Obi-wan is content. Through the cloud of sorrow that hangs around him and the persistent nightmares and terrors of the last two years, Obi-wan finds that he is happy. It's such a wonderful thing to be aware of. Of course, the fact that he notices his own awareness of the feeling already begins to mellow it down. It's like tasting something sour in your food when you know there shouldn't be such a taste.
Still, his stretches of contentment and tranquility aboard The Fury make him relaxed and more easygoing. He sees himself, of who he used to be at least, in small glimpses here and there the more comfortable he gets.
Obi-wan sits atop of the rudimentary, boxy table, in front of the couch of the common room. On the other side of the room, Jango is preparing a warm drink on the kitchenette, it makes the teen smile.
Then he does it instinctually.
Obi-wan expands his self in the Force. He lets out of his body that which tethers him to everything and everyone else and makes him shine. He projects out his happiness like a beacon and then he waits.
"What's gotten into you?" Jango asks after a while with a bemused smile. And the redhead raises his eyebrows because surely it must be quite clear. "You're smiling a lot," the man points out as if clarifying what he'd meant and-
Oh.
Obi-wan's smile slips from his face, suddenly very aware of what he'd been doing and what he'd been waiting for and expecting. He'd thought-
"Nothing," he says to pacify any worry that may arise in Jango, panting on his lips a ghost of the smile he had a moment ago.
Once the Mandalorian lets it go, so does the teen the upward hold of his mouth. He feels foolish now, expecting something from Jango that the man neither knew, nor understood, nor, Obi-wan suspected, something he would appreciate.
He'd expected… At the projection of his feelings he'd expected acknowledgment. And he did get it, but not in the way he had hoped for. For some incomprehensible reason, Obi-wan thought someone would answer in the Force. Maybe he'd get the gentle squeeze of another or a brush of fondness through the Force. Maybe someone would rise to the occasion and bask in his happiness. But… Obi-wan is not in the Temple and he's not surrounded by other Jedi. It's not been as such for many, many years.
Something like a hole opens up inside the Jedi's chest, something so vast and dark it makes him feel suddenly empty. Vastly so.
In the next moment his blue gray eyes burn with the sting tears as if clouds pooling with water and ready to break down upon the earth.
Obi-wan exhales harshly and cleans his eyes with his back discreetly turned to Jango. At once, angry at himself, he shoves away the feelings inside him, half trying to release them into the Force but not doing it well enough to be even minimally successful.
The ginger boy does his best to forget about his silly little moment and go on with his life. The chasm inside his chest though remains wide open like a hungry black hole.
·~·~·~·
It happens gradually, so gradually at first that Jango almost doesn't notice it happening. But with the days advancing, so does the sinking feeling that something's wrong, even though he can't quite put his finger on what it is at first.
It begins with the slow quieting down of Obi-wan. He keeps Jango company, cooks midday meals, and does light katas every morning while the man works out. But he initiates conversations less and his responses, when they do happen, become simpler and shorter. It doesn't seem like anything all too wrong is happening, Obi-wan gets quiet some days, it's normal, so Jango lets it be and gives Red time.
It finally sinks in one day, at the end of the cycle when Jango lays down to sleep and realizes, just as consciousness begins escaping his grasp, that Obi-wan hadn't said a word all day.
The next morning he tries a little harder to engage with the teen, he starts conversations actively or asks the redhead for his help in whatever excuse he can crop up.
"Hey Red, would you like to spar?" The man asks as he's getting ready to begin his workout.
The teen lowers his arms from the kata, he looks unsure, but in a way that looks like he's not really interested but doesn't know how to turn the offer down.
"Okay," he accepts after a bit and Jango grins at him. They spar slowly and deliberately, Obi-wan's physicality is still pretty poor and it's not a lot of a workout for Jango, but it gets the kid engaged, and they both enjoy it.
"All good Obi'ika?" He asks the heavily breathing teen laying flat on the floor.
The boy chuckles, rolling his eyes but gives the other a thumbs up.
"Oh, perfectly," he says with his thick, fancy Coruscanti accent, offering Jango an almost invisible smile, but there, lighting up his face if only slightly.
"Come up, little Jetii," Jango pulls the ginger up by the arm and lands a heavy pat on his back in a playful manner as he pushes the youth to the sonic, the boy huffing out a puff of air. "You stink."
The boy stands still, caught off guard by that throwback of one of their first 'conversations', it's so unexpected that the boy laughs.
