Trigger Warning: mental disorders, hallucinations, drug use, suicide, and non-consensual sex

Voices

Murmuring

"Wrong foot," said Master Drallig, and Obi-Wan glanced behind him.

The instructor was helping Garen with his grip on the training sabre, Obi-Wan can see him talking, but he can't hear what the Master was saying.

He shook his head, stared forward and swung his sabre.

It was an accident - a twitch in his right foot - as he stumbled forward and accidentally hit Bruck.

After that, the boy had taken to calling him Oafy-Wan.

Obi-Wan was late for a lecture, the stress of not being chosen as a padawan had caused plenty of stress and sleeping troubles, as there was only a year left before he turned thirteen.

Bruck was sneering at him, and Obi-Wan avoided the other boy's gaze because he didn't want to deal with the light-haired boy's bantha crap today. Garen was giving him worried glances, fidgeting a little in his seat.

Obi-Wan bowed towards their twi'lek instructor, vocalising an apology, before moving towards the empty seat next to his best friend, right behind his dreaded rival. He passed by Bruck, and he gritted his teeth when he heard the boy snigger.

"You alright?" Garen turned to him slightly, voice low.

"Nightmares," Obi-Wan said.

"What a baby!" Bruck's voice was loud, but not loud enough for the Jedi Knight to hear.

Obi-Wan clenched his fists, biting the inside of his cheek because he didn't want to show his anger and frustration - it was difficult enough to keep control of his moods these days, and he didn't want to give any prospective masters a reason not to choose him as an apprentice.

He looked up, and Bruck was writing in his holopad (more like doodling), slouching and resting his head on his hand. Obi-Wan turned to Garen, who was now dutifully taking notes as well, but sent him worried glances, and Obi-Wan licked his lips and bought out his holopad to do the same.

An hour later, they were in a different room in the Temple.

Obi-Wan yawned, exhausted, but it was in the middle of kata practise so he wasn't allowed to sleep. Besides, Bruck, was present, he'd rather not be teased for falling asleep while standing up.

"He's such a bully." He heard Garen mutter behind him, and the redhead nodded in agreement.

Eight months before his thirteenth birthday, yet the pressure and stress were at their highest. There were times that Obi-Wan couldn't sleep because he couldn't stop imagining scenario after scenario where he would be sent off to some desolate planet, dying of famine because the Force wasn't enough to sustain life in these places.

Maybe he wasn't meant to be a Jedi in the first place, and the Council was just being nice to him so they hadn't kicked him out yet.

He turned to one side, staring at the line of light beneath the curtains of the crèche, counting the dust that gathered on the floor.

'I have to sleep, there are classes tomorrow morning...' Obi-Wan thought to himself, his tally of dust was one hundred twenty three. "'Undretythree," he muttered, frowning.

He really should sleep, his mouth was awfully dry and he ended up mixing a few words. Maybe if he closed his eyes, he'd be encouraged to sleep?

So Obi-Wan did just that, and Garen accidentally throwing a bag of crisps at Reeft popped up in his mind's eye, so he giggled at the image.

If only the scenarios and ideas stopped coming to him at unnecessary times like these, sleeping would have been easier. Obi-Wan yawned and then sighed, sleep still far from reach.

He started counting bantha inside his head, imagining them jumping over a fence. Then again, it was rare that farmlands used fences nowadays, preferring shield generators and plasma walls over them. There are planets like Tatooine, though, that doesn't have the technology, but they used natural terrain as boundaries and kept sentries instead.

Speaking of sentries, Obi-Wan wondered what happened to the old ones that used to patrol the Temple entrance, seeing as they were replaced not too long ago. The new ones were-

"Go to sleep," Garen said, and Obi-Wan frowned because he didn't realise he was keeping his best friend up.

"Sorry," he whispered, remembering that he had mental shields and he was probably projecting so he woke Garen up. There was a groan, definitely Garen, and Obi-Wan turned to his side and pretended to sleep.

"What?" Obi-Wan thought he heard Garen said.

"For keeping you up?" Obi-Wan whispered back.

"Ngh...," Garen replied, groggy. "Keeping me what now? Just go to sleep."

Notes: So! This has three parts, the first one obviously goes on from before Obi-Wan met Qui-Gon, another one is after meeting Qui-Gon, and another would be the movie verse. There's an additional part before Obi-Wan was taken to the temple just as well.

According to Tarantino's words of wisdom, all stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end - not exactly in that order.

Also, all mistakes are mine because this was not beta-read.