, a quick smile on his lips as he says his name again in a sigh - and Anakin thinks that he could fall in love from that alone – before he squeezes Anakin’s arm and lets it go.

“I’m sorry for stopping you like this when you obviously have chores to complete.” Obi-Wan says, as if Anakin had anything better to do than talk with him, as if the only reason Anakin didn’t stop, didn’t spend all his time trying to speak with the doctor, wasn’t because he is embarrassed about his crush and about acting like a fool in front of him (or at least that’s the reason since Obi-Wan had to drive him home after he had found him almost passed out in a field under the sun). “But I was thinking that you’ve been here for five months already,” of course Obi-Wan remembers exactly when Anakin arrived, as if he needed more reasons to fall for him, “and you have not really come to see me at the clinic, and because of what happened-“ Anakin tries not to die of mortification at the mention of the incident, “I think it would be good if you came for a check-up. When is the last time you went for one?”

“Uhhh…” Anakin says, eloquently, because he doesn’t know how to tell the concerned and perfect doctor that the last time he had talked to a doctor for something health related since he had his last paediatrician check-up was when Obi-Wan himself had lectured him about keeping hydrated and away from the sun in summer.

“Right” Obi-Wan says, because he must understand Anakin’s lack of an answer. “I regularly do check-ups for everyone in town, so whenever you feel ready for one, just come over and I will see you. We could even do it now if you are not in much of a rush?”

And then Obi-Wan smiles, and there’s a hopeful look in his eyes, and what is Anakin supposed to do? Say no?

“Sure.”

“Are you up to date with your vaccines?” Obi-Wan asks, sitting at his desk, Anakin is sitting on the other side, answering all of Obi-Wan’s questions so the doctor can have a record of his medical history.

“As far as I know, yes.”

“Farms are dangerous places, you can get all kinds of infections. Your animals are also vaccinated?”

“Of course, they see the doctor more than I do.” Anakin tries to joke, but Obi-Wan purses his lips before a small smile appears on his face, “we are trying to fix that now, aren’t we?” Obi-Wan looks down over to the questionnaire on his hands, ticks something with his pen before he points to the next question. He looks up to Anakin before asking, “sexual partners in the last year?”

Anakin tries not to choke on his own breath, his heart accelerating on his chest. “No” he answers, and Obi-Wan looks mildly surprised, and oh coming out of his lips. And Anakin realises he had expected a number.

“Okay, I think that is everything for now.” The doctor mercifully says, and Anakin lets out a sigh of relief. “You can sit on the stretcher now, I will check your vitals.”

Anakin obeys, and Obi-Wan puts a cuff around his arm and the metal part of his stethoscope under it. It goes too fast, Anakin focused on the way Obi-Wan’s arm flexes when he inflates the thing on his arm with the small ball, on the attentive look on his face as he listens to his pulse while looking at the numbers, on how close he is.

“Alright” Obi-Wan says all too soon. He takes everything off of Anakin and notes the numbers down on his clipboard. “I’d like to listen to your heart now.” He says, and stays seated in front of Anakin. None of them move for a few seconds, until Obi-Wan adds “I’d be easier if you took your shirt off.”

“Right”

“Unless you are not comfortable, I can do it with it on if you prefer.”

“No, no, it’s alright.” Anakin rushes to take his shirt off, because Obi-Wan is being so nice to him, and he doesn’t want to make his job harder. He just had imagined that if he ever got the chance to be shirtless in front of Obi-Wan it would be in a very different context.

Anakin takes a sharp breath when the cold metal circle touches his skin, and Obi-Wan takes it away immediately.

“Sorry, it’s very cold.” He brings it up to his face and exhales on it before he puts it against his own arm while Anakin watches him mesmerized. “I should have warned you, I think it will be a bit better now.”

He puts it back against Anakin’s chest and it’s better now, and Anakin feels a bit out of his body because Obi-Wan is standing right next to him and he puts his other hand on Anakin’s naked back. The skin to skin contact makes Anakin straighten his back against the hand, and there is just no way Obi-Wan didn’t hear his heart jump.

“Your heart rate is a bit too fast.” Obi-Wan says, and Anakin is sure he will not set foot on the town, much less near the clinic, ever again in his life. “Do hospitals make you nervous? It’s alright, we will be done before you know it.”