"Kriff you," the ginger says with emphasis, and oh Manda, that's the first time he's ever heard the kid curse.
"What is this disrespect I'm hearing?" Jango asks in fake offense and then scoffs. "And I thought you Jetiise were all about respecting your elders ."
The teen looks ready to rebuke him but he stutters, not saying anything in the end. He walks towards the sonic. Jango is satisfied enough that he believes the boy just didn't have a good enough comeback and retreat was the best option. For surely, he must've imagined it when he thought he saw Obi-wan's face fall for a moment there.
The next day moves on as per usual and Jango thinks, 'the kid was just a little down.' Obi-wan is a little quiet but he's talking again, it lifts Jango's spirits for it seems they're back to normality.
But the day that follows it is like Obi-wan got right on track wherever he had originally been heading. He's mellow, subdued, and if Jango hadn't spent so much time around the teen talking about Force krak, he would've thought he'd imagined it when he looks at the Kyber hanging over the kid's chest and notices the glow seems somewhat diminished.
The Mandalorian has to accept it, something is not right at all, and there are a lot of things cluing him in on this for him to ignore.
Jango bides his time and takes in a breath once he's got Red where he wants him. They sit in the cockpit of The Fury, quietly contemplating the stars as they roll away.
"Kid, what's wrong?" He wastes no time beating around the bush. He can tell Obi-wan is listening by the subtle tension of his muscles, but the boy doesn't acknowledge him. "Red, I know something's been bothering you, please tell me. You can trust me with these things, remember?"
The ginger continues to ignore him, but Jango offers up his palm for the other to take. It suspends there, in the space between them for a while.
And Obi-wan doesn't… he doesn't take his hand.
This has never happened before, not even when they barely had known each other and the teen had just begun to trust him.
After a very long and uncomfortable time passes, Jango takes back his hand awkwardly, feeling off balance and unsure. The Mando is preparing to get himself out of this situation but Obi-wan beats him to it, standing up and walking away like a quiet ghost.
"If you change your mind I'll be here," he throws back without turning. He says and does nothing more on the matter, trusting that his patience will be rewarded like it always is when he gives the teen his space.
Obi-wan, despite being a deeply troubled individual, is actually quite sweet-natured and easy to connect to. When Jango offered, the boy usually accepted. Despite his many, many problems, the teen had never thrown a well-earned tantrum or anything of the like. That Obi-wan is ignoring him like this makes Jango remember that he is actually very lacking in his social skills and just because getting Obi-wan out of his shell has been relatively easy, it didn't mean it had been the normal response of someone who had gone through what Red had.
The Mandalorian sighs in trepidation.
Things get worse on the days that follow.
·~·~·~·
The Fury is unnaturally silent. Jango is not used to it anymore, and he hates it. He hates this quiet place so much, this dark, still place, which lacks life and warmth and so much more. He hates it so much that the feeling of it almost oozes from his skin. Red is a thin, quiet ghost that just so happens to share a living space with the Jango.
And Obi-wan… Obi-wan says nothing. He stops doing katas or following Jango around or doing much of anything at all. And the Mandalorian tries, he tries really hard to get the kid to talk to him, to get him out of his dark shell, but more often than not all the ginger will do is turn his head away from Jango, almost as if he can not bear to face him.
Jango begins feeling the stretch of days as if trapped in a very long and very distorted deja vu. Obi-wan… the boy has stopped eating. Like with everything else, it happens in little increments until it is glaringly obvious that the teen is barely touching his food. He begins looking gaunt, the underside of his eyes bruised from lack of sleep. He doesn't fight Jango on the cooking matter once the man takes over. He doesn't do much of anything at all really.
The Mandalorian doesn't know what to do, his anxiety so strong he sometimes imagines he can feel it gnawing at his skin. He's a man of action, he must do something, he must do anything, but nothing has worked and things are not getting better.
Jango wakes up one morning and is struck by a thought. 'I'm alone.' it's not true of course, Obi-wan is on the ship with him. But this is how he always used to feel before the kid came into his life. It never used to bother him, being alone, it was just a part of life and he was content to be that way. At least he thought that's how he felt before he had a taste of actual life again. Now loneliness seems like an unbearable poison. But it's nothing compared to the pit of despair that being unable to help Red gives him.
