Part 1 of the "A Non-Comprehensive Guide To Force-Sensitivity" series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Darth Maul, Darth Maul & Shmi Skywalker
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Shmi Skywalker, Darth Maul, Watto (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Not A Jedi!Obi-Wan, canon timeline what canon timeline, alternately titled: what happens when even The Force thinks Obi-Wan didn't deserve that shit, Families of Choice, the Force is a meddling busybody and basically everything is better for it, Stewjon is Space!Scotland, Slice of Life, Family Dynamics, "idiot" is a term of endearment didn't you know?, GFY
Additional Notes: This started as more of a not!fic on Tumblr and then I had to stick with the format. *shrugs*
13
It starts when Obi-Wan is thirteen and ages out of the Order. In truth, in starts earlier than that, with cruel words from cruel children and indifferent adults who tell him in a million tiny ways that he's not good enough and never will be. But for many purposes, it starts when he's thirteen.
He's thirteen and he's angry. Hurt and abandoned, but above all, angry. Bitter. So full of seething resentment at everyone and everything that the second he sees that little piece of flimsi telling him to report to a transport that will take him to Bandomeer, to be part of the AgriCorps, that he's proven his lack of worth for the last time, something in him snaps.
He didn't spend his entire life learning and training and putting up with abuse from the likes of Bruck Chun to be thrown away like trash. His time may mean nothing to the Order, he may mean nothing to the Order, but for the first time in Obi-Wan Kenobi's life, he knows his own worth.
And it's better than this.
Without another word to anyone, Initiate or Master alike, he packs up his things and leaves. It's a rash decision, like so many before, but there's a tingle in his feet and a whisper in his ears and a tugging in his chest urging him to continue.
Obi-Wan obediently follows his feet, stowing away on a transport before it occurs to him to rethink his choices, and then he's gone. Off of Coruscant and out of reach of the Jedi kriffing Order, should it ever occur to them to search for the failed Initiate who never made it to Bandomeer.
Tatooine is hot.
It's dry and dusty, filled with slaves that feel like destruction and decay and sandstorms that can rend flesh from bone, but for a barely-teenage boy from a Core world, used to the controlled climate of the Jedi Temple, its worst sin by far is the unimaginable heat. It's insidious, seeping into the ground and his bones and making him feel as if he'll never be cool again, as if he has never been cool in his life.
The half-remembered joy of working on all things mechanical returns with a vengeance when he first steps foot off his illicit transport, onto the dustball it had carried him to away from Coruscant, and he follows the feeling through dusty, winding streets until he's ducking down into a shop. A chime goes off when he crosses the threshold and then there's a male Toydarian who favors a leg hovering in front of him, practically spitting at him in Huttese that he isn't welcome.
Obi-Wan, trusting the newfound instincts that had taken him this far, opens his mouth, and is just as surprised as the pugnacious Toydarian when "Not even if I can fix that labor droid?" comes out of his mouth, crisp Coruscanti accent gone in favor of a broad Stewjoni accent that he's never even pretended to remember.
The Toydarian, who later names himself as Watto and doesn't believe Obi-Wan for a moment when he offers a simple Ben in return, eyes him suspiciously, but as "Ben" quickly comes to learn, his shop is new and untested and he has no slaves and not enough money to pay a full wage to an adult. When Obi-Wan picks up the half-assembled labor droid and puts down a fully-functioning droid several minutes later, that orange gaze becomes calculating.
Half an hour and a grueling pay-negotiation later, Obi-Wan's new employer laughs at him from behind the counter when Obi-Wan mutters that he may very well melt before the second droid he works on is repaired. The tingle in his feet has ceased, the whispers have died down, and the tugging behind his breastbone has settled into a warmth that weights him down like an anchor.
A few months later, the soles of his feet begin to tingle. The whispers return and the weight that had begun to mean "home" changes its vector once again so that it feels like it's trying to drag Obi-Wan through the streets of Mos Espa, heedless of the sweltering midday heat and the unfriendly inhabitants of what passed for a city on Tatooine.
