Archive of Our Own

He is not running late. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi Master, a Council member of some years, and a retired war general. He knows perfectly well how to arrive on time, how to weather the worst of inconveniences utterly unruffled.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is not late but he is in a bit of a hurry. The difference here being that he has all the makings of being on time for his meeting with the Council, if only he can declare himself ready and get moving in the next few minutes.

He smooths his hands down the front of his robes, taking in his appearance in front of the mirror for the last time before his Council meeting. For the most part, the image reflected back at him is satisfactory. He takes great pride in the carefully constructed image of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, from his clean robes neatly arranged, to his well-groomed hair and beard. The image is an easier one to maintain since the end of the war. The years of peace have been kind to him.

He settles a hand on his belly which sits proud and round perched above the waistband of his trousers—new ones, a smidge wider around the waist than the last—perhaps too kind. His appearance is every inch a Jedi master, even if those inches have been steadily increasing now that he isn't fighting for his life day in and day out on the battlefield.

Enough dawdling. The Jedi Council might not be responsible for guiding troop movements and saving planets anymore but their work is important nonetheless. Obi-Wan grabs his datapad from the kitchen counter before he leaves. His reports are prepared, everything he needs is in order. Though he spares them one last glance as he weaves through the halls on his way to the Council chamber.

This morning, he is responsible for a report on the clone trooper settlement program. An eagerly awaited report, if he says so himself. In turn, he is interested to hear an update from Kit regarding his latest briefing with the Chancellor. Obi-Wan returned only last night after a month’s long mission off planet, finding out what has changed since he has been away is more than enough to drag him from his apartments as dawn breaks over Coruscant’s skyscrapers.

On his way to the Council chamber, he takes a few bites of a pastry for breakfast retrieved from the small kitchen in his quarters, brushing the flaky crumbs from his chest just before he reaches the doors. He spares a thought to hope that none made their way into his beard but there is little he can do about that now.

The other Council members welcome him with smiles and nods and good mornings as he moves to take his seat. It is good to see them, most of them in person. Only Master Secura, elected to the Council in the wake of the war, flares bluer than in life through the light of holoprojection. His hips take up a bit more room in his chair than they used to, brushing up against the sides. His belly sits comfortably in his lap, gently nudging his legs apart to allow it more room. Master Gallia turns to make conversation with him about his arrival last night and some light gossip about the temple since he has been away.

Master Windu calls the meeting to order and Obi-Wan takes a moment to realize just how much he has missed this. The Jedi Temple as a structure is ancient and imbued with the power of the Jedi over centuries and the Council spire acts as a conduit for that energy. With all of them assembled like this—there isn’t necessarily a single word that encompasses the way the Force feels as it envelops them. Light, hope, peace, serenity, the promise of a better future. All of that combined, swelling and overwhelming like the wash of a wave against the shore before they set their minds to the business at hand.

Mace fills them in on the status of the Master-padawan partnership program, which partners padawans that lost their masters during the war and those younglings ready for apprenticeship but unchosen thanks to a lack of available masters with suitable partners. An admirable undertaking, one that might have helped Obi-Wan himself as a youngling. But it is also one that Obi-Wan prefers to watch grow and prosper from afar.

Obi-Wan is more than grateful that it has been months since he was last asked to take on a new student and even more grateful still that Yoda hasn't managed to force one on him. Anakin's departure from the Order years ago in the wake of Sidious' death was...difficult. He appreciates the space he has been given to process that loss, though he can’t help but feel that said breathing room is finite, the limits pressing in ever closer. Part of Obi-Wan wonders if he will ever be ready to take on a new padawan. He isn't sure that he has anything left to give.

At least, nothing left to teach. Obi-Wan likes to think he has found plenty of other ways to be of service to the Order and the galaxy.

“Thank you, Master Windu,” Obi-Wan says before beginning his own briefing. The center of the room fills with the blue light of holoprojection, the first charts of Obi-Wan’s presentation appearing in fronts of them.

By and large, the clones are doing well in their new settlements. Obi-Wan's report rattles off recent statistics about those that have found employment, the number that have entered trade programs, how many voted in their first election for a senator that took place just a few months prior.

“As you all know, the Senate is prepared to vote on an addendum to the Clone Rights Bill. This report represents a summary of the presentation I have been asked to deliver on the Senate floor in three days’ time.”

The projected images rearrange themselves to reflect the last Clone welfare funding bill, passed last year.

“My research among the clone settlements shows the effects of the most recent wave of funding, highlights the growth in both incurred expense and benefits to the Republic’s economy, and shows where there are additional needs to be met. My own point of view as someone who served on the frontlines of the Clone Wars alongside these men can hardly be a secret. The support we show the clones after all they have done for their adopted home cannot be too great. But it is my belief that the data I have collected also bears this out. Not only do the clones have a right to be taken care of from an ethical standpoint, doing so also reaps tremendous economic benefit for the Republic.”

He goes on to show some of the largest projects that lie ahead of them along with realistic budgets for what it might take to achieve them. Obi-Wan prides himself on the fact that, altogether, after months of hard work—years of it really—he can make his case as simple, as clear, and as effective as it is.

Master Plo Koon chimes in with a question as soon as Obi-Wan finishes the prepared portion of his presentation and Obi-Wan is ready for him. Even four years on from the war, Master Plo Koon retains a close, almost familial relationship with many of his men. His perspective is useful and sets Master Mundi up for a question about the Kaminoan laboratories.

“Thank you, Master Kenobi,” Shaak Ti tells him when he finishes. She inclines her head to him, montrals bobbing and Obi-Wan returns the gesture, feeling a little flushed after taking a lightning round of questions from the Council. The questions are good, they will help him later on in the krayt dragon’s nest of the Senate, but they certainly work to keep him on his toes.

He holds on to his focus through Kit’s briefing of his latest meeting with Chancellor Organa and resolves to pay the man a visit before shipping out again. Once Kit has said his piece though, Obi-Wan allows his mind to drift, almost in congratulation for a job well done. The Council chambers are warm this morning, with the morning sun strengthening as the day goes on. He has a few comm calls and a bit of research to look forward to later on in the day but perhaps he'll go out and get some fresh air, maybe take a walk to Dex's for lunch.

The end of the meeting calls his attention back into focus. Yoda ends the meeting with a consensus on finished business and then the rest of them are free to depart. Obi-Wan sets his hands on the armrests of his chair and uses his upper body strength to lever himself out.

It... takes more effort than it reasonably should. He gets it on the second try with a bit more momentum and Obi-Wan is fairly certain he managed it smoothly enough that no one noticed. Perhaps he settled a little too comfortably throughout the meeting. Or perhaps, Obi-Wan thinks as he rubs at the side of his wide hips, he should give some thought to losing weight. Surely getting stuck his Council seat should be something of a sign.

Obi-Wan is well aware that he has gained weight in the last few years. He would be rather a fool not to have noticed with the way that his clothes have slowly tightened or the gradual shift in his center of gravity. His belly is perhaps the most obvious addition to his figure, large enough to catch the eye even beneath the forgiving folds of his robes, but almost every other part of him is a bit bigger, a bit rounder, a bit softer.

That isn’t a bad thing. There is nothing in the Jedi Code that says a Jedi can’t be fat. There are other rules about balance and moderation that are tangentially related to behaviors that might lead someone to gain weight, warnings against the dangers of overindulgence, sloth, excess. But no one is about to begrudge him a few extra pounds or a few comforts. Not after all that they’ve been through. Not after everything Obi-Wan personally did and lost to get them to where they are today.

The war opened their eyes to so many things and did so in the most brutal of ways. They have all earned a bit of forgiveness.

Dex greets him warmly, hugging him with two of his many arms. They don’t reach quite as far around him as they once did. Their guts brush against each other, competing for available space before Dex releases him.

It has been almost two months since Obi-Wan was last here. As the Council member responsible for guiding the clones’ transition into civilian life, most of his days are spent away from Coruscant visiting the different settlements. Traveling allows him to stay in better contact with the people he is helping, getting a sense of their needs and living conditions. That it keeps him away from Coruscant as well is something of a bittersweet bonus.

Dex sits him down in a booth and instructs Flo to begin plying him with the usual and then some. In minutes, enough plates for two or three people crowd the table in front of him and Obi-Wan smiles and nods and shakes his head until Dex is called away to deal with one of his other customers. Then, Obi-Wan digs in.

He has always had a soft spot for greasy diner food, ever since Qui-Gon brought him here in the early days of their partnership. In retrospect, it was something of a bonding experience, a chance to get to know each other outside of the temple, to go against the grain as his master so often did. Dex’s Diner was so unlike the Temple, the sights, sounds, and smells. Obi-Wan liked the privacy of having a booth to themselves and being able to watch the other customers going about lives so very different from his own. And the food…Obi-Wan remembers the way Qui-Gon laughed at the way he lit up when he tried a blue milkshake for the first time. Making Qui-Gon laugh was never an easy feat that early on.

That soft spot has only grown. Some might say that Obi-Wan is mostly soft spot at this point.

He starts with a nerfburger, one of the diner’s “famous” Dex’s Doubles. It comes with fries and a salad that allow him to alternate between flavors and textures so that nothing ever becomes too much. The sandwich vanishes all too quickly before he turns his attention to a plate of fried Noona legs. If he was dining with someone else, Obi-Wan might object to so much finger food. They’re messy and awkward and not terribly polite but Obi-Wan isn’t dining with company today. The food is delicious and he is hungry and so he dives into them without reservation. They’re even better when dipped in a tangy sauce, the kind that he shares with a plate of brisket and mashed protatoes.

Halfway through the next plate, Obi-Wan stops to take a breath. He downs most of a glass of water and takes a long sip of the milkshake Flo has just delivered to the table. Cold, sweet, and thick. It is every bit as good as when he was a padawan.

The pause is exactly what he needs to keep going. Dex busies himself with other customers while Obi-Wan eats, with one eye out to make sure he doesn’t need anything. It is kind of nice, being taken care of, catered to. He might have found that kind of consideration uncomfortable a few years ago when he was a different kind of man with a different kind of image. The kind of Jedi he was, the kind of Jedi he aspired to be for Anakin and his own sake, was more self-reliant than that. But just as Obi-Wan has learned that it feels good to take care of himself, it also feels good to be taken care of, so he lets Dex indulge him more than he ought to.

By the time Obi-Wan finishes the last plate in front of him, a Besh-Leth-Trill sandwich with coleslaw and a pickle, Flo places a large slice of Wasaka berry pie down on the table with one robotic arm while the rest clear the empty dishes.

Obi-Wan has to lean back in his seat, giving his belly room to bloat and his stomach time to process all that he has sent its way. His belt and trousers feel especially tight, offering constricting pressure at the top of his gut and at his waist. He might be able to discretely loosen his belt another notch or two but if he unfastens his trousers, there is no way he is going to get them done up again for another few hours. Not until after he returns to his quarters and takes a brief nap to digest.