·~·~·~·
Jango finds Obi-wan in bed one day, laying on his side and quietly sobbing to himself, the sounds are soul wrenching despite how privately they are kept and made. His heart breaks at the sight, he doesn't know what to do. He wishes Jaster was with him, guiding him, being a shoulder he can lean on, but there's no one left. Only the two of them. Jedi and Mandalorian.
"Oh, Red," Jango kneels in front of the teen's bed. The boy does not respond to him, he can see Obi-wan holding very tightly to the Kyber on the string, clutching it to his chest.
Jango stands decidedly. The teen's breath hitches when the Mando wraps one arm over his trembling shoulders, circling the other around his head and lifting him up a little. He sits on the bed and arranges Obi-wan until the boy's upper half is cradled to his chest. The redhead doesn't reject him, instead, he buries his face to the crook of his neck, sobbing even harder than before, and holds onto the fabric of his clothes for dear life.
There's nothing Jango can say, he doesn't know what's wrong, he can't fix this, there is nothing to fix. So he leans against the corner of the bunk and holds Obi-wan as best as he can. From the distant past inside his mind, farther than his slaving years, farther than Jaster and the True Mandalorians, farther even than the death of his first family. From this place Jango pulls at a blurry almost gone memory, his mother, cradling him like a precious treasure, he pulls at the tenderness of this fading memory and tries to replicate his mother in this moment. Jango rocks Obi-wan, and buries his face in his reddish locks. There's nothing more he can do.
They stay like that, in the darkness of the room, The Fury humming beneath them. The poor, pathetic, Kryber glowing like an old firefly between them.
"Jango," croaks the boy in a wet voice.
"Yes, Obi'ika?" he's got tears in his own eyes, he can't help it.
"Ah- I-" he stutters in a breath and chokes on his own tears. And Obi-wan whines like a child does in a kind of pain he can not comprehend. He chokes again and breathes in painfully. Then he says very clearly, albeit wetly, "I want to go home."
Jango's world stills. It's like a punch in the gut and the man has to exhale a heavy breath accordingly.
"Ah… I-" Obi-wan inhales sharply, trying again, "I wa-" He's struggling so much to get the words out again, like they're physically demanding. "I miss the- the temple. And ah- the Order and- my master. I- I miss- I miss my home," his voice breaks into tears with the brutal effort that is putting what he feels into words.
Jango knows what these mean. All these wretched words he's heard over and over again. He's learned well by now. He knows what they mean.
Temple for home.
Order for family.
Master for father.
Oh Manda, he understands oh so perfectly well, he wishes he didn't, but there's no feigning obliviousness to himself anymore.
Jango squeezes the boy hard against his chest, afraid to lose him, so very much afraid to lose the last person in his life. And he has so much love for this kid, so much fondness for his cleverness, and smartassery; his long ginger hair and freckled face like a night sky.
This is his kid, they belong to one another. The two of them together, drifting in The Fury like two lonely stars in space, circling each other round and round, drifting into nothingness but together.
And Obi-wan… he's family. This lanky and thin boy is his kid. He's family now, he's been for a long time, Jango can't bear to see him go. He can't bear to let go.
The words ring and flurry around his head like pestering demons, 'Stay!', 'Don't go!' He wants to beg it out loud and plead with Red. They're good together, they make a great team. A great clan. Jango can take care of him, he can be a good fa- He can be a good father, he is so sure of it.
He loves the kid so, so much. As much as he still hates the Jetii, despite knowing them now more than he ever hoped to, even so despite. He hates them despite knowing them and their gentleness and compassion all shining through Obi-wan even with all the awful krak that's happened to him.
The truth is though…
The truth is that he loves Obi-wan more than he hates the Jetii.
And Jango's not willing to make an orphan of the boy when he's got a father waiting for him back at his temple, when he's got a home that misses him. But more importantly, he's not willing to break Obi-wan's heart so his own can be a little less broken.
He knows, he knows this must've taken everything for the teen to say, he's so bad at asking for things, he hasn't learned yet. He hasn't regained this precious skill. The ginger couldn't ask for anything for himself if his life depended on it. So Jango understands perfectly well how overpowering these feelings have to be inside Red for him to force them out and lay them bare like that to Jango.
This is the bravest thing Jango has ever seen Obi-wan do.
So he untightens his hold of the boy and exhales. He grabs Red's teary, blotched face between his hands and looks him straight into his gray blue eyes.
"I'm taking you home."
Obi-wan sighs in utter relief and hope like the man hasn't seen in ages.
Jango feels his heart break, but with an expression like that, how could it ever matter?