"YIN AND YANG"
Part III- Fit Together
By: Princess Sassafras
It takes a few moments for what Obi-Wan has done to register in Anakin's shrouded mind. His heart aches to accept it fully, to fall into the welcome arms of the man he cherishes above all others. But he is afraid, and so he stares in shock and fear at that waiting embrace, as if it is a black hole that wishes to swallow him.
"Come here, Anakin." Obi-Wan's voice is soft and low, soothing. "Do not be afraid."
Some small serpentine thing in the back of Anakin's brain whispers: does he think you a child? Did he not just profess his desire for you to be his equal? And now he is being so fatherly…does he mean to control you, too, with placating words and false affections?
Anakin wants nothing more than to strangle something…and for a moment he projects this onto Obi-Wan, but when he looks up into that pure and kind face, he knows that it is not Obi-Wan who makes him feel this way. It is the voice he wants to strangle, his very Fear is what he wants to kill! It breaks him suddenly—the realization that what he hates is within him. Without thinking, only feeling, he launches into Obi-Wan's waiting arms.
Obi-Wan says nothing, only presses his hand comfortingly at the base of Anakin's bowed and trembling head. Time, being innately flexible (against all human attempts to contain it), travels years in mere minutes. Anakin, who has fallen into Obi-Wan's arms a destroyed thing, no more than a despairing child, grows. For the blackness in his heart that he has covered with so many things could not be filled while he was repeatedly hiding it. And it is laid bare, now. He begins to weep for a loss he has not allowed himself to fully experience before this moment: the loss of a father he never knew, a mother he loved, a home that was never really his, and so many other unnamable things. He sobs them all into Obi-Wan's warm chest.
It is only a few hours until morning when Anakin finally makes an attempt to raise his weary head. He calmly, humbly, makes tentative positioning motions across from Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, in turn, makes his own, and they take the dual-meditative pose. Obi-Wan is shocked when Anakin takes his palms, before he can cross-cup them in his lap, and holds them in his own. They are knee-to-knee, palm-to-palm, and psyche-to-psyche. He relaxes, and releases himself into a kind of focus that is the most natural, and the most forgotten.
Another hour passes in silence. The air hums with their energy and concentration. They share important memories and emotions, the most difficult to share being Anakin's recent dreams and Obi-Wan's recent doubts.
Suddenly, like a blossoming flower out of the center of the darkness of Obi-Wan's deepest consciousness, some bright emotion catches Anakin's eye. He has noticed it before, during their deeper meditations, and Obi-Wan has hidden it from him quickly enough that it could not be named. Now he can feel his former Master hesitate, he can feel his wish to put it away, to hide it from him again. Anakin gently presses, tells Obi-Wan without words that it is all right not to hide it.
As if he is releasing a very painful and deeply cramped muscle, Obi-Wan slowly gives in. The blossom of red is unmistakable. Anakin has seen it in his own private meditations. It is the color and shape of Passion. Anakin does not rush to touch it, no matter how much his heart is urging him to, but approaches cautiously, respectfully, until he is but barely kissed by its heat. Oh…
Shock.
Pure, undiluted awe. His own eyes are here, his own mouth, his own hands, his very…presence lives in this red bloom in Obi-Wan's mind. And above all, singing to him in the pit of the heat are words that are for him: cherished one.
Cherished one. Important one. Beloved one.
The darkness in Anakin shivers and shrinks—only marginally—but it feels to him like the deepest cut of the sharpest knife. He cannot bear this surgery…the way this red bloom in Obi-Wan makes him feel. So he pulls out.
And suddenly they are there, physically there, and Obi-Wan's hands are empty, and Anakin is scrambling to his feet in the growing light of dawn.
"Anakin." His name sounds like a both a promise and a plea. I promise it's all alright, and please don't run away. But even behind that was Obi-Wan's own uncertainty.
Anakin had never felt what he is feeling now…at least not at full force. And something unknown is usually something feared.
"I…can't." Anakin backs away towards the doorway. Obi-Wan lowers his head in sudden sorrowful acceptance, for he knows that if he had seen what Anakin has seen, he would be running too.
"I'm sorry…" he says, and he cannot stop a few tears from leaving his burning eyes.
"Obi…Obi-Wan?" Anakin's voice is afraid, and Obi-Wan is ashamed to have given him any reason to fear. It makes him feel ugly, suddenly, the Passion in him. It is the Passion that would make him die for the man in front of him. But sacrifice is not what frightens Anakin, Obi-Wan knows…it is the Other. The writhing, needing part that is so frightening. For Anakin has recognized it in himself.
Obi-Wan clenches his fists, suddenly, in a painful inward rage, one tempered only by the fact that he does not wish to alarm or terrify his dearest friend any further. "Anakin…I'm so sorry! I have tried…" he cannot seem to form any more words.
