Warnings: omegaverse, mpreg, mutual noncon, other consent issues, unhealthy relationships, self-harm, abuse, minor-character death, murder, dark!anakin, torture
So this started out as a short story and became one of my longest fics yet. I am still working on it, but updates should be coming regularly-I hope to update every week.
I am still a beginner of SW stuff and I've only seen the movies. Everything else I pilfer from Wookiepedia. So, if something doesn't seem right, give me a few hundred parsecs worth of creative license to tell this story, please :) Many liberties with the Force were taken.
I've used a much more literal and devout interpretation of the Jedi with a lot more emphasis on the cult-like aspects than canon (this is relevant later in the fic). The Order can get pretty unsavory here. Other religious points are directly inspired by real-life elements and doctrines used for the purpose of this story. No offense is meant to anyone of any persuasion.
This is a DARK story. This fic involves torture in later chapters. The sexual non-con in this story is of a mutual sort but there are more consent issues involved afterwards that, while they aren't sexual, are still very unhealthy. This is not a romantic story or one focused around sex as much-or even one focused around a/b/o dynamics, which are portrayed a little differently than the usual standard (mpreg is still a major theme)
Thank you so much for reading!
"Oh, Anakin," Obi-Wan whispers, touching his padawan's distressed face. His fingers must be ice on Anakin's hot skin—the boy pushes into his touch.
Anakin's twisted up in his robes, partway pulled off and revealing his slim chest, covered in a light sweat and heaving.
His precious scent infuses every particle of their room.
The energy around Anakin is leaden. Obi-Wan feels his estrus in the Force.
The entire room throbs with the call of life. Obi-Wan's never sensed such a powerful heat before. If he wasn't a Jedi he'd be helplessly susceptible.
Obi-Wan has to carry him bundled up in his robes to the refresher. He brings Anakin into the bath and sits down with his molten body.
Obi-Wan turns the sanistream to a cool mist. The spray quickly clouds the air, falling gently on Anakin's flushed skin and creased brow.
Slicking Anakin's lax lips with the moisture, Obi-Wan fights a sudden urge to weep.
You don't deserve this, he thinks. I cannot help you. In this you are so very alone.
But he is here, and he has to get ahold of his emotions.
He has to resist this.
Anakin moves. Obi-Wan looks down at him, and he can almost feel Anakin returning to consciousness in the Force—the energy flares just a bit brighter.
Anakin opens his blue eyes to his burning world.
"Master," he says loudly, blinking rapidly. The cold mist of the sanistream has formed water droplets in his long lashes. "I'm so hot."
Anakin whimpers and Obi-Wan holds him tighter.
"What is this?" Anakin closes his eyes and licks his lips. "What's wrong with me..."
"You are in heat, Anakin."
"Heat...?"
"I'm afraid so."
Anakin tries to open his eyes fully, but they cross and twitch. The fever has him tight. "Master," he murmurs. "I need... I need..."
Obi-Wan shushes him. Of course he knows what Anakin had been going to say and he is dauntingly aware he shouldn't be here with him. Obi-Wan's an alpha, and though he's above acting like an animal, the smell of heat is inescapable and it is begging him to act as such.
Does he leave Anakin here? Does he take him to the Healers? Obi-Wan has to tell the Council, Yoda at least—surely this has something to do with the Prophecy of this boy from the desert, on fire with the heat of his homeworld.
"Master." Anakin grits his teeth. Every muscle in his body tenses. His hands lift.
A small bolt of fear erupts in Obi-Wan. Anakin's waking a bit out of his fever, and his powers could crunch him in an instant.
Obi-Wan feels Anakin's swelling rage in the Force. Furious at not getting what his body demands. Anguished at what he's missing.
All at once Obi-Wan has to let go of him and stand. As he hurries out of the refresher he hears Anakin cough.
"Master?"
"I'm going to get you some help, Anakin."
What was the locking code to the door again?
"Master? Don't leave me. Please, don't leave me."
"I'll be back, I promise you." With this final placation, Obi-Wan puts a sealed door between them.
He breathes deeply. The world seems so different with Anakin's smell gone. This is what he needed.
He has no qualms about locking Anakin in their room. All of the necessities are accounted for—if Anakin will think to eat or drink.
Obi-Wan will not be gone long.
Obi-Wan leaves the Halls of Healing perturbed at the Jedi's lack of progress. At every turn, there is nothing the Circle of Healers can do. They do not want Anakin in the medical wing because it isn't set up for events like this and Anakin may disturb the other patients.
Perhaps he shouldn't be surprised. It is no secret the Order sidelines its omegas to the Corps more often than not. Only Anakin's prowess in the Force and the Prophecy hung over his head has kept him from that dead-end track.
And his Master, of course.
Obi-Wan considers now, going to the Council. That is of course, what he should do. But the matter is so personal. Is it right to even speak of such a thing? Wouldn't it be a betrayal to his padawan? Obi-Wan has already shared too many of Anakin's weaknesses and is aware he's done his own part in intensifying the Council's disfavor towards his wayward student.
