Part III: Anakin gets himself in over his head, and everything he and Obi-Wan have been trying to suppress between them comes tumbling out. Please read the warnings/extensive notes in Part I first. Rated R/M.
Marriage is What Brings Us Together Today
Part III: Eternity is Our Friend, Remember That, and Love Will Follow You Forever
"Do you really have to continue making such a scene?" His Master's lecturing had, so far, not abated. Obi-Wan was in full-blown teacher-mode, even managing to make his opinions on everything under Analbeadla's sun that it shared with five other systems known over the sounds of the band that was playing outdoors. Likewise, Anakin was fairly certain he was just about ready to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he was, in fact, no longer Obi-Wan's student.
"Those guys back at the brunch seemed to like it," Anakin shrugged, and then, because it still rankled him, "At least nobody called you a drukking slave, Master."
"Oh, Anakin." Obi-Wan looked weary all of the sudden. No matter how many times they went through this exercise, it seemed as though there was always another one in the pipeline somewhere.
He had planned to attempt to mollify, but Anakin cut him off. "Oh, Master," he mimicked, even crossing his arms in an approximation of Obi-Wan's typical body language. "I'm surprised you didn't start fitting me for a collar right then and there."
Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. "While it would be nice to hear you coming with a giant bell around your neck like an overexcited Nekk puppy," he began, and Anakin begrudgingly smirked a little, "I was simply playing a role. Just like you, Anakin. That's what we must do sometimes."
Anakin vacillated sharply. "I know that, Master. Because that's what I've been saying to you this entire time. But I guess because it didn't fall from the lips of the Republic's famed Negotiator, it means nothing, right?"
Obi-Wan stared at him. "I'm afraid I don't understand your point, Anakin," he said mildly, and Anakin snapped.
"Because you never LISTEN to me," he informed Obi-Wan sharply. "Because I'm part of this mission too and you haven't listened to me ONCE!" He clenched his fists tightly, then forced himself to relax them. It wouldn't do to blow their cover because he couldn't control his temper - it would simply prove whatever stupid point Obi-Wan though he had, which wasn't something Anakin was keen on doing just now.
With a sharp huff of air, Obi-Wan crossed his own arms over his chest, 'as usual,' Anakin thought snidely. "Because you've had nothing of value to add," his Master retorted evenly. "Your contributions have included getting outrageously intoxicated, attempting to initiate intercourse in public, and being incredibly rude and inappropriate during an official function. So please, Anakin, enlighten us both: Tell me what I've missed by not asking for your input."
While Anakin could not dispute the facts, he could still make his point. "It's not like you even wanted to do this," he pointed out. "Am I that awful you can't even pretend to moderately like me for one weekend?"
Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. "Really, Anakin?" he asked, tilting his head incredulously.
"Really!" Anakin exclaimed, throwing his arms out to the sides.
His former Master simply shook his head and lapsed into silence. On the stage a few meters away, another band trotted out, one that Anakin recognized from his teen years: An angry-girl-progressive-rock band whose lyrics consisted mostly of instructions on how to perform cunnilingus, which Anakin had found quite helpful on his actual wedding night, truth be told.
But as much as he may have wanted to steep himself in nostalgia, he still had a point to make, even if Obi-Wan was pretending to ignore him, and the music had only served to remind him, painfully, of what that point actually was. "Because you still treat me like I'm some snot-nosed little kid when I'm a Knight and a General!" The twisty nervous sun dragon in his heart coiled.
That they were having this discussion in public did not seem to detract from Obi-Wan's ability to respond. "Because you act like a child," he said. "You may be a Knight and a General, but you are still a child in many ways, Anakin."
"I have a Padawan!" Anakin countered, realizing that it was a weak argument at best, and yet putting it on the table anyways.
Obi-Wan latched onto it, though. "Yes, you do, and she's a Padawan who is several years your senior in terms of maturity." He ran a hand over his beard, visibly frustrated. "And who should not be exposed to the end result of your inability to do anything in moderation!"