He lets out a long, slow breath and contemplates the dessert in front of him. It comes with a second milkshake, and Obi-Wan hardly has to think before the straw is in his mouth while he contemplates how to tackle this last, challenging dish. There is no question of leaving it unfinished.

The pastry is flaky and crisp, buttery with a bit of salt to offset the sweet and sour of the fruit. Obi-Wan closes his eyes after the first bite, taking time to savor it. Eating like this has never been about volume for him or greed, the need to take in as much as possible before it gets taken away. He truly enjoys these meals and he has the time to do so now that the war is over.

The milkshake, thick and creamy, balances the pie well. Taking sips of it between bites of the pie helps him finish the plate even as his belt strains against him.

Soon enough, his fork scrapes against the empty plate and a serving droid comes to take it away. Obi-Wan lets out a satisfied sigh as he massages his taut belly beneath the table. The lower curve of it still has some softness to it, a layer of fat that never goes away even when the rest of him is stuffed.

His stomach aches a little, pushed to its limits past the point of comfort, but it is a good kind of ache. One that makes him feel present and connected to his body. Eating like this is a bit like meditation. He takes the time to experience the world to the fullest in ways he never gave himself time to consider. There are flavors, textures, smells—small pleasures he only ever received in carefully portioned rations, denying himself more often than not. But Obi-Wan doesn’t have to do that anymore. His hand rubs slow, soothing circles around the hot, tight skin at the side of his gut under the table and allows himself to feel completely.

Dex slides into the booth opposite him and Obi-Wan stifles a burp against his hand.

“Had enough?” Dex asks him, leaning his right two arms against the table.

Obi-Wan catches a hiccup before it escapes him and manages a smile. “My compliments to the cooking droids. I could burst.”

“That’s what I like to hear. How long are you back in town for?”

“A few weeks, if you can believe it. The Senate is passing an addendum to the Clone Rights Bill and I am on hand with my findings from the front in case they need me.”

“The Jedi are expecting pushback?”

Obi-Wan settles further into his seat. Years ago, he might have taken the opportunity to cross one leg over the other beneath the table. The habit is long gone now, as is the space in his lap to do it. “Not necessarily. I’m just here as a precaution.”

“Though it would make sense for clone sympathy to die down a bit now that we’re a few years out from the war.”

Obi-Wan offers the Besalisk a shrug. This is why he comes here. Well, this and the food but the intel Dex collects and his intuition have been utterly invaluable to Obi-Wan and the Jedi over the years.

“There have been some rumors, some polls, that kind of thing. Nothing conclusive. But if there is anything I can do to help the men, I want to be here to do it.”

“Let me make a quick call, I know someone who might have a better feel for what the temperature’s like on the Senate floor. Give you some idea of what you’re walking into.”

Obi-Wan smiles at him. “I would very much appreciate that.”

Obi-Wan leaves the diner belly-first, feeling exquisitely full, his entire body revolving around the heavy bulk at his center. If he uses the Force to steady his gait a bit, there is no one there to judge him for it.

The day is still early, just past lunch with a clear sky and a coolness to the air in the shade of Coruscant’s skyscrapers. The prospect of a walk back to the Temple, a cup of tea and a nap to settle his stomach, followed an evening compiling reports before tomorrow’s Senate proceedings is enough to make Obi-Wan feel light, buoyed by purpose. Or as light as anyone can feel with four meals inside them.

It hasn’t been easy trying to find a sense of light and hope and purpose after the war. Obi-Wan’s strategy was to keep his head down and continue to do the work that lay ahead of them, the work that never seemed to stop coming. But there were times—especially early on after a long day of meetings and research and arguing with what seemed like everyone in the galaxy about what should be done next, to fix what was broken and make sure that it would stay that way for at least a lifetime to come—Obi-Wan would return to his dark and empty quarters and wonder what he was doing it all for. There were days when it seemed like the Republic might never be fixed, that rather than corrupt a good and just system, Palpatine exploited a fundamental weakness that was already there. Obi-Wan ultimately held onto his faith in democracy but there were nights when he could not be sure that he would be the one to help them enact lasting, meaningful change.

Food helped. It gave him comfort and a way to unwind in the privacy of his quarters. Simply healing his body and providing himself with enough nutrients for the first time in years did wonders to improve his health. When he was ready, leaving his quarters and connecting with his fellow Jedi helped too, though it took time before he felt ready to make that step.

Obi-Wan’s walk through Coco Town and back to the Jedi Temple skirts the Senate district. Without allowing himself to think too much about his route, Obi-Wan makes a turn soon after leaving Dex’s that will take him away from the Senate district proper. The detour will make his walk a bit longer but the day is lovely and he could use the exercise.

If pressed for his reasoning, Obi-Wan might admit that doesn’t want to see anyone from the Senate today. Even comming Bail for a casual meeting is something he has decided to put off until tomorrow. But in the grander scheme of things, Obi-Wan has long retired from the limelight. Which is why this detour has become his favored way of returning to the Temple if he doesn’t decide to hire a speeder to take him home.

Perhaps if Obi-Wan’s thoughts were less scattered, carried away by the fine day and the task at hand, and if his senses were more attuned to the living Force around him instead of on using a careful application of his powers to make sure that his walk didn’t turn into a waddle, he might have noticed the people he encountered next, despite his best efforts. Certainly once he realized they were there, they were obvious.

“Obi-Wan.”

He would know that voice anywhere. He hasn’t heard it in four years.

It comes from behind him. Meaning that he could keep going, pretend he hasn’t heard and walk away. That would certainly be the smart choice, if cowardly, but Obi-Wan has nothing to do with this man anymore. And wouldn’t it be justice of a sort, to leave him the way he left Obi-Wan?

But Obi-Wan has never been able to walk away from Anakin Skywalker.

He turns and sees Anakin. For the first time in four years. His hair glints golden in the mid-day sunlight and the lines on his face are a little deeper. Everything and nothing at all has changed since they last met.

Almost in unison, the way they used to match each other step for step, they inhale and open their mouths as if to say something. But what do you say to someone you used to speak to every day? When time and distance couldn’t give you the words you needed to say, how do you find them in an instant, out of the blue?

Then someone shrieks, runs into his leg and grabs on, followed by another person on his opposite leg. Two children, the same height, one with blond hair and the other brunette, cling giggling to his legs.

“Luke,” Obi-Wan murmurs. “And Leia.”

Obi-Wan only knows of the twins in the abstract. He knew they existed, knew they were part of the reason Anakin left the Order, but he has never met them, never even seen a holo. At the sound of their names, they both look up at him with wide grins on their faces. Leia is missing one of the teeth at the front of her smile. When Obi-Wan notices them in the Force, the sensation of them nearly takes his breath away. Together, they are a match for Anakin, his brightness, his ferocity. They glow. And it is a wonder Obi-Wan didn’t see them sooner.

He kneels down to get a better look at them. Now he sees it, the pieces of their mother and father, glimpses in their eyes or the set of their mouths, the way that they move. Too many and too familiar to Obi-Wan for him to count.

“I told you he knew us, Daddy!” Leia tells her father. She wraps her arms around Obi-Wan possessively, like someone might try to take him away.

“I knew him too!” Luke insists, mirroring his sister’s embrace on Obi-Wan’s other side. “He felt…he felt fum—f—”

“Familiar,” Obi-Wan offers, feeling a little breathless.

Luke’s face brightens like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. “Yeah! You felt familiar in the Force.”

Obi-Wan blinks. Because of course Luke could sense him. Of course he can sense the bond that used to exist between him and Anakin or perhaps he can envision what Obi-Wan must look like in the Force based on stories Anakin has told or stars, maybe he has a memory of Obi-Wan’s Force signature from before he was born. There is no telling what impossible feat of Force connection Anakin’s children might be capable of.

Leia crosses her arms. “I felt it too.”

“Of course you did,” Obi-Wan says. The two of them are entirely untrained or at least they feel that way in the Force. They are bright and powerful, undoubtedly, but there is no control there. Anakin has given them the vocabulary for what he knew as fact from the moment he was born but none of the tools Obi-Wan tried to teach him make sure that he was guided by his power rather than carried away by it.

“Daddy just picked us up from school,” Luke tells him. “We were on our way to get milkshakes!”

“Were you now?” Obi-Wan pulls back to get a better look at them without extricating himself fully from their grasp. He gets to his feet once again but the two of them refuse to oblige him by letting go completely. Luke has the edge of his tabards clutched in one of his small fists. And Obi-Wan finds he has no real desire to leave them so soon now that he has them.

“Mmhmm,” Leia hums. “I’m going to get chocolate!”

“An excellent choice.”

“You could come,” Anakin suggests, his voice unreadable. Four years and Obi-Wan has lost the ability to read him. To know his emotions better than his own. But then again, perhaps he was always kidding himself if he ever believed that was true.

It isn’t that Obi-Wan forgot that Anakin was standing there, watching them. That isn’t possible. But having this many Skywalkers in front of him after so long without is too much. Overwhelming. Obi-Wan doesn’t like to think of himself as a coward but he desperately wants to run.

“I can’t,” he manages.

“We’re on our way to Dex’s,” Anakin tries again. “The twins have never been.”

“I’m afraid I was just there for lunch.” Obi-Wan palms the side of his belly and it is a reminder that he has a body, that he still inhabits it, despite the way his head is swimming.

“You could sit with us while the kids have their shakes—”

“—I said, no.” The sharpness of Obi-Wan’s voice surprises even himself. “I have responsibilities to attend to back at the Temple. I went to Dex’s more for business rather than pleasure.” None of which is strictly true but Anakin does not need to know that.

But Anakin has never been one to settle for less than he wants. And the word ‘no’ always seemed to hit his ear like a challenge instead of a refusal. Or perhaps he did manage to learn one lesson from Obi-Wan after all of those years together. He has all of the negotiating prowess of a blaster bolt.

“We should talk,” Anakin says. “Get drinks or have dinner some time.”

“I’m not on Coruscant very often these days.”

“Some time soon, then.”

Obi-Wan takes a breath, long and slow. He keeps his expression utterly neutral but he knows despite his best efforts at hiding just how much Anakin can read his exasperation. His lips lift a little, still pink and expressive though they are not quite as plush as they once were. There is a smugness there in his expression. Anakin knows he has worn him down.

He can’t keep fighting while maintaining his composure. They are in public. Anakin’s children are still standing there at his feet. He can’t take Anakin apart the way he might if they were alone. He can’t say all of the things he has wrestled with and thought about saying since Anakin left.

Perhaps they should meet.

“You know where to find me,” Obi-Wan says instead. Because while his missions take him away from Coruscant much of the time, his address at the Temple has never changed. His comm code is the same. Anakin is the one who walked away and never looked back.

Anakin nods. “I do.”

He gathers up the twins, bending down a little to take both of their hands. Luke rushes over to give Obi-Wan’s leg another hug before they go. Leia waves at him furiously as they head off to Dex’s.