But they must already sense the burgeoning Disturbance in the Force. What measures would they take to stifle it?
Unable to bear the thought of leaving Anakin alone, unable to share such an intimate secret with the Council, Obi-Wan has to go back to their room. He won't abandon Anakin.
It has been perhaps twenty minutes between locking this door to unlocking it now, and the smell lies over Obi-Wan as if a heavy blanket.
In these hot walls he could lose his very mind.
He finds Anakin still in the cold sanistream.
"Master!" Anakin wails in relief, and Obi-Wan feels a stab of remorse for having left him when he sees tears spill down Anakin's flushed cheeks. He's been in here too long—his padawan's gold hair is dark and soggy from the mist, his robes likewise wet.
But when Obi-Wan helps him up, Anakin's burning as if a hot coal.
He turns the cold sanistream off and switches the warm air of the sonic dryer on.
Anakin blinks blearily in the harsh air, swaying on his feet. As Obi-Wan goes to steady him, Anakin leans into his touch.
Anakin tilts his head down and looks up at Obi-Wan through the long fans of his eyelashes.
It's a look that's not unfamiliar. It's been swung Obi-Wan's way many times from Anakin, but he had dismissed such seemingly erotic looks as his own imagination.
But there is no mistaking it now.
Through Anakin's eyes, his very being challenges Obi-Wan to mate with him.
This torture will end in a few days, and then all this nonsense will be over, Obi-Wan tells himself.
There's nothing to do but set Anakin in his bed. Obi-Wan's alarmed to see Anakin's already coated in sweat after just stepping out of the dryer.
"Am I going to die, Master?" Anakin asks.
Obi-Wan looks at him sharply. "No. You will not die, Anakin."
"I'm burning," Anakin says. He blinks slowly and strains to concentrate. "You set me on fire..."
Obi-Wan furrows his brows at this, but dismisses the words as claims from a feverish mind. Anakin's locked away in a volcanic world even as he lies free on his bed.
Obi-Wan will never know that world, and for that he's thankful.
He stays by Anakin with water and those sweet fruits from the conservator he enjoys. Most of Anakin's consciousness has burned away again—his eyes have slipped closed and he's murmuring soft and indistinct.
It's late now. Obi-Wan can barely see Anakin in the darkness that's lowered on top of them. He slowly moves to his own bed, letting his robe drop in the process.
He must get all the rest he can.
Obi-Wan lays his head down and closes his eyes, but he does not fall asleep until Anakin's pleading ends.
It is no lighter when Obi-Wan wakes.
He turns his head and focuses on Anakin's bed. There his golden form sits, rocking in place.
Anakin's robes are nowhere in sight.
"I'm thirsty, Master," Anakin says when he senses Obi-Wan's awake, sounding far more present than at any other time tonight.
"Should I be glad for this momentary return to rationality?"
"I want water," Anakin pleads.
"It's there, right next to you."
Obi-Wan sits up and moves the covers off himself. He doubts he'll sleep a hand's worth of hours the next few days.
He uses the Force to turn the dial at the other end of the room and watery illumination spills over their beds.
Anakin clutches himself tighter at the light and stops moving. His slim arms are wrapped around his chest, and now Obi-Wan sees the sheen of sweat on his smooth, sunkissed skin. Anakin's padawan braid glimmers like the sweets he's fond of eating.
Obi-Wan has to look away from him, and finds himself checking the door's indicator light to see if it's definitely locked. His biggest fear is Anakin getting out and running amok the Temple.
Obi-Wan doesn't know where this fever will take Anakin. He knows, intellectually, what heat is, but he's never actually witnessed it firsthand.
He's never seen Anakin sicker.
Omegas don't die from heat, he scolds himself. It's natural. It passes.
But this isn't a normal heat. It's the Chosen One's. The most powerful being in the Force.
"Master," murmurs Anakin.
Obi-Wan gets up and takes the cup of water.
When he comes round Anakin, the boy looks up at Obi-Wan again in that sexual manner. "I can smell you," he says.
Obi-Wan clears his throat. "Drink," he urges, offering Anakin the cup.
"You smell so good, Master. It makes me want you to fuck me over and over."
Obi-Wan's eyes flare. Anakin's never said that word in front of him, that vulgarity from the Outer Rim.
Anakin takes the water.
"Don't speak to me like that, young one," Obi-Wan snaps as Anakin drinks his fill in long swallows.
Anakin lets the cup clatter on the floor. "It hurts," he whines, and shifts onto his knees.
Obi-Wan turns his head from this exposure and removes Anakin's hands from his leggings when they fist in them.
"Master, I'm burning," Anakin begs. "You have to help me. I need you. You're everywhere." Anakin pants. "Alpha, alpha."
