Title: Tangled web; Chapter 4
Author: Hyyp chick
Pairing: Obi/Ani
Rating: R for implications
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns the characters, I have stolen them for the purposes of my enjoyment
Summary: Anakin finds out about the accusations Obi-wan faces

Anakin sat on a couch in Mace Windu's apartment, the residue of his seething anger still pulsing through him. His hands clutched a mug of coffee, given to him to help quell the effects of alcohol in his bloodstream, his mind racing with the thought of his imminent expulsion from the Order. Though why he had been brought to Mace's apartment to be expelled was beyond him.

Looking around the sparse room he concluded that he'd prefer to hear his fate in the council chambers. It seemed only fitting, proper. This room was too personal, too…Mace, and Anakin fairly hated the man. Well maybe hate was too strong a word but he certainly didn't relish sitting in his apartment drinking what Mace passed off as coffee.

Obi-wan had real coffee, made with real beans, and it had a rich textual flavour, smooth on the tongue and aromatic to the nasal. Master Windu's 'coffee' was so obviously freeze dried, its texture was coarse and it smelt faintly sour.

In any case Anakin was still sick and coffee of any sort was making him feel nauseous. The maize whiskey he'd been drinking for the best part of the evening had masked the symptoms of his viral disease, but this bitter caffeine brought them flooding back. He longed for Obi-wan's special blend of citrus fruits and sugars, like the one he'd made him last night to ease his mortal agony, a drink that roused his senses and pleasured the taste buds, and left him feeling warm inside.

He spat a mouthful of the foul stimulant back into the mug; afraid swallowing would induce an unwelcome bout of vomit, and placed the cup out of reach on the low table between the seats. He pulled his cloak tighter around him to hide his trembling, partly a cause of the pathogens infecting his system and partly a remnant of the outburst that had led him here. A fear that was growing in an unforgiving nature, a fear that tonight would be his last in the Temple, his last as a Jedi, and with Obi-wan kept from him, and his own dismissal of Padme from his life, or more accurately his bed, a fear that he would be lost. A lone soul with nowhere to go, nowhere to belong, and no-one to love.

Mace re-entered the room and sat down opposite Anakin. Anakin dropped his eyes to the floor deliberately avoiding the Jedi Master's eyes. Of all the people to expel him, couldn't it at least have been Master Yoda, he thought. Mace coughed to clear his throat, demanding Anakin's attention. Against his better will Anakin let his eyes meet with his elder's and saw them wide and solemn, searching him. Immediately he checked his shields, he didn't want this particular Jedi rooting through his mind, looking for the source of his rage, but a single raised eyebrow from Mace required it anyway.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I, um, I've been, um, out and, I um…is he going to be alright?" Anakin asked, unable to mask the nervousness in his voice.

"Yes, he is fine. The healers checked him over but, no damage done" Mace informed him factually.

Anakin nodded, humbly relieved. He hadn't meant to hurt anyone. His eyes returned to the unspectacular floor of his surroundings.

"Anakin?" Mace pressed on, using his name to question his actions, his reactions. Anakin nodded meekly again and continued.

"I just wanted to see Obi-wan. I…needed his counsel…" He said vaguely which pulled Mace further into listening range, "…I haven't been well, I…look I just wanted to see Obi-wan." Anakin restated with more assurance and defiance to his wavering voice, "I have a right. He is my, was my Master, we are friends, we're a team, he has continued to give me entry to his apartment of my own free will, I had a right to be there, that…that, he, whoever he was didn't have a right to stop me!" Anakin vented vehemently, standing up to pace out his frustrations.

Mace nodded in some understanding Anakin wasn't aware of. He had asked to be informed the minute Skywalker set foot in the Temple after a scour for him had concluded that he was not 'at home'. By the time Mace had reached the personal quarters Anakin had found himself locked out of Obi-wan's apartment and was discharging his anger onto the Jedi that kept muted guard at the door. All the lights in the corridor had blown out from his ire, and the walls trembled under his fury, and the man that wouldn't let him through the door was crumpled on the floor, suffocating in the thin air Anakin was slowly squeezing from his lungs.