Anakin jerked his head back slightly, lifting an eyebrow in confusion until he remembered the ill-timed workout from the other day. "You heard about that?" he asked, but quickly added, "That only happened the once! It's not like I make a habit of it!"
And he didn't, not really. Since taking Ahsoka on as his Padawan, he'd tamed a lot of his more questionable behavior. Still, sometimes he just felt the need to break out of the mold the war had poured him into - enforcer, soldier, weapon - and the end result was what Ahsoka had so unfortunately witnessed. It wouldn't happen again, he thought to himself, but here and now, with Obi-Wan frowning at him like he was still the grubby nine-year-old boy Qui-Gon had plucked from obscurity off of Tatooine and burdened Obi-Wan into taking under his wing, he knew his vows to be better meant basically nothing.
Though Obi-Wan stared at him unhappily, he did not flail around the way Anakin did. "Whatever blunder you've made recently with Ahsoka is not my concern," he told Anakin flat-out. "Though in complete honesty, you do make a habit of making a fool of yourself, and her tolerance for it will not last forever. She's a very smart girl, and -"
"For kriff's sake, do you ever get tired of hearing yourself talk?" It erupted from him tersely, and then sat there between them, heavy and terrible. He wanted to take it back. "O-Obi-Wan ..." he began, but his outburst had worked: Obi-Wan had been quite effectively shut down.
"Quite," his Master, his partner, his best friend offered simply, and if his voice was a little hoarse, Anakin wasn't about to fault him for it. He turned away then, leaving Anakin feeling like he had any time his Master had refused to put up with his particularly disrespectful antics as a youth and had opted for silence. This time, it was worse, however, because he knew better, and Obi-Wan knew he knew better, and he'd still fucked things up.
Obi-Wan remained mute and stock still through the next two songs. It hurt, it was supposed to hurt, he knew, and yet, the longer Obi-Wan froze him out, the pain was slowly replaced by the familiar and refreshing chill of anger. Kark Obi-Wan and his fear of attachments and his standards and his rules, Anakin thought, suddenly furious, and then he abruptly pivoted on his heel.
"Where are you going?" Obi-Wan's surprise was etched across his features, silence broken to gawk at his former Padawan's gall. "Are you abandoning your post?" he asked, and Anakin spun back around momentarily, perturbed.
"I'm going for a drink. Or five. Don't worry about it, Ben," he snarled, "I won't compromise our precious mission. I know it means more to you than anything else." And with that, he was gone.
Another intermission led into a band fronted by a tall, leggy male lead with feathery hair and an outfit curiously similar to Anakin's. The physical similarities made Obi-Wan once again reach out instinctively through the Force, attempting to search for his wayward former apprentice. Instead, the space was cluttered with a simmering sexual tension and various other emotions from the Pride festival's numerous patrons. At least they had yet to run into any Separatist interference, he thought idly, and resisted the urge to sink deeper into his thoughts, to, as Anakin had called it on more than one occasion, stew in his own juices. It was difficult, however; the words he and Anakin had flung at one another had been raw and angry, and he hated - yes, hated, though the Order had worked so very hard to breed it out of him - that their relationship had once again been pushed to the precipice of a cliff over the usual cyclone of Anakin's emotions and his own emotional constipation.
The lead singer paused his vocalizing and stood at the lip of the stage in a haughty pose, to raucous applause. Obi-Wan watched him breathe heavily and run a hand through his sweaty, long mane, and felt suddenly very alone.
The bar adjacent to the outdoor concert hall was dimly-lit and smoky, albeit not from fog lights, simply all manner of rolled cigarettes and the occasional death stick. Anakin forewent all of that in favor of hard alcohol, pounding back his third in the same hour and wiping his mouth with the back of his real hand. Each drink brought him further away from his fight with Obi-Wan, and at that moment, it was exactly what he wanted.
He didn't immediately notice the large, bulky frame take up space on the stool directly beside him; the rumbling laughter near his ear got his attention, however. "You're a pretty boy, aren't you Lars?" The voice was familiar, and Anakin turned and came face-to-face with the man from the brunch earlier that day. "Where's Master?" the man half-sneered, and Anakin shrugged.
