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Obi-Wan opens the door of his berth to hear a pained groan and a bitten-off curse. He closes the door behind him, then calls,
“Anakin?”
“Here, Master,” comes the low reply. Obi-Wan himself steps further into the room to see his once-wayward apprentice, now fellow general, seated on his bed, bare to the waist. The source of the cursing is a long burn across the flat of Anakin’s back, half-covered by a bacta patch.
Obi-Wan sighs, biting down a hiss of sympathy. “Always so stubborn.”
Anakin glances up, the Force slanting wry between them. “Pot, kettle.”
“You’ve grown cheeky in your Knighthood, my very young apprentice.”
“Only in my Knighthood? I’ve spent years cultivating this cheek, Master. Don’t tell me my efforts as a Padawan have gone to waste.”
Obi-Wan settles on the bed behind him, encouraging Anakin to shift forward with a hand on his flank. “Let me.”
Anakin obeys, handing him a vial of salve. “Thank you, Master.”
Obi-Wan huffs a laugh, carefully unsticking the bacta patch all the way and laying it to the side. Beneath the patch, Anakin’s skin is red, waxy, stretched too tight over the flesh of his back. It shifts with his every breath. Obi-Wan winces.
He closes his eyes for a moment, mastering himself. Anakin will want neither his pity nor his rage. Instead, he says, “Cheeky in one breath, polite as a Senator in the next. What am I to make of you?”
Anakin glances at him over his own shoulder, his eyes bright. “Whatever you like,” he suggests, “although some things are beyond me at the moment.” His mouth twitches. “Also, you and I don’t know any polite Senators.”
“You’ll break Bail Organa’s heart with that kind of talk.”
Anakin snorts. “Senator Organa cherishes his own reputation for cheek, Master.”
He makes a low sound as Obi-Wan smears the salve over his burn. The scent of it is herbal, astringent—not bacta, then, but one of the other remedies the Jedi Healers had developed as bacta had become increasingly scarce. For a single breathless moment, Anakin’s skin just this side of too hot beneath his touch, Obi-Wan hates the war that has brought them here.
Anakin’s fingers wander onto his knee, the muscles in his back shifting as he moves. “Master,” he says, a reminder.
Obi-Wan can’t keep the words behind his teeth any longer. “Three years ago, we wouldn’t have thought twice about using bacta on this. Vokara would have sent you to a tank for this.”
Anakin doesn’t turn, but his fingers tighten over Obi-Wan’s kneecap, the joints in his mechanical hand clicking softly. “Obi-Wan.” The Force carries a faint warning now, the weight of Anakin’s presence behind it.
“What, Anakin?” Obi-Wan demands, and now Anakin turns, levering himself up and around with the hand he has on Obi-Wan’s leg. The motion sends pain spilling down their bond and into the Force, and Obi-Wan’s chest hurts.
“Master,” Anakin says once they’re facing each other, his voice level. “What is this about?”
“You’ve got a blaster burn across most of your back and you’re asking me what this is about?” Obi-Wan snaps.
“You’ve seen me with worse,” Anakin says flatly. “You’ve sent me off to fight with worse. I am tired and my back hurts and I would really rather not fight with you today. Will you make me ask again?”
It’s rare that Anakin gets like this outside of the battlefield, terse and stern, the authority of a Jedi General clinging to his words. In the Force, his presence condenses into something sharp and focused.
When Obi-Wan remains silent, Anakin warns, “Master.”
Obi-Wan grapples with himself. “Anakin,” he says back, and he can hear the weariness in his own voice. “It’s nothing, truly. Just—”
Through the Force, he extends a tendril of himself, reaching for Anakin. His Padawan accepts the invitation immediately, coiling them together. Obi-Wan says, I just missed you. And I hate to see you hurt.
Golden warmth shimmers down their bond. He can feel Anakin’s smile. Hate leads to suffering, Master. Then, before Obi-Wan can retort: I missed you too.
They surface. Obi-Wan takes a deep breath, the scorching tangle of anger and fear in his chest quieting at the sight of Anakin opposite him, his gaze warm.
“It’s been a long campaign,” he says.
“It has,” Anakin agrees. His eyes don’t leave Obi-Wan’s.
“But we’re here now.”
“We are. Help me with the patch, Master?”
Obi-Wan nods. He helps Anakin turn again, one hand on his right hip and the other on his left thigh. Picking up the bacta patch, he says, “Hold still.”
The space between them is close, intimate; Obi-Wan’s breath clouds against Anakin’s bare shoulders, one hand pressing the bacta patch in place while the other braces his back just below the curve of his waist. Anakin takes a sharp breath at the pressure and, his hands occupied, Obi-Wan soothes him with a kiss along the knobs of his spine.
“Almost done, dear one.”
Anakin quiets. The only sound is the rhythmic rustle of the sheets beneath them and the quiet puff of Anakin’s breath.
“All finished.” Obi-Wan taps the edge of the patch.
Anakin shivers at his touch, leaning back into it and tilting his head until he can tuck his head into the curve of Obi-Wan’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Master,” he says again; then, quieter: “I wish we could be like this all the time.” Something wistful curls through the Force between them, undercut with a tired sort of pain. Anakin, Obi-Wan thinks, is too young for this.
So is he.
Obi-Wan silences that train of thought with the slide of one hand around Anakin’s waist, just brushing the jut of his hipbone through his trousers. With the other, he lifts Anakin’s left hand, brushing a kiss over his fingers.
“When the war is over, we will be,” he promises, and perhaps it’s rash, perhaps it’s inviting disaster, but Anakin Skywalker has long since turned Obi-Wan Kenobi into a hopeful man.