For a brief moment, Obi-Wan entertains the thought of ignoring what is obviously the will of the Force. Just keeping his feet planted on the dusty floor of the junk shop where he sleeps at night and makes a passably living wage during the day and refusing to move. Then, as if sensing his growing hesitation, the feelings shift: the tingle becomes a gentle caress, the weight becomes an embrace, and the whispers come to him carried by a cool, sweet breeze that wraps around his entire body.
Peace suffuses his entire being for a single, blessed moment.
And then it all fades back into non-being and Obi-Wan feels desolate in return. Still, he understands when seconds before he did not, and resolves to follow the tugging when he can do so without causing trouble with Watto, the grumpy bastard.
The opportunity arrives sooner than he expects, with an urgent comm for Watto from his cousin and the instruction to close up shop early. As he does so, Obi-Wan wonders absently whether the Force caused a family emergency on Toydaria just to fit its timetable, or whether the Force set its timetable in accordance with the family emergency, before discarding the train of thought altogether.
Shop closed and free to do as he pleased for the rest of the day, Obi-Wan steels himself and steps out into the baking heat of the suns. Without hesitation, he follows the Force's nudging down the streets in the direction of the slave quarter.
A human woman of middling age is at the end of the trail. Face worn, hands calloused, and shoulders straight, she's obviously long used to the hand dealt to her and found some measure of peace with it.
The Force swirls around her in beautiful, intricate patterns that hypnotize Obi-Wan the moment he truly sees her. When she looks up from her work—attempting with some moderate success to repair a beat-up house droid—their eyes meet and Obi-Wan feels something jolt between them, a puzzle piece locking into place that he'd never before noticed was missing.
.
15
Shmi Skywalker, sitting regally on the counter of Watto's, stares him down once he's finished speaking. Her expression is sterner than he's ever seen before and it instills in him the urge to shuffle his feet.
Obi-Wan resists only because of his companion, whom—he notices—Shmi has yet to treat with such a look of steely disappointment. He automatically moves to fidget but tries to disguise it by folding his hands together in the sleeves of his cloak; he gets the feeling he fools neither Shmi nor his companion.
"You stole," Shmi says, enunciating very clearly, "a 'darksider'?"
The Zabrak boy on Obi-Wan's right lets out a huff; whether in amusement or irritation, Obi-Wan dares not look to see, lest it offend Shmi further. The sound, much to Obi-Wan's relief, has Shmi transferring her attention to the other boy.
He is unimpressed—Obi-Wan can feel it through the single but shining thread of the Force-bond that already connects them—but that will soon change. The woman has been in Obi-Wan's life for not even two years and he already knows well to treat her with the same deference and respect he had once given to the masters back at the Jedi Temple.
"Do you have something to add, Mister…?" Shmi asks after a moment, trailing off at the end because Obi-Wan admittedly has yet to offer the boy's name. Which he isn't going to do because, no, absolutely not. He can damn well introduce himself.
The boy, obviously picking up on Obi-Wan's stubborn refusal, lifts his chin that much more and answers, "Darth Maul."
"You don't have to use that name," Obi-Wan mutters under his breath with the air of someone rehashing an already old argument. He doesn't have to look over to know that the boy is treating him to a look that promises a painful death, nor does he care to.
"It's my name," the boy shoots back, just as he had every time this had come up on the transport to Tatooine. It's Obi-Wan's turn to huff now, most certainly in irritation.
"It's a Sith title," he says scathingly, finally brave enough to look away from Shmi in order to meet the boy's yellow-eyed glare with his own. The bond between them snaps taut with the rising emotions, but rather than becoming weaker, it seems to thrive on them and grow stronger. "And even if the Sith haven't been extinct for the last thousand years, which they have, you're my age so you can't be more than an apprentice, regardless of what kind of darksider your Master is. So, no, I'm not calling you that."