“He’s so round, Daddy,” Obi-Wan hears Luke say to Anakin. “I bet he gives really good hugs.”

“Better than my hugs?” Anakin asks.

Luke hums considering. “I don’t know. I’ll have to do a test!”

“Are we going to see Obi-Wan again?” asks Leia.

They round the corner and are out of sight before Obi-Wan hears the answer.

Obi-Wan feels perfectly within his rights to spend most of his afternoon lying on his couch.

Before Anakin and all of the various thoughts Obi-Wan now has about that interaction, he had already scheduled some time to rest and recharge before returning to more pressing matters. Now that Obi-Wan has seen Anakin in the flesh for the first time in years, he needs to do more than take a nap to allow his stomach to settle.

He settles on the couch with his belt off and his trousers unfastened. There are faint red marks where both pressed into his belly and Obi-Wan massages them away with his fingers. Rolling the plush skin there between his fingers is soothing, familiar and it does some work towards setting his mind at ease before meditation.

And he needs meditation desperately. The inner workings of his mind are in complete disarray and that chaos sparks other worries in turn. Reminders of what it felt like when Anakin left, how hard it was to claw his way back to something resembling serenity again. How weak and helpless it felt to be so far beyond his steadfast self-control.

Anakin brings this out in him. He is a tempest. A storm especially created to throw Obi-Wan off-center. Of course he would come along to unbalance again. He hadn’t known to think of these long years apart as a stretch of fair weather. Mostly he’s had a careful eye out for rain.

But Obi-Wan is stronger now than the last time he went through this. He breathes in through his nose and exhales through his mouth and forces himself to relax deeper into the couch. He knows how to do this.

This kind of meditation involves identifying the emotions he is feeling and seeing them for what they are before releasing them to the Force. He can’t ignore them. He can’t shut them off. Self-knowledge is the key to working through them, even if, historically, Obi-Wan is not the best at being honest with himself.

He thinks of what caused his current panic—and he allows himself to call it panic, a huge victory of the last four years—the shock of surprise that ran through him at hearing Anakin’s voice, seeing him whole and healthy and just a little bit older after so long apart. Being confronted by Luke and Leia for the first time and adoring them from the moment he laid eyes on them. The idea that Anakin wants to get together and talk?

Beyond the simple fact that Obi-Wan was unprepared for their meeting, that some part of him thought he might never see Anakin again even though deep down he knew that couldn’t be true, his exchange with Anakin, on a fundamental level, simply does not make sense.

What could Anakin possibly want with him? Anakin left. He walked down the grand steps of the Jedi Temple one last time, preceded by the briefest of farewells, and that was it. He had a new life, a new family, and he never looked back. Obi-Wan has never quite been able to reconcile the version of Anakin he thought existed and one that was proven real that day.

Which leaves him with no idea what Anakin could possibly want now. Does he want to gloat? To show off just how well he is doing without the Jedi, out on his own, without him?

Does he pity Obi-Wan somehow? Obi-Wan put up with quite a bit of pity in the days and weeks after Anakin left. Kind words and sympathetic looks were well-meant but grated against him from the start. He didn’t want the pity of his fellow Jedi then and just the thought of it from Anakin now makes him want to claw at his own skin. He briefly entertains the thought that Anakin might be bored. That his life outside of the Order might not fulfil him the way being a Jedi Knight once did. His interest in Obi-Wan might be a passing thought brought on by the coincidence of their meeting. But how could Anakin possibly be bored with those two supernovas chasing his heels?

Obi-Wan sets that line of thought to the side, his mind spiraling off into further questions he cannot answer on his own. The same kinds of questions that plagued him for years. What is he doing? What is he thinking? Is he happy now? Is this what makes him happy?

But life has proven time and again that Obi-Wan does not know Anakin’s heart. The secrets there have always been locked away from him. Asking himself the same questions over and over will not give him the key. All Obi-Wan can do is consider his own emotions and acknowledge them to the best of his ability so that he can give them over to the Force. So that he can know some kind of peace.

Meeting Anakin and the twins left him tongue-tied in a way that he kicks himself for now. He let himself be caught off guard. He allowed his emotions to overrule him.

It is a failing. One Obi-Wan has been guilty of more times than he can count; the instances were less discrete moments and more long periods of habit he never managed to shake. He let his feelings for Anakin get the better of him in a manner utterly unbecoming of the Jedi Master he is supposed to be and what’s worse is that Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to be surprised at his own reaction. He has spent too many years thinking about what he might say to Anakin if he ever got the chance. And in his more self-indulgent, self-pitying moments (and self-pity has never been more palatable for him than the pity he gets from other people. It soothes in the moment but leaves an astringent aftertaste) he let himself think about what he could have said to stop him from leaving in the first place.

That is Obi-Wan’s worst vice. The crutch he clings to when he is at his weakest. The conviction that there was something he could have done, something he could have said to keep Anakin from leaving. That would have kept him from seeking comfort in the wrong people and allowed him to confide in Obi-Wan. Was he too strict? Too cold? Not strict enough? Should he have been more honest? Should he have pushed Anakin to make more connections in the Order? Should he have sheltered him more?

And beneath all of that is an anger that did not feel like his own when Obi-Wan first noticed it, in the reflection he forced himself to do after Anakin left. It burns too hot and too bright, simmering beneath the rest. It feels young and vibrant in a way that Obi-Wan thought he left behind in his childhood, the version of himself that almost never became a padawan, that many masters refused to take on. Obi-Wan has worked hard for decades to soothe that ferocity, to put it behind himself, and for the longest time, he thought he had. Some small part of Obi-Wan hates Anakin for making him doubt himself. For throwing their friendship away. For never looking back.

Obi-Wan comes back to himself with his thoughts still unsettled. He arches his back and groans a little as the bones of his spine pop one by one into place between his shoulder blades. His body is stiff from sitting for too long, his rear gone numb beneath him. Meditation proved disappointing but perhaps it was always going to be. He set his expectations too high, thinking he might be able to solve the problem that is Anakin in a few hours. Anakin is the work of a lifetime. Hard, difficult, awful work, but Obi-Wan’s burden nonetheless.

After a cup of tea and a comfier pair of lounge pants, Obi-Wan manages to put in a few hours of work on reports for tomorrow’s Senate hearing. They are the sort of thing that can be added to and revised until the moment they reach the Senate floor. A work in progress, improved but never perfected and the work, despite everything else, is soothing.

He makes good headway before his work is interrupted by the chirp of his comm. A request for holo communication from a familiar number that makes Obi-Wan smile and shake his head before accepting.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Evening, General.”

The title is a bit of a joke now, something Obi-Wan has insisted time and again that Cody stop calling him but that sticks nonetheless. Obi-Wan gives him a look through the fuzzy blue of the hologram and Cody gives him one right back and that’s the end of it. The strangeness of it, the discomfort, has worn away over the years and now they are left with this: a time in their lives that they once suspected they might never survive that now they have.

Learning to speak first when it comes to conversations with Obi-Wan is a habit that Cody is still in the process of forming. This time, Obi-Wan lets him off easily. “Don’t you have younglings to chase?”

“Rex is managing just fine. Told him I had more important things to discuss. Wrangling younglings is a lot easier when you have reinforcements on the way. So, any word?”

“I’m not scheduled to speak until tomorrow’s assembly.” Cody knows that but the attempt at obfuscation is important.

“I didn’t ask about the Senate. I asked if you had heard anything while keeping your ear to the ground.”

There it is. Cody has never been one to pull his punches. “Nothing good, but then we expected that. Some pushback is only natural. Politicians don’t like to spend money on others that could be spent on them instead.” Obi-Wan glances at his notes and datapads. All of this work over the proper allocation of a few million credits. “I’ve been assured that our case is a strong one and I’ll spend the rest of the night making it even stronger.”

“I appreciate that.”

He shouldn’t. All of the hours Obi-Wan puts in—the way the work flexes his skills of research, analysis, and the labor of building an argument—all of that is still far less than the clones are owed. But Cody remains grateful regardless so Obi-Wan will have to do his best to be worthy of that gratitude.

“How are Rex and the cadets holding up?”

“Looking for a status report?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“They’re fine. Better than fine really. I don’t have a good frame of reference for what it’s like to be a kid but they seem happy. They’re so… I’m not sure how to put it.” Never one to waste words, Cody pauses and looks somewhere past the camera. “I once asked you how people felt in the Force, how you could sense people there, and you told me that everyone was different. Everyone has a signature as unique as a fingerprint, even the clones. So I asked you about General Skywalker and what he felt like.”

Obi-Wan remembers. “I told you he was bright.”

“And I didn’t really know what you meant then. It kind of feels like I do now.”

Something in Obi-Wan squirms and relaxes. He is happy for Cody, he truly is. Perhaps he is getting as much out of this mentorship as the young clones will undoubtedly get from him. “And Rex?”

“He’d tell you he was at his wit’s end with them. And I’d tell you that’s exactly what he needs.”

Obi-Wan laughs. After the war, when all the dust had settled and the clones were faced with the choice of what they wanted to do with their lives for the first time in their lives, Obi-Wan had been almost certain that Rex would want to live out his retirement on a beach somewhere. Basking in the sun, his responsibility for all of the turmoil in the galaxy shed like his armor behind him.

Obi-Wan isn’t sure that kind of life would ever have really satisfied him, much though he would deserve it. But in the process of making his decision, Rex saw very clearly that Cody’s call to perform his duty would never allow him to sit still for long.

So: the school. There were so many clones still in production by the time the war ended, including many children that never made it to the frontlines. The school that Cody and Rex run is just one of several different options for where they might be placed. The idea is that, while the Kaminoans work on slowing down the advanced aging process in waves of clones, some of the batches, the children and teenagers, need an education beyond the art of war and a place where they are allowed to be children.

Cody and Rex have taken on the role of co-headmasters in a compromise Obi-Wan is still a bit in awe of. Part of Obi-Wan still thinks Rex might drag Cody into retirement one day but for now they have a purpose beyond their lives as soldiers and the chance to make the other clones’ lives better than theirs were.

It is the kind of future they deserve, if the Force believes that anyone truly deserves anything. The kind of future Obi-Wan hopes he has found for himself and wonders if Anakin has found on his own. Luke and Leia’s faces appear in his mind and his stomach pangs with a curious longing to know what they are like.

“General,” nudges Cody, with the sound of someone who has tried to get his attention more than once.

“Apologies,” Obi-Wan manages. “That’s wonderful for you and Rex. Be sure to give him my best.”

“I will.” He wrestles with his next words before arranging them into a careful line, beating back years of training to get them out. “Is everything alright?”

Obi-Wan almost wishes for a time when Cody would have found that to be an impertinent question. Almost. He knows just how much progress Cody has made in deprogramming himself from a soldier’s mindset in even considering the question. A strong part of him still wants to leave it unanswered though.

