[The holoimage shows a woman clad in standard-issue EduCorps garments. Her eyes are wide with fear, and the deafening noise of blasterfire intermingled with screams drowns her panicked words.]
We can't get out. They've taken the walkway and the hangars. Cloud, Kit and Spike tried to hold them in hallway besh-three – they are dead.
[An explosion, somewhere not far from the speaker. Then the unmistakable clanking noise of marching droids.]
They're coming in waves. Something – something has awaken in the tombs. We hear drums, drums in the deep – no! Force, no… they got through the blast doors!
[Another explosion. The clanking footsteps approach.]
We can't get out. It's the end... They're coming.
[One last explosion, a scream, and the blue image crumples to the ground before disappearing.]
Silence fell over the High Council Room. The greatest Jedi Masters of this age sat motionless in their circle of wisdom; not a shadow of fear or doubt darkened their carven faces, but their silence said what their features did not.
After a few heartbeats, Yoda voiced what the others could not bear to even think.
"Awakened on Korriban, the ancient Sith have."
Over the course of the years, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi had become quite a connoisseur of desert planets. Even if his understanding of the hellish environment was still dwarfed by that of his former apprentice, who had grown up on Tatooine, he knew enough to realize with just one glance that Korriban was unlike any other such place he had ever seen.
The asteroid field through which the Resolute was slowly wading its way reminded him of a morbid image etched in his memory since his impressionable Padawan days, gray bloodflies flying in lazy circles around the putrid wounds of a man he and Qui-Gon had found days after he had died.
The image was morbid indeed, but accurate: the planet beyond the asteroid field was a putrid wound. There was something to the rusty color of its sands that spoke of millennia-old bloodstains on rugged cliffs, of fractured slabs still guarding desecrated tombs, an ill presence festering in every crack of the planet's parched surface.
Not to mention the fact that the Force itself seemed to shriek away from the place.
Averting his gaze from the viewport and blinking away this unnecessary macabre line of thought, Obi-Wan cast a worried glance at his former apprentice, who was standing beside him and scowling at the planet below, horror and exhaustion carved deep in his features. Taking advantage of the fact that Anakin was too absorbed in his own musings to feel his gaze upon him, Obi-Wan took his time to study the boy he had watched turn into a man.
Nature had made Anakin tall and handsome; his training had given him broad shoulders and the lean, muscled body of a warrior. The loss of his hand had been a gruesome rite of passage to adulthood, a passage ultimately sealed by war, which had bestowed upon him a bronze tan and that trademark scar featured on the cover of half the Galaxy's holomagazines.
On the surface, Anakin was the perfect image of a Jedi – the poster boy of the Order, as Obi-Wan fondly called him. Sometimes he almost seemed to have come straight out of a holomovie on the Mandalorian Wars, and not because of his raw power, unlike anything else the Galaxy had seen in millennia, but because of his charming mix of dashing élan and natural leadership paired with a captivating smile and a generous heart.
On the inside, though, Anakin was devoured by his own inner fire. A moth to the flame, Obi-Wan knew that sooner or later he would be caught in the firestorm too.
"Master?"
Apparently, this time Obi-Wan had been the one too engrossed in his own thoughts to mind his surroundings; Anakin had averted his gaze from the viewport and was now staring at him, frowning slightly.
"Yes, Anakin?"
"What are you looking at?"
"You seem preoccupied," Obi-Wan said, evading the question.
Anakin bit his lip, hesitating. "I wish they had assigned someone else to this mission, Master," he confessed.
Obi-Wan folded his hands in his sleeves, arching his eyebrows in an inquisitive frown.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Anakin explained.
Obi-Wan opened himself to the Force and almost recoiled under the onslaught of Darkness soaring from Korriban's sands. Fighting to stand his ground, he reached out, following the tide of time beyond the horizon of the present moment, but the future was silent. He retreated back to the here and now, where Korriban stood as a catalyst of the Dark Side; beyond the evil of the place he could feel nothing amiss - at least no more than usual in an age of civil war.
"That's strange," he said at last. "I sense nothing. Well, other than that abyss of darkness we are happily walking into."
His try for a lighter mood failed; he saw Anakin swallowing, a brief spasm in the curve of his throat.
"I wish we weren't."
