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Obi-Wan was starting to feel frustrated. Usually, he was a calm and serene man. He tried to be the best Jedi he could, but the circumstances and the feelings his padawan pushed him into were infuriating enough to drive him out of his mind.
Since that little omega came into his life, he stumbled in with the light of a supernova. He upended his reality and turned everything upside down, without even waiting for his poor heart to have time to stop mourning his newly deceased master. If he has to be honest with himself, at first, he hated him. Now that he thinks about it in retrospect, the truth is that he feels deeply ashamed of this feeling, but at the time, it was logical to a certain extent. To his young mind, that child had not only taken away his master’s already doubtful affection with amazing ease, but now, after his death, he would become a burden he would have to endure for many long and torturous years.
Or at least, that is what he thought.
It turned out that Anakin did not become any kind of burden. Not in the way Obi-Wan thought he would. In fact, and this is something his alpha instinct is not very proud of, he ended up being a burden to the young pup at the beginning of their time together.
Obi-Wan tried with all his might, but his heart ached, his hands were always cold, and his eyes stung constantly. Sadness and sickness were consuming him alive, and although he hid it for the child’s sake, he could not help but drown his sorrows in alcohol at night. He kept himself on his feet only to fulfill his master's last wish, but he didn't have a pack anymore, not really. And only the Force knows what it does to an alpha to not have a pack.
Obi-Wan was slowly losing his mind, and soon there would be nothing left to rescue in him. He cried inconsolably, and his drinking sessions became so heavy that he could not utter a word when they ended. Then, the next day, he would get up and keep going with his day, pretending nothing was happening. As if his physical body did not ache as much as his presence in the Force. His home, his things, and his mind were a disaster, and he could not find enough strength to fix any of them.
Then, Anakin did it for him. The little boy whom he had rejected in his heart ever since his master introduced him on that ship leaving Tatooine not long ago, began to slowly pick up the physical pieces of his home. He cleaned everything and tried to maintain order around him after Obi-Wan made his few possessions fall to the floor every night in his induced confusion. He would wake up early and leave the place in silence. He prepared a tarine tea infusion and left it ready on the stove every morning, so that he only had to heat it up and add milk to consume it.
Obi-Wan was aware of the difficulties the young omega was facing in his studies, but in those times, he did not find the strength to reprimand him, not after the efforts he seemed to be making to rebuild something he had not broken in the first place.
That was how Anakin made him regain his desire to live. He helped him by restoring order to his home, he comforted him by proving that someone was on his side when he took a moment every morning to think about him enough to leave a ready portion of his favorite tea. And Obi-Wan will not admit this out loud, but the sweet and typical honey scent of omega pups that began to flood his residence provided him with that feeling of belonging, of pack, that he had been yearning for so much.
With this new and constant comfort, the alpha’s mood began to improve, and sooner rather than later, he left his nights of drinking behind and adapted to a new normalcy. His master's death still stung in his heart, but Qui-Gon Jinn had left him one last gift in the form of a young omega whom he must now look after, and he would make sure to do it well.
Then, imagine his surprise when he noticed that his young apprentice's scent had become intensely intertwined with an unfamiliar fragrance of milk and moss. Obi-Wan did not know what to think, but his instinct screamed omega and baby, and from there, it was all about putting two and two together.
He had been scared, he could not deny it. Although logically he knew it was not possible, he lapsed into a small panic thinking that someone had taken advantage of the only other member of his pack, who was still a pup. Then he did the reasonable thing and investigated further.
The kid's name was Grogu, he was of the same species as Master Yoda, and apparently, he had imprinted on Anakin. He would not eat unless his padawan was the one feeding him, and he would not go to sleep until the omega marked him with his scent. The caretakers informed him that his apprentice also seemed quite protective of the child, and that it had actually become a habit for Anakin to drop by the crèche at least once a day to visit the one he called his pup.
Naturally, this alarmed Obi-Wan, but after noticing that his protégé's grades and general performance began to improve significantly after this first meeting, he decided he would not act to stop it for the time being. It was representing nothing but advantages at the moment.
Then the war arrived and everything began to change. Anakin became a Jedi Knight, and almost immediately after, a general; there was no longer time for daily visits to the crèche, nor for the young omega's pseudo-maternal instincts, so Anakin was forced to leave Grogu behind.
And this is where the cause of the alpha's frustration comes in.
Obi-Wan has to be honest with himself. He never saw Anakin as his pup. It is not that he saw him as anything other than a pup, but the point is that he was never his pup.