"Dunno. I think he hates me." It was morose to say something like this to a near-stranger, but he really didn't care at the moment. He expected this to be the end of the conversation anyways, but the man seemed to be making himself more comfortable now, rather than getting ready to take his leave.
"Aw. Did the pretty boy slave finally mouth off one too many times?" When Anakin didn't say anything, the man continued prodding. "Hm. Did I strike a nerve?"
"You know nothing about me," Anakin replied softly, and his words slurred a little. In the Force, something rippled uneasily around him, but he ignored it.
Beside him, the man continued to press his luck. "I know enough about mouthy slaves who need to learn their place," he said casually, and signaled to yet another gimp-masked bartender. "Another round for my friend here," he grinned, and before long, Anakin's empty glass was switched out for another one. "Drink up," his patron told him, sliding the glass slowly across the bar, and Anakin gazed down at it blearily.
"'m not your friend," he muttered, but took a drink nonetheless, and then another. He wasn't about to admit how close to home the career Dom's words were sort of lazily hitting, and in order to stay quiet, he needed to be yet drunker.
The man watched him carefully. "My slave boy didn't get to come with me this year; he wanted to, but I told him Daddy needed to play without him." Anakin drained the glass and he smiled. "Maybe your Master will find someone else to play with tonight, too."
It was a ridiculous notion, except it wasn't, because an image of Obi-Wan, standing alongside Bail Organa in the Alderaanian Senator's private kitchen, the both of them laughing at some anecdote Organa was telling involving Obi-Wan and shoddy cooking, flashed suddenly through his mind. "Maybe," Anakin intoned drowsily. Maybe Obi-Wan was off having a great kriffing time without him right now. Maybe his attitude had sprung not from the idea of the subterfuge, but the fact that he wasn't able to do it alone this time. Maybe ... maybe ...
"Good boy, pretty little slave," he heard the man say just before things went dark for him. "When the Master's away, the slave still has to play ..."
The headline act for the evening was, to Obi-Wan's mild surprise, a woman with painted-on eyebrows and a predilection for jaunty, amelodic tunes. She was apparently extremely popular, if the roar of the crowd every time she struck the opening chords of a new song was any indication.
As the singer played an upbeat song about what Obi-Wan strongly suspected was a metaphor for a sex toy, he reached out through the Force once again, telling himself he was searching for Separatist activity. It was the reason they were there in the first place, he reminded himself harshly. This wasn't meant to be a vacation; it was a mission. A mission Anakin was not taking even slightly seriously.
It wasn't as though Anakin were incapable of taking things seriously. Sometimes he took things TOO seriously, like the casual musing of a Dom over brunch, or the frustrated words of a tired friend. He was tired, Obi-Wan realized. The war was spreading them both too thin, taking too much from them. Obi-Wan retreated into the structure of the Order for relief while Anakin ... Anakin regressed into capricious teenager-mode.
The thought of Anakin's behavior sparked another surge of annoyance, but this time it was tinged with something else: A warning in the Force, a slithering tendril of danger.
On the stage, the song changed to something frantic and dark and desperate, matching the now roiling clouds in Obi-Wan's Force-sense. And at the cloud's center was Anakin, though Obi-Wan could not quite tell why. His immediate first instinct was that of COURSE Anakin had gotten himself into trouble in the hour, hour and a half he'd been gone. But then there was a call like a siren, and Obi-Wan suddenly felt fear.
Anakin. Anakin was in trouble. They'd parted on terrible terms, and Obi-Wan knew full well how clouded Anakin's judgment could become when he was angry - and drinking. Because that's what he'd said, wasn't it? That he was going for a drink. Or five. Obi-Wan cast his gaze around the venue, trying to pick out the most likely drinking establishment.
The Force seemed to be pulling him towards the one closest to the stage. It wasn't Anakin's Force-signature - well, it was, but it was muddled and confused and it made Obi-Wan want to shove the concert-goers out of his way. As he got nearer to the bar, his sense of danger heightened until he was doing just that, shoving and pushing his way through the crowd until he was finally in the smoky confines of the bar.