Anakin had heard a desperate plea from Obi-wan through their bond to stop moments before the shrill cry of Mace's exact demand filled the corridor. Anakin had released the unconscious guard and wordlessly followed Mace to the Jedi Master's own quarters.

The stupid thing was, as if the act itself hadn't been stupid enough, that Anakin didn't know or couldn't explain why his emotions had spiralled so completely out of control and so quickly. It was just that on his way home from the bar he had made a decision to go and see Obi-wan despite the conscious lie he had deceived Padme with that was still haunting his mind. On arriving he had at first ignored the Jedi stood outside, moving instead to go straight in. He had waved his palm across the door and followed with a step at the same time, resulting in a bang to the head from his forward momentum when the door had refused to open. Confused, he had made several more attempts to open it but obviously without success. That's when he'd turned to the boy who was just stood there! watching him fail. He had asked nicely for an explanation but the boy had paid him no attention whatsoever, so he had asked again, less nicely this time and still this boy ignored him. And whether from copious alcohol consumption or just because he was Anakin Skywalker, or maybe both, he simply…lost it.

"What did he say to you?" Mace queried, a calmness controlling his voice.

"Nothing!" Anakin spat, turning to face Mace from beside the window, "He wouldn't say anything!"

Again Mace nodded and it was starting to piss Anakin off. Could he not just get it over and done with?

"Anakin, take a seat" Mace requested, gesturing to the couch Anakin had previously sprung from. Anakin obeyed, but only because his muscles were straining to hold his weight up with their sickness.

"Anakin…" Mace began, and Anakin noted for the first time that the Jedi Master was addressing him by his first name, instead of his usual disdainful 'young Skywalker'; it was a bad omen as far as he was concerned.

"…I do not condone your behaviour tonight, and if anything like this happens again you will be excluded from the Jedi Order, do I make myself clear?"

The question was rhetorical and Anakin knew better than to answer it, even to affirm it. But he didn't understand Mace's leniency on the subject. He had acted in anger, pure anger, and every Jedi, sith hell every body knew where that led! And he'd wilfully damaged Temple property, and nearly taken the life of one of his fellows…

"I am interested to hear about your relationship with Master Kenobi, you refer to yourselves as a team?" Mace quizzed, though Anakin couldn't make out where he was going with it, the question was odd.

"Yes, we're a team" Anakin avouched.

"What makes you call yourselves that?"

"Well, we work well together, we know what each other is thinking and what each one of us will do on any given assignment. My weaknesses are his strengths and vice versa. We make a good team" Anakin emphasised.

"And you say you are friends?" Mace's continual questioning tone unnerved Anakin; he was acting with irregular peculiarity tonight.

"Of course we are friends, what else would we be?" Anakin answered confused, meaning how could they be less than such.

"You tell me" Mace implied, leaning back on the couch.

"What do you mean?" Anakin attempted to clarify, unsure by the Master's words.

"Are you lovers?" Mace questioned directly, to which Anakin reeled in obvious shock. His synapses began to snap into action most could only induce with amphetamine, why would Mace ask such a thing? Why couldn't he see Obi-wan? Why did he feel that this line of questioning and his earlier lie to Padme were not a coincidence?

"No!" Anakin stated emphatically, surprise catching in his tone.

"No?"

"I…No! What is this?" Anakin demanded, standing again.

"We received intelligence that says different. Our source claims that you are lovers…"

Anakin screwed his mouth up as he realised what Padme had done, annoyance leaking into his ill body. He had hurt her with his harsh words and she had run straight to the council to hurt him back. He wondered if she'd told them that they were lovers too.

"Anakin?"

"We're not, okay? It's ridiculous! We're Jedi for sith's sake! Has Obi-wan been told about this? Is that why he has locked me out?" Anakin strutted in front of the window, his unsavoury emotions welling inside of him yet again.

