Warnings: Nothing really.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. They belong to their rightful owner(s). This is simply a personal method of keeping my sanity more or less intact.
A/N: Can't really believe I'm actually publishing something. Even if it's been sitting on my computer... well at least half a year, maybe longer. It's AU, but not by much. A diversion point, maybe?
No beta, so there might be some mistakes. English isn't my native language.
EDIT: Fixed the problem with the cursives.
IXI
In For A Penny, In For A Pound
IXI
"Hey, cheer up", Anakin says craning his neck to turn his head around as much as he can. Obi-Wan doesn't understand what he thinks is the point. It's not like either of them can see anything. "It could always be worse."
Anakin's elbow digs into his side and Obi-Wan shifts trying to find a less uncomfortable position on the metal floor. Preferably with as little of his former padawan poking into all the sore spots on his body.
"Oh, yes? Care to tell me how?" he asks wryly into the darkness. Maybe a little more wryly than necessary, actually. It appears their current predicament is starting to get to him.
He feels Anakin's shoulders moving as he shrugs against Obi-Wan's back. "We could always be in separate cells. Or drugged", he says bending to the right, hands inching up a few centimeters. He's been fidgeting for the last twenty minutes, maybe, and honestly it's getting quite irritating.
Obi-Wan sighs.
"Technically, we are drugged, Anakin. The Force suppressant is a drug."
Anakin just shrugs again, shifting more against Obi-Wan. Maybe he's trying to twist his arms into a knot? "Well, yeah. But there's still lot that could be worse."
"There's also a lot that could be better", Obi-Wan answers. "Like not being prisoners on a pirate ship that will undoubtedly take us straight to the first Separatists they can find. And for the love of the Force, could you just stop squirming so much, Anakin? That's hardly helping us!"
As usual, Anakin doesn't listen – or chooses not to hear, rather. "Oh come on, Master", he says almost cheerfully. "At least we're together. Think just how horrible it'd be if you were tied up with Windu. Now, then things would be bad."
Obi-Wan wants to groan. Instead he lets his head flop back against Anakin's shoulder which is quite conveniently just the right height for this. "Master Windu, Anakin", he corrects albeit with little feeling. Sometimes he thinks he must hate berating Anakin almost as much as Anakin hates being berated.
"Yeah, yeah", his forever immature former padawan answers, this time twisting to the left. Obi-Wan has half the mind to tell him to stop it again, since he won't get the binders off no matter how long he writhes. He decides it won't be worth the breath.
"But you know I'm – ugh – right. It'd be downright horrid", Anakin goes on.
In all honesty, Obi-Wan agrees. It would be a less than nice experience. Not that he's about to admit it out loud. He's still supposed to be the role model, after all. Regardless of how useless it seems to be.
Something cracks. Anakin curses. Obi-Wan stares at the impenetrable darkness.
"So", he says after another minute of restless squirming, not really knowing what he's about to say before it's already spilling from his lips. "How's it going with you and Padme, then?"
That certainly stops Anakin in his tracks, and Obi-Wan has a few heartbeats of silence to meditate on the importance of thinking through what you're going to say before you say it.
"What", Anakin says.
Oh, well. He might as well go through with this now that the issue has been addressed. Anakin has had nearly two years to come forward about it on his own account, so maybe it's time he accepts he has to do this himself.
"You know", Obi-Wan answers, voice carefully nonchalant, and shrugs slightly, "you and Padme. How's it going?"
"With what?" Anakin asks, tone still flat.
"Oh please, Anakin. What do you think I am, blind?"
"I don't think anything."
Funny how the little daggers twisting in his chest seem so much sharper all of a sudden. Anakin isn't stupid – he's caught on what the subject is about and still he tries to play fool. Is this really how little he trusts Obi-Wan?
After two years, does he even have to ask that question?
Obi-Wan makes a show of sighing dramatically. "Do I really have to spell this one out?" he asks and when did he become such a good actor? "Your secret relationship with her, remember Anakin?"
There's a silence that's a little awkward but mostly just tense and heavy. Obi-Wan can feel Anakin holding himself perfectly still, his muscles working under his clothes. The light tone he tried to keep up drains away into the darkness.
"Anakin?" he asks, voice soft.
Slowly, Anakin starts to move again.
"I don't think it's called a secret relationship if you're married", he says tonelessly, arms working.
Obi-Wan blinks against the darkness. Oh. Oh. That he didn't know. What is he supposed to say now?
"Oh."
Silence. Anakin's hands move against the small of his back where they're bound together.
"Well. Then." A pause. What can he say to that? "How is your marriage going then?"
Anakin makes a sound half between a snort and a cough. It comes out strangled. "Seriously, Master?"
Obi-Wan shrugs. He feels sort of… numb. "Well, yes. Is everything alright with you? Are you…" he hesitates, forces the question out "Are you happy with her?"
Another tense silence and Obi-Wan thinks he can hear Anakin swallowing. He stops moving again.
"No", Anakin says and breathes deep. "Everything's not alright."
Maybe he should've let this lie, after all. He's sure Anakin would've been more than eager to pretend he never asked that first question. But he's never done things the easy way, has he?
"I'm -", Obi-Wan starts to say, but stops. It'd come out hollow and wouldn't mean anything and he can't have that now. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks instead, and suddenly it strikes him how completely ludicrous this is. They're captured on a pirate ship, sitting in a pitch black cell of some sort and talking about the mess of their – both of their – lives.