One hand slipped out of a sleeve, going to rest on Anakin's forearm.
"So do I, Anakin." An affectionate squeeze. "So do I."
A weary smile tugged at the corners of Anakin's lips. The golden grins of the first year of the war had long since gone, taken away by so many half-averted disasters: Mortis, Zygerria, the Rako Hardeen debacle, the loss of Ahsoka were only the major catastrophes in a tragedy three years in the making. Obi-Wan had never thought he would miss the times of Cristophsis and Geonosis.
"But we are Jedi, aren't we, Master?" Anakin asked, then sighed and dropped his gaze. "And we will do what we must, whether we want it or not."
The Republic archaeological research center built near the entrance of the Old Sith Academy had become a mass tomb: bodies – or what remained of them – were everywhere, sprawled across control boards, lying in crumpled heaps on the floor or half-buried under piles of rubble, some still in their beds. Trails of blood guided the troopers' steps. Death hung heavy on the air.
Unheard by all save Obi-Wan, the Force screamed in ghost agony.
The planet had been blockaded by Republic forces since the first months of the war; feeling safe under the protection of three star-destroyers, most of the archaeologists had been unarmed. No one could have figured death would come from below.
"Stay alert, men," Obi-Wan said, his voice booming in the eerie silence. "They might come back."
"They? What are they, Sir?" Boil asked, voicing what most of his brothers were without doubt thinking.
Obi-Wan kneeled beside the body of a young Zabrak woman; her chest sported two blaster wound, one for each heart.
"Droids," he muttered.
"Clankers?" another man asked, skepticism clear in his voice.
"No." Obi-Wan closed the women's eyes and got back to his feet, wiping his hands clean of her blood on his trousers. "Ancient droids, perhaps as old as the Great Hyperspace War. These blast points are too accurate for battle droids. Only supercommando are so precise, but there is no way they could have made planetfall without us knowing."
"Droids still alive and kicking after thousands of years?" Cody asked, bewildered for probably the first time in his life.
"Yes. Such is the power of the Dark Side," Obi-Wan said bitterly. "There were legends about this, bedtime scaretales for Jedi children, ancient tombs filled with assassin droids. There is always a bit of truth in old tales."
"But where have they gone now? And why did they awake in the first place?"
Obi-Wan stroke his chin, deep in thought.
"Woke up on their own, these droids did not," Yoda had said. "Activated them, someone has, someone powerful with the Dark Side."
"I thought the problem was that the archaeologists had dug too deep... too greedily. That they awakened something."
"Perhaps. But the shroud of the Dark Side I feel. Darth Sidious I fear it may be."
"But to what use, Master?"
"To test our resistance, perhaps, mmmm? Clouded everything, the Dark Side has. Beware, young Obi-Wan. Whatever you may see, trust it do not."
"I don't know, Boil," Obi-Wan said at last, relinquishing his reverie. "Perhaps the archaeologists triggered a trap. For now, though, the droids seem to have withdrawn."
Or, perhaps, it was really a Jedi trap. Frowning, Obi-Wan tapped his comlink. Only time would tell. In the meantime, he had to make sure his men were safe.
"Kenobi here, awaiting status report."
"Perimeter sweep complete, General. The area is clear. The squad in the dig site has reached the last check point with all green."
"Very well. We'll rendezvous at the opposite side of the Academy and go help Anakin and his men in the valley." He tapped his commlink again, switching to his and Anakin's private frequency. A buzz of static met him. Unease crawled cold on his skin. He closed his eyes and tried to reach for him into the Force.
Anakin?
Darkness and silence. The Force, shrouded in timeless malice, seemed to close around him and jolted him out of his trance.
Fear gnawing at his heart, he turned to his men.
"Let us hurry, gentlemen. I'm afraid General Skywalker is in danger."
"From the droids?" Cody asked, as he started to run.
"From himself," Obi-Wan said.
For a stunned moment Obi-Wan simply stood, staring at Rex in horror. A trickle of cold sweat ran from the back of his neck down his spine.
"Anakin has done what?"
Another man would have probably recoiled at his tone of voice; Rex simply frowned.
"He has entered the inner chamber of the cave alone, Sir. There was some sort of… Force barrier, he called it, and we could not get in. The General thought you were in there - he had some kind of vision, said you were in danger. He sent us back here to look out for straggle droids."