"You must get control of yourself," Obi-Wan says, but it's like talking to an animal. It's some inner demon that's broken out of whatever binds there had been.
Obi-Wan feels Anakin's desire in the Force. It's bled into every strand.
He hopes no one's listening closely. But those strong with the Force would hear Anakin's song, no doubt. And there were so many of them in this Temple, so close.
Perhaps leaving wouldn't be so reckless. A half-world over for a few days. There, there was no Council, and in the lowest levels Jedi were but myths.
"I don't think we should stay here," Obi-Wan tells him, turning his eyes to the pleasant view of Coruscant's cityscape instead of Anakin's body. He writhes now, wet in every way, and Obi-Wan wonders about the Prophecy.
Fifty klicks away and a few hundred levels below the Jedi Temple and Obi-Wan feels better. They did not have to travel far to be nobody. In plain tunics and leggings, they aren't even Jedi.
Not that Obi-Wan hadn't taken their weapons.
"Master," Anakin says next to him, nearly lost in the wind. "Don't drop me."
"You're safe, Anakin," Obi-Wan assures his delirious mind, and tries to soothe him in the very Force, made a red jungle by Anakin's heat.
This was the best option. Once this fever is waited out, they'd return to the Temple, and Obi-Wan would explain everything that he hadn't in the brief message he'd left Master Yoda.
Their speeder sails far from Core Square's clutch. Anakin's braid whips his face and Obi-Wan's eyes tear. They go further still, until he can no longer sense any Forcefuls at all, not even Yoda.
Besides the quiet breath of life below them, the Force is nothing but the hot coil of Anakin's cycle.
When Obi-Wan lands the speeder, he shifts his shoulders and he relaxes. He's stolen Anakin from the Temple perhaps, but Anakin is his padawan and Obi-Wan knows what's best for him. In this smoggy substratal spread, no one but him could now feel this new Disturbance in the Force.
A sum of credits later, they have themselves a hotel. A glitbiter crosses their way and blinks curiously at them in all the pre-dawn light that still manages to seep down here.
The smell of another alpha burns Obi-Wan's nostrils.
Anakin raises his head and his own scent strengthens.
"You will ignore him," Obi-Wan says to the twitching dweller, lifting his hand.
After several moments of uncomfortable staring, the man repeats, "I will ignore him," but nonetheless scans Anakin's body before he turns reluctantly and walks away.
Obi-Wan watches his retreating form until it disappears, frowning—it had taken more effort than usual to convince such a feeble-minded individual.
"Don't worry," he says to Anakin. "There aren't many of them here."
Though he knows worry is not what Anakin feels.
He's still staring in the direction the alpha disappeared.
"Anakin," Obi-Wan says sharply.
Anakin starts and whines.
Obi-Wan hadn't meant to sound so angry. It'd snapped out of him before he could think.
What has taken over me, he wonders, taking Anakin's arm to pull him into their retreat.
The door is only a flimsiplast-thin sheet of metal, but it locks at the very least.
Anakin's scent fills the cubed space like a cleansing fire. Obi-Wan blinks heavily at the smell and has to go to the refresher.
Though there's no major duties being unattended to, there's a strange mounting anxiety in his breast for having left the Temple—he rarely shows himself in the lower levels of the city outside missions, and the Council would have sensed the Disturbance of Anakin's heat if they didn't know exactly what it was. In his message, Obi-Wan hadn't exactly mentioned why Anakin could not stay in the Temple.
He can only hope they trust him enough to leave them unmolested.
Obi-Wan rubs his beard. There'd been reasonable cause to leave, after all.
He gives Anakin more water and a plain sandwich he's brought with them. Anakin chews messily, struggling to drag his sweat-stung eyes open. He seems calmer now, and Obi-Wan doesn't know why.
Heat must come in waves.
"I'm so tired, Master," Anakin mumbles.
Obi-Wan uses his thumb to clean crumbs off his lips.
Anakin steps into his arms. Obi-Wan nearly pushes him away, given the circumstances, but Anakin just rests his cheek against his shoulder and wraps his fingers gently in his tunics.
Obi-Wan allows himself to hold him.
Anakin turns his head on his shoulder and Obi-Wan feels his breath touch his neck, the expansion of Anakin's ribs. "You smell wonderful, Master," Anakin murmurs, and Obi-Wan must let him go.
Anakin travels to the window. Obi-Wan doesn't think he really sees out of it.
Obi-Wan takes his boots off and lies back on the bed closest to the door.
"Wake me if you need anything," he tells his padawan at the window, but Anakin gives no sign of having heard him.
Obi-Wan lets his exhausted eyes close. These events will be clearer once he's rested.
Obi-Wan dreams of sand on his lips and the desert suns of an oddly green world blazing through his fingers. It's heat that he feels upon awakening, his neck and chest damp.
It's much hotter than when he fell asleep. His lips are salty when he licks them. It isn't normal for Coruscant to be this warm.