But who else is he going to talk to about this? There is hardly anyone at the Temple he dares mention Anakin to. They wouldn’t understand his feelings and he wouldn’t want them too. At the very least, if things go poorly with Cody he can turn the holoprojector off and hope that in another month or so the sting of embarrassment will have lessened a little.

“I suppose I am a bit distracted. I had a run in with someone unexpected today and I’m afraid it has left me out of sorts.”

As if Cody knows, and perhaps he does, he presses on. “Who did you meet?”

Obi-Wan sighs. Gives in. “Anakin. For the first time in four years.”

The holocall goes silent and still, almost long enough for Obi-Wan to wonder if the connection has dropped. “How is he?”

“I couldn’t say.” The same and different. Older, a little. Impenetrable, unknowable and frustratingly so. Curious, the way he say Obi-Wan and pushed to see him again. Sank his teeth into the idea like a nexu and wouldn’t let it go. “Fine, I suppose. His children were with him.”

“Stars, I forgot he was a father. Hard to picture it.”

Obi-Wan hums his agreement. He could never forget, of course, but the idea still strikes him with a sense of wrongness. Or not wrongness but discomfort maybe. Anakin probably makes a lovely father but the image clashes harshly with the version of Anakin that exists in his head. The one with his back turned, perpetually walking down the steps of the Jedi Temple.

“It isn’t right what he did to you, either of you.” At Obi-Wan’s questioning look, he clarifies. “I know Rex wonders about him sometimes. He almost never says it out loud but there are definitely days he wonders what his old general is up to. Even Commander Tano calls on occasion.”

There aren’t many who would agree with him. Even Obi-Wan isn’t entirely sure that he agrees with him. Anakin is perfectly within his rights to live whatever life he chooses. He has done his time, borne his duty with grace. He doesn’t owe them anything.

At least, that is how Obi-Wan knows he is meant to feel. As his meditation session proved, the reality of his feelings might be somewhat messier than that.

“Thank you, Cody.”

“Take care of yourself, sir.”

Obi-Wan is trying to. He really is.

His stomach reminds him to send a droid to the refectory for dinner. He can’t be bothered to make the trip himself, not really up to socializing after his failed attempt at meditation, so he works through his meal. The sun goes down and the lights in his apartment slowly come up. He works until the light from his datapads starts to blur and then he takes a moment to rub at his eyes.

Anakin had always preferred working to meditation. He liked having a pile of droid parts in his hands to make sense of, a set of katas to move through, a problem to solve. He was never suited for the kind of seated, still meditation Obi-Wan grew up with and needs to stay in tune with himself. Obi-Wan always felt that his inability to simply be with himself held Anakin back. Kept him from seeing himself as he was instead of how others thought he should be. But perhaps, like he was about so many things it seems, Obi-Wan was wrong. There is a kind of clarity, or at least a kind of peace, to be gained like this too.

He finishes dinner—something light after the debauchery at Dex’s—and sits back in his chair to take a look at the evening’s progress. The charts on the screen help to visualize employment data for the clones and Obi-Wan has been making changes to the design, finding ways to better represent the statistics and emphasize important points.

He has also been hard at work trying to summarize what that data says about the men he visits in the far-flung clone settlements as well as those living independently. How it captures the entirety of their lives into something more than numbers. Experience has taught him that they are good men. Somehow, despite the narrow expectations that brought them into the galaxy, how little it seems to think of them, most of them want to live out their days continuing to serve it, though in a far greater range of capacities than soldiers. The data reflects this, Obi-Wan knows that it does, he just has to make that pattern obvious to those who refuse to see.

It is hard, imperfect work and Obi-Wan is glad to do it. And after a few hours, he is satisfied with how his briefing stands for tomorrow.

He is just about to call it a night, move from his workspace in the living room to his bedroom, when the door chimes. Someone is here to see him. Obi-Wan stands and freezes, staring at the door.

There can be no doubt as to who is waiting for him on the other side.

It isn’t that Obi-Wan thought Anakin would forget about him. The boy has always been relentless. But if Anakin really wanted to see him, wouldn’t he have done this sooner? At any point over the last four years?

Obi-Wan thought that seeing him again would be a passing fancy for Anakin. In a few days, he would remember their meeting, try to get in contact, and find that Obi-Wan had already left for another mission off planet. The urge would pass and another few years would go by before the desire struck him again, this time even less urgently than before.

But Anakin is here, now. And Obi-Wan has no choice but to open the door. Hiding isn’t an option, not now. And despite his nerves, Obi-Wan knows he doesn’t want to hide from whatever Anakin has in store for him.

He steels himself, taking a deep breath, smoothing down the front of his robes and mildly regretting his lounge pants and socked feet. There is nothing to be done for it now, not with Anakin waiting.

Obi-Wan opens the door and there he is. Anakin. Like no time has passed at all. Anakin could have just come back from a training session with Ahsoka, here to ask if Obi-Wan wants to join him for dinner in the refectory. But then Obi-Wan takes in Anakin’s set of civilian clothes, his brown jacket and dark blue tunic, the tight-fitting brown pants with multiple sets of pockets along his thighs, and thick-soled boots. No, things aren’t so familiar after all.

He catches Anakin looking him up and down in turn. His eyes sweep over him head to toe, lingering on the lines of his body with an unsettling intensity. Lingering a few places in particular, naturally.

Obi-Wan feels enormous under Anakin’s gaze. Every pound he has put on over the last four years seems doubled. The softness of his jaw mostly concealed beneath his beard, on full display. His belly, the size of a planet. His chest, his hips, his thighs. All of it new and scrutinized under sharp and familiar blue eyes.

Perhaps Obi-Wan should feel ashamed of himself. He fights down a brief flash of instinct to suck in, to try to make himself small. But then he brings a hand to the curve of his stomach and remembers that Anakin hasn’t touched him here. Anakin has no claim to these parts of him. His soft, squishy underbelly isn’t a weakness for Anakin to exploit but armor to keep Anakin from hurting him again.

“What are you doing here?” Obi-Wan asks. He doesn’t bother to wonder how Anakin got in. So many things that should be unlikely or impossible are child’s play to Anakin. If enough desire is there, nothing can stand in his way. Obi-Wan knows him well enough by now to know that the question to ask is not how but why.

Anakin looks at him, all of him. He rocks forward on the balls of his feet like he wants to step inside Obi-Wan’s quarters but Obi-Wan doesn’t move an inch. It’s not like Anakin can sneak past him without a struggle if Obi-Wan decides not to let him in. “I had to see you again.”

“And so you have.”

“I’ve thought of you often lately and seeing you today felt like a sign.”

Always so dramatic. “Today was a coincidence, nothing more.”

“There is no such thing as a coincidence when it comes to the Force.”

Obi-Wan tilts his head, the expression on his face veering towards amusement so that it doesn’t flirt with anger. “You sound awfully like a Jedi for a civilian.”

“Obi-Wan—” Anakin begins and for all that Obi-Wan is dying to hear where Anakin is going to go with this, Anakin doesn’t seem to have the words.

He lets Anakin struggle and fall. Keeping his face placid and still is a challenge, so he overcompensates and feigns a small, amused smile. It’s a cruel little thing but Obi-Wan doesn’t have it in himself to be gentle with Anakin. Not after all this time.

“What?” he asks, when he’s finally had enough. “You came all this way but have nothing to say to me?”

“I don’t know where to begin—Obi-Wan, can I please come inside?”

“We could start right where we left off today, couldn’t we? Exchange pleasantries?” Obi-Wan keeps his voice light and manages to hold his tongue through iron self-control. He desperately wants to pile other questions on top of those. How have you been since you decided to leave the only life you’ve ever known? Do you care even a little about how you hurt me?

Anakin scoffs. “What, you want to talk about the weather? I don’t think we’ve exchanged pleasantries in the entire time I’ve known you.”

Because making small talk is what strangers do and not for one moment of their relationship in all of its stages have Obi-Wan and Anakin ever been strangers to each other. But they are now. Anakin has made certain of that.

Obi-Wan crosses his arms in front of his chest in something of a dare. Part of him revels in the fact that it probably makes him look even bigger, accentuating the curve of his belly and the swell of his chest. “What do you suggest we do then? I’m still waiting to hear what brought you to my door.”

“I’d like to come inside before someone comes to investigate a shouting match in the hall.”

Obi-Wan puts on a look of innocence and peers to the left and right down the hall. “A shouting match? I haven’t heard anything of the sort but I’ll be sure to keep an ear out. Kit does like to leave the volume on his holo-programs rather loud.”

This is fun, Obi-Wan realizes. For all of his nerves, for all of the rattling sense of inevitability, he hadn’t anticipated enjoying himself trying to goad and skewer Anakin. Finding all of his weak spots with a precisely applied sharp word. But he does have to be careful not to push Anakin too far. He can’t risk the man storming off now that Obi-Wan has the upper hand.

“Come in, then.” Obi-Wan steps back to let Anakin past him.

“Thank you,” Anakin murmurs. The words come in a hot breath that Obi-Wan can feel against his skin as they brush past each other. Obi-Wan tries hard to find the note of sarcasm that must be hiding there but he must not have the ear for it anymore.

Obi-Wan lingers in the entryway to stand back and watch Anakin in the middle of his apartment. He blinks and tries to will away the shock of it. Remind himself that Anakin is real and tangible. He won’t vanish like a ghost or a dream. Obi-Wan grounds himself in the present by attempting to put himself in Anakin’s shoes, see his apartment from his point of view. It isn’t as though much has changed since he left. Obi-Wan has never had very many possessions. A throw blanket on the couch, a new mug by the sink, a succulent drying out on the windowsill. He can’t get a read on what Anakin makes of it, the same but different, but Obi-Wan doesn’t much care what Anakin thinks. He isn’t ashamed of how he has led his life, the code he has always tried his best to stick to.

“Shall I put on some water for tea?” asks Obi-Wan, ready to keep pretending that Anakin is just some other house guest for as long as it gets under Anakin’s skin.

Anakin gives him a look. It’s far too familiar and something in Obi-Wan aches at the sight of it. The feeling vanishes in an instant, replaced by a kind of disgust in himself for his weakness that is far more comfortable. Then Anakin seems to come to a decision. He moves to the kitchen cabinets with a purpose. He opens the one over the sink and lifts up onto his toes to grab—ah, yes. There is a bottle of Corellian brandy Obi-Wan once confiscated from Anakin as a padawan. He came back to their rooms dizzy, drunk, and babbling after a night out somewhere in the temple with some of the other padawans, not more than fourteen years old. At the time, Obi-Wan told him they would share it one day when he was older, when he was an adult and could handle his alcohol better. Then it became something of a joke that no, even when Anakin was nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, he still wasn’t quite ready yet.

Patience, my very young padawan. Some things get better with age.

Obi-Wan doesn’t go into that cabinet very often. He’d mostly forgotten that bottle was there.