Exhausted and positively terrified, Obi-Wan brushed his fingers on the hilt of his lightsaber, searching his kyber for comfort, but not even the light of Ilum could pierce the encroaching darkness.
"Secure the perimeter, Rex, then call a med unit and wait for us. If we are not back in three hours, leave our hyperspace rings in orbit and return to Mandalore to join the rest of the battle group."
"With all due respect, Sir, I…"
Imperiously, Obi-Wan raised his hand to stop the man's protests.
"Have I made myself clear, Captain?"
This time, Rex swallowed.
"Sir, yes sir."
"Good."
Then Obi-Wan turned on his heels and broke into a run, crossing the vast expanse of blood-red sand with a single-minded focus, leaping over fallen pillars and dashing among sun-bleached bones and effigies of evil monarchs of old.
Had the situation been less dramatic, he would probably had found the time to snort in amusement. Trust Anakin to rush headfirst into a Sith cave because of a darkside-driven vision of someone close to him being in danger - and trust him to follow suit.
Obi-Wan had seen the cave on the way from the Academy, a dark crevice opening in the rugged cliff on his left. The Force was so murky he had not felt Anakin's presence inside; he could not sense him even now that he knew where to look.
An old fear took hold of him, the same fear he had felt as he stood behind the red barrier of light, helplessly watching Qui-Gon Jinn fighting Darth Maul and dying at his hands.
He ran as he had never run in his life. Winged creatures of darkness attacked him; he made short work of them, slicing through flesh and bone without even thinking. The Force guided his hand. Which aspect of the Force guided his hand was a question for another time.
When he reached a stone bridge arched across a gaping abyss, Obi-Wan knew his suspects had been founded. Straight out of a youngling's nightmares, this was no mere cave: this was the tomb of Ludo Kressh, Dark Lord of the Sith.
Always an history enthusiast, Obi-Wan had read enough of the legends about the Sith Lords of old to recognize it. There were rumors about this tombs, whispers of arcane demons still wandering its depths, of dark magic so powerful it could drive a Jedi to madness.
According to ancient annals stored in the deepest vaults of the Archive, a Jedi Master of old had passed unscathed through the chambers, surviving all the horrors the tomb had unleashed upon them. The true nature of those horrors – ghosts, the records had called them – had unfortunately been lost to time; the most widely acknowledged theory was that the tomb forced those who entered it to witness memories that haunted them, fixed moments in time that could never be changed.
If it so, Obi-Wan defiantly thought, I have nothing to fear.
Dark as his past may be, filled with pain, anger and regret, there was nothing in it he could not face head-on. There was nothing he could not face head-on if it meant Anakin's life. Not even Qui-Gon Jinn's death.
He dashed across the bridge. A rock he accidentally hit fell down over the edge and plummeted into the abyss; no sound of it hitting the bottom ever came.
There it was, the Force barrier: electricity crackled in the air, purple sizzles of long-forgotten dark magic casting eerie shadows against the carved walls of the corridor beyond.
Obi-Wan opened himself to the Force, pulling at the faint threads of light to shroud himself in their warm protection. They broke apart under his touch, crying in distress as they met the darkness around him. He tried twice, then let go.
He didn't have any time to lose. He crossed the threshold unshielded.
Obi-Wan found himself in darkness – both in the realm of gross matter and in the Force.
He was standing on the summit of a slope; the ground under his feet was so hot its searing heat seeped past the soles of his boots. The only light in his pitch-black surroundings came from a river of molten fire flowing several feet below him. Still, the lighting was unnatural: not even the red glow of the lava could pierce the thick darkness that surrounded everything. Of one thing he was sure: this was no memory. He had never seen such a place.
He stood there for a few moments, uncertain on what he was supposed to do. There seemed to be no way of crossing the river of flames, and somehow he knew that this was the direction he would have to go. Something moving at the edge of his line of sight caught his attention just as he was about to climb down the slope.
In precarious equilibrium on a small surface hovering across the lava flow, two figures of shadow were fighting each other, their blades shining in identical sapphire, a sight even more hideous than that of a red lightsaber.
The vilest blasphemy.
Jedi against Jedi.