When Obi-Wan opens his eyes, he blinks at his unfamiliar surroundings. And then he remembers he's no longer in the Temple, and nothing is as it was.
The source of the heat is of course the fevered creature he's brought with him. Anakin is lying in the other bed, naked again, wet and curled in a trembling pile of flesh.
Obi-Wan checks his comlink. Blessedly, there's no news.
Anakin's scent stacks in his lungs. It's even stronger than before. It lies over Obi-Wan's skin like an intoxicating spice-laced salve. His fingers clench tight as a poisonous seed of arousal plants in his gut.
Focus. It's just been so long since he pleasured himself. Indeed, he can't remember when that was...
No, he must be above this!
The sheets rustle and he looks over at Anakin. Obi-Wan's eyes meet his. His padawan has risen from his bed and now towers over his own.
A cold flash of fear strikes through him as Anakin's rage and fire press on his mind. "Obi-Wan," he says fiercely, "Obi-Wan."
"Anakin," Obi-Wan says. Anakin's eyes are only an animal's. It's a wonder he can even form his name. "You should rest, Anakin."
NO, Anakin says, though his lips don't move. Obi-Wan hears it between his ears, and it's as if he's thought it himself.
Then he can think nothing.
Obi-Wan wrests his mind from Anakin's grip. The swell of power Anakin's wielded against him threatens to throw his very sanity over the brink into black space. He casts away the chains from his mind, but it leaves him frozen.
Anakin descends on him.
"No, Anakin!" he shouts, shoving at Anakin's chest as Anakin's fingers claw into his shoulders, as Anakin tries to push him down onto the bed. "Get off!"
So near, all he can smell is Anakin's madness.
It frenzies for him. It howls for him.
And Obi-Wan starts to burn with him.
"Anakin," he pleads. "Stop. Stop this, stop this, stop this."
Anakin's hands rip the ties off his leggings. When Obi-Wan tries to stop him, Anakin lunges for him, spittle flying from his mouth.
Obi-Wan rolls to the side and off the bed, but Anakin chases him down.
And he has Obi-Wan's lightsaber in his hand.
Before Obi-Wan can call it back to him, Anakin rears up and drives the base of it down into his temple.
The world flickers and dies.
Pain.
Obi-Wan clutches his head and blinks the blackness of oblivion away. It hurts to just use his eyes' small muscles to open them.
What happened? He remembers his padawan's heat, he remembers taking a speeder, air rushing past his ears with Anakin beside him, then he had slept.
"Anakin?" he groans. He rolls over. The surface he's on is hard and cold—the floor, why is he on the floor?
Obi-Wan's mind revs sluggishly through a scattered pattern of events he can't make sense of.
He turns to the Force for answers. It's so much lighter than the last time he touched its currents Obi-Wan has to strain to reach it. In its smooth waters he senses Anakin's signature.
Obi-Wan's mind launches in a dizzy spin towards his just to bounce rudely off a block Anakin's erected. Obi-Wan would be happy Anakin's cognizant enough now to put up this shield, but instead his entire being rages with the need to—
Burn.
Obi-Wan gasps from the ash in his throat. Anakin sits above him, and Obi-Wan sees the hilt of his own lightsaber crash towards his face, filling his vision with its cold metal. He feels it impact his skull all over again and flinches on the floor with a shout.
In the same painful present, he knows what Anakin's done.
Obi-Wan feels down between his legs and finds his length naked and sticky to the touch.
"Oh no," he says, struggling to his feet, "Oh no no no no. Oh Force, no."
Anakin, he wails at the barrier between them. Anakin, what have you done?
He doesn't find Anakin in the hotel room and he doesn't find Anakin in the refresher. Even now Anakin's signature is fading beyond the block he's put him behind.
Obi-Wan pulls up his leggings and goes to the door. The lockpad is cracked in three places, throwing up sparks. Obi-Wan has to lift the ruined door with the Force to open it.
It's dark again. Force knows how long he laid on that floor, how long Anakin—
He doesn't know where Anakin's gone, but at least he can move in the direction he senses his presence heading. Perhaps Anakin's traveling back to the Temple.
Obi-Wan quickly takes out his comlink. Though he's not expecting an answer, his heart still revolts when Anakin doesn't respond.
Obi-Wan checks out of the flophouse and steps under a shadowy store roof to record a message.
"Anakin," he says, "You must tell me where you are. Though an awful thing has come to pass, know you are still my padawan and I forgive you. It was not your choice. I need you to answer, Anakin. I won't be returning to the Temple without you. If I have to check every level—I'll track you down eventually."
Obi-Wan tries to smile but can't quite muster it. "May the Force be with you, Anakin."
He sends the message to Anakin's comlink from his own, but then the small device suddenly beeps and its indicators flash red.
He stares at it.
OFFLINE.
Obi-Wan tries to send it again and once more his comlink flashes that damnable color.