Anakin waggles the bottle at him, an eyebrow raised. For a moment, Obi-Wan thinks about refusing him. You have no right to claim that anymore. No right to those memories. And nothing you’ve done since we met again has proven you have grown even a little.

But chastising Anakin now would be too familiar. Falling back on an instinct born from years of training him. Something fond would slip in despite his best efforts. So Obi-Wan says nothing and Anakin takes a pair of glasses out of the cabinet, acting like he lives here.

He hands Obi-Wan a glass and Obi-Wan takes it but stares down into the dark contents like he isn’t sure what to do with it. Anakin clinks their glasses together and takes a sip. He hums appreciatively and takes another.

“Was there a reason you came to see me so late? Other than to barge into my room and steal my brandy.”

Anakin huffs a laugh. “You know, I actually agree with you? The twins have me going to bed by like nine.”

The question still stands and they both know it.

“Is it such a surprise that I wanted to see you?” Anakin asks. “That I might have, I don’t know, missed you?”

“In a word? Yes.”

Obi-Wan swirls the drink in his glass, watching it sink down the sides. Then he takes a drink. It hits the back of his throat smooth and warm, trailing hot through his chest and into his stomach. Not bad for something acquired by children.

“Right, I forgot,” Anakin says, setting his glass aside in favor of wandering further into the apartment. He glances at Obi-Wan’s shelves, the holos and datapads. “We mean nothing to each other. The ten years we spent living out of each other’s pockets and fighting a war—those things happen to casual friends, acquaintances really. I should have known better than to think you might have missed me too.”

“Your memory must be extremely short in your old age,” Obi-Wan says. “Considering you are the one who left with hardly a word. Not exactly the sort of thing one friend does to another so you might excuse me my confusion about where stand with one another.”

Obi-Wan sets his glass down too. The brandy isn’t very good after all. The taste it leaves in his mouth makes him want to scrape his tongue down or go brush his teeth. He settles for neither and joins Anakin in the living room. Obi-Wan takes up a seat on the couch, letting his legs spread and his arm fall over the back rest. He actually lives here, unlike Anakin. He is allowed to take up space and so he does.

“I didn’t come here to fight, you know,” Anakin says. He trails his fingers along the windowsill and Obi-Wan can’t help but watch.

“Well, I’m glad we’re narrowing things down a bit. You didn’t come here to fight or barge into my rooms or steal my brandy but like most of your plans, things have gone awry and you’ve managed all three.” But before Anakin can refute that for a second time, Obi-Wan decides to change tactics. “Your wife doesn’t mind you leaving the family all alone so late at night?”

He keeps his voice calm and light, flippant even. Like he couldn’t care less. Nothing Obi-Wan has said tonight is a lie exactly but trying to pull off that act is closest thing to a lie that there is.

“I dropped them off at her apartment after taking them to Dex’s. It was her night with them anyway.” Anakin must catch the surprise on Obi-Wan’s face. After another mouthful of his drink, he sets it down and continues. “We divorced two years ago. I don’t think the twins remember a time when Mommy and Daddy lived together.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

That isn’t a lie. For all that Obi-Wan likes watching Anakin squirm, for all that it feels like some kind of retribution for the silence and questions of those early days and weeks and months of missing him, for all that Obi-Wan wishes that Anakin had made a different choice—he doesn’t really wish to see Anakin unhappy. If this is his life now, a life he chose wholeheartedly for himself, it deserves to be one that brings him every happiness. Even if Obi-Wan wishes he could have been a part of it.

Anakin shrugs. “It wasn’t a secret. I’m surprised you didn’t hear. The scandal made us practically famous.”

“I’m not one to read the gossip columns, even for your sake.”

Anakin snorts. Obi-Wan does not get to see if there is a smile to match it on his face. Anakin stands with his back turned away from him, looking out of the window where Coruscant’s nightlife teems with technicolored lights at what seems like an impossible distance.

“I missed you,” Anakin admits. “I don’t think I realized just how much until I saw you today.”

Perhaps the confession is easier to make without looking at him. Obi-Wan watches and Anakin holds himself so still in front of the window. He runs his hands along the sill like he is trying not to grip them into fists. Anakin breathes and keeps going. “And then when you were gone again, I realized I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to come to see you.”

Is that supposed to make Obi-Wan feel better. A snap decision, an impulse, after all of these years and Anakin comes running?

Perhaps Obi-Wan should reward him for his honesty, the way that the sincerity of his words seems to cause him physical pain. But Obi-Wan can’t bring himself to do it. The most he can do is meet Anakin’s eyes when he finally turns to him, face shadowed against the light from outside. He cannot give Anakin the kind of absolution he is looking for. He just can’t.

“Haven’t you missed me too?” Anakin asks.

Obi-Wan laughs, short and so sharp he surprises himself. The surprise is the only thing that keeps his laughter from going any further, from devolving into something manic. “Was I meant to?”

“Obi-Wan—”

“No, it’s my turn to speak. I don’t know what you came here tonight looking for, what kind of hazy, misremembered version of our friendship you are after, but you aren’t going to find it. When you left, you made it very clear just what you thought of the Jedi, the Code, and me.”

He showed Obi-Wan exactly what he thought of the life they had together. That it wasn’t enough, would never be enough. What consumed and fulfilled Obi-Wan left Anakin unsatisfied. And it wasn’t even worth looking back for.

Anakin’s eyes flash. “I had to leave! The Council would never have let me stay, not with Padmé and the twins. When I left, I hoped against hope that you were different from them but I was wrong about that too.”

“You made a choice and I respected it, just as you had always asked me to do. What did you want me to do, run after you and beg you to stay?”

“If I did, I would have been a fool then, wouldn’t I? And not just because there is no way you ever would have disobeyed the Council like that, left behind your precious Order. No, you never would have gone after me because you never cared for me! I was nothing to you and I was a fool for ever believing otherwise.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. He cannot fathom how wrong Anakin is, in far too many ways to ever try to correct him.

“I don’t know what I expected,” Anakin says harshly. “You haven’t changed.”

“Of course, I haven’t,” Obi-Wan snaps. “You are the one that left, the one that sought out a whole new life, the one that has become a stranger to me. I thought I knew you better than anyone and in one swift move, you proved I never knew you at all.”

His words hang in the air. Obi-Wan didn’t shout, he doesn’t need to. He chooses his words so carefully even in his anger that they cut like knives rather than bludgeon. But these words seem to echo throughout his rooms regardless.

Anakin blinks, his thoughts and feelings an utter mystery to Obi-Wan even if he were to search him through the Force. From the look of him though, they are changing rapidly. Whatever conclusion he comes to, he somehow manages to avoid looking wounded.

Anakin tilts his head curiously, something silent and still in his expression. Obi-Wan wishes the look was unfamiliar, he wishes it was something Anakin had grown into, cold and calculating, some part of him he acquired in the time spent apart. But Obi-Wan knows him too well. He has seen this look before; it’s just never been directed at him.

“You’re angry with me,” he says, like it’s a surprise. A hypothesis he is testing out. Like Obi-Wan hasn’t spent most of his life a little bit angry with him, the anger a constant companion to the overwhelming amount of love Obi-Wan has always carried for him. The anger somehow serving to make the love even stronger.

Then another familiar look crosses Anakin’s face, delighted but not kind. He grins without showing his teeth and looks Obi-Wan over through his lashes. “You’ve been angry with me. Ever since I left.”

Anakin takes a seat on the couch beside Obi-Wan, far too close for comfort. His body is angled in towards him, knees touching, with Anakin leaning in like he wants to make a study of the lines on Obi-Wan’s face. Obi-Wan keeps his mental shields high and tight, just waiting for Anakin to search him there too. Perhaps that preparedness is why he hasn’t tried to pry at them yet.

Their sides brush. Anakin’s arm against the plush curve of Obi-Wan’s side. The touch is unmistakable, Obi-Wan’s attention drawn to it immediately like it burns, but Anakin’s focus is elsewhere. His focus has a weight to it, when centered solely on him, pinning him down against the cushion. Making him feel like some kind of prey animal despite every instinct to the contrary.

Obi-Wan could deny the accusation. He shouldn’t be angry. He shouldn’t have missed Anakin. He shouldn’t love him, not then and not now.

But this anger, this hurt, is too central to who Obi-Wan is now. To deny it is to deny himself. Despite the act he has put on for the evening and the way it amuses him, his haughty indifference isn’t a lie, simply a facet of the truth. When faced with an open, bald-faced challenge, Obi-Wan isn’t going to lie to Anakin.

“And if I am angry?” asks Obi-Wan. He might have resigned himself to telling the truth but he isn’t going to make this easy on either of them.

“That isn’t very Jedi-like of you.” Anakin inches closer. Obi-Wan feels his chin double as he looks down, forces his head back, anything to gain a few millimeters of grace before Anakin is everything in his field of vision. Obi-Wan can feel the intensity of his gaze on him the same way that he can feel Anakin’s breath on his skin. Anakin places a hand on the armrest of the couch that Obi-Wan has his back against, effectively hemming him in. There is nowhere to go, no distraction, no escape, just him.

“I’m hardly perfect.” The words make the barest sound as they pass his lips. Anakin is close enough that he knows he hears them anyway.

Obi-Wan can hardly breathe. Even his heartbeat feels like it is too loud, pumping with too much force through his body. Anakin’s eyes flick down and slowly work their way back up to meet his eyes.

His lips, Obi-Wan realizes distantly—his mind too preoccupied with watching Anakin, tracking his every movement—Anakin was looking at his lips.

The thought comes a fraction of a second before Anakin closes the distance between them, capturing Obi-Wan’s lips in a kiss, moving himself into Obi-Wan’s lap, pressing them together. For one brief instant and an eternity, there is heat and pressure and stillness and then Anakin pulls back to look at him.

The sudden absence hits Obi-Wan like a pressure change making his ears pop. Disoriented, sensation blunted, bereft. With one leg hooked over his, seated above him, Anakin looks almost boyish. Like he has gotten away with something and he wants to do it again.

Obi-Wan pulls Anakin more solidly into his lap. He reaches up to thread his fingers through Anakin’s hair and bring him back down to kiss him once more.

There is no forethought behind the action. No conscious preparation. Obi-Wan wants to wipe the smug look off of Anakin’s face, the sense of mischief there. If Anakin wants a kiss, Obi-Wan will give him a kiss.

Anakin gets over his surprise just as quickly. He bats Obi-Wan’s hand out of the way and takes Obi-Wan’s face in both of his own. He sucks at Obi-Wan’s lower lip like he could drink from him.

Slow and growing with intensity, this isn’t how Obi-Wan thought Anakin Skywalker would kiss. At least, not the version of Anakin Skywalker he knew before he left. That man was hardly more than a boy. He had only ever kissed a bare handful of people if not just the one woman he married. Obi-Wan always assumed Anakin Skywalker would kiss the way he did everything else: recklessly, passionately, with abandon. An amateur but a quick study, enthusiasm more than making up for any technical faults.