Fratricide.
Aghast, unable to move, Obi-Wan stood and beheld the fight. The two warriors were good – incredibly good - and this made their duel even more horrific: Obi-Wan was an adept swordsman enough to know they were fighting to death. Still, he could not suppress the awe he felt before this show of skill. He hated to admit it, but it was a thing of beauty.
In all his years at the Temple and on the battlefield, Obi-Wan had never seen anyone fight like this. He had never even dreamed it was possibleto fight like this.
A Jedi and a Fallen One.
There was no way of knowing whom was which.
It was a clash of fates. A shatterpoint of faiths.
A duel out of a long-forgotten hero tale.
As the paralyzed universe watched, the blinding sizzle of lightsabers went on. The two contestants fought without quarters, thrusting their blades in search of an opening, body slamming against body, fingers closing around wrist or around soft, frail throat, limbs contorting in a struggle to escape a death grip. Tremors shook the ground and the air; the tension piled up, electric, burning hot and thick in Obi-Wan's blood.
Mortified at the deep, dark thrill washing over him, he averted his gaze.
This was something more than a mere duel of fates.
This was something personal, a deadly dance on the thin line between love and hate.
Two souls beyond salvation making love to each other in the only way they could.
The two blades met again, pressing viciously one against the other. Roused by the sizzling noise, Obi-Wan turned back to watch and felt his hair standing on his arms. One of the two opponents disengaged, backflipping on the slope a few meters above the shore.
Obi-Wan knew, with the bone-deep certainty of the Force, that the duel was nearing its end.
Precognition, or, possibly, mere expertise in the art of swordsmanship told him what was going to happen. He felt the Force gathering around the taller figure, the one still standing on the hovering platform. The man would jump. And the other man would cut him down, probably with a savage mou kai, the Mark of Dismemberment.
This, at least, was what Obi-Wan would have done were he in his place.
He was bracing himself for the gruesome spectacle about to unfold before his eyes when a spurt of lava cast its smoldering light on the face of the soon-to-be victim.
"No!"
Darkness drowned his scream, and Anakin leapt.
It wasn't even a choice. Duty, trust and the overwhelming need to protect guided Obi-Wan's hand.
His own blue blade cut through the traitor's heart.
But, once again, he had been too late.
Just before he died, the unknown warrior had swept his blade in that forbidden move Obi-Wan had foreseen, severing in one fell swoop both of Anakin's legs and his flesh arm.
The dead traitor crumbled to the ground in a dark heap, but Obi-Wan didn't even see it; the only thing he saw was Anakin's maimed body sliding down the slope, towards the fire. Desperately, still screaming, Obi-Wan tumbled down the hill and gathered what remained of his Padawan in his arms, cradling him, his eyes blinded by tears. When the stumps of Anakin's legs caught fire, they burned together.
The last scream on Obi-Wan's lips was Anakin's name.
"M-Master?"
Darkness. The ground shifting under him. A trickle of perspiration running down his neck.
"Obi-Wan?"
When he heard his name, Obi-Wan's eyes snapped open, but the darkness didn't lift. He blinked twice, trying to make sense of his predicament. Now that he was almost awake, and more aware of his surroundings, he realized that the shifting ground under him was no ground at all. It was someone's legs. Startled, he pulled up so fast his vision got black for a moment; he dropped back to his knees.
"Anakin?" he croaked as soon as he had regained his balance, belatedly appreciating the fact that, apparently, neither him nor Anakin were dead. He blindly groped around until his hands reached the body on which he had awakened. Anakin twitched under his touch.
"Yeah, it's me." Obi-Wan heard him snort. "It was a trap."
Obi-Wan huffed in relief. "Don't you say," he said, tiredly mocking him. "Oh, Anakin. Will you ever learn?"
"I learnt from you. Spring the trap," Anakin quoted, his sass somewhat spoiled by his still shaky voice.
"When we are together, not on your own."
Obi-Wan could sense Anakin's smile in the Force. "I knew you'd come," he said. "Eventually."
The memory of what he had seen before awakening sent a tendril of fear down Obi-Wan's spine: back then, he had been too late.
"Anakin," he murmured. "Did you fight anyone?"
Anakin's confusion echoed through the Force.
"Here, you mean? No, why?"