OFFLINE.
"Damn it all, Anakin!"
He hurries to the speeder.
Mace Windu prowls across the length of the Council room floor. "What do you mean, he's gone?"
"Anakin will return to the Temple," Obi-Wan insists. "He's just—"
"You took that boy," Windu hisses, "you took that boy while he was in heat to the undercity and you lost him?"
Obi-Wan shifts on his feet. "Anakin hasn't left this planet. I still sense him. I believe he's hiding in the lower levels. We shouldn't doubt he'll return soon, but if he doesn't, I ask the Council dedicate resources to aid my search."
"Face it, Obi-Wan," Saesee Tiin says, "it's been long enough. He destroyed his comlink. Omegas aren't suited to be Jedi. We have to view this move as an act of apostasy."
"No," Obi-Wan pleads. "His cycle was so much worse than either of us could've expected, and we all felt it. Anakin needs time."
"How much time?" Windu growls.
Obi-Wan sighs. "He will return, Mace. Anakin won't leave me."
"Attached, he is," Yoda agrees.
"That is for the better right now," Obi-Wan hurries to say.
Yoda's aged eyes turn towards him. "Let Skywalker go, Obi-Wan cannot."
Obi-Wan looks away. "Don't we all still believe he is the One?"
"What I sensed in the Force that night wasn't balance, Kenobi," Eeth Koth observes. "These unfortunate events will come every month the rest of his life. They'll only bring madness to the Order."
"I'm sure the others will not be as powerful and Anakin will learn control. He is just a young padawan. He hasn't even undergone the Trials yet. We shouldn't give up on... the Prophecy, just because of these developments."
"Fine, Obi-Wan," Windu says at last. He looks around the room and lets out a rough sigh. "The Council grants you the next ten days to retrieve Skywalker. But you will do it alone—we won't spare any more resources than we have to on this wild bantha chase."
Mace looks at him. "But, Obi-Wan, if you fail to find him, if he fails to come out of hiding, no more concessions will be made for him. Anakin will be expelled from this Order, prophecy or no prophecy."
Obi-Wan bows his head. "Thank you, Masters. I will leave immediately."
By now, Anakin's presence is directionless. It is so faint Obi-Wan has to struggle to grasp it.
He first flies back to the flophouse to orient myself at Anakin's last location then takes an airbus to the larger district nearby.
But he doesn't find Anakin there.
And he doesn't find him in any of the midcity clubs or any of the medcenters stapled around the residential blocks.
On the sixth day, on little rest and fading hope, a certain unease buds in Obi-Wan's mind—over and over again he's tried to reach past the block Anakin's put between them. Its roots have grown deep in the Force. Obi-Wan wonders if it has the power to keep him from Anakin. Perhaps it's distorting his perception of distance.
In Obi-Wan's scattered naps, he still hears that NO echo in his skull, said by the animal heat had made of Anakin.
He remembers the way Anakin had nearly overtaken his very sanity. He's never felt such enormous Dark power.
Once Obi-Wan considers he'll never find Anakin unless his padawan wishes it, there's no more sleep to be had. He spends the nighttime hours in Coruscant's bowels, baying for him in bars and brothels. During the day he looks for him in the skies.
But Anakin never gets closer.
A day before Obi-Wan's search must end, he has to weep. He gathers what little of Anakin's energy he can still feel and mourns for what's been taken from them both. He cries for the wasted years of training, he cries for Anakin's lost future, he cries for the madness that's caused this. Most of all, Obi-Wan cries for the generations of young Jedi to come who will never know balance.
I have failed you, Master.
On the morning of the very last day, Obi-Wan decides to board a starliner. Maybe he's been wrong and Anakin has gone off-planet.
He no longer trusts his own senses.
As Obi-Wan's signing for a tour of Corellia, his comlink starts chirping rapidly. He taps to ignore it. It'll be Windu courteously letting him know he must return to the Temple tomorrow or face his own expulsion. It's the compassion Obi-Wan's come to know, but anger burns his insides.
If this damn world wasn't so prejudiced against omegas this wouldn't have happened—if the Circle of Healers hadn't stonewalled him, if the Jedi didn't wrongly shun such a gender, if the Council was capable of more than the modicum of care they've shown his padawan all these years—
Beep. Beep. Obi-Wan doesn't answer.
Even if he found Anakin right now, there's no guarantee the Council wouldn't strip him of his apprenticeship when he faced them. It wasn't explicitly in the Jedi Code to forbid omegas from training, but there were always other avenues in which the Order made its distaste known.
Obi-Wan is not going to let Anakin rot in the AgriCorps.
His comlink goes off again. Once again Obi-Wan cancels it.
His ire turns from the Council to himself. Stars, who was he to believe he could take the situation into his own hands? Despite the trappings of the Order, it was him who struck the sparkstick by taking Anakin from the Temple.
The next call flashes an urgent yellow and Obi-Wan finally accepts it.
