Warnings: Sexual themes, violence, allusions to bloodplay and a bit of implied BDSM. But please note that none of it is highly explicit.
Author's Notes: Set sometime just before Attack of the Clones.
Anakin's always been certain that one day he'll become the greatest warrior in the galaxy. And since he turned fifteen and finally figured out how to stop tripping himself up with his own too-quickly lengthening limbs, anyone who's actually seen him with a lightsaber has seemed fairly convinced that he may actually achieve that goal. Not that they tell him so – no one ever gives Anakin the praise he knows he deserves – but he can tell by the way they watch him.
Anakin has also always vowed he'll defeat all the evil in the galaxy, but no one else seems quite as willing to believe that part. They all think he's going to join the dark himself instead. They don't think he's fit to be a Jedi at all.
He tells himself they're just jealous of his power, and that much he's sure is true. Secretly, however, sometimes he thinks they might also have a point.
The lightsaber is a Jedi weapon, but when he brandishes it he often feels like anything but the 'ideal' Jedi that they all try to teach him to be. No one can dispute his skill or his deep connection with the Force while in battle, but equally he can't deny that he enjoys the fight far too much for proper Jedi standards.
Anakin doesn't learn the word 'bloodlust' until he's nineteen years old, and when he does it's not used in relation to him at all. His Master only says it to voice his opinion of the mentally unstable killer they've just taken into custody. It sticks with Anakin nonetheless. He turns it over in his head that night long after Obi-Wan's deep slumbering breathing has filled their tiny shared room.
Perhaps Obi-Wan should bestow the same disgusted expression on Anakin as he'd reserved for their prisoner, for sometimes Anakin can't help but feel a deep pleasure in visiting pain, or even death, on his enemies. It brings out something primal in him and makes him want more of that power. Bloodlust indeed.
The practical implications of this are thrust fully upon him several weeks later in the middle of a civil uprising on Bellonere.
The guerrilla forces are stronger and more numerous than their intel has suggested, and they're taken off-guard. Anakin hears the comm come alive with a crackle, and Obi-Wan's voice gets halfway through demanding that their side retreat and regroup before the transmission is abruptly cut off.
It might easily be the case that Obi-Wan's comm unit has just died or been suddenly destroyed and that Obi-Wan himself is fine, but a discordance in the Force tells Anakin otherwise. That same almost teeth-rattling vibration is what leads him towards Obi-Wan's location and lets him know that he'd be wise to get there immediately, if not sooner.
For several seconds after Anakin spies his Master crumpled on the blood-spattered ground, his vision fades out into nothing but a red haze. He distantly notes that it's the same shade as the rivers of blood he's going to spill in a hundred-fold return for what the people of this world have done. No mere Jedi platitudes are going to stop him from thus avenging his Master, even if Obi-Wan himself wouldn't have wanted him to do so.
In that moment, for him, the line between warrior and murderer is completely obliterated, and he honestly doesn't care.
His hand shakes slightly as he reaches out to turn his Master's body over. He's not sure whether it's more from fear or rage.
But then Obi-Wan's eyes crack open slightly and he coughs.
"That's the last time I let you take the lead on planning an attack," Obi-Wan says, and it's quite possibly the most beautiful thing Anakin's ever heard, because it means he's not dead, and that Anakin doesn't have to kill every other person on the whole Sith-be-damned planet (though he still badly wants to take a swipe at whoever is responsible for the cut that's turned much of Obi-Wan's hair a much darker red than usual).
"If I recall, Master, it was you who made the decision to push on when we saw their numbers," Anakin replies.
Obi-Wan gives Anakin a disbelieving look. "Is that what you remember happening?" he says. "And here I thought that I was the one who took a sharp knock to the head."
Anakin wishes that he could laugh, or maybe even cry. He can't, though. His fears that his Master has passed into the Force might be unfounded, at least for now, but the rage burning brightly inside him isn't easily banished by anything as simple as relief.
But while it won't just vanish into nothingness, apparently it can quickly converge into something equally powerful and no less disturbing. Passion comes in many forms, after all.
Anakin clutches Obi-Wan's shoulders tightly enough to make his Master cringe silently. That's not enough to make Anakin loosen his grip. He needs the physical proof that Obi-Wan is still with him, and that he isn't going anywhere. He doesn't intend to let go any time soon.