Sighing in relief, Obi-Wan realized his hands were still on Anakin's chest. He folded them on his lap.
"Nothing. I had a vision. You were fighting someone."
"Who?"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter. He's dead."
"Well, that's what usually happens when someone is stupid enough to pick a fight with me."
Obi-Wan didn't reply. There was nothing amusing in his memory. Anakin, incredibly, was tactful enough to understand he had somehow hit too close to home, and changed the subject. "At any rate, no, I wasn't fighting anyone. I was just lying here unconscious until you tripped over me."
Snorting, Obi-Wan called his lightsaber to his palm; the blade flared to life, casting its sapphire glow on them. They had been in darkness long enough.
Anakin was half lying, half sitting on the floor, his back propped against something that looked suspiciously like a sarcophagus. Behind it, Obi-Wan could make out what seemed to be the feet and the legs of a ridiculously tall statue of an armored warrior, whose body was lost in the shadows above. Cautiously, Obi-Wan stood up and inserted the hilt of his saber in a empty sconce on the nearest wall, so that it could cast its glow on them without him having to hold it.
"Lovely," Anakin said, eyeing his surroundings in disgust. "The Sith certainly knew how to brighten up a place."
"Anakin, it's a tomb, it doesn't need being bright," Obi-Wan remarked before he could stop himself, sitting down again beside Anakin.
Anakin waved a hand in dismissal. "Whatever. I don't like it."
"Neither do I." Wearily, Obi-Wan let his head thump back against the sarcophagus. "How in the blazes did you end up unconscious on the sarcophagus of a Sith Lord, Anakin? Honestly, I'm quite intrigued."
Anakin straightened, sitting cross-legged. "We were checking the cave for droids when I saw the Force barrier. I tried to reach out for it, but apparently the dark energy knocked me out for a while, and I think I had a vision." He frowned, his eyes glazed. "I was in a place I've never seen before, I'd say it was something like a military base – perhaps a space station. Some of the technology I couldn't recognize."
Trust Anakin to notice these kind of details even in a Sith-driven vision, Obi-Wan thought in fond amusement.
"The only thing I know is that I had to find you," Anakin went on, his voice now tense. "I don't know why, but I had to. I could sense your presence, I knew you where there, but I couldn't find you... until I found your robes and your lightsaber in a heap on the floor. Then I woke up." He blushed. "Screaming, according to Rex. I know this doesn't seem much, but trust me, it was creepy."
"And you thought that the best course of action was to come looking for me in a Sith tomb while you knew perfectly well that I was in the archaeological outpost," Obi-Wan said, fond amusement now turning into frustration. He knew that this ferocious need to save everyone was one of the things that made Anakin so endearing, but it was a terrifying trait for whoever cared about him: it could only too easily become a self-inflicted death sentence.
Anakin shrugged. "Better safe then sorry."
"I'm afraid that running headlong into a Sith tomb because visions fits more into the definition of sorry rather than safe," Obi-Wan said in a tight voice.
Anakin jerked his head upright. "Obi-Wan, can you please knock it off?"
"Knock it off? You put yourself in danger and left your men and put me in danger and I have to knock it off?"
Indignantly, Anakin leapt on his feet. "How in the nine Sith hells did I put you in danger?" he spat.
"You knew I would come after you," Obi-Wan said, dropping his voice and closing his eyes. Attachment. We have come to rely on our attachment to each other. Force preserve us. "You said that yourself. So you knew that I would put myself in danger to come and rescue you. Leaving our men behind."
To this, Anakin had no reply. He dropped on the sarcophagus; the ancient stone croaked under his weight. "Ok. Sorry, Master," he said in a flat tone, his head clasped in his hands.
Sighing, Obi-Wan got up and sat beside him.
"I'm not angry at you, Anakin, but don't do this again," he said softly. "You gave me quite a scare."
Anakin blinked, turning towards him. "You… scared?"
"Of course I was. This place reeks of Darkness. Who knows what horrors still lie in these tombs. Wouldn't you have been scared, were you in my place?"
"Well, that's the reason why we're here in the first place, isn't it? Beside me being a kriffing idiot, of course," Anakin said, snorting. "I was scared."