Mace Windu's voice flickers over the line. "Is there any reason you didn't pick up the last three times?"
"The ship's instruments must be causing interference."
"Really." Mace is quiet for several moments. "Why are you on a ship?"
"I've been pole to pole and Anakin's Force signature hasn't strengthened. It tells me he's planetside, but he gets no closer. It doesn't make sense, but I have to consider the possibility he's gone off-world." Obi-Wan smiles humorlessly. "Shall I send you my robes?"
"Obi-Wan," Mace says, "Anakin is here at the Temple. He returned this morning."
A bubble of elation bursts in Obi-Wan's heart. "Truly? Anakin is there?"
"I suppose you were right after all. Now, you will return to the Temple immediately. I've called a meeting of Council members this evening. You will bring Anakin before us then."
"How is he?" Obi-Wan persists. "Is he uninjured?"
"We expect your arrival shortly. May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan."
Even on the Processional Way of the Jedi Temple where he supposedly has returned, Anakin's signature shows no change.
It is the work of the strange mental structure, then. But at last, Obi-Wan no longer has to try to reach Anakin that way and he's able to draw back from its dubiously Dark energy.
He strides into the Temple on a cloud. The happenings of the last two weeks seem an age ago.
In fact, all thought leaves him once he finds Anakin.
Anakin is standing on the sandy lip of the pond in the meditation chambers. The slack of his dark robes has trailed into the deep blue water, and his head is lifted towards the sunlight spilling over the lush greenery through the transparisteel ceiling.
Obi-Wan quells everything he desires to say as to not interrupt Anakin's peaceful moment and crosses the grass to stand by his padawan's side.
He can scent Anakin now. He smells entirely lovely, soaked in the sun. It's as if the fires of heat have completed him and yet, made him anew.
As he considers Anakin, his mind instinctively races to touch the being holding his attention.
He rebounds off the monolith Anakin's placed between them.
And the peace pops.
Anakin tenses and drops his head, his eyes darting around as if frightened.
"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan says.
With a swift turn, Anakin moves to leave. "Anakin—" Obi-Wan reaches out and catches his robes.
Anakin fervently snaps out of his hold. Water from the hem of his cloak dashes Obi-Wan across his knees.
"Don't touch me, Master," Anakin warns, his breath hectic.
Anakin doesn't look at him.
"Where were you?" Obi-Wan asks. "Where were you?"
"Does it matter now?"
"It matters to the Council, who we have to stand before just a couple hours from now," Obi-Wan tells him.
"So they know. You told them?" Anakin's voice trembles.
It's plain to him what Anakin's speaking of, but Obi-Wan had no plans to discuss that so soon.
An uncomfortable, painful silence thickens between them the longer he takes to speak. "I only shared the information relevant to finding you as quickly as possible," Obi-Wan says at last. He tries for a smile. "But here you are."
Anakin looks disturbed. "I am going to be expelled, aren't I?"
Obi-Wan frowns. "That's not very likely, Anakin. This was an isolated incident and will not happen again."
"Isolated incident?" Anakin repeats. "I know what I am. The same thing will happen again in a couple weeks."
Words click uselessly in Obi-Wan's throat. "Perhaps it will not be so strong, next time," he settles on, loath to discuss such private matters and unsure now, of what exactly they're speaking of.
Force, does Anakin remember what happened? How can Obi-Wan even begin to articulate such a question?
"I'm sorry, Master," Anakin says, as if an offering. "For worrying you. I should've returned sooner. I was—I was lost."
It certainly isn't the truth, but Obi-Wan represses the urge to pry. Even that short admission seems to have drained Anakin where he stands, and from the dark circles under his eyes, Anakin's slept no better than him the past weeks.
Obi-Wan nods and crosses his hands within his sleeves. "Let's hope that is all the Council will want to know. And, Anakin..."
Anakin finally brings his eyes to Obi-Wan's. A large orange butterfly has landed on his shoulder, its pronged antennae pondering Anakin's braid.
"...If there are consequences for this, you know I will always be by your side."
Obi-Wan smiles at him, but his assurance doesn't touch his young padawan.
Anakin's eyes fill and his face crumbles. A sudden sob erupts from his lips and cracks painfully in Obi-Wan's ears.
"Anakin?" he questions, automatically reaching out to grasp his shoulder.
But Anakin spins away from him, the butterfly taking wing in his wake and alighting on Obi-Wan's little finger.
Obi-Wan waves the insect from his hand and follows Anakin's quick strides out onto the open terrace of the chambers.
Vines as thick as trees reach even out here, and Obi-Wan nearly trips over them in his haste.
Anakin is already at the bronzium parapet, and through the blinding glare of the low sun, Obi-Wan sees his long fingers find a grip in its smoothed top.
Alarm blares in him.
Anakin brings a foot up onto the wall, but that's as far as he gets. In a blink, Obi-Wan is there, securing his arms around Anakin and hauling him off the edge and away from the long drop off the Temple's tallest tower.