This isn’t that.

Anakin sits with his legs straddling either side of Obi-Wan’s waist. He kisses hot and slick into Obi-Wan’s mouth, long and languid kisses that suggest that someone in the last four years has managed to teach Anakin some patience.

That won’t do at all.

Obi-Wan grasps Anakin’s hips in both hands, keeping him firmly on top of him. He kneads at his ass, the meat of his thighs and automatically, his body knowing just what to do, Anakin rocks his hips against Obi-Wan’s belly.

“Fuck—Obi-Wan,” Anakin breathes. “Kark, you’re so—”

Obi-Wan captures his lips again and tries not to preen. That’s more like it.

Anakin moans, the sound trapped and vibrating in the places where their mouths meet. His weight shifts forward, bearing down on Obi-Wan, pushing him farther back onto the couch. Any finesse, any semblance of control in Anakin is vanishing rapidly, replaced by the heat and desire Obi-Wan expected.

Perhaps ‘expected’ isn’t the right word. Anakin sitting in his lap, sucking on his face, grinding against him like a teenager is not something he expected. Anakin’s desire is not something he expected.

Imagined, maybe. Wanted. Dreamed of in the brief lapses of control that brought him fleeting glimpses of pleasure but mostly sharp-edged pain.

Anakin catches Obi-Wan’s lower lip bites down before soothing it between his lips. He rolls his hips in a steady rhythm, his hardness undeniable even through all of their layers.

Obi-Wan lets himself be kissed. He gives as good as he gets but he is far more occupied with having Anakin real and tangible between his hands. From his waist, they roam upward, navigating his slim waist and muscled chest, petting his sides. He can feel the way Anakin’s breath quickens in his lungs, the sharp intakes of breath he makes when he goes too long without air. Yes, Obi-Wan thinks and he groans in time with the thought. This is where Anakin should be. Exactly where Anakin should have been all along.

With a hand on Anakin’s jaw, Obi-Wan redirects Anakin’s attention away from kissing for a moment. He guides Anakin’s mouth away from his so that Obi-Wan can press his lips to the long arch of Anakin’s neck, the stretch of tendons and veins, the patch of stubble he failed to shave. He sucks at a sensitive bit of skin below his jaw. Obi-Wan bites at Anakin’s ear lobe for good measure and gets a whine in return.

“I had to see you,” Anakin babbles. “I saw you there and I couldn’t believe it. I wanted you even then but the twins…”

But neither of them is here tonight to think about Anakin’s children. Obi-Wan laves his tongue over a mark on Anakin’s throat that is sure to bruise and he can feel Anakin shiver. His breath shudders and Obi-Wan can feel himself twitch in his trousers. The noises Anakin is making. The way he is humping the heavy swell of his gut like a teenager, like some kind of animal, totally uninhibited.

“You were right there after all that time but still so far away. I couldn’t touch you, couldn’t feel you in the Force. But oh—” Anakin’s voice goes high and the pace of his hips increases almost without conscious thought. His mechnohand grips the hair at the back of Obi-Wan’s head and his flesh hand grips Obi-Wan’s upper arm, fingers sinking into muscle and fat sure to bruise. “Stars, you’re so big.”

The word seems to light a fire in both of them. Something in Obi-Wan goes molten at the broken way Anakin moans it. Suddenly the position Anakin pushed them into makes so much more sense. He is taking stock of the changes in Obi-Wan since he last saw him. Laying claim to every last undiscovered inch.

He presses his face into the side of Obi-Wan’s neck and Obi-Wan holds him there, letting Anakin pant and whine and thrust into him. Obi-Wan pulls him down on top of him, begging to take more of his weight. This is exactly how it should be.

With a cry, Anakin’s hips stutter and halt. He twitches in the aftermath of his orgasm, riding out the lingering throes of it, shocked here and there by the overstimulation. Obi-Wan brings a hand to the wet patch at the front of Anakin’s trousers and palms him through it. The gesture is almost casual. Like they’ve done this before, like Obi-Wan has permission. As though Anakin is his to touch like this.

Anakin gasps and arches his back into the touch, eager for any sensation Obi-Wan is willing to give him. He is softer like this, some urgent need soothed and satisfied though he is nowhere near finished yet. Meanwhile Obi-Wan’s brain is working overtime. His soiled clothing must be uncomfortable. They should have done this elsewhere, should have planned this better but Obi-Wan can’t regret this now that they’ve done it.

A wall has come down between them, one that never should have been erected in the first place. There is no part of Obi-Wan that wants to go back to the chilly distance they had before even if he really would have liked to have seen Anakin in his full glory. What a sight it would have been to have seen Anakin come undone on top of him, watch him spill himself across Obi-Wan’s belly. Let Anakin rub it into his skin like the disgusting boy he has always been.

It takes Obi-Wan a second to decide his next move. A thought occurs to him in an instant and he almost dismisses it as an impulsive thing he is only half sure he is capable of. But if there were ever a moment to be reckless…

With Anakin’s legs around his waist and his hands braced beneath Anakin’s thighs, Obi-Wan stands up from the couch carrying Anakin. He tries not to feel too smug about the noise Anakin makes, the way his legs and arms tighten around him, or the look of something like awe on Anakin’s face.

He doesn’t succeed but at least he tried.

“Show off,” Anakin gripes but there is no heat in it. He clutches as Obi-Wan’s shoulders like he’s afraid to be put down, unwilling to cede the ground he’s gained now that he’s got it.

“Been a while since you’ve been with someone who can put you in your place?” Obi-Wan starts walking toward the bedroom with Anakin in his arms. It’s a slow, halting sort of walk, each step feeling heavy and thunderous, but it doesn’t need to be graceful. Anakin certainly doesn’t seem to mind.

He deposits Anakin on the bed with a slightly larger drop than necessary. Anakin bounces against the mattress but allows himself to fall back, artfully displayed against the bedsheets. His hair fans out in a crown around his head. He wears it longer now, down to his shoulders, but the curls of honey and gold are just as beautiful as they ever were.

Anakin levers himself up onto his elbows as Obi-Wan takes his position between his legs. He looks up at Obi-Wan through his lashes. His lips are pink and swollen, shining from where Anakin has taken his lower lip between his teeth.

He is a vision. Lovely and maddening. And finally, Obi-Wan has the chance to appreciate him as one.

All he gets is a second to take him in before Anakin darts forward. His hands work at Obi-Wan’s belt and the fastenings of his trousers. He pulls Obi-Wan in at the waist by his belt loops and nuzzles his face against his belly before the belt comes free. For the most part, Obi-Wan lets him work. There is something fascinating about watching Anakin take what he wants, especially when what he wants is him. He moves deliberately, expertly, letting nothing stand in his way. Obi-Wan’s only objection is not being able to see Anakin’s face, so he threads his fingers through Anakin’s hair and tilts his head back to let their eyes meet.

His trousers unclasp with a click, Obi-Wan can feel them come free around him. With the belt gone too, he is able to shrug his robes and tabards off with a gesture so that the fabric pools at his elbows. He expects he looks ridiculous, half undone, bare and expectant but when he looks back at Anakin there are practically stars in his eyes.

Obi-Wan steps out of his trousers and places a knee on the bed beside Anakin. His hand falls from Anakin’s hair to his throat and with it, Anakin’s gaze falls too. His lips part. His tongue flicks out to sweep his lower lip but his attention is fully on Obi-Wan’s cock.

A sharp tug of the hair at the nape of his neck brings it back in an instant but Obi-Wan can see the thick swallow Anakin takes, he can feel the tension in his limbs. Anakin wants and while Obi-Wan has better ideas than obliging him, he can give Anakin a taste of what he desires.

He slides his hand down to Anakin’s shoulder. “Go on then,” Obi-Wan says.

Anakin wastes no time. He presses his face into the thatch of hair between Obi-Wan’s legs, at eye level with where he sits on the bed. His fingers knead into Obi-Wan’s thighs and ass, the pressure there keeping them both steady. Anakin noses at the base of his cock before tracing his tongue along the length of it. The trail of spit goes cold as he leaves it behind while Obi-Wan’s cock remains hot and flushed. Obi-Wan lets out a long, controlled breath as Anakin takes the head of it into his mouth, sinking just the first few inches into his warm, wet heat.

Has Anakin ever sucked a man’s cock? Has he ever even seen one outside of holoporn or the communal showers? Has he ever seen one like this? Up close and personal, hard and impatient for him, with a fair few inches for him to marvel at—Obi-Wan is under no delusions that he isn’t big everywhere and in ways that certainly come with their share of admirers.

But experience or not, Anakin has always been a fast learner and his favorite method of learning has always been hands on. He dives in, he tries his best, and his efforts only ever go one of two ways: impossible success or epic failure. But perhaps Anakin has done his homework ahead of this particular test. He takes as much of Obi-Wan into his mouth as he can, he keeps his teeth clear of Obi-Wan’s member. It is a far cry the image Obi-Wan has sometimes pictured: Anakin desperately trying to choke himself on his cock, tears welling in his eyes and spilling down his cheek. Eager to please, fighting his inexperience, in dire need of a bit of guidance.

Instead, Anakin begins a steady rhythm, slow and building. Obi-Wan can feel himself reach the back of Anakin’s throat, where it starts to go tight and where Anakin works to ease the instinct to gag, before he backs off again. His hand offers a steady pressure around the base where Anakin can’t bring himself to reach yet.

He lingers, which isn’t something Obi-Wan really thought Anakin capable of. At the head again, Anakin presses his lips closed and swirls his tongue around the tip. The move surprises Obi-Wan so much, a gasp escapes him. The burst of smug self-satisfaction in the Force from Anakin catches him off guard as well, leaving him a little dizzy from arousal.

Did Padmé ever do this for him? Obi-Wan wonders. He has done his very best over half a decade at this point to keep from ever thinking about Padmé Amidala. There was no reason to before she became a Senator and even less of a reason once she and Anakin became…intimate. During the war, Obi-Wan became very good at keeping her at a distance inside his own mind. In the aftermath, since Anakin left, he has tried his best not to think of her at all. Anakin was a constant companion even in his grief but Padmé—Padmé was a non-entity.

But she is the only person, as far as Obi-Wan knows who has ever been where he is now. No one else has ever been the object of Anakin’s devotion—because that is what Anakin is doing. That is the thread that allows Obi-Wan to tie this older version of his padawan, the one that has learned some kind of patience, the one who can worship at his cock with the boy he knew. Anakin has always been passionate. He has always felt too deeply. And this—Obi-Wan looks down at Anakin, his forehead and golden curls brushing the shelf of his lower belly when he takes him in, fingers digging into the meat of his broad thighs and ass, the way his eyes have drifted closed when he pulls back—this is nothing if not the deepest kind of feeling.