Anakin was his pack. Anakin was his apprentice. Anakin was his protégé. But Anakin was never his son. His alpha instinct never led him to adopt the boy as his own. Perhaps, in part, this lack of familiarity was what made him so harsh with him as he grew up. Many times, he regretted the way he corrected him. He knew others heard how he reprimanded his padawan, and he knew that others talked about them, but he never made any extra effort to silence or diminish the gossip, thinking that he would only make his padawan stronger this way. He might not consider Anakin his son, but his instinct asked him to make him strong and tough, firm as an oak tree.
All of that made much more sense when the young Skywalker, as was natural, began to bloom beautifully, and his tender pup scent began to change, leaving behind the sweetness of childhood and replacing the honey with a combination of japor, barelia flowers, and electrical storms. This change awakened something in his alpha that neither Satine Kryze in all her ethereal elegance, nor Cerasi with her charming confidence, nor Siri Tachi in her bright determination had ever awakened.
Anakin, in essence, was no longer a little child. And Obi-Wan learned that quickly. With time, his instincts and his heart called him to mark the omega as his mate. He longed to see him happy, satisfied, at peace.
Instead, he saw the violent and unchecked God of War he was becoming. Always on the move. Always tired. Always hungry. Always on a new mission that put his life in danger a little more than the previous one. That terrified him to the bone and made the beast inside him growl and howl, scratching deep in his chest, longing to be released to claim, protect, and provide.
And to all this was added the fact that Anakin seemed to cling to the pup he had cared for in his childhood.
Obi-Wan felt irritated. His instinct screamed at him that his omega was caring for a pup that was not his. Someone else's pup. And everything inside him itched with the need to push away that intruder who was stealing his beloved's attention. If Anakin wanted a pup so badly, fine. He could always give him as many as he wanted.
His discomfort, he had to admit, also arose from this very idea. He felt filthy and guilty for thinking that way about his padawan. For not being able to see him as his pup. For the cruel thoughts he had against a small child. For how, during his heat, he came to think, to comfort himself with the idea of tearing apart whoever the father of the poor creature his Anakin protected and watched over so much was, just to make sure the omega would be his and his alone. Obi-Wan was irritated because he felt repulsion of himself.
When Ahsoka came into their lives, Obi-Wan felt for the first time the instinct to mark someone with his scent not because they were a packmate, or a potential couple, but because his alpha claimed the little alpha as his pup. The fact that Anakin had taken her under his protection and was constantly bathing the young togruta in his scent only strengthened his claim over the girl.
Obi-Wan felt calmer for a while. Everything was better. They were still at war, but the situation brought him an illusion of familiarity and home that he hadn't experienced before. It was almost as if Anakin were his omega, and Ahsoka their little pup. He helped the omega raise the young girl. He was patient and wanted to protect her in ways he had never really experienced before. Both of them. They were his pack. They were the family he had formed. And everything was perfect, because while the galaxy was being destroyed, they were his, and he was theirs, and that was enough.
Then, clearly, he had to ruin everything.
He faked his death and vanished from the map. He had to fulfill a mission, and he would be relentless if it meant being one step closer to ending this Force-forsaken war. Anakin would be safe and at peace, and their pup could have a stable life without needing to face dangers and violence that did not belong to her age. He did it for them. He left.
Then, of course, when he finally returned, Anakin was furious. He wanted nothing to do with him. Their relationship fractured after that. Obi-Wan felt lonely, helpless, guilty, furious, all at the same time. He knew by the aggressive scent of electrical storms that overrode the now pungent barelia flowers and japor that Anakin definitely did not want to see him, so he gave him time.
Time is the best healer, he would learn. With patience and effort, their relationship slowly began to improve. Finally, after a lot of stress and pain, he seemed to be on the verge of seeing the light of day shining upon him again. Anakin was returning to him.
But Obi-Wan seemed to have been born cursed by the Force, because it was then that Ahsoka was unjustly accused and ended up leaving the Order. Anakin, like himself, was devastated. If their relationship was being rebuilt, now the omega had put up a solid concrete wall, cutting him off completely.
Anakin had never truly abandoned the little pup in the temple, and Obi-Wan knew it. But the war had pulled him away somewhat, and their new pup had calmed his alpha. Then, Anakin turned to the little pup in the temple again as soon as Ahsoka left, and it felt as if everything he believed was his crumbled like sandcastles.
And that hurt him more than anything. It hurt him not to be able to comfort Anakin. It hurt him that he wasn't strong enough to make his pup stay. It hurt him to feel the distance from his pack. And above all, it hurt him that no matter how hard he had tried to be a good alpha, a good leader and protector, no matter how much he wanted to pull Anakin away from that pup and give him something of his own, that kid kept overtaking him. Obi-Wan would never be enough.
He was ashamed of his selfishness, because he had met the pup, and the worst part was that he was adorable, and he and Anakin deserved each other. It irritated him to be such a bad alpha as to not be able to accept that.