"Ben Keeno," Shmi says reproachfully from her perch before them, and Obi-Wan immediately turns back to her and lowers his head in apology. He knows better than to start an argument in front of an elder.
Bond pulsing between them with annoyance and resentment and—sadness?—the other boy, voice soft and mutinous, murmurs, "My mother gave me this name…"
Ah. Well then. That was. Of course, Obi-Wan certainly would never wish to part with anything Shmi gave him… However…
"… I'm still not calling you Darth," Obi-Wan mutters back, finally giving in to the urge to shuffle his feet. He glances up and sees Shmi giving them both a look of fond exasperation.
"I take it you intend to keep him then?" she ventures after a moment of consideration, a small smile forming on her lips.
Obi-Wan can feel the little jolt of shock that startles Maul out of his growing anger at her words. He very carefully doesn't look at the other boy when he gives a hesitant nod, but knows Maul is staring. And why should he? Obi-Wan's hardly kept his intentions of getting him away from his Master a secret; he dragged the boy across the galaxy on five different transports before they landed on what Maul had immediately dubbed "sand-hell meant to punish me for my sins." If this was the kind of companion the Force meant for him to have, Obi-Wan wonders about its sense of humor.
Still, Shmi's smile widens at his nod and she turns back to Maul. "And do you wish to keep us as well, Maul?" she asks with evident interest.
Darting a glance to the side, Obi-Wan sees the boy furrow his brow, unsure. He shuffles his feet, making the conspicuous black robes he still wears rustle in the waiting silence of the shop. "Do I have to decide now?" he finally says, meeting Shmi's eyes and then Obi-Wan's before frowning at the dusty floor.
Shmi's face softens.
"Of course you don't," she answers with great sympathy in her voice. Then she stands and brushes down her skirts, expression turning business-like. "Now, I need to return to my mistress' and you"—she rounds on Obi-Wan—"need to find him a job and a place to sleep. Unless Maul is as gifted with machines as you are, Watto will see no reason to hire him and he doesn't allow freeloaders. Understood?"
"Yes, Madam Skywalker," Obi-Wan says, nodding earnestly, having already considered their options on the way home from the Core. He watches her sweep out of the shop and when he turns back to Maul, the boy is smirking. "What?" he asks suspiciously, and Maul's expression only becomes more pronounced.
"What happened to not being a Jedi?" Maul says archly in reply. Their bond echoes with amusement as Obi-Wan scoffs.
"Do I look like a Jedi?"
"No," Maul allows. Then, slyly, "But you sound like one when you talk to her."
Obi-Wan colors. "She's like my mother, you nerfherder!" he squawks, shoving Maul's shoulder and the other boy truly laughs for the first time since they've met. He couldn't imagine what the Force was thinking, sticking them together, he really couldn't…
"At least she'll have had plenty of practice by the time it gets here, then," Maul points out in what he clearly considers to be a sensible, grown-up tone of voice. Obi-Wan's confusion must make itself known because Maul rolls his eyes and says, as if speaking to a youngling, "She's pregnant, idiot."
Obi-Wan finds himself needing to sit down at the prospect.
.
16
Ghomrassen, Guermessa and Chenini have long since risen in the night sky when Obi-Wan quietly slips through the slave quarter and into the dwelling that houses the two most important people in his life.
Three now, according to Maul's comm.
Or rather, comms, and increasingly frantic ones at that, culminating in Maul shouting at the top of his voice for nearly ten minutes about the screaming and the breathing and the panic and it's so small, Jedi, why is it so small? It was in there for eight karking months, shouldn't it be bigger? Help me, Obi-Wan Whoever-The-Fuck-You-Are, you're my only hope!
