Author: Hyyp chick
Title: Tangled web Chapter 6
Pairing: Obi/Ani
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own, just borrowing from the kind and gracious Mr Lucas
Summary: Anakin has got himself tangled in lies, and must find a way to get out

Anakin could feel his body stirring into being. The dream he was desperate to cling to was fading from his memory and light was spotting the darkness in front of his eyes. It must be morning.

"Anakin"

His name resonated around his sleep washed mind like part of the dream he was losing to the light. A chill cavorted through his bones sending a shiver up his spine to tantalise the hairs on his neck.

"Anakin"

There was his dream again, the last dying fragments of Obi-wan's soft placating tone drifting through his senses to warm the blood of his cooled body. An Obi-wan who was leant against a tree in a dense thicket somewhere, an Obi-wan that had his Anakin leaning comfortably back into his chest; the boy's long legs stretched out across the grass as Obi-wan's wrapped around Anakin's thighs; his arms draped across the young man's torso, one over the shoulder and one protectively (or was it possessively?) around his waist.

"Anakin"

They were just curled up in each other, talking, as if there was nothing else in the world but them. Obi-wan's whispers were delicate and warm against his cheek and a hand had moved to stroke the baby soft locks of Anakin's hair from his face; the sensation of having his tresses swept through so tenderly made Anakin tingle and smile.

"Anakin"

Obi-wan's voice was demanding his attention.

He woke.

He started at first. It was morning, long after dawn, and the day was dull on Coruscant; a mist clung to the air. He was outside he noted, the Temple gardens by the looks of it, and his muscles were contorted and strained from a night spent in a most awkward position. His neck was pained and he could feel wooden slats of a bench groove into his body and head. It hurt to stay still but it would hurt more to move, he knew it. And he was damp. Dawn, it seemed, had seen fit to settle dew drops on the sleeping Jedi and it made him feel cold and in need of hot running water, but Anakin was reluctant to move. The voice in his evaporating dream had been real. Obi-wan was crouched down beside the bench, looking decidedly gorgeous Anakin noticed, and his fingers were entwined in Anakin's hair; stroking it softly behind his ears.

Anakin loved him. It wasn't lust it was love, Anakin knew lust and this wasn't it. And Obi-wan was out and smiling, so everything must be okay, he wouldn't have to say anything after all.

"Anakin" Obi-wan uttered again and this time Anakin could feel his breath on his skin and he melted into the way his Master played with his name, wishing he could hear it panting from those same lips.

"Have you been out here all night? You're cold and these clothes are damp. I thought you were ill, dying last time I saw you as I remember, these conditions will never do you'll catch pneumonia".

Anakin twisted his head slightly into Obi-wan's touch, bunting like a kitten desperate for attention. Subconsciously he planted the briefest of kisses to the base of Obi-wan's palm.

"I missed you" He mumbled sleepily.

Obi-wan's heart skipped a beat as he felt those warm lips caress his skin. He brushed his hair back one last time comfortingly and then let his hand fall into his lap to steady his crouch.

"Come on, we need to get you inside. I'll make breakfast; you can use my 'fresher"

Obi-wan stood and with some degree of difficulty Anakin followed suit. He smoothed out his bedraggled look before his fellow Jedi could lay eyes on him and fell into step with Obi-wan, heading for home.

Anakin glanced around the corridor as they reached Obi-wan's quarters. It looked as if nothing had happened the night before. Absently Anakin wondered if it hadn't, if he'd dreamt it.

"Master Yoda said that he was going to be fine, the healers released him this morning" Obi-wan commented as if on cue.

Anakin dipped his head to the floor, ashamed of his actions last night. He wondered what else Master Yoda might have mentioned. Obi-wan looked relieved as he threw his palm over the door and it opened. Anakin followed him inside quickly, just in case.

"Now our first priority is to get you out of these wet things…" Obi-wan ordered trying to sound paternal and ending up with a teasing innuendo.

"What did Master Yoda say this morning?" Anakin quizzed, slightly perplexed that the subject hadn't been broached yet.

"He said there was no evidence that anything untoward ever happened. He seems to think someone purposefully started the rumour, to get at you…" He trailed off a bit "Apparently he and Master Windu will be speaking to the source of their information this morning."

Anakin nodded in agreement. There was an awkward moment when neither really knew what to say, both knew what had been unsaid.

"I missed you too" Obi-wan muttered quietly, breaking the suffocating silence, "What happened to you last night?" Concern furrowed his brow.

"In the hallway?" Anakin asked for confirmation.

Obi-wan nodded avoiding Anakin's eyes.

"I'd been in a bar all evening, the alcohol numbed my cold…" He added, not wanting to bring up his conversation with Padme "When I came back to the Temple I wanted to see you. I was sick I…I just needed you" Anakin admitted with a flush burning in his cheeks.