Obi-Wan sighed. The last thing he wanted to deal with right now was Anakin's self pity. "You didn't tell me how you ended up here."
"Keep your pants on, Obi-Wan, I'm getting there."
Obi-Wan knew Anakin enough to sense that he'd rather not get there at all, if he could. "I assure you, my young friend, Sith visions most definitely don't make me want to pull my pants off," he said, trying to ease the tension.
As always, Anakin rose up to the bait. "I'm glad to hear that. Not that I would judge you, of course, but it'd still be quite kinky."
Obi-Wan let out a long-suffering sigh. "Anakin."
"Ok, ok." Clenching his fist, Anakin forced himself to speak. "I had another vision as soon as I crossed the barrier." He closed his eyes. "Do you remember the dead star we saw when I was a child? The white dwarf?"
Obi-Wan nodded, shifting closer to him and sliding one arm across his shoulder to pull him in a reassuring half-hug. He still remembered the blind panic that had taken old of a twelve-year old Anakin at the sight of the spent star, the tears streaking down his round, childish face when Obi-Wan had told him that, just as all things do, even stars burn out. Sighing, Anakin let his head drop on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "You had nightmares about it for years," Obi-Wan said.
"Still have," Anakin admitted wearily. "In the vision, I was standing on the bridge of a Star-destroyer, right before the viewport. It was empty - completely empty. No droids, no men, all consoles powered off, but the ship kept going. It was like it was caught in a tractor beam, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And I didn't want to let the ship go there, I didn't, but I couldn't move, I was just staring at it... I was paralyzed, Obi-Wan."
Obi-Wan felt a burst of pride swelling in his chest. He knew perfectly how much such a confession was costing him - the so-called Hero with no Fear. He tipped his head sideways to let it rest on Anakin's.
"It was the dead star," Anakin whispered. "Not the white dwarf we saw. It was the dead star of my nightmares. White. Solid. Dead."
"Solid?" Obi-Wan asked, frowning. "A moon?"
"No, that was no moon," Anakin said, shaking his head. "I could feel the nucleus beneath the crust. Pure energy, like a kyber crystal. I know that stars aren't solid, but this one is. Was. I don't know how to explain." He frowned, as if in search for the right words. "It was sick – distorted. Abused. And I couldn't stop falling towards it. I was just staring at it, even though I wanted it destroyed. I wanted to crush it, but it crushed me."
Obi-Wan shivered, remembering Anakin's maimed body sliding down the slope towards the flames, remembered how he had shattered the unknown man's heart and how Anakin had died anyway. Their worst fears materializing before them.
"We cannot escape our deaths, Anakin," Obi-Wan said softly. It was true, no matter how hardly he wished he could protect Anakin from this truth.
Anakin trembled under his fingers. "I know," he said, his voice croaky. "I always thought death was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Now I'm not sure anymore." He paused, biting his lip. "I don't want to be afraid."
Oh, Anakin. "It's this planet," Obi-Wan said. "And this tomb. If I am right and this is the tomb of Ludo Kressh, it is famous for being haunted."
Anakin let out a faint snort. "Force, Obi-Wan. First geonosian zombie worms, now ancient Sith magic. You are a weirdo, not a Jedi."
"Well, one of us needs to know what we are doing," Obi-Wan protested, faintly offended. "Anyway, some scholars thought that the ghosts in this tomb showed the immutable facts of our lives." Obi-Wan paused, and Anakin's horror spiked in the Force. "I think they are wrong," he went on hastily. "I think that what we saw are our worst fears: you told me that yourself, you saw the dead star of your nightmares."
In an instinctive gesture of affection, Obi-Wan lifted a hand to card his fingers through Anakin's hair; Anakin winced and grabbed Obi-Wan's wrist, pulling away from him. "Don't."
Obi-Wan froze, his hand limp in Anakin's clutch. "I am sorry," he murmured, afraid to have crossed an unspoken barrier. He couldn't deny that, affectionate as they were, it was unusual for them to be this tactile - only during the second battle of Geonosis they had reached such... intimacy. Obi-Wan could still remember the heat spreading through him as they bantered throughout the battle briefing, Anakin's sheer relief when he had found him still alive, the way they had struggled to find a moment away from peering eyes just to hug each other in a crushing embrace. He blushed as he remembered what he had dreamt in his painkiller-induced sleep after the battle. War had given them that intimacy, and war had taken it away from them before it could even bloom.