He looked around with both physical eyes and the Force, but he couldn't see his friend anywhere. Closing his eyes and centering himself, he reached out once more, finally pinpointing a secluded alcove at the bar end of the bar.
Anakin was propped up in a chair, his shirt pulled open and hanging loosely off his shoulders, his pants undone, eyes and mouth half-open. Standing over him was the Dom from earlier in the day, tracing a trail of ice down Anakin's bare chest. "That's a good slave," he heard the man say, and Anakin made a soft mewling noise.
In a flash, Obi-Wan had pushed the man aside, forgetting in his haste not to back it up with the Force. "Anakin!" he exclaimed, not even bothering with the charade, forgetting and then remembering and then shoving the disguise aside angrily. He knelt beside his friend, grabbing his shoulders and giving him a shake. "Anakin!"
Anakin's head lolled as he seemed to struggle to focus on Obi-Wan's face. He reeked of alcohol, but Obi-Wan knew that it took more than that to put Anakin into this kind of state. The younger man's pupils were dilated, and his eyelids fluttered weakly, but he didn't respond. Growing desperate, Obi-Wan slapped him lightly on the cheek, and then again. "What did you give him?" he demanded of the man, who was watching the spectacle; obviously Obi-Wan would have to remember to push harder next time.
"Just something I thought he'd like," the Dom responded. "Didn't mean to step on your turf." He held up his hands in mock-surrender.
Obi-Wan shook his head, glowering as he managed to sling Anakin's arm around his shoulders and ease him into an almost-standing position. Anakin's knees buckled and only judicious use of the Force got them both moving again.
It was uncharacteristic, but Obi-Wan would have very much liked to practice his own brand of Force-choking at the moment. However, he had more important things to worry about. Keeping a firm arm around Anakin's waist and with his other hand holding Anakin's arm, they managed to make it back out into the cool night air, together again.
Getting them both all the way back to their temporary shared room at a large, overpriced, overbooked hotel where they nonetheless held key cards the duration of the weekend was a feat, to be sure, but Obi-Wan managed, fueled by adrenaline and a pressing need to make sure that Anakin, his former Padawan, his Chosen One, his everything, was, in fact, all right.
Once inside, he let Anakin fall heavily across the large mattress that, as assumed husbands, they were expected to share. Tugging his worn, familiar utility belt from a hidden compartment in the small piece of luggage he had toted along to keep up appearances, Obi-Wan quickly uncapped a device not unlike the one Qui-Gon must have used to take Anakin's first blood sample for the Jedi all those years ago. He depressed it as gently as possible in Anakin's arm, and then waited impatiently for the results. The mild poison currently circulating in the young man's bloodstream was nothing that some of the universal antidote Obi-Wan always carried with him, alongside spare bacta strips and his lightsaber, couldn't fix. Without fanfare, he tugged a vial of that out of the inner-workings of his belt, as well, fed it into Anakin's arm, and then put away his supplies and waited for it to take effect.
After several minutes, Anakin began to seem more lucid; long eyelashes fluttered against paler-than-usual cheeks, and soft, pink lips parted as he heaved a sigh. "Obi-Wan ..." his former Padawan murmured, and his eyes opened, belying his sudden anxiety at the reality of the situation. "I'm sorry," he gasped brokenly, and Obi-Wan could sense Anakin's deep shame percolating in the Force. Sure enough, tears soon welled up in Anakin's deep blue eyes, and then rolled down his face. "I'm sorry," he whispered again. "I f-fucked everything up ... I got myself in trouble and you had to come save me again, just like you always had to when I was your a-apprentice." He hiccupped, and more tears splashed down his face.