“Good.” Anakin makes a quiet sound, a hum of contentment that vibrates through his back into Obi-Wan’s chest. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“Certainly,” Obi-Wan agrees, “although at the moment, I’m doing the holding.”
“Tch.” Anakin begins to tuck his face into Obi-Wan’s neck, then straightens with a grimace as the motion stretches his injury. “Your jokes are always so stupid.”
Obi-Wan helps Anakin sit up, then shifts around him so his back is to the wall of the bunk and they’re facing each other. “You love them,” he says when they’ve settled.
Pain still pulses gently into the Force, less intense now that Anakin’s found a more comfortable position but hurting Obi-Wan’s heart just the same. Earlier in the war, he and Anakin had counted and regretted every blow the other had taken, scolding in turns about recklessness. Two years of war have since taught them that some blows are unavoidable; that others, worse still, are worth taking to prevent the alternative.
He still can’t bear the sight of Anakin injured.
Aloud, Obi-Wan says only, “Lie down in my lap if it will hurt less.”
Anakin frowns at him, the expression spoilt by the sunshine-warmth that spills down their bond. “I’m wounded, Master. Please refrain from injuring my dignity too.”
“What dignity?” Obi-Wan teases, summoning mirth. “You left that behind on Rhen Var.”
Anakin groans, leaning forward until his forehead rests on Obi-Wan’s collarbone. In the Force, that undercurrent of pain begins to recede as Obi-Wan takes his weight.
Muffled against Obi-Wan’s tunics, Anakin says, “There’s no winning with you. Consider me well and truly defeated.”
Mindful of his injury, Obi-Wan slips a hand into Anakin’s hair and tilts his lover’s head up. “Never,” he says and kisses him soundly on the mouth. “Least of all by me.”
Anakin’s side of their Force bond goes quiet. Obi-Wan doesn’t have to see his face to know Anakin’s cheeks have turned pink, but he looks anyway, tracking the flush as it spreads over those sharp cheekbones to the tips of his ears.
“As if,” Anakin manages after a long moment of quiet. “Obi-Wan, you have too much faith in me.”
Obi-Wan tightens his hold, urging him closer. “Never,” he repeats. Anakin sighs then, winding his arms around Obi-Wan’s torso and pressing close. Obi-Wan hums in satisfaction. “Have you accepted it?”
“I have accepted that there’s no arguing with you when you’re like this,” comes the reply. Then, with Anakin’s trademark ability to go from teasing to desperately earnest in the blink of an eye: “I think the world of you, Master.”
Obi-Wan’s breath stutters in his chest. It never ceases to humble him, the way Anakin’s eyes follow him, his lover pulsing awe and joy down their bond.
He smooths Anakin’s hair, winding an errant curl around one finger. “I know, darling. I think the world of you too. The galaxy, even,” he says, just to hear Anakin scoff. “Today and every other day, I am glad to know you.” His mouth twists, sly. “And to have you—in my life, in my arms, and in my bed.” For as long as we have. Obi-Wan concentrates on the feeling of Anakin pressed against him, close enough that he feels stutter of Anakin’s breath in his own lungs.
“You have no shame.” Anakin’s voice is a rasp in his throat, the Force shot through with amusement, worry, and above all—always, always above all—the golden shimmer of Anakin’s love.
Obi-Wan holds him tighter. “Shameless and undignified and all, I love you.”
“It was just a blaster bolt, Master.” Anakin makes no move to disentangle himself from Obi-Wan, returning the tight embrace. “Did it scare you so badly?”
Yes, Obi-Wan wants to say, but it is a coward’s answer. Holding the Hero With No Fear in his arms, he won’t lie any longer. “No,” he admits. “I received a comm from Master Kolar today.”
Anakin blinks. His eyelashes tickle Obi-Wan’s throat. “The truth at last,” he says. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Anakin does extricate himself from Obi-Wan’s arms this time. Obi-Wan misses the heat of him immediately. “Where?” his Padawan asks.
“Sarrish.”
“The Nexus Route.” It’s not a question. “They need pilots to run the blockade.”
Obi-Wan reaches out, tilting Anakin’s face so their eyes meet. There is no surprise in Anakin’s gaze. “You knew.”
“I suspected.” When Obi-Wan doesn’t let go, Anakin sighs. His mechanical hand comes up to close over Obi-Wan’s own, the durasteel gentle. “I had my own comm from Master Plo a week ago. We knew the Sep pressure there was worsening.”
Ah. “It had to be one of you,” Obi-Wan agrees. Of all the Jedi, it was Anakin Skywalker and Plo Koon who were known for their piloting skills—and now, of the Jedi Generals, for their dedication to training an aerial corps skilled in dogfighting.
“It did. And I’m closer.” Anakin tilts his face into Obi-Wan’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
Obi-Wan smiles. “You’re not. It’s your duty.”
“I’m sorry to leave you, then,” Anakin amends. “I told you—I wish we could be like this all the time.”
Obi-Wan’s throat closes. He reaches for the Force again, flinging his sense of self down the length of their bond, crossing the void to find the comfort of Anakin Skywalker on the other side. With anyone else he might hesitate to share so much of himself, to expose every thought and feeling so thoroughly. Like this—Anakin Skywalker in his arms, the rest of the galaxy kept at bay by closed doors and the expanse of space—it is the easiest thing.
Padawan, he says, we already are.
Anakin follows him into the Force between one breath and the next, slipping into its embrace like the shore beneath the sea. In his metaphysical vision, Anakin is a breaking wave, a thousand glittering drops of water that scatter light through the dark of space. He meets Obi-Wan with the whole of his being, equal parts trust and welcome and joy.
So we are, he says, and: Shameless and undignified and all, I love you too.