"No, no," Anakin blurted, apparently grasping the surface of the thought - at least, Obi-Wan hoped it was just the surface. "I mean… My hair is soaked with sweat."
Oh. Obi-Wan's shoulders relaxed; his lips curled in a crooked smile.
"Do you think it would bother me?" he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. "I've had your blood on my hands more times than I care to remember – and your vomit too, now that I think about it," he added with a smirk.
Anakin grimaced in disgust. "Did you really have to bring that up? I was ten!"
Chuckling, Obi-Wan lifted his hand again, brushing his fingers against Anakin's cheek. Anakin leant into the touch, his eyes fluttering close. Obi-Wan hadn't seen him this vulnerable since after the first battle of Geonosis, in the aftermath of the loss of his hand. Back then, his fragility had been that of a devastated teenager who had broken down; now, though, it was a grown man deliberately shedding every defense before someone he trusted with his life. Obi-Wan stiffened at the realization; Anakin, apparently, misread the sentiment. He turned abruptly to face him, his hands raising to cup his face.
"What did you see, Obi-Wan?" he asked, his eyes wide and burning.
Obi-Wan straightened his back, painfully conscious of how near him Anakin was. "I don't see how thi-"
"Tell me." The voice of a General. Obi-Wan swallowed.
"I saw you die. I tried to kill the man you were fighting, but he got to you anyway. It was Qui-Gon all over again, only that this time I could have done something… But I failed."
"Your worst fear is watching me die?" Anakin croaked.
Obi-Wan blinked. "Yes. Of course. What else?"
Anakin leant closer, so close that Obi-Wan could see every crack on his lips as they moved. "Because of Qui-Gon?"
There was no easy answer to that. The death of his Master had left him scarred; it had taken years for Obi-Wan to overcome the trauma. But somewhere deep in himself he knew that a life without Anakin by his side would have been his worst fear even if Qui-Gon had lived. To run away from the truth hiding behind his Master's death would have been a betrayal of Qui-Gon's memory and of Anakin's trust.
"No," he admitted slowly. "At least, not entirely. Perhaps the fear of watching you die and being unable to help is affected by my trauma, but... we are at war, Anakin. We both know that not even our abilities can guarantee that we will live to see its end. We march into each battle knowing it may be the last. It's only natural that I fear losing you." The more he talked, the hoarser his voice became, until his last words were nothing more than a rasping whisper. Anakin was so close, too close, and when he swept his tongue on his quivering lips, covering them in a thin film of moisture, Obi-Wan had to swallow a gasp. Something red and dark pooled in his groin. He remembered the wanton way Anakin had slammed his body against that of his unnamed opponent, the carnal heat of their fight. Blind jealousy shot through him, and he felt a black jolt of grim pleasure at the memory of his blade cutting through the man's heart – the same ecstasy he had felt as he watched Darth Maul's severed body plummeting down into the abyss.
"But you killed him?" Anakin asked, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "The man who murdered me?"
"Yes." Revenge was not the Jedi way, and Obi-Wan tried to tell himself he had acted only to save Anakin. Without even realizing it, he leant closer. His hand slid back into Anakin's damp hair, pressing their foreheads together. "He died with my blade in his heart the moment he cut you down."
"Good."
For a long moment they stood together in precarious balance on the edge of the precipice, mouth a hair's breadth from mouth, just close enough that Anakin's warm breath fluttered on and past Obi-Wan's already parted lips.
Obi-Wan had always known that, once started, this was a fight he could not win; there was no fighting gravity, the eternal law binding crude matter and pulling him towards Anakin, the burning fulcrum of his life.
Not on a Sith Lord's tomb, was his only half-rational thought as he closed the distance between them.
Shaking, he let himself fall, pushing Anakin down with him and pinning him against the cold floor with his weight. Anakin's lips were there to catch him, warm and damp, primigenial.
Anakin kissed like he flied: bold and impetuous, smothering his inner fire in the absence of thought, his fingers tracing deep creases on Obi-Wan's back. For once, Obi-Wan soared with him, high among the stars, kissing him as he had never kissed before – as he had never done anything else before, with an abandonment he had never felt, with the same forbidden eroticism of the battle he had witnessed, his hands entangled in Anakin's hair.