Anakin doesn’t deny it, because the other option is confessing that he doesn’t get nervous in hospitals, only around hot doctors that treat him with care and have the most beautiful blue eyes he has ever seen. Obi-Wan moves the metal thing around, and then puts it on his back and tells Anakin to take deep breaths. When he leans around to Anakin’s back, Obi-Wan’s chest touches Anakin’s shoulder and arm. It’s an innocent touch, it shouldn’t mean anything, but Anakin’s breath catches. He had never been so close to Obi-Wan – except the time he almost passed out, but Anakin doesn’t remember that very clearly – and it’s doing something to him. He can feel his body heat, he can smell him. All too soon, as Obi-Wan had promised, he is done and pulling away. Putting the stethoscope around his neck and telling Anakin he can put his shirt back on.

“You seem very healthy.” Obi-Wan says, and Anakin knew that but he will admit he liked the check-up, even if only to get Obi-Wan so close to him that he could smell his soap. “but please, come visit me if anything happens, doesn’t matter how silly you think it may be.”

“I will” Anakin promises.

“And I’d like it if you brought your vaccine record, I’d like to check for myself that everything is in order.”

“I will ask my mother to send it to me and I’ll bring it.” And then he will have an excuse to talk to the doctor again. Maybe worrying about his health is not that bad.

“That will be fantastic. Now I’m sure you had a lot of things to do that I kept you from.” Obi-Wan says while walking him to the door. That means Anakin has to go, and he is not very happy to, he finds.

“Thank you” he remembers to say before he leaves.

“There’s no problem, please, come visit me whenever you like.” Obi-Wan says with a smile before he closes the door.

Anakin stays there, staring at the door, before he turns to continue his way to the store. He puts his hands on his face and groans because he is a fool. A fool in love.

As most mornings now, Anakin takes Obi-Wan’s empty milk bottle from his doorstep and exchanges it for a full one from his cows. He wakes up early every day to milk his cows and come to the town early enough to beat the milkman to the bottle. Or most days. There are days when the animals need extra attention and he can’t get to the town early enough, or at all, but most days it’s Anakin’s cow’s milk Obi-Wan is drinking, and he also leaves some eggs and vegetables for him often.

Anakin is still crouching, empty bottle in his hand, when a sound makes him freeze. The front door to Obi-Wan’s house and clinic has just opened. Immediately to his right.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says. And Anakin doesn’t answer, trying not to look as mortified as he feels at being caught. Anakin looks up at Obi-Wan, and what he finds in his face is a bit confusing. There is surprise, but he also looks like he expected to see him here and is pleased to be right.

“Uhh… good morning. I was just-“ Anakin gestures with the empty bottle in his hand. Purses his lips. Looks away. Looks at Obi-Wan again.

“Leaving milk for me before the milkman comes like you do most days?” Obi-Wan asks.

“I… wait. How did you know?”

“You know I do have to pay for the milk, right? The moment he told me that he was not the one leaving the milk for me every day I immediately thought about you.”

Anakin’s heart jumps in his chest, because Obi-Wan immediately thought about him.

“I will have to pay you for it, of course.” Obi-Wan says, and puts his hand inside of his pocket.

“What? No! I don’t want you to pay me.” Anakin exclaims, finally standing up so he is at the same level as Obi-Wan.

“It’s the product of your work, I need to pay you.”

“Well I don’t want you to. It’s a gift.”

“I assume the eggs and vegetables are also gifts from you?”

Anakin shifts his weight between his feet, purses his lips so he can take a second to answer. He didn’t know Obi-Wan had also put that together.

“Well, yeah.”

“Anakin I have not done enough to deserve so many gifts.” Obi-Wan says, and he may be right, but Anakin can’t really say I wanted you to pay attention to me and court you but I didn’t know how to so this is the best thing I could think of.

“You have taken care of me.” He settles on saying. And it’s true, Obi-Wan did his check-up, and has taken care of him when he has overdone it because of the sun a couple times.

Obi-Wan sighs and shakes his head, like he is resigning himself to not argue more, but still doesn’t agree with him.

“Wait here for a second please, I have something for you.”

“Wait, you don’t-“ Anakin starts to call out, but Obi-Wan is gone inside his house before he can say anything more.

Anakin waits, and wonders if maybe he should allow himself inside to wait. A woman across the street is looking at him, and she doesn’t return his wave. When the milkman arrives and shakes his head with a smile at Anakin as he passes the clinic, Anakin decides to let himself in. He is just closing the door after him, one empty bottle in one hand and a full one in the other and wondering what to do with them, when he hears Obi-Wan coming down the stairs and he appears in the corridor a couple of seconds later.