Mace sighed.

"Our source told us more than you were lovers; they also claimed that Obi-wan had mistreated you as a Padawan. Their information suggested that Master Kenobi seduced you whilst you were under the legal age of consent that we respect here on Coruscant. We are not above the law Anakin. If you and Obi-wan are lovers now then you would be breaking your commitment to the Jedi Order, but if as our source suggests, he seduced you to perform any kind of sexual act before your eighteenth birthday, with or without your consent, then he would have broken the law and we have no option but to punish him".

Anakin's mind stumbled backwards from the shock. How could she say such a thing? How could she mar Obi-wan like that? He hadn't said that! Not even hinted at that! He had said they had slept together last night that was all, and that was a damned lie! How could she? How dare she!

"That ridiculous! It's stupid! You know Obi-wan, you're friends with him, surely you know that he would never…he would never! You can't think? It's not true, not a word of it, we're not now and we weren't then, and we never have! He's Obi-wan for fuck's sake! Obi-wan! Where is he, I want to see him" Anakin babbled almost to the point of incomprehension as his thoughts found their voice before he could arrange them. A common ailment he was experiencing today.

"Obi-wan is under house arrest. That is why you could not enter his room. His guard was the Jedi you nearly choked to death. I cannot permit you to see him, not until all this is cleared up" Mace informed him.

"But it's cleared up I've told you it's untrue, and I know he would have told you the same. How you can even stand there and accuse him…" Anakin trailed off in disbelief.

"We have to speak to some others Anakin, you could well lie to protect him. We have to be seen to do the right thing; this case has the eyes of the senate"

"You're not kidding" Anakin said aside. "Can I go now?"

"I think somebody needs to keep an eye on you" Mace growled in retort.

"I'm not a child! I promise I'll stay away from Obi-wan's, and I won't lose my temper. I've been out all night and I'm sick, I need to take all this in, I need to meditate on it" He replied, sarcastically denoting the word 'meditate'.

Mace drew in a deep breath and then released it, resigned to his decision. He really didn't want to spend the night baby sitting Skywalker either.

"Okay you can go" He agreed. Anakin inclined his head with habitual gratitude and left the apartment briskly.

Obi-wan turned over to gaze out of the window at the hub of Coruscant nightlife. The city that never sleeps. Everyone going about their business completely unaware that a Jedi was being held captive in his quarters. The lights played out a merry dance on his walls, accompanied by the overture of the chrono by his bedside and the rhythmic hum of the cooler in the kitchen.

He wondered what had happened to Anakin as he snuggled himself deeper into the young man's tunic. He had felt his presence outside the door, had felt his frustrations building, and the swift twist in the Force knotted his internals as his protégé gave in to his emotions and rained wrath down in the hallway.

He'd called out through their bond, desperate for Anakin to stop, desperate to calm him, and cuddle him, and protect him. But he'd heard Mace soon after his own anguished cry and the commotion had evaporated, the darkness lifted.

He prayed to all the Gods he knew of to let Mace be lenient on him. To understand that Anakin was Anakin, not just another mindless drone of the Temple, that Anakin felt.

He imagined his prayers would be wasted. Mace hated Anakin; he would relish any opportunity to throw him from the Order.

He wanted to see Anakin, needed to see Anakin; he had to make sure everything was alright; he had to make sure his Anakin was alright.
It was late when the door to Padme's bedroom screamed open. She woke abruptly to see her hefty lover bounce into a state of unconsciousness off the facing wall. She made to sit up quickly and shriek but her advancement was halted and her voice suppressed as she felt the searing heat of a lightsaber dangerously close to her neck.

She lay back flat on the bed as the awesome brilliance of blue petrified her vision. She bit her lips together as the ruffled bed sheets were slid to the floor, and stifled a terrified squeak as her assailant moved to straddle her powerfully.

She turned her tearful face into her pillow as the magnified idle hum raped all of her senses.