“Enough,” Obi-Wan says. He presses Anakin back and off of him with a hand on his shoulder. With his lips shiny and wet, Anakin looks devastated by the interruption, breathless and wanting, before his expression falls into something Obi-Wan hasn’t seen since in ages. Anakin pouts up at him with the sort of dark, smoldering look Obi-Wan remembers most fondly with a padawan braid hanging teasingly just beside it. A sharp pang of want lances though him at the idea that there is nothing there for him to yank on anymore. “Get up, onto the bed.”

Because as pretty a picture as Anakin makes, focused and attentive, almost sweet as he wraps his lips around Obi-Wan’s cock and works to make him come, Obi-Wan has no intention of letting their night end here.

He can tell Anakin is intrigued by whatever Obi-Wan has in mind but he wouldn’t be Anakin if he didn’t fight him along the way. “You’re so close, let me taste you.”

Obi-Wan huffs a laugh and brings his forehead down to meet Anakin’s. “Not all of us are still in our twenties, my dear. If you have no objections, I’d quite like to fuck you.”

Anakin steels himself and it’s the sort of look Obi-Wan remembers most from their sparring sessions. His gaze firm and steady, his lips set in a firm line, utterly serious. At one time, Obi-Wan looked at Anakin like this and wondered if he was getting a glimpse of the Jedi Anakin would one day become—all of his will channeled in one direction, focused determined, the rest of the galaxy falling away—or if it was Anakin’s ambition, his desperate need to prove himself getting in the way of true serenity. He liked the look but warred with himself over what it truly meant.

Turns out that it never mattered what that expression meant. Obi-Wan spent years trying to read Anakin’s every thought on his face and in the end learned absolutely nothing.

Anakin makes quick work of his clothes before climbing up the bed and settling against the pillows. Even though Obi-Wan finds himself awestruck at the sight, his heart beating loudly in his ears and making his cock twitch, his mouth salivating and his tongue thick, reminding himself to breathe—Anakin doesn’t make a production out of taking off his tunic and trousers. Like he doesn’t realize how much this affects Obi-Wan, too caught up in getting Obi-Wan on top of him again to care.

But Obi-Wan does. He joins Anakin on all fours, making his way up the bed and up Anakin’s reclined form slowly, taking in every revealed inch. Anakin made him wait four years for this and if it frustrates Anakin to wait now, perhaps he deserves it.

Those years have not left Anakin unchanged.

The sharp lines and corded muscles of Anakin’s body have relaxed and eased over time and Obi-Wan is glad to see it. For better or worse, Anakin is not a Jedi anymore. He is a father, an ex-husband, and whatever else he chooses to be in his spare time—does Anakin have a job? A hobby? What has he filled his days with if not—never mind. He is still remarkably fit and deeply attractive. He is healthy and full, with a slight softness to his belly, his skin all over pink and flushed. His days of pushing his body and his mind to their utter limits are over.

His legs are long and limber, golden in the low light of Obi-Wan’s bedroom. Obi-Wan spots a scar or two in his exploration. Not too many—bacta is capable of wonders—but a few that Obi-Wan recognizes. He presses his lips to a bit of pale raised skin on Anakin’s bicep, a wound Obi-Wan sewed up himself on a mission together, no back-up just the two of them behind enemy lines. All of his scars seem inconsequential now, fading into irrelevance, healing. Obi-Wan closes his eyes and lets his head rest on Anakin’s chest, feeling overwhelmed.

Anakin presses a kiss to the top of his head before wrapping his arms around him. Impatient as ever. Obi-Wan has left him waiting too long.

But there was a time when he never thought they would get this. When it seemed impossible that the two of them should survive the war and get to grow older. And then when it happened, when the war ended and the galaxy seemed to be at peace, no matter how unlikely that seemed, the chance to spend that impossible future with Anakin slipped through his fingers. Obi-Wan has tried to make his peace with that, knowing full well that he never could.

Obi-Wan kisses Anakin slowly, deeply refusing to be rushed. He wants stretch this moment out for as long as he possibly can, revel in every second of it. He wants Anakin to cry with how badly he wants him. He wants Anakin to ache.

“Have you ever done this before?” Obi-Wan asks. Their lips are still close enough to touch.

Anakin nods. “I’ve touched myself.”

He trails his hands up Obi-Wan’s chest, ghosting his fingertips through his chest hair. Eventually, he settles both against his pecs, giving them a squeeze.

“It’s a bit different with another person.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Obi-Wan can feel Anakin’s eyes on him as he reaches out with the Force to pull open the drawer of his bedside table and call a bottle of lubricant to his hand. When Anakin gives him a look, Obi-Wan gives him one right back.

He separates himself from Anakin enough to position himself between his legs. With a gentle hand down Anakin’s thigh, he eases them open, letting them fall open to either side. There should be something vulnerable about being exposed like this. Anakin’s cock lies against his stomach waiting to harden again. His balls hang prettily just below it. And his hole, pink and furled is on display. Anyone else might shy away from baring everything, might press their face into their shoulder and avoid Obi-Wan’s gaze. But not Anakin, of course not.

No, Anakin watches Obi-Wan intently, silently daring him to back down, to refuse him, to go back to the way things always were. He can’t help himself from trying to push at Obi-Wan even now, when he finally has him exactly where he wants him.

If Anakin left all of those years ago because he was somehow unsure of the regard Obi-Wan held him in, Obi-Wan is going to make sure he leaves tonight without a doubt in his mind.

He takes a pillow from the head of the bed and with Anakin’s cooperation, he positions it beneath Anakin’s hips. The slick is cool and viscous against his fingers and he can see Anakin repress a flinch when he takes two fingers to circle his hole.

All Obi-Wan does is tease him for a bit. He takes his time massaging the oil into his puckered anus and along his cleft of his ass. He presses a finger and then two in slowly, just to open him up. He sets no rhythm, he doesn’t go deep.

And Anakin takes it. He lies back and watches Obi-Wan work, making small sighs or gasps every now and then. His eyes flutter shut and Obi-Wan can feel him relax around him, a conscious display of self-control that reminds him of meditation. Once, Anakin lets out a groan that sounds like frustration and Obi-Wan hushes him. He brings his free hand to the slight curve of Anakin’s belly and pets and him, dragging the weight of his hand down the length of him in a way he hopes is soothing—in a way he knows is soothing from the way Anakin’s eyes snap to meet his before he goes all quiet and easy again under his touch.

He works three fingers inside Anakin, pressing in past the second knuckle, and Obi-Wan wonders just how long he can push this before Anakin breaks. Before he snaps and snarls that Obi-Wan should get on with it, before he whines and thrusts his hips back, taking matters into his own hands.

But Anakin waits. He pants and watches as he lets Obi-Wan take this kind of virginity from him. He closes his eyes tight when Obi-Wan nudges his prostate but his attention always comes back to Obi-Wan. His pink lips are parted around the first syllable of Obi-Wan’s name. After years without a glimpse, without a word, Anakin can’t look away from Obi-Wan now.

Good.

Because Obi-Wan feels the same. Anakin is breathtaking, the way he grips the sheets in his fists and bites at his plush lower lip. The vast expanse of bare skin and strong muscles Obi-Wan knows well and loves. Anakin has always been some dazzling creature, too vibrant to look at head on. Something about his leaving always seemed, in some distant way, a little bit right. Of course nothing like Anakin could stay for long. Obi-Wan should count himself lucky for the brief moments he got to spend with him. That he is back now, writhing in pleasure beneath Obi-Wan’s hands is too fortunate to be believed.

And yes, that feeling of wonder can easily coexist with Obi-Wan’s anger. His love for Anakin contains multitudes.

Because it is love. Obi-Wan has had years to reconcile himself to the fact. What other name is there for the feeling that fills the gaps in the space Anakin left behind? The competing joy and sorrow that lives with him as a constant companion in Anakin’s wake? Obi-Wan is a Jedi and the Jedi are discouraged from attachment but attachment is not the same thing as love. Obi-Wan can love Anakin, hate Anakin, and so long as he lets him go, he has not allowed his feelings to become an attachment. His emotions do not control him. Obi-Wan has done his duty as a Jedi.

Whether he can do that a second time, whether Anakin will force him into a position once again to make that choice, is another matter altogether.

Obi-Wan pulls out of Anakin completely and Anakin makes sure to watch as Obi-Wan surrenders in their little stalemate. He adds a little more lubricant to his hand to slick his cock and Anakin’s gaze turns sharper, hungrier, like before.

“I couldn’t quite believe it was you at first, when I saw you today,” Anakin says.

Obi-Wan positions Anakin’s legs on either side of his soft hips, bracketing his belly where it juts out into the space between his knees, kissing Anakin’s cock from above. “Neither could I.”

“But you look so different.”

His words don’t have the edge to them that Obi-Wan might have expected. He opened his door tonight braced for impact, the very real possibility that Anakin might look at the weight Obi-Wan has gained in his absence and laugh. But Obi-Wan hasn’t been worried about that for some time now. Anakin has made his feelings on that subject rather obvious.

As if to remind him, Anakin wraps his legs a bit tighter around Obi-Wan’s waist, squeezing him where he is softest. He reaches up to take Obi-Wan’s face in his hands, making sure not to sit up too far. He has been so patient for Obi-Wan to finally take him, he isn’t about to do anything to get in his way.

Anakin doesn’t have to say that he likes his new weight. He doesn’t have to reassure Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan doesn’t need that kind of approval from him. Where once that might have felt like a statement made on unstable ground before, now Obi-Wan feels sure-footed. Having Anakin look at him like he wants to eat him alive doesn’t hurt but there is something comforting about knowing that feeling of certainty, of confidence, wasn’t as unfounded as he once thought it was.

“Ready, dear one?” Obi-Wan asks. The spongy head of his cock nudges against Anakin’s prepared hole. He doesn’t really need another affirmation from Anakin, he can feel the tension in his frame, just how badly he wants this. But for Obi-Wan’s part, he wants to hear Anakin say it.

Anakin nods vigorously. “Yes,” he breathes. “Yes, please, Obi-Wan, yes.”

Obi-Wan leans in closer, brings their foreheads together again as he finally pushes inside. He and Anakin share the same slow gasp as Obi-Wan enters him, surrounds himself with Anakin completely, as Anakin feels himself filled. Where their stomachs and chests meet, Obi-Wan can feel Anakin practically trembling with the weight of his desire, with the promise of release.

Their eyes meet and Obi-Wan needs no other prompt to pull back and set a pace. There is some kind of shared spark of electricity between them, a circuit connected once more, the same way it used to when they sparred, or flew, or bantered back and forth. There is a rhythm to the way they fall in beside each other, a unity that makes the Force sing, and this is some small echo of that. Not the same, not entirely, but they come close in a way that is instantly addictive.

Anakin is tight. The preparation did its job, Anakin is stretched and relaxed and ready. The slide is delicious but Anakin embraces him from the inside, all but pulls him back in each time he enters him.

The rest of Anakin doesn’t seem to think they are close enough. He wraps his arms around him as Obi-Wan moves, gripping him tight, bringing their faces close. Anakin buries his face into the crook of Obi-Wan’s neck, his breath hot on his cheek. The noises he makes with each thrust sound directly in his ear.