“Oh, I left you outside, excuse my manners.” Obi-Wan says from behind a black box. He leaves the box on a side table, takes the bottles from Anakin and leaves them next to it. He takes the box again and offers it to Anakin.

“This is for me?” Anakin asks eloquently.

“Yes. You can open it.” Anakin does as Obi-Wan continues talking, “it’s not much, really, but I thought that maybe you wouldn’t wear a hat because you didn’t have one and, as I understand, this is what people wear in Tatooine farms-“

Anakin stares at the cowboy hat inside the box, lifts it carefully to take a good look at it. It’s dark brown, the sides lifted slightly. The material feels good in his hands and when he puts it on it fits him perfectly.

“You got this for me.”

“Yes. I’ll understand if you already have one and just don’t like wearing it, but I honestly think you should wear a hat when you are out in the sun, I hoped this would be an incentive.”

It IS an incentive, because if it’s a gift from Obi-Wan, Anakin doesn’t think he will take it off again. Wearing the hat will be a reminder that the man thinks about him, cares about him in some degree. Anakin did have a hat like this back in Tatooine, but the material was not that good and he had lost it when he moved here. He had looked into buying one, but the cost of the shipping alone was too much for Anakin, still trying to get the farm going again, which reminds him…

“I can’t accept this,” Anakin says, taking the hat off, as much as it pains him.

“Why not?” Obi-Wan asks, genuinely confused. He doesn’t make a move to take the hat from Anakin’s offering hands.

“It must have cost you a fortune getting this here, it’s too much.”

Obi-Wan waves his words off with a gesture. “Take it as an exchange for all the things that you leave at my door. And it wasn’t that expensive, a friend of mine came back from Tatooine not too long ago and he brought it with him.” Obi-Wan puts one of his hands on top of Anakin’s with a smile, and Anakin’s heart skips a beat. Anakin relaxes his hands under the touch. He hadn’t realised he was holding the hat so hard. “Please, accept my gift, so I don’t have to constantly worry about you out in the sun when the weather is warm.”

“Okay,” Anakin agrees, “but you will tell me if you need anything, no going back to the store for things I can provide you with.”

“Deal,” Obi-Wan says, “but please lower the amount of eggs you leave at my door, I’ve run out of things to do with them and room to store them.”

Obi-Wan got the call when he was about to go out on a walk. Anakin was hurt and they need him, that is everything that Obi-Wan needs to know before he is rushing out of the door with his emergency suitcase. He drives, fast, probably a bit too fast, until he reaches the Skywalker farm. He parks the car in front of the door of the farmhouse, barely securing it before he is rushing out of it. Someone must have heard him approach because a farmhand – the one that called him, from his voice – is there, helping him take his things and filling him in. Anakin had been doing God knows what on his own when he had heard him let out a yell of pain and had seen him with blood dripping down from his face when he got to the barn.

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath as he rushes into the house, his jaw clenched in annoyance and worry. Anakin, as incredible and gorgeous as he is, is an idiot. He shouldn’t be doing anything dangerous on his own, he had promised Obi-Wan he would be careful.

Obi-Wan storms into the kitchen to find Anakin sitting on a chair, a hand holding a cloth red with blood to his brow.

“You reckless idiot,” Obi-Wan lets out when he gets into the room. Anakin looks up at him with one big eye and a pout, his face pale. “What were you even thinking? Do you even understand the concept of protection gear?” He puts his briefcase down on the table next to Anakin’s elbow. He opens it and turns to him, “move your hand so I can at least see if you have made yourself blind”

The moment Anakin moves his hand with the cloth, revealing the mess of blood underneath. When he does, Obi-Wan notices how much the hand is shaking. Some of Obi-Wan’s annoyance disappears. He must be so scared. Obi-Wan looks around the room at the couple of farmhands looking at them. He dismisses them so that Anakin won’t feel so self-conscious and put in the spotlight. So that they can get some privacy.

He takes out the gauzes and cleans Anakin’s face from the blood. He takes Anakin’s chin between his fingers and guides his face up to look at him. Anakin has his eyes closed. Obi-Wan takes good look at the wound. It went through his eyebrow, bisecting it and continuing into his chin, missing the eye by sheer luck.

Obi-Wan is quick to assure Anakin with a kind voice “don’t worry, your eye seems to be completely alright”, but he adds, “this time” because he is still upset about Anakin’s stupidity. He gives Anakin stitches, the boy wincing at every one of them, but Obi-Wan keeps his moves firm and gentle. When he tells Anakin that it will leave a scar, he uses his thumb to caress Anakin’s cheek when the boy’s eyes turn sad, and assures him that he will still look good with it.