Perched on the bed beside him, Obi-Wan leaned over Anakin, cradling him in his lap. The positioning was vaguely reminiscent of how he had held Qui-Gon in his beloved Master's final moments, and the realization of this caused him to clutch at Anakin a little more desperately. When he spoke again, his voice was soft: "My Anakin," he murmured, and Anakin seemed surprised to find him so kind. He swept the pads of his thumbs underneath the young man's dampened eyelashes, wiping at the wetness there. "I thought I had lost you just now," he continued, and squeezed reassuringly the hand that Anakin had brought up to hold his. "And that scared me beyond the telling of it. You're so special, Anakin - to me," he clarified, and Anakin's eyes widened a little. "I know we've been through a lot lately, both together and apart; and I know that perhaps I am not the friend you need, often when you need one the most." Anakin cradled his forearm now while Obi-Wan cradled him. "But I love you, Anakin. I need you. Please don't ever doubt how much."
"Master," Anakin croaked. He swallowed, and his voice returned. "I've disrespected your teachings. I should be passing on your wisdom to Ahsoka, and instead, I've been acting like I'm still your Padawan - or worse." He looked away, his cheek pressing against Obi-Wan's knee a little. "And here you are," he said ruefully, his voice more menacing now, "rescuing me again. Pulling me out of a situation I should have known better than to get myself into in the first place." He closed his eyes against the swelling torrent of emotions that were threatening to erupt from him anew. "Sometimes," he said thickly, "sometimes I'm not sure why you didn't just give up on me. Nobody would have blamed you. I was kind of a lost cause from the beginning."
It was a lot laid bare at once. "Look at me, Anakin," Obi-Wan ordered softly, and Anakin (for once) obeyed. "Neither of us can change what has happened in the past. We may want to, but it is impossible, and to dwell on it does a disadvantage to us being able to answer our sacred callings." He paused. "In any case, let's put this to rest right now: Before Qui-Gon died, he asked me to train you, and at the time, I was terribly unsure of myself, completely overwhelmed at the thought of it." Anakin listened to him carefully. "And then, after his funeral, Master Yoda cut off my braid and grilled me on the nature of Qui-Gon's dying wish. He told me to look inside of myself and seek out the truth. And so I did. And do you know what I discovered, Anakin?"
"No, Master," Anakin said quietly. This was not a story he had ever been privy to, and he worried that even breathing too loudly would interrupt it. He laid very still across Obi-Wan's lap, his Master's fingers lightly squeezing his own.
Obi-Wan smiled down at him fondly. "I realized, when I asked the Force what to do, the answer was already there. I felt it inside of myself the same way I felt on Mortis when I watched you tussle with the personifications of Light and Darkness themselves. I was meant to train you, Anakin," he explained, and his eyes shone with emotion and perhaps a couple of unshed tears of his own. "You were my destiny. You were meant to be my Padawan; Qui-Gon had found you, but you belonged to me."
Anakin couldn't speak. It was an incredible testament, and how he had ever doubted Obi-Wan's love for him before, he honestly couldn't say. "I love you, Master," he bit out, and then managed to haul himself into a sitting position, albeit, once more, with a little help from Obi-Wan, until they were face-to-face. "I need you, Obi-Wan," he said, staring directly into the other man's eyes, and when Obi-Wan at long last initiated the first of a series of searing kisses exchanged between them, he couldn't help but sob into his Master's mouth, grateful, Chosen, cherished.
The Separatists did not, in fact, attack Analbeadla that weekend. It was probably for the best, Obi-Wan thought as their ship left the planet's atmosphere, heading back to Coruscant, back to their normal lives (as normal as they could be, in any case). After the events of the previous evening, neither of them had much energy to muster to fight off a 'droid army, anyways.
"Wish they could all be easy like that," Anakin commented, propping his feet - shod anew in his Jedi boots - on the cockpit control panel and lacing his fingers behind his head.
Beside him in the co-pilot's seat, Obi-Wan looked over at him in disbelief. "Easy?" he challenged. "You call that easy?" If Obi-Wan had had his choice, he'd have taken a hundred battle 'droids over one moment of having to see Anakin as he had been the night before.