"And, um, how did you get from that to Force choking my 'security'?" Obi-wan continued, not failing to note the pleading in Anakin's voice.

"I don't want to talk about it" Anakin closed up and stormed past Obi-wan into the kitchen. Obi-wan sighed and trailed in after him.

"I was only asking, I felt what happened to you last night you were…you were suffering. I was worried about you"

Tentatively he laid his fingers on Anakin's shoulder running his eyes over the back of Anakin's neck. He wished he didn't feel like this. He wished he didn't want to slide his arm around the Knight and lay slender kisses to his skin. He wished he didn't want to peel the damp clothes from Anakin's body and lather soap over his sleek and toned torso in the 'fresher. He wished he didn't get the feeling that Anakin wanted him to do it too. If his desires were unwelcome it would make his resolve stronger.

He snapped his hand back and dug it into his robes. Anakin turned round to face him. He went to speak twice but bit back his words. Finally courage stayed his hand and he spat out what he wanted to say.

"If you didn't want me here, if you told me not to come here, it would be hard for me but I would respect you…" pause, deep breath "…But they tried to stop me getting to you, I couldn't stand it, I…" Anakin lost his bottle and went to storm passed Obi-wan but was halted by his former Master.

"But…I…you…me? But…you and Padme?" Obi-wan spluttered, confused, desperately hoping he hadn't misinterpreted the words Anakin hadn't said.

"You know about that?!" Anakin reeled, shocked by Obi-wan's knowledge of the relationship.

"Yes, it is none of my business of course" Obi-wan back tracked, embarrassed to have brought it up.

"She…it was about sex" Anakin replied flippantly "I needed it, she was willing to put out, that's all" Anakin shrugged.

Obi-wan wasn't so sure, it certainly hadn't seemed like it was just a sexual arrangement in the letter he had inadvertently read, not to her in any case.

"You speak in the past tense" Obi-wan noted.

"I, um, I ended it yesterday, turns out she wasn't exactly what I needed"

"Yesterday" Obi-wan repeated heavily "That's convenient" he mocked sarcastically.

"I don't know what you mean?" Anakin feigned ignorance.

"You end a love affair with her and then out of nowhere there appears to be a slanderous rumour about an 'us'" Obi-wan explained, building the jigsaw for Anakin.

"I don't think Padme would do something like that, she's not that contriving" Anakin lied to protect himself.

"She's a politician Anakin" Obi-wan sounded exasperated, as if he'd drummed home this message a thousand times before, "And you cannot trust them, any of them".

"Well it doesn't matter now anyway does it; Master Yoda knows you're innocent"

"Anakin" Obi-wan elongated his name in that way he did whenever Anakin failed to grasp a concept, "I am happy to have had my innocence 'proven' but it should never have been in question, and people will remember that it has been; they won't trust me, they'll gossip about me, my reputation remains in tatters regardless of my guilt or innocence"

Anakin swallowed the rock of guilt wedged in his throat but reasoned that he could do no good by telling the truth now.

"I'm sorry Master, I didn't mean for it to sound that way. Now you said something about breakfast?"

"I said something about removing those wet clothes" Obi-wan countered, unable to prevent the suggestion in his tone before it escaped him. He bit down on his lip in embarrassment once he'd realised how it had sounded.

"Well how about you do breakfast and I'll go and get wet" Anakin purred, sidling passed his Master so their bodies rubbed against each other, Anakin's height accentuated by Obi-wan's lack of it.

Obi-wan gulped as their eyes held each other's gaze longer than they should have; the light air turning libidinously thick. Anakin headed for the 'fresher with a sudden need and Obi-wan looked around his kitchen to see if he could find his Jedi resolve there.

Anakin returned from the 'fresher with a contented look about him. Obi-wan knew what he had been doing, he hadn't been very quiet about it; he never had been come to that, but this time for the first time Obi-wan suspected it wasn't that pretty tramp of a Senator invading his mind with licentious images. Obi-wan had had to halt breakfast at that thought and take a short intermission in his room, where he could hear Anakin better than he could in the kitchen. He hoped he was quieter than the boy though.

Breakfast became a game as Anakin sat to eat in just a towel, water droplets dripping from his bouncing curls over his bare chest and back. Obi-wan wanted to dive across the table and consume the moisture with his hungry lips, and when he wasn't watching the trickling water he was eyeing the way Anakin was devouring his food; playing the fork around his mouth lasciviously and deliberately stealing glances of his Master, twisting and contorting his tongue over his lips until Obi-wan became seconds away from a whimper.

The afternoon meal descended into debauchery as they competed for the title of 'most provocatively eaten lunch', and it hadn't helped that Anakin had discarded the towel for an old fleece blanket of his he'd found in Obi-wan's wardrobe, and kept letting it fall open 'accidentally' to reveal himself the way nature intended him to be; though Obi-wan doubted that Nature intended any man to sit in a state of semi arousal for that long.