All of the farmhands leave the farm for the day before the Doctor is finished with Anakin.

Chapter Text

The door was unlocked. It doesn’t matter that the door to the doctor’s house is always unlocked in their little community. The door was unlocked, so Anakin doesn’t feel guilty about coming inside. Or wandering once in.

Obi-Wan was not in his office when Anakin came in, the place deserted. He was also not in his sitting room or kitchen when Anakin looked for him there.

It is… odd. Anakin knows that Obi-Wan is usually home at this time of the day, usually sitting reading a book if he is not seeing any patient. Anakin stands at the foot of the stairs, contemplating what to do. He can’t just come up, that would be… no, he can’t. Obi-Wan may not be in, he may be at the pub just at the other side of the street. He is about to come out when he hears it. Obi-Wan’s voice, coming from upstairs.

Anakin turns to look at the telephone at the foot of the stairs, and then up those stairs. Obi-Wan, Doctor Kenobi… he can’t have someone upstairs with him. It’s just not possible. He is not married, he doesn’t have a housekeeper. There’s no one he could be talking to upstairs. Anakin hears Obi-Wan’s laugh and before he realises, he is halfway up the stairs.

He has never been upstairs before. There are a couple of closed doors and one left ajar, the light filtering out of it. Obi-Wan’s voice comes from inside, it calls to Anakin like a beacon.

Anakin looks through the space between the door and the frame. Obi-Wan is inside, sitting in front of a desk in his shirtsleeves. His jacket hanging from the back of the chair. The light coming from the window at his other side makes his hair and beard shine with a ginger hue.

“I got some report of strong wind coming from the north, be careful. Over.” Obi-Wan says into the microphone in front of him. There’s an indistinct sound that comes from the headphones on his head. A new chuckle. Anakin looks as he pushes a button. “Oh, I’m not doubting your flying skills, Resolute. Over.”

Anakin pushes inside. The movement makes Obi-Wan turn to him with a sharp move. He looks at Anakin with a small smile on his face before he leans back into the mic.

“Have a safe flight, Resolute. And careful of the north wind, over and out.”

Obi-Wan touches a switch and the red light from the machine turns off. He takes his headphones off and turns towards Anakin.

“Anakin, what-“

“What is that?” Anakin interrupts him.

“A radio,” Obi-Wan explains, though Anakin had guessed as much.

“I know, but who were you talking to?”

“Just an aeroplane flying overhead. Come, we should be able to see it in a moment.”

Obi-Wan goes to stand by the window and Anakin joins him. Just like Obi-Wan said, an airplane flies by a second later.

“Oh, look at her, she is a beauty,” Obi-Wan whispers. Anakin shouldn’t feel jealous of a plane, but he finds that he does. He can’t argue though, she is a beauty.

“I didn’t know you liked planes.”

“I do. The radio thing… It’s an old habit from the war.”

“You fought in the war?” Anakin asks. It’s a bit stupid, Obi-Wan is older than him, of course he did.

“Well, I- Let’s go downstairs, I will prepare some tea.”

Anakin sits on the sofa as Obi-Wan fills his cup of tea from the pot. He has not mentioned anything about Anakin wandering into his house without an invitation, as if it was a normal occurrence.

“The war was a terrible thing,” Obi-Wan says as he puts the pot down. “I enlisted to serve as a pilot, I even completed the entire training, but then they found out I had attended medical school and they decided that I would be more useful as a Doctor than up in the air. It was a bit frustrating at the moment, but it ultimately ended up being the best choice. I still wanted to help the men who I trained with, so I snuck into the radio rooms when I had some spare time and helped them from there. The habit stuck, I guess.”

“So you didn’t actually fight?”

“I did. I served as a combat medic in the trenches for a couple of years before I was shot on the leg and moved to a campaign hospital.”

Anakin’s eyes focus on Obi-Wan’s hand holding his right thigh.

“I wish I had fought too.”

“Don’t say that,” Obi-Wan says, his voice soft. “You must have been, what? Fourteen? You are lucky you got spared from fighting.”

“I wanted to do something.”

“Don’t be so eager to hurt yourself, you are already stressing me as it is. I moved to the countryside to have some peace and quiet, but you seem determined to completely  alter my plans, don’t you?”

There is no bite in his words.