"Force," Obi-Wan gasps, holding Anakin tight to his chest. His shocked heart kicks at Anakin's spine. "What in Sith hells were you doing?"
"Master!" Anakin cries, heaving in his arms. "I'm sorry, Master! I'm sorry!"
A bitter trickle works its way down Obi-Wan's throat. He could never be so blessed that Anakin would simply forget the state he left Obi-Wan in on the floor of that flophouse.
Such wretched sobs leave Anakin that Obi-Wan's own tears wet his padawan's shoulder.
"Stars have mercy," he begs, and the warm Coruscanti wind blows.
Obi-Wan doesn't let him go for many more moments. Anakin's plaintive sobs dry up, and they stand there on the Temple's terrace underneath the emerging cover of night.
Obi-Wan feels Anakin's warm hands cover his where they're locked at his waist. "Master," Anakin says in his dripping wet voice, "How can you touch me after what I've done to you?"
"You've done nothing to me."
"I did, Master. I—"
"You've done nothing, Anakin. It wasn't your choice. The madness you didn't ask for, we both fell prey to it." Obi-Wan closes his eyes. "I should never have taken you from the Temple."
"No, I should've been stronger."
Anakin pulls away from him. He stalks back into the meditation chambers and Obi-Wan follows, silently. He can feel Anakin working up into another nova.
"Why do I have to be an omega?" Anakin hovers by a bunch of arallutes. For the misery in his voice, the touch of his fingertip along the purple petals is gentle. "Every month I'll—I'll have to be locked away. Every month I'll burn. Every month for the rest of my life. How can I be a Jedi now?"
Obi-Wan's comlink whistles, notifying him of the impending Council meeting. He turns the alarm off, and exhales.
"How can I bring balance?" Anakin's asking the flowers.
"Best not to share your doubts with the Council," Obi-Wan says. He straightens his robes. "Are you ready?"
Anakin scowls. "They couldn't even give me a night's rest before interrogating me?"
"Mind your feelings. I'm in dire need of sleep as well, but we must endure this."
"And a bath."
"What?"
Anakin looks at him. Obi-Wan can almost see a smile tucked away on his lips. "And you need a bath, Master. Your robes are filthy."
Obi-Wan looks down at himself. "Oh. Right."
He starts to laugh, but it boils in his throat when he glances at his padawan's face and sees his small smile has fled and left nothing but shame behind.
"I'm ready," Anakin says.
"Anakin Skywalker," Mace Windu says. "Isn't it fortunate you decide to turn up just before we were going to consider your disappearance an act of desertion."
"Yes, very fortunate," Obi-Wan says. "Isn't it, Anakin?"
"Very fortunate, Master," Anakin says plainly, staring ahead at Windu.
Obi-Wan steels himself against a pinch of guilt, but he has to show he still holds control over his padawan—now more than ever.
"Obi-Wan's told me you snuck out of the hotel while he was on an errand," Mace says, reciting the only version of events Obi-Wan will ever tell him. "He came back and you weren't there. Why didn't you stay where you were put?"
Anakin's eyes flick towards Obi-Wan curiously, and Obi-Wan fights to keep his face carefully impassive.
At length, Anakin says, "The heat fever was really bad that day. I wasn't thinking clearly anymore. In fact, I barely remember it."
"Do you remember where you went?" Tiin asks impatiently.
"I wound up in the Zi-Kree sector."
Obi-Wan wonders if that's the truth, and Anakin had been ten kilometers from the Temple the whole time.
"What'd you do there?"
"I was confused," Anakin says. "I don't—I don't know. I think I was trying to find my way back to the Temple."
"You think?" Mace's stare hardens. "In heat, on the streets of the Crimson Corridor? Meet anyone interesting wandering around?"
Anakin flushes.
Obi-Wan almost rebuffs such an inappropriate question, but finds himself waiting for Anakin's response.
"Some slythmonger tried to help me and took me to a clinic, but they wouldn't let me stay there. There was nothing they could do."
Obi-Wan doesn't doubt that.
"But," Anakin continues, "if you are asking what I think you are, the answer is no."
Is it?
"But then again, you do hardly remember," Mace points out, his dark eyes seeming to burn a hole in Anakin.
"You turned off your comlink," Koth adds.
"No, I didn't." Anakin furrows his brows. His eyes circle the room. "That thing hasn't worked right since it got fried while I was doing repairs on my lightsaber."
Mace leans forwards and steeples his fingers. "When did your... fever, end?"
"Well, yesterday. But it took me more time to find transport. I came back as soon as I was able, Masters, I swear."
"You're saying it lasted the whole ten days?"
Members of the Council shift and mutter.
Obi-Wan steps forward. "We have to assume its... longevity is the product of it being his first, and Anakin's strength in the Force."