That was nearly six weeks ago, and here Obi-Wan finally is, standing in the kitchen of Shmi's home. Rooted to the spot at the sound of an infant's soft cry. An even softer, but far more familiar, voice murmurs back in response and Obi-Wan breathes again. The idea of Shmi's child was all well and good once he'd gotten used to it, but faced with meeting it—him, Shmi's son—Obi-Wan finds himself inexplicably terror-stricken.
Really, what does he know about child-care, about children in general? The last time Obi-Wan spent any significant amount of time around younglings, he'd been a youngling himself! How is he supposed to know what to do, how to hold him, how to help Shmi raise him—
Get in here, idiot. More of an impression than words, Maul's exact tone of irritated fondness is heard all the same. I can feel you panicking out there and you're getting It worked up.
"It." Maul calls Anakin Skywalker, son of Shmi Skywalker, "It." Of karking course he does. Honestly. Obi-Wan sighs and moves from the kitchen into the bedroom, careful to pull his shields in more closely, wary of waking Shmi or causing Anakin further distress.
Maul cuts a stark figure, standing above the child's cradle, drenched in Tatooine moonlight. A glance to the side and a soft brush against Shmi's mind tells Obi-Wan that she's deep in Force-suggested slumber. "Was that really necessary?" he quietly asks, frowning at the other boy.
For his part, Maul barely glances away from the infant to fix Obi-Wan with a look over his shoulder. "Babies cry, idiot," he replies as if that answer is obvious. A second later, noticing Obi-Wan's lack of immediate comprehension, he adds, "Often for no discernible reason. Mothers to newborns quickly become exhausted. This way she won't be disturbed if It becomes fussy, and I can wake her when It's actually hungry."
Obi-Wan opens his mouth to protest the nickname of sorts, but feels the other boy's genuine—if also somewhat baffled—fondness towards the youngling. He shakes his head and asks, "Don't infants also need skin contact?"
Maul huffs.
"Not when It's asleep," he says pointedly, finally turning to face Obi-Wan fully. The two examine each other quietly for a moment, taking in the differences between them since they had last seen each other.
Since his departure, Maul had apparently consented to a small compromise and exchanged his black Sith robes for more appropriate attire made of the same loose, lightweight fabric favored by those of the desert planet; they were still dark grey and did little to dispel the aura of menace that the Zabrak stubbornly clings to, but still. Progress is progress.
Obi-Wan, for his part, can feel a combination of vague surprise, haughty disdain, and—reluctant interest?—through Maul's half-assed shields in the face of his own new getup. He does his best not to preen at the response, but when those feelings are all overshadowed by a kind of huffy irritation, he assumes he fails.
Shifting his weight slightly, Obi-Wan forces his thoughts back on topic. "I feel like we don't know nearly enough about infant-care for us to be semi-responsible for one," he says, venturing closer to finally get a look at the—at Anakin.
His words earn a derisive snort.
"Maybe you'd know more if you—"
"Oh, don't start this again, I've only just gotten back—"
"—hadn't spent the last five months on karking Mandalore of all places," Maul finishes with a glare comprised of pure venom, stubbornly ignoring Obi-Wan's interjection, as he has every time the issue of Obi-Wan following the Force's guidance is brought up.
This time, though, Obi-Wan isn't willing to let the issue die down. As Maul said, he's spent the last five months in a kriffing war-zone, away from his home and his family, and he's too tired to simply roll over and show his belly.
"What would you have me do?" he hisses back, mindful of not waking Anakin. "Ignore the warnings—ignore the will of the Force ? If I'd done that, you'd still be a slave to your Master. If I'd done that, Shmi would have nothing and no one to look after her. If I'd done that, I'd be a fucking farmer on Bandomeer, and more than likely a slave myself, given what happened there."
Maul opens his mouth to interrupt, but Obi-Wan slashes a hand through the air to silence him before he starts.
"No. No more arguments. No more discussions. I will continue to heed the Force because to ignore it is foolish beyond words and I have never been led astray." He raises his chin and fixes his friend, his brother, with a steely expression. "I'm sorry I was gone so long, that was not my intention, but I cannot concern myself with only this tiny corner of the universe simply because it's more convenient."