Anakin shrugged noncommittally. They'd fallen asleep in one another's arms after some rampant activity - Anakin had joked breathlessly afterwards that they were "consummating their nuptials," and Obi-Wan had shoved at him playfully - waking only just in time to check out of their hotel, and neither of them had spoken of the previous day's events. Just like they didn't speak of so many things, Obi-Wan thought. Still, it was nice to see Anakin's good-natured humor return, even if the sentiment was somewhat misplaced. "I bet Dooku couldn't figure out what to wear," his former apprentice commented suddenly.
The thought of Count Dooku dressed in any of the garments he had seen that weekend made Obi-Wan chuckle, and also gag a little. "Yes, I'm sure that's exactly what happened."
Anakin's eyes suddenly lit up. "D'you think we can keep the outfits?" he asked hopefully.
With a sigh, Obi-Wan shook his head. "I have no idea, but I don't really have much desire to wear such a ridiculous getup again." And how; the black animal hide was starting to chafe, among other things. He'd take his lightweight, light-colored, boring, standard-issue Jedi tunics any day, he thought.
Anakin waggled his eyebrows lasciviously. "I dunno, Master, you looked pretty hot, and I wasn't the only one who noticed."
"Yes. Well." Obi-Wan cleared his throat in a Masterly way. "Regardless, we have once again done our duty for the Republic and have helped ensure that free beings may openly express their identities however they choose. Thanks to the continued efforts of the Jedi, Analbeadla's Pride Festival remains an annual exchange of nuanced celebrations of sexualities and all manner of gender identities, as well as the coalescence of ... he trailed off, suddenly, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words.
Fortunately, Anakin was there to pick up the slack. "A coalescence of bodily fluids?" he offered helpfully, and Obi-Wan sighed and rubbed at his temples. "You love me," he stated smugly.
"Wherever did you get that idea?" Obi-Wan frowned, his head still in his hands.
Anakin snorted. "Musta hallucinated it," he smiled, and was gratified to see a tiny grin creep across his Master's face, however hard he must have been trying to hide it.
Bail Organa's spacious apartment was dark when he arrived at its doorway, laden with a couple of shopping bags, a handful of papers he'd toted home from his office, and his commlink, which he held to his ear by cradling it between the side of his face and his shoulder. "All right, and so what did the ambassador say about finding an alternate time so I'm not triple-booked for tomorrow's lunch hour on two different planets?" he queried. On the other end, his personal assistant, Sheltay Retrac, began rattling off a shortened version of this particular ambassador's rather long-winded response to being, as she had wryly characterized it, "abandoned like a nest of ugly gundark eggs."
Bail smiled as he listened to Sheltay expound some more, and then palmed open the door to his private quarters and waved his hand to turn on a light ... upon which he stopped short, after very nearly jumping out of his skin. "So then he starts telling me about how his wife just came back from a week at this rejuvenation spa on Corellia and their union has never been stronger ..." Sheltay was saying, and while normally Bail would have listened and offered bemused vocal inflections as the story almost assuredly spiraled into something ridiculous, he suddenly found himself not giving half of a bantha's turd one way or the other about Ambassador Whoever-the-Kriff and his frivolous wife.
"Sheltay, I'm gonna have to call you back ... yeah, just transcribe those meeting notes for me and then send them out to ... uh, I'm kinda drawing a blank, he's ... blue, maybe? Maybe more of a medium-purple? I just ... oh, kark it," he said at last, and hit the 'end transmission' button on the device with far more force than necessary, before tossing it across the room. He deposited the other items in his arms hastily into an armchair. "I didn't know you were back," he said to the figure looming calmly in the corner of the room, and then began looking him up and down. "Nor did I know that you would look that good in dark colors," he said approvingly, and Obi-Wan smirked. "So to what do I owe the pleasure?" the Senator continued mildly, though the front of his pants were beginning to tent. "You came to return the ring, I suppose, yes?"
"Something like that." Obi-Wan's voice was smooth, the black hide pants sitting hideously low on his waist. Bail licked his lips in anticipation. "I mean, you'll have to find it on me first," the Negotiator intoned breathily, and Bail didn't have to be told twice.