And they are a mess, that much is sure.
"Do I want to talk about it?" Anakin asks, incredulous. "Do I want to? Did it seem like I wanted to talk about it just now?" He laughs, rough and humorless. "Sith hell, I don't. What's the point anyway? Once the Council knows –"
And he cuts off like he physically can't end the sentence.
It shouldn't take quite so long for the words to get through, but eventually they do, and Obi-Wan feels himself sinking as he finally realizes what it is that Anakin didn't say. It's like a punch to the gut, a lightsaber through the back, and he doesn't know how he feels. Just the knowledge that Anakin thinks… thinks…
"You think I'd tell them", he says tonelessly.
"Well, won't you?" Anakin asks, almost accusingly. Almost. There's something brittle in his voice, something Obi-Wan doesn't think he's heard in a long time, not since Anakin was still a child.
"I-", he starts, not knowing what to say. "Why do you think that?"
Anakin's laugh is sharp, coarse.
"Why? I broke the Code, Master", he says, and now Obi-Wan is sure there's something even more wrong here than just the reveal of Anakin's marriage. "I broke it just about as much as I could without turning to the Dark Side. Tell me -", Anakin goes on, sounding like he's about to lose his grip on the last thing that keeps him from falling. "Tell me you aren't somehow going to turn me over to the Council."
His own feelings are forgotten in face of the sharp hitch of Anakin's breathing, the shaking edge of his words, and Obi-Wan cranes his head around in an useless effort to catch a glimpse of Anakin's face. They are in complete darkness and he wouldn't see his own hand if he could lift it in front of his face, far less Anakin's expression. Yet there's something instinctive in the gesture he can't quite control.
"I-"
"Tell me."
It's not a command. It's a dare, a plea, raw fear and desperation. Obi-Wan knows he could say thousands of different things, all meaning the same, all of them him, but only one of them will matter with Anakin. So he goes with the simplest and most straightforward answer he can give.
"I won't tell them, Anakin. I was never going to."
And it's the truth.
Anakin goes slack against his back, and there's another silence, notably less tense than the previous ones. Obi-Wan stares into the darkness over his shoulder, listening as Anakin breathes.
"So", he says once the moment has stretched on long enough. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong with you two, then?" he asks softly.
Anakin doesn't answer right away. When he does, his voice is cracking with the pain of a wound that isn't quite raw anymore but still far from being completely healed.
"We… we're not… anymore", Anakin manages to get out before his voice all but breaks and he cuts himself off. He breathes in deeply, harshly, and then repeats the words. "We're not anymore."
Obi-Wan finds himself once again at a loss of words, and in the moment of silence that ensues Anakin starts to shift about again, his movements sharper now. This time, Obi-Wan doesn't say anything about it.
"Do you…", he starts, hesitant because he doesn't want Anakin to pull away like he usually does if Obi-Wan tries to address any issue he's not comfortable talking about. And Force knows this is anything but. "Do you want to talk about it? More, I mean, once we get away from here?"
Anakin doesn't cease his movements. "And what would that help?" he asks, voice not quite sharp enough to be called angry but not too far from it either, and in the face of that tone Obi-Wan finally realizes just how much of Anakin's anger stems from pain.
He feels blind.
"Anakin", Obi-Wan says into the darkness. The only response he gets is a sharp tug on the binders around his wrists as Anakin twists his hands. "Anakin", he repeats, and there must have been something different in his voice, because this time Anakin stills.
"What?"
"I won't…", Obi-Wan trails off, grasping at the ends. This is a violation of the Code, he knows, yet somehow the reality of it fades when faced with the reality of Anakin's back pressed against his. This is something Obi-Wan needs to say and, more importantly, something Anakin needs to hear.
"I'll be there for you", he says quietly, softly. "So when you want to talk, I'll listen. Just know that, Anakin."
The silence is short and brittle, and Anakin's voice is warm and familiar. "I was right, you know", he breathes out with a small laugh as his fingers curl around Obi-Wan's. "This would've been really horrible with Windu."
And that's it. In a way, it's better than anything serious Anakin could've said, because this – this is them. This means they'll be alright.
Obi-Wan smiles and closes his eyes.
"Yes. I suppose", he says, returning the gentle grip even as he slips back into the usual banter. "You would've been on kitchen duty for the rest of your life."
Anakin snorts. "Kitchen duty?" he asks as his fingers slip free from Obi-Wan's. "Come on, Master. Don't you think that's a little soft?"
"You certainly didn't think so when you were a padawan", he drawls and Anakin huffs.
"I was a teenager", he says in defense. "Now, let's get out of here."
With that Anakin leans away from Obi-Wan – as much as he can anyway, what with the way they've been bound together – and twists his hand so that their binds are drawn even tighter than before. Obi-Wan grunts as he is yanked back ever so slightly by the movement and is just about to open his mouth to ask what Anakin thinks he's doing when the pressure on his wrists and elbows suddenly loosens.
"And now we just need to find something to get us out of this dratted ship ", Anakin says almost cheerily, standing up and brushing off the binders carelessly. It's not the most subtle way of changing the subject in Galactic history, but Obi-Wan doesn't call him out on it.
"We're still inside a holding cell", he does feel compelled to point out even as he follows the example and gets up on his feet. "And it's pitch black", he adds.
"Hey, I got us free of the bindings. You figure out how we get out of this cell."
There will be time to talk later.