The ensuing silence is broken only by the snuffles of the infant and their own breathing.
Obi-Wan can feel the bond between them pulsing with anger and poorly-disguised hurt. For all that he had first kept himself aloof, Maul was very… sensitive to anything he viewed as even resembling abandonment. The first time Obi-Wan had followed the will of the Force off of Tatooine after dragging him to the dustball, the other boy had started a brawl with him upon his return. Only the holocron Obi-Wan had brought back had convinced him that the trip was at all worthwhile…
And all Obi-Wan has with him now is a set of Mandalorian armor and a slightly bruised heart, both of which are far less impressive to the former-Sith Apprentice than a collection of Force teachings or a new kyber crystal.
After a strained moment, the tension bleeds away and Maul moves forward to punch him in the shoulder, a little harder than usual, yes, but still friendly in sentiment. "Idiot," he murmurs, and Obi-Wan breathes again. "Did you and 'the Duchess' at least come to an understanding?"
Obi-Wan can hear the quotation marks and ignores them in favor of pointedly looking down at his armor. "You know, I really can't recall." He gets punched again and shares a moment of laughter with the other boy before his eyes fall on Shmi sleeping form. "How is she?"
Accepting the subject change, Maul turns his gaze to the oldest member of their makeshift family, absently setting a hand on Anakin's belly as he does. "Tired, as I mentioned," he says wryly. And then, "She still says nothing of the one who dared lay hands on her, but I will find him and I will end him."
"I'm sure you will," Obi-Wan assures him, but privately disagrees. Months of quiet investigation and carefully-worded questions had yielded absolutely nothing and he's beginning to think Shmi had been given some kind of substance to make her forget the encounter. Much to Maul's tacit approval, the thought makes Obi-Wan's blood boil even further.
To be violated in such a way and then made to forget that it happened at all—unable to protect herself against a danger that she didn't even know existed—made it that much worse. He hopes that, in the coming days and weeks and months, the Force will guide him to a holocron that can teach him how to unlock hidden memories. Someone hurt a member of his family—which, given the events on Mandalore, may eventually expand to accommodate yet another—and he'll be damned if he lets that go unpunished.
Obi-Wan sighs, turns, and places a hand on the infant as well, twining his fingers with Maul's and leaning his weight against the other boy. "I'm tired," he says after a while.
Maul rolls his eyes. "Then go to bed, Jedi."
"Not a Jedi," Obi-Wan reminds him, even as he feels the exhaustion finally settling into his bones. The silence returns and he musters up the energy to look at Maul, who gazes at him with an inscrutable expression. After a moment, the Zabrak's mouth twists upwards in a vicious little smile.
"You're not, are you?" he says softly and Obi-Wan blinks, pushing a ripple of confusion through their bond, too tired for words. Maul clarifies, "A Jedi. You're really not anymore. No robes, no infuriating serenity, not even that poncy accent anymore."
Obi-Wan frowns a little, trying to remember when he last had to consciously reach for the rolling r's and vowels of Stewjon in place of the crisp rigidity of Coruscant, and finds he can't.
Maul hums and bumps their shoulders together before tugging him over to the pallet on the floor. "Go to sleep, idiot. I'm sure Shmi will be happy to wake up to your ugly mug in the morning."
"You like my mug," Obi-Wan protests sleepily as he's manhandled out of the bulkier parts of his armor and onto his back. Maul scoffs as he lays down beside him, but Obi-Wan reaches over to clumsily pat his arm. "Don' worry, you'll like Satine's, too. And you'll have fun arguing together."
"Go to sleep," Maul repeats, sounding amused. Then, "And I'll hold you to that, idiot…"
Obi-Wan drifts off to the rhythmic breathing and calming Force-presence of nearly everyone he loves…