"What…? Obi-Wan?" Outwardly, Anakin is stunned, shocked beyond belief. But inside of him something is singing loudly with its own red heat, demanding to be allowed to be known.
"I tried to keep it from you, Anakin. I know…I know it isn't right." Obi-Wan seems so defeated suddenly, so unlike his Master that he is painful to look at. He is but a man…a man in pain, a pain Anakin realizes suddenly that he shares.
A long silence passes between them, but it is not a still silence. They each battle with their own passions, each half-willing to hide them in the darkness again, and each half-wishing they could be laid painfully bare. Obi-Wan weeps silently.
Anakin, in all his years with his Master, has seen him weep very few times, and never has he seen him wracked with such utter despair, and pain, and loneliness. The urge to comfort Obi-Wan as he has been comforted by him overwhelms Anakin. He takes very slow and shaky steps back to where Obi-Wan is seated, and stares down at the bowed form of his friend, his teacher, his…
It wells up in him like a beautiful wound. Oh, beloved! Oh, my teacher! My counselor! My truest friend! My anchor! My Love!
It is almost more than he can bear to feel. He kneels, and as his dearest friend had done for him, he carefully…shakily…opens his arms. Palms down in submission, trembling, he waits. Though he does not know exactly what he is waiting for—for he has never, ever held Obi-Wan as he has been held by him—he does not expect the man he loves and reveres to look up at him with blue eyes full to the brim with that raging Passion, to move forward with such true and purposeful intent, to touch his face with those beloved and roughly calloused fingers, or to pull him in until they are crushed chest-to-chest and cheek-to-cheek.
Obi-Wan's feel, the smell of his hair and skin, his breath in Anakin's ear, his very presence is suddenly beautifully solid. Anakin gives in to his aching need to just touch, and buries his fingers in the thick hair at the nape of the other man's neck, pushes his leather-bound arm into the small of a bowed back and draws the warmth of the other man's body inward. He hears Obi-Wan sigh.
Something this wonderful…cannot be wrong, and with that knowledge they set themselves free. They cling to each other with such strength and force, that if the Lord of the Sith were present, his every attempt to separate flesh from flesh would be foiled.
"Obi-Wan…" the sound of his name, spoken so softly by cherished lips, undoes him.
He moves his mouth to the soft shell of Anakin's ear. "Anakin…don't be afraid."
"I'm not," is the emboldened reply. "I'm not afraid. I know you wouldn't hurt me. I trust you. You are my friend…" Here the word friend catches in his throat, because there is more meaning behind it than he is used to admitting.
"Friend…you are my beloved." Here Obi-Wan pulls away, but only just, and takes Anakin's pale face in his hands. "There is no one that I care for more than you." Feeling only, still, he draws Anakin to him and kisses him tenderly on his temple, brushing away dark curls as he does so. "No one…"
Another fear rises suddenly in Anakin's throat, and almost chokes him. "What if they…what if they find out? What if they knew?"
Obi-Wan pulls fully away to look into his eyes. "It doesn't matter, anymore." His words settle in the air, where they finally register in Anakin's emotion-riddled brain.
"It doesn't…it doesn't matter?" Half a question.
"No, love, it doesn't. If you do not think me a monster, then what anyone else thinks of me does not matter. We will keep it a secret for our sake, but if they find out and expel us…we will survive. We will more than survive. We will continue to fight, and live, and…oh, how I have wanted only to love you! That is the shadow on my heart, Anakin, that I might die and never have been able to truly love you! To hold you as I am now, without shame. And that you would wish for that, too."
"I have…" though his voice trembles, the conviction in his words is undeniable. "I have loved you since the day you wrapped me in a blanket, and put me on that ship, and took me away from the place where Master Qui-Gonn passed into the Force. I loved you then, only I didn't fully understand it. I'm not even sure I do now…"
"No rushing, then. Only time. Time is all we have."
Anakin covers the hand that is touching his face with his own, and squeezes as tightly as he dares, and loses himself in the loving gaze he is being offered. Without thought, without comprehension, he leans up into bliss.
Lips, breath…bliss. To kiss Obi-Wan is both stabilizing contentment and alarming electricity. Rough palms smooth down his jaw, and thick fingers bury themselves in the fall of his hair. The texture of Obi-Wan's beard is surprising—both smooth and coarse—and it sends a screaming shock of pleasure to the pit of Anakin's stomach. He gasps suddenly, and pulls a fraction of an inch away, but Obi-Wan steals the distance, capturing Anakin's full lower lip and pulling him into a possessive, passionate kiss.
Anakin is not even sure he knows where he is anymore. His body is trembling with…desire, and the barest movement of one of those hands in his hair, or of that tickling breath on his face threatens to make him combust. Now, more, now, yes, please…
I hate to leave all of you hanging like this, but a friend of mine just came to visit. I promise I'll have the ending for you very soon!
Peace, Princess S.