But Mace just keeps staring intently at his poor padawan, colored a deep red and staring at the patterning on the floor.
"Do you remember your master taking you from the Temple?" Windu asks Anakin.
"Some," Anakin says.
"Why do you think he did that?"
Anakin looks over at Obi-Wan. "Well, I must've caused a Disturbance."
"That wasn't your decision to make," Adi Gallia says to Obi-Wan. "Why didn't you consult the Council?"
"I did leave a hologram for Master Yoda," Obi-Wan says, noting his silence with some curiosity.
"Yes, you did," Mace says, "to tell him you were taking your padawan halfway across the planet. You must have a very different definition of consult than this council, Obi-Wan."
"It was getting worse, there was no time to—"
"Master did the right thing," Anakin interrupts. "Staying would've caused chaos. Everyone in the Temple would've suffered all those days because of me. No one would've been able to listen to the Force. While you wanted to waste time with meetings, Obi-Wan was doing what was best for the Order as he always has."
"Anakin," Obi-Wan says sharply. "Mind your words."
But he can't help but be proud of him.
"Obi-Wan doesn't get to decide what's best for the Order," Mace says, looking at Anakin but not speaking to him, of course.
"He—" Anakin starts.
"I understand," Obi-Wan cuts in. "I was in error."
"But," Mace continues to Anakin, "it seems the only option was to remove you from the Temple. And, besides the wasted time your absence caused, it seems to have bore no ill consequences. Would you agree with that statement, Obi-Wan?"
"Yes, I would," Obi-Wan says evenly.
"Does this council agree?" Mace asks the other members, and gets slow nods from all of them. Yoda is still staring at Anakin pensively, his claws worrying at his gimer stick. "Fine. Well, now it comes down to making sure this incident doesn't repeat itself."
"Skywalker must be sterilized," Koth says. "It's the only real option."
Obi-Wan gapes at him. "No, that is not the only option!"
"Then he must be exiled."
"No."
"It's okay, Master," Anakin placates him, but Obi-Wan hadn't missed how Anakin cringed at the suggestion of such mutilation. "Maybe it's best I am sterilized."
"That is completely unnecessary." Obi-Wan shakes his head.
"I may have a third recourse," Shaak Ti says. She hasn't spoken through this whole meeting, but her voice rises above their arguing.
"What is it, Ti?" Mace asks.
"Suppressants are still sold on the black market, are they not?"
"And that is where they should stay," Obi-Wan says. "They are too dangerous."
"It seems to me they would be worth the risk," Ti says to him, not unkind, but rankling Obi-Wan all the same.
"Hardly so," he says. He folds his arms. "I doubt they would have any chance of working on a Forceful, let alone one of Anakin's nature."
"With respect, Obi-Wan, you have shot down every solution thus far," Plo Koon observes. "Do you have one of your own?"
Obi-Wan lets out a long breath through his nose, looks at Anakin, and says nothing.
Mace rubs his bald head. "I don't like this, Ti. Those drugs haven't been legal since Corellia tried to secede from the Republic."
"Well, we must not sterilize the One," Ti says fiercely. "He is omeyen, that is the Will of the Force, not something to be fixed. I offer a different solution if it must come to that or exile, but I continue to be disappointed to see the way humans treat their omeyen, Mace. Know that."
Mace turns his head from her without response or even a scoff, and seems oddly discomfited.
Anakin steps forward. "I'll try it."
Obi-Wan closes his eyes. His brave padawan.
Mace looks dubious. "And now we put our hope in some drug from the undercity?"
"There's no real risk," Anakin says. "If it doesn't work and my next cycle does come... I consent to being detained and sterilized."
Obi-Wan sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. No, he would not let them maim his padawan in that way. He would leave with Anakin before that came to pass.
"And if it kills me," Anakin continues, drawing Obi-Wan's eyes sharply, "then your problem is solved just the same, isn't it?"
"What you told the Council wasn't entirely truthful, was it?"
"Not now, Master," Anakin says tiredly. He only takes the time to remove his boots before he gets into bed.
"Well," Obi-Wan sighs, "I am sure you'll tell me the truth eventually. And you will take down this wall between us."
Anakin closes his eyes.
There's nothing more for Obi-Wan to do than shower and get into his own bed.
He watches Anakin for a time and listens to his breath. Anakin's turned onto his side and hugs his pillow tightly to his chest, his padawan braid a gold thread on the sheets.
Obi-Wan stares at Anakin's sensuous lips and slim fingers. In every idle moment, his mind picks and scrapes at that black scab, that dark lid. It wants what's underneath, and now it pries its edge up and looks down into the dark.
I've been inside him.
That thought's never arrested him more than it does now. Was he the first? How long had Anakin used his body so?
Obi-Wan rubs his fingers together. That wetness he'd found on his member, he can almost feel its stickiness.
He can smell it.
Obi-Wan turns away from Anakin quickly and pulls the covers tighter around himself.