Now they sat like bookends at either end of the couch, Anakin still wrapped in that blanket, watching some soppy movie the holonet was screening. Obi-wan brushed his fingers over the sole of Anakin's foot gently, making it tickle. When he could take it no more Anakin flipped himself round to snuggle against Obi-wan, outstretching them both along the couch and throwing the blanket over the top of them.

Obi-wan's heart hitched in his throat at the closeness of their bodies, Anakin naked pressed up against him. Wordlessly and without removing his eyes from the screen Anakin reached behind his shoulder, grappling for Obi-wan's hand. Obi-wan obliged and Anakin pulled it round his waist and settled it onto his chest, resting his own over it. When he felt Obi-wan relax into the touch he began to encourage the Jedi Master to explore his skin.

Strong fingers glided over Anakin's tense muscles, nervously learning the curves of his body, tracing over pert nipples and soft hair. Knowing it was what he wanted Obi-wan pushed Anakin onto his back and forced his gaze away from the screen so their eyes would meet. Controlling, though anxiously, he leant over the Knight's body and placed a gentile virginal kiss to his full lips. Anakin silently accepted the kiss and then pulled Obi-wan into a crushingly passionate exchange of his own. As tenuous tongues tangled together for the first time, Obi-wan tentatively slid his hand down Anakin's chest. Apprehensively it reached his abdomen and Obi-wan was uncertain of how to go about his next move.

"Wait" Anakin pleaded breathlessly, breaking from the kiss.

Obi-wan felt embarrassed, advancing on the boy like a Nubian Senator on heat.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I thought you…"

"I do want this, I really, really, really don't want you to stop but I have to tell you something" Anakin said.

"Now!" Obi-wan exclaimed.

"It's important. Damn Master Yoda! Why is he always right?"

Obi-wan looked confused. His hand curled around Anakin's hip as he listened. Anakin let out a resigned sigh and then began.

"It's my fault that you got accused of those things. I went over to see Padme after I left here yesterday, I was supposed to have spent the night with her. I was explaining that I'd not been well and that I came here and she got all accusatory on me. So I told her what she was goading me to say. I told her we'd slept together."

Anakin winced as Obi-wan's face twisted in shock.

"Why would you tell her something like that?" Obi-wan demanded, sitting up and leaving Anakin exposed.

"Because it's what I wanted to be true. I never said anything about when I was a Padawan, she made that up herself, but I guess I planted the seed, I'm sorry"

"Sorry?!" Obi-wan stood, shaking the blanket to the floor. "You didn't think to correct her? To tell her that you lied?"

"I went over there last night after I had seen Mace and put her straight"

"Oh, only after you had found out what she had said! Why would you let her think that?!"

"I wanted to get rid of her! I wanted you!"

"So you told your little fucking whore that we were sleeping together! Anakin how could you?! Even if we had been, we're Jedi you can't go around broadcasting things like that! You stupid, stupid boy! Do you have any idea what you have done?"

"I apologised to Master Yoda"

"Oh well that makes all the fucking difference! What if she goes and tells all her friends in the senate?"

"She won't" Anakin replied all too confidently.

"Why, did you Force choke her too?" Obi-wan spat sarcastically. Anakin's eyes threatened to spill tears and he dropped them to floor level.

"Anakin you didn't!"

"No! I threatened her with the hot end of my lightsaber!" Anakin snapped, not sure what gave him the right to yell back at Obi-wan.

Obi-wan sighed and rubbed his temple with a pained expression to his face.

"Obi-wan I love you" Anakin begged quietly, hoping he would be forgiven for the sake of four words.

"Get out" Obi-wan demanded just as quietly, with a resilient calm to his voice.

Anakin leant over the edge of the couch, running his fingers through his mop of hair, wishing he could take back his admission of guilt but knowing he couldn't have had Obi-wan with it locked up inside of him.

"Please let me stay, I want to be here. I love you and we can talk about this, I didn't mean any harm I just said it, I didn't know she'd make up that other shit and run to the council with it"

"Mace spoke to you last night?" Obi-wan asked.

"Yes" Anakin affirmed.

"But you apologised to Master Yoda?"

Anakin didn't reply.

"So you could have told Mace the truth but you didn't. You lied to her, you lied to Mace, and then you come here today and lie to me! And to top it all off you spent the night high on the Dark side threatening to kill people! I don't want anyone to do that for me, thank you Anakin. I don't want to belong to anybody, to be someone's possession. I wanted to be your lover not your prize. Master Yoda may have knighted you but you still behave like a Padawan, and even most of them don't behave as badly as you. Grow up Anakin. Get out"

Obi-wan shuffled off to his room and locked the door. Anakin failed to prevent his tears and after climbing into his discarded robes, he skulked off to his own quarters to devise a plan to win himself back into Obi-wan's heart.