They pulled apart, gasping for air, and guilt washed over Obi-Wan; frantically, he searched Anakin's face for a sign of regret for what had just happened. He found his eyes, and they were wide, darkened from arousal, impossibly blue in the light of Obi-Wan's plasma blade.
Gently, Anakin lifted a finger and touched Obi-Wan's cheekbone, tracing a languid path towards his lips. Obi-Wan leant into the touch with a sigh and his eyes fluttered close, but only for the briefest moment: he could not bear to lose the sight of Anakin lying under him, eyes wide and wet lips slightly apart.
Anakin's hand slid back, his fingers curling against the short hair on the back of Obi-Wan's neck, pulling him down for another kiss, mouth against mouth, desperate, drowning. Obi-Wan's hands traced the lean lines of Anakin's body, a body he knew better than his own and yet didn't know; his mouth slid down Anakin's neck, kissing and licking, eliciting small gasps. He could feel Anakin's own desire burning in the Force, intermingled with his, their barriers falling one after the other, crumpling to dust.
Slowly, deliberately, Obi-Wan tipped his head back to watch Anakin as he pressed his hips down on his, grinding his already almost full erection against Anakin's. The small sound Anakin made as his lips opened in pleasure sent a dark flame of arousal through Obi-Wan's body; clumsily, hungrily, he let his lips slide down over Anakin's jawbone, leaving a trail of hot dampness and small bites that made Anakin whimper under his wandering hands.
Reverentially, he let them slide down Anakin's muscled chest, down towards his belt and further down. Anakin moaned again, thrusting his hips upwards into Obi-Wan; then, he opened his legs, letting Obi-Wan in between them, clutching his hipbones with his strong thighs.
"Oh," was all Obi-Wan could say, all rational thought crumbling to ashes in the firestorm, Anakin's own arousal pressing against his stomach.
Then, the firestorm was inside him, burning, a urge more powerful than that of sex, stronger than honor and duty and vows. Panicked, Obi-Wan froze, his lips stilling on Anakin's collarbone.
"Obi-Wan?" Anakin moaned, distress for the interruption intermingled with worry.
"Anakin. I-" Obi-Wan knew what he wanted - needed to do. It was only right that he did it before he and Anakin crossed this last barrier together - no more secrets, no more lies. Still, he stumbled on the words. They had been true before, and for others than Anakin, but Anakin was the first person for whom Obi-Wan was willing to say them out loud. The first person for whom the words were more important than anything else. The Force itself seemed to nod in tacit consent. "I-"
His commlink started to beep with the high-pitched tone of the emergency channel. Dismay flashed across Anakin's face, and he looked away. Obi-Wan cursed softly, letting out a ragged breath and trying to compose himself before tapping the comm open.
"Kenobi."
"General. We have an urgent message from the Jedi Council."
Blast. With a sigh, Obi-Wan rolled off of Anakin and scowled at the black ceiling.
"Put it through, Cody. Standing by."
Anakin had propped himself on an elbow, and was watching him with wide eyes still glazed with lust. Obi-Wan couldn't help smiling, and was rewarded by a grin as blinding as the light of Tatooine's twin suns, even if a little giddy. The grin he had not seen on Anakin's face for years. Hope bloomed inside him, hope for a newly found trust after all the lies and the shadows of these three years of war.
"You were saying, Master?" Anakin asked, and leant over to kiss him swiftly, nothing more than a brush of lips against lips.
"Obi-Wan."
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes in frustration, eliciting a smirk from Anakin, who pulled away.
"Kenobi here."
"Obi-Wan. Coruscant is under siege. Grievous has kidnapped the Chancellor. We need you and Anakin back now to lead the rescue mission."
Anakin was on his feet even before Mace had finished speaking, his fist clenched in rage and fear.
"What?"
Exhausted, Obi-Wan nodded.
"We are on our way."
And perhaps it is better this way, Obi-Wan thought as they rushed out of the tomb. The place was tainted with darkness, and they had both been too emotional and raw. Too unbalanced because of those horrific visions of fears that would never become real.
This is not how I want it to be.
I will tell Anakin I love him when the war is over.