It has been a while since Obi-Wan has done this. He was never one for celibacy, unlike some in the Order. But physical intimacy has never been a substantial vice for him, not when measured up against the soft spot he holds for deep, emotional relationships. Ciri and Satine and Qui-Gon and Anakin most of all—how could any casual encounter possibly hold the same danger for him as those relationships that he has carried with him, heavy on his heart, all his life?

But it has been a while since Obi-Wan has been so present during sex. Anakin makes him feel, in the same way he always has, like he is under a microscope. Anakin has watched and assessed with the kind of intense and focused eye that bordered on unnerving at times. But now that he thinks about it, allows himself to think about it, perhaps that is not the only way Anakin saw him. That for years now, perhaps Anakin has also admired and desired him.

“How long?” Obi-Wan says, his voice taking on a growl as he continues to fuck into Anakin. “How long have you been waiting for this?”

Anakin breathes heavily, trying to gather enough of himself together to answer. He looks like all of the pieces of him have scattered. His head thrown back against a pillow, lifting the long line of his neck. His shoulders, finally free of their ever-present line of tension.

When he does speak, he doesn’t ask what Obi-Wan is referring to. Whether that is because they have always been able to understand each other, in the surface, superficial way of finishing each other’s sentences and never anything deeper or because of something more, the way the Force flares bright and hot and sweet like spun sugar each time they come together outside of either of their doing, Obi-Wan doesn’t know.

“Years,” Anakin gasps.

Obi-Wan’s thrusts take on a greater intensity. He can feel himself wobble in all of his soft places with the effort. His belly. His thighs. His tits. Anakin keeps him held close in his arms with hardly any distance between them. A bead of sweat falls from his brow and onto Anakin’s chest. The distance between them is miniscule. Anakin’s lips suck a love bite into the tender skin beneath his jaw.

“How many?”

Anakin laughs then. “I can’t count them.” He groans and rolls his hips a little, chasing at Obi-Wan’s cock, wanting him deeper, fuller, all to himself. “What if I said I wanted you as a padawan? That I used to lie on my back in bed and think of this?”

Anakin is trying to provoke him even now that he is getting everything he wanted. Even now he wants to see if he can push Obi-Wan further, get him to reveal more despite the fact that his guards are lower than they’ve ever been.

And it’s working. The scene is easy to picture—intentionally so, perhaps it’s even true. The glint of honesty at its edges makes it even more enticing. Once, Obi-Wan would have been disgusted. With Anakin, for talking so blatantly about things that should be left unsaid. With himself, especially as he is now, for making that fantasy a reality. For wanting it to be true. Ultimately there is nothing wrong with the fact that Anakin had the appetite in the first place. That much is natural, healthy even. For Obi-Wan, who is older, who should know better, it is worse.

Perhaps Anakin did him a favor in leaving. Obi-Wan finds himself much less eager to indulge those old anxieties now that Anakin has returned to him, older, a father, and still wanting. Obi-Wan doesn’t have to tear himself apart thinking about corrupting his very young padawan, the impropriety of their relationship when pitted against the Jedi way of life, of wanting something he shouldn’t. Instead, Obi-Wan gets to have this, enjoy it, and his conscience is perfectly clear.

Obi-Wan lets out a groan as he hikes one of Anakin’s legs a little higher up on his side. The angle opens him up further, lets him enter deeper, faster. A thread of deep satisfaction in his gut curls tighter, growing taut. “Is it everything you imagined?”

“No,” Anakin whines, his breath devolving into panting gasps. He traces a hand down Obi-Wan’s chest, takes a handful of whatever soft flesh he can grab and squeezes. His mouth finds Obi-Wan’s in something too wet and messy to be called a kiss that leaves them with a string of spit to connect them and grins. “It’s better.”

Obi-Wan bears down then, fucking into Anakin with all of the skill and stamina and single-minded purpose he possesses. As his hips find their rhythm, he loses his breath. His thick, strong thighs drive him into Anakin’s exquisite heat, tight and perfect just as Anakin unravels into beautiful wreckage beneath him. He can’t see the lovely length of Anakin’s cock but he can feel it hard and leaking where it is pressed between both of their stomachs. Obi-Wan’s belly offers it some friction as it bounces, the steady grind of his hips jostling the bulk of him against Anakin.

Below him, Anakin takes his weight and revels in it. So much more of his master to hold in any way Obi-Wan will let him. So much proof to his continued existence, to his health and happiness, the certainty of his presence. All of it making it so much harder for Anakin to try and slip away without a trace like he once did.

The thought occurs to Obi-Wan with perfect clarity in the midst of a sea of just Anakin. The rest of him, his senses, his actions, his desires, all of him is consumed with Anakin but this one clear thought.

Anakin knows what it is like to have so much of Obi-Wan to himself now. From the look of it, that kind of gift isn’t one that Anakin is about to give up without a fight.

For a moment, foolish or not, Obi-Wan allows himself to imagine a galaxy where Anakin stays.

Anakin comes first, Obi-Wan makes sure of it. All of his self-control, his self-denial, make him really good at this.

It is Anakin crying out, throwing his head back against the sheets, going tight around him, that brings Obi-Wan to orgasm too. And Obi-Wan wouldn’t want it any other way. Knowing that he did that, made Anakin feel like this, makes his heart clench and his hips stutter. He gasps and holds Anakin to him, as satisfaction finally, finally overtakes him.

Obi-Wan lets himself be loud. Lets himself groan and pant in the aftermath. Anakin seems to beg for it, stroking his back and his sides, pressing his face into the side of Obi-Wan’s neck. Obi-Wan holds himself up on hands and knees for as long as he cares too, saving Anakin from taking the entirety of his weight on top of him. Distantly, he’s not sure Anakin would care. He might even prefer to go to sleep tonight covered by an Obi-Wan weighted blanket. He always did tend to run cold in the night.

He pulls out, still breathless, and Anakin makes a small noise of discomfort. A feeling tugs at Obi-Wan like gravity, begging him to collapse on top of Anakin and press comforting noises into the bare skin of his neck and chest. Let this sudden wave of exhaustion wash over them both until the mess between them dries sticky and uncomfortable.

But it soothes something in Obi-Wan to be the responsible one in this too. He steps with stiffening muscles to the fresher and grabs a washcloth. As he waits for the water to warm, he chances a look in the mirror at himself. The sight that greets him is not disappointing. Naked, but Obi-Wan is familiar enough with that. Tired, and despite his best efforts and the healing work of four years that much is fairly common as well. His hair is a bit of a mess, the longer bangs hanging in front of his face in a way that might be called rakish. Obi-Wan doesn’t take the time to categorize all of the little blossoming red marks Anakin left on his skin but he does glimpse a particularly dark spot on his neck just below the line of his beard. He smiles just a little as he turns off the tap, not meeting his eyes in the reflection.

When he returns to the bedroom, Anakin is back to watching him with careful eyes. There is a smug, sleepy pleasure that no amount of hesitation or suspicion can fully cut through but that wariness, like Obi-Wan might kick him out is still there amidst the haze.

It softens a little when he sees the cloth in Obi-Wan’s hand and he reaches out to take it rather than let Obi-Wan take care of him. Obi-Wan accepts this loss quietly and instead lies down on the bed beside Anakin. He allows himself to laugh when Anakin climbs on top of him.

“What’s this for?” Obi-Wan asks. He flicks a finger at the drying spend on Anakin’s stomach as though Anakin might need a hint as to what he should do with the wet cloth in his hand.

“Making sure you don’t go anywhere.”

“That’s never really been my problem, has it?”

Anakin swipes the cloth over his own cock and belly, straddling one of Obi-Wan’s thighs. He spends perhaps a bit longer than he should, running his cloth-covered hand along the mound of Obi-Wan’s belly, rising up from the mattress even flat on his back. He jostles it a little just because he can while Obi-Wan lies back and looks at him, taking in the sight.

There is moonlight coming in through the window—or, more realistically, light pollution from the city-planet around them, so close and so far away. The glow catches the edges of Anakin’s hair, giving him a halo and leaving most of his face in darkness. There is just enough light for Obi-Wan to make out Anakin’s face, the unreadable expression that sits there.

“You wanted me to stay,” Anakin says. Like it’s some kind of discovery he doesn’t quite believe yet instead of a basic fact of Obi-Wan’s existence.

And because Obi-Wan might die if he has to talk about his feelings in plain and honest terms, he says, “I wanted a lot of things.”

Anakin tosses the wet washcloth aside and adjusts his position over Obi-Wan’s thighs. He sets himself up over Obi-Wan’s hips, just as he was on the couch earlier tonight only with Obi-Wan completely at his mercy this time. When Obi-Wan moves to take hold of Anakin’s waist, wanting to wrap his fingertips from end to end around the span of it just to see if they would touch, Anakin bats his hands away.

Instead he bends down and uses his hands to press Obi-Wan back into the mattress. Their stomachs and chests are pressed together in a long line of bare skin flushed with heat. Anakin’s breath is hot against the skin of Obi-Wan’s face. All of his weight is carried atop Obi-Wan like he might really try to keep him here.

And despite everything they have both said tonight, despite everything Obi-Wan feels, despite having fucked Anakin only moments ago, Obi-Wan still cannot imagine that Anakin might actually want this. That he might have made a mistake all of those years ago in assuming that Anakin didn’t want him. That he was too proud to find out for sure.

“So did I,” says Anakin.

“And did you get them?” Obi-Wan asks.

Anakin breaks the intense eye contact, binding them together at such close range. His gaze slips from Obi-Wan’s eyes to his lips and then his chest. One of his hands tracks the movement as the other keeps his shoulder pinned. He traces the line of Obi-Wan’s collarbone delicately before trailing down along his sternum. He cups the soft mound of one of Obi-Wan’s tits in his hand, weighing it gently and running his thumb in a circle across the bud of his nipple. His touch is appraising, appreciative, and the contemplative silence goes on for long enough that Obi-Wan wonders briefly if he has forgotten the question.

“Some of them,” Anakin murmurs.

“Was it worth it?”

Anakin answers with his lips against Obi-Wan’s, his voice tired but satisfied as his eyes slip closed. “It might be. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Then Anakin kisses him and Obi-Wan kisses back. Luxuriates in the act in a way he never has with anyone, surprised to find himself content to just lie back and touch Anakin. Indulging himself utterly and completely in the desire to touch and drink his fill.

His future will never be what he thought it might be. In some ways, that’s for the best. The doom that always seemed destined to find him managed to pass him by. While he’ll never get back those years he spent mourning Anakin and it is hard to imagine ever forgiving either of them for assuming the worst and missing out on this, he cannot fully bring himself to regret the changes the past four years have wrought.

He has grown. He has changed. He has healed. They both have.

And perhaps there is still time for them to embark on the rest of that future together.