As Anakin helps his Master sit up, blood trickles down from Obi-Wan's temple towards his jaw. Anakin can barely restrain himself from leaning in close and tracing the path of it with his tongue, to taste the reality of Obi-Wan's continuing existence. It's even harder not to lean into his Master so that he can feel him breathing, and to let their breaths actually mingle, and then finally to brush their lips together to feel the warmth of Obi-Wan's mouth and prove just how alive the two of them are.
He wants to align his body against Obi-Wan's and press and writhe until these feelings flow out of him like a poisonous flood and allow him to feel normal again. At least he wouldn't continue to feel as though he's going to explode into a thousand shards of glass and cut everyone around him to ribbons.
But although Obi-Wan never tends to stay angry about his recklessness for long, it would still change their relationship permanently, and he's not so completely caught up in this that that doesn't matter. Besides, how would he explain the need for it without revealing his weakness?
So the only closeness Anakin allows himself is to loop an arm around Obi-Wan's back and to pull him to his feet. The added weight on Anakin's right knee, which he's only peripherally realised he's even injured, makes him inhale sharply. He can smell the tang of Obi-Wan's blood in the air as he does. It makes him go even more weak-kneed, but for a very different reason than his own pain.
Obi-Wan turns his head to look at Anakin, and for a moment Anakin is certain that his shields have somehow slipped, and that Obi-Wan knows every filthy detail of what's just been flashing through Anakin's mind.
But then Anakin sees just how dazed Obi-Wan's eyes are and knows he's disoriented enough that he's lucky he's even aware of who's holding him. He has a concussion, probably.
That shouldn't be a relief. Anakin shouldn't be in any way glad that his Master is injured. But nor should the knowledge of that injury stir some mad need in him either. He certainly shouldn't have the horrifying urge to forget about the blaster fire all around them so that he can drag Obi-Wan back to the ground, rip the fraying shreds of damaged tunics off his Master's body and simultaneously divest him of that cold and sometimes almost inhuman façade he tries to show to the galaxy. He shouldn't fantasise about almost ruthlessly seeking out his own pleasure from Obi-Wan's body, not caring that his fingernails are scoring marks into Obi-Wan's skin because it means he can see for sure that Obi-Wan is real, and his, and that he bleeds hot for him like any other man would. If anyone's going to mark Obi-Wan in any way, it really should be him.
He imagines Obi-Wan's moans as Anakin hurts him just enough to make him beg, and the knowledge that Obi-Wan's pain threshold is high enough that that would be quite a task thrills him against his will. He also imagines that what Obi-Wan pleads for is more, because there's no way Obi-Wan would sacrifice his pride enough to beg him to stop.
He's fluctuating from anger to lust and back again so fast that it's threading into a whole web of unwanted feelings incapable of being separated.
Logically, he knows it doesn't make any sense to want to hurt Obi-Wan, given that he hates that some else hurt his Master. It's madness. But that still doesn't stop him from wanting to overwrite the pain already inflicted with some of his own design. It's a peculiar kind of possessiveness. And it terrifies him.
For the first time Anakin thinks he truly understands how fear and attachment could lead to the Dark Side; he's never felt quite this out-of-control, this unsafe, this dangerous. Chosen One or not, he feels anything but balanced right now.
When they reach the fall-back position, it's almost a relief when Obi-Wan is pulled away from him so that he can be hauled towards the makeshift med bay, though Anakin still has to try not to snarl at the loss.
Frustrated, Anakin skulks off behind one of the buildings and roughly strokes himself to climax. It's not even half as good as it would have been had it been his Master's hand touching him, and it doesn't come close to matching his fantasies of earlier, but it suffices to make the passion that's been plaguing him fall quiet.
It's a quick and dirty solution, and probably not one particularly befitting a Jedi, but Anakin decides it doesn't matter how he's overcome the powerful urge to break the Code as long as he has managed to gain control. He sort of wishes he could boast to his Master about that when he's declared fit and released by the Healers – without telling him the precise details of how, of course – but he knows it would be a bad idea to ever bring his lapse up with Obi-Wan in the first place. His Master would be overly concerned by how close to the dark Anakin has briefly come, even though it's over and so shouldn't matter now.
Of course, Anakin doesn't realise then that his passions are only dormant, not defeated. They never will be. Once the darkness has gained a foothold it never really leaves.
It's just a matter of time before he feels all these things again. And perhaps next time he'll truly need someone else to help in controlling them.
Or perhaps he won't be able to resist at all.
~FIN~