Warnings: Polyamory, mild sexual references.
Author's Notes: Written for moontyger for fandom_stocking 2012.
This is how it is between them.
In the stolen moments they find to train together, experienced hands gently manipulate young limbs through a new and increasingly difficult series of exercises. Fingers skip in the mimic of a caress upwards from the wrist, adjusting the elbow slightly as a lightsaber arcs experimentally away from the core of their bodies. Initially stilted movements are patiently transformed into the embodiment of fluid grace. Others might claim that instructive words alone are satisfactory guides, but they've found that the personal touch can lead to far more extraordinary results.
The night cycle finds them sharing cramped quarters, even though there's half a ship full of available rooms to spare. Jedi might be trained not to heed the minor inconveniences of the body, but it's still easier to allow their bodies to curl around each other's warmth, together fighting off the deep cold of space. Surely they must take whatever little comfort they can get in these hard times.
By day, the battle is fought in almost perfect synchronicity, with barely a spoken word having to pass between them. The moment one adjusts, the other is already instinctively moving to compensate. They stand back to back, then side by side, then they diverge until they're eventually thousands of klicks away from each other, assaulting the enemy on two separate fronts. At no stage, even that last, is there ever any doubt that the two of them are fighting together. The Council privately thinks it inexplicable that such a seemingly tumultuous pairing haven't long since gotten each other killed – rather, that they've actually saved each other's lives again and again, so many times they've almost lost count – but even the Council must grudgingly admit no other team within the whole Order achieves better practical results. None of them can understand it, but it's undeniable that somehow these two complement each other.
And once the skirmish ceases, when they're lucky enough to have a moment's downtime between sleep and lessons and the machine of war creaking ever onwards, they tend their partner's respective scrapes and bruises rather than leaving it to impersonal medical droids. They lean close, assuring themselves that they're both still alive despite the odds, using only light touches in place of the wild, life-affirming sex to which non-Jedi might have resorted in those circumstances.
Padmé knows that all these things have passed – and will undoubtedly continue to pass – between Anakin and Obi-Wan. Despite outward appearances, their relationship clearly spans beyond that of Master and Padawan, and certainly beyond being mere friends. She's well aware Anakin will never feel whole for long without his Master's body shielding him and vice versa. He'll never be able to resist seeking out the comforting heat of Obi-Wan's skin against his. Self-restraint has never been Anakin's strong suit.
So between his obligations to the Jedi Order and his even more solid commitment to Obi-Wan, Padmé can't think to pretend she'll ever have Anakin all to herself.
Padmé is forewarned about all of this. Yet she marries Anakin anyway.
She loves him enough to share his affections.
Anakin wonders whether Obi-Wan will feel the same.
It's not as if Anakin ever lies to Obi-Wan about Padmé, precisely. But he doesn't volunteer the information either. He has no pressing desire to risk throwing this careful balance he's been trying to strike entirely to the wind.
Oh, it's not that he thinks Obi-Wan would fly into a jealous rage. He's never been the type, and never will be. In fact, Anakin can't foresee any circumstances in which Obi-Wan would bear any ill will against a man he clearly loves so deeply.
But although Anakin knows full well that he's the most important person in the Galaxy to Obi-Wan, for Obi-Wan the Jedi will always come first. So Obi-Wan would surely feel obliged to report Anakin's flouting of the Code to the Council, who'll put to Anakin the option of either giving up Padmé or leaving the Order, and that's no real choice at all.
Better just to avoid all that.
But Anakin doesn't guard this secret as jealously as he does with certain other things he knows he must keep from his Master, and so of course his half-hearted attempts at stealth are in vain. After having subsisted with him day after day for over half Anakin's life, and having seen Anakin at his best (and, perhaps even more frequently, at his worst) more often than anyone else alive, Obi-Wan knows him all too well.
When Anakin returns to the Temple only an hour or so later than he normally would, there should be nothing unusual enough about the occurrence for Obi-Wan to pick up that something is off. Yet one look at Obi-Wan's face brings Anakin to an abrupt standstill in the doorway of Obi-Wan's room (their room, really, since it's been many months since Anakin's used the smaller Padawan's bedroom for anything other than a dumping yard for his mechanical experiments). he hesitates in the doorway despite it being open.
His Master's knowing expression informs Anakin that the details of how he has spent his evening are as obvious to Obi-Wan as if he were still carrying the musk of sex thick on his skin.
Anakin has a very brief and rather irrational urge to grovel. But there will be no apology forthcoming from him, and not just because Anakin hates admitting he's in the wrong. In this case it would be nothing but a false platitude anyway, for Anakin doesn't actually regret a moment of his time spent with Padmé. Why should he feel guilty when it's never had any impact on how he feels about Obi-Wan, and the time the two of them spend together? The two are entirely separate in his mind and his heart, and he has more than enough room for both of them.
So Anakin merely waits silently for the inevitable sigh of disappointment and words of disapproval disguised as wisdom. He waits for some ultimatum to be presented, or for an indication that Obi-Wan will reach out for the comm unit and contact the Council.
Strangely, none of that occurs.
Nor is there any other sign that Anakin's actions or lack of regret have hurt or even surprised Obi-Wan. He doesn't look angry, or disgusted, or even jealous that not only is Anakin in a relationship with someone else, but he's clearly also shared something with her that he and Obi-Wan will never have together.
Anakin might sometimes idly wish Obi-Wan would let their almost-innocent touches turn into something even more grasping, desperate, and undeniably passionate than the reverent way he touches his wife, but he knows it won't actually happen. Besides, in the end, for all that Anakin loves them equally, he doesn't need exactly the same things from Obi-Wan as from Padmé. The duck and weave of bodies tingling with adrenaline, robes barely brushing as they move to defend each other, is just as intimate for the two of them as the press of Padmé's flushed skin against Anakin's as they writhe together, both of them naked but for the synthesilk sheets that surround them.
And it's just as much a violation of the rule against attachments, for Anakin can no more willingly sacrifice that close connection with Obi-Wan than he can bear to lose Padmé.
Perhaps Obi-Wan recognises that. Perhaps it's a similar attachment on his part that stays his hand.
He sighs, but not with any of the disappointment Anakin had anticipated.
"Come to bed, Anakin," is all Obi-Wan says.
Anakin hears the permission inherent in the words. He also thinks he detects a silent plea that Anakin, whatever else he does and whoever he does it with, continues to always return here, to Obi-Wan, as well.
Anakin shrugs off his outer tunic and slides in beside Obi-Wan. He brushes his lips so briefly against Obi-Wan's cheek that it might be thought accidental – the barest hint of a kiss, a promise and a thanks all at once – before resting his forehead in the crook of Obi-Wan's neck. Obi-Wan's body seems to welcome Anakin's nearness just as whole-heartedly as always.
His Master's scent tickles Anakin's nose as he begins the slide towards sleep. It's so very different from Padmé's sweet perfume, but he couldn't honestly say which of the two he prefers to breathe in deep like this.
He can only hope that neither of them ever get it in their heads to make him choose after all.
He doesn't think that would end well for any of them.
~FIN~