KEYnote: Remember that Maul died in Phantom Menace and did not rise after bisection in this story. You get to see my retconned alternative ;D
WARNING: Major but canonical self-harm. Major PTSD episode. Also consentaul lemons :D
Chapter 17 - Brothers
Cody loved General Kenobi. He was amazing; he showed up when he said he would, never got upset or disappointed, and he stayed.
He was also super smart, and answered all their questions, and when he didn't know the answer he would help them look it up.
He also encouraged them to talk during lessons on the modules, which was really weird but really fun.
He couldn't forget the Kaminoans, and Cody still did his best to hide Rex out of their sight at his side but the General made this, what felt like a brand new life, almost trustworthy.
The best thing of all though was the General remembered their names, better even than they sometimes knew each other.
One day, the General sat in on one of their training classes for hand to hand.
It was perhaps one of Cody's favourite glasses because the Prime always treated them equally here, even if Boba was training with him.
Having General Obi-Wan there was a bit unnerving though.
Cody was trading of sparing with Ponds, Wolffe, and Rex when the Prime called them out.
Cody wished he was bigger so he could find the Prime off, but he wasn't, so he stood at attention while the Prime chewed Rex out for not being strong enough to have out-matched Cody the way he had tried to. The move he was explaining Rex should have used instead would have hurt. Cody was silently grateful that Rex hadn't done that because, Rex might be smaller and younger, but he was also vicious as hell.
"The best offence is sometimes defence," the General said, seeming to appear from nowhere.
The Prime looked wholly unamused, "No, the best offence, is offence."
"Would you like to make a bet?" General Obi-Wan asked lightly.
"A spar?" the Prime asked him.
"A lesson," the General replied.
The Prime nodded, holding out a hand as if to allow the General to pass first.
Cody's anxiety built. He had only seen the Prime train with no bars held a few times, and even then, never against someone else.
But even without armour, the Prime was taller and visibly stronger.
They were all about to learn how much the Force could help a Jedi even the plain.
The General bowed to the Prime. The Prime just held up his fists in a reading stance.
The General smiled serenely at him, "I'm ready whenever you are."
The Prime let out a long breath, then launched himself with incredible speed at the General.
Cody wasn't even aware a person could move that fast.
Cody braced himself for having to watch their General get beat.
But if the Prime was fast, the General was faster.
He merely stepped back.
The Prime sped up, and the General merely palm healed blocked as he step backed.
Then things got more complicated. The Prime punched and the General did this scooping thing with his hand and pulled the Prime into a kick that The Prime just barely blocked.
From there, they hardly parted, fighting in tight proximity.
The General dropped, and Cody feared he had been hit, but then the Prime's feet were swept out from underneath him.
He hit the mats with an audible thwap.
And shouts of exclamation and half cheers sounded around the room.
The General spun to his feet, looking as unruffled as he had begun.
"Kark you," the Prime spat, rolling to his feet.
The General smiled and said pleasantly, "Any time you like."
Cody frowned, that response made no sense as a comeback.
But Alpha-17 and one of the other Nulls choked.
The Prime grimaced and he warned, "Kenobi."
The General lowered into a fighting stance, his hand held bent in a come and get me gesture.
The Prime charged him, but this time he, he swayed to the side, in a non-frontal attack.
But it didn't matter.
The General blocked everything the Prime threw at him. Every motion blocked, every kick redirected. They built up a moment and even the blocks became more like strikes within themselves and Cody was pretty sure each pounding must have hurt them both.
Neither showed it.
And then something changed.
And the General switched mid-motion from defence to attack with a sharp kick toward his ankle. The Prime managed not to get his legs kicked out from under him, but in dodging, the General was able to get behind him and pushed his off-balanced centre of gravity toward the mats.
The General had his knee pressed to the back of the Prime's neck, his left arm twisted up toward his shoulder blade.
It was over.
And General Kenobi had won.
Cody was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as the Prime tapped out on the mats.
General Obi-Wan was the best ever.
The General got off the Prime, helping the man to his feet, they exchanged words too low for Cody to understand, but it was clear they weren't angry at each other.
Which just made the day so much better.
Jango ran his thumb over the long-range communicator the one he had encrypted himself.
Ideally, he needed to do this off world, and in Obi-Wan, he had someone he could trust to leave Boba on Kamino with.
But Mandalorian warriors were a scattered people and True Mandalorians…
Aside from Silas, Jango was certain all were gone.
But Obi-Wan had seemed so certain he was wrong…
Jango sighed and engaged the frequency.
Silas's voice was almost unrecognizable.
Almost, he had been when Jango last saw him on Galidraan.
"Who the kark is this?"
Jango huffed and said in Mando'a rather than Basic, "Honestly, Si'ika, one would have thought you might have acquired some manners by now."
"Jango?" and suddenly, Silas sounded exactly like the boy he remembered. The holo image appeared of his old friend. "Jango Fett? Is this really you, ner Mand'alor?"
The hope in his voice was humbling.
"Yes, Silas, it's me."
Silas started swearing at him, "Do you have any idea how hard you are to track down? Best bounty hunter in the galaxy, my karking shebs! Jumping from one seculded place to the next with no—"
"I've taken mostly assassination jobs since escaping my Republic imposed contract," Jango said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"I appreciate what you did to those pirates."
"I'd be more appreciative myself if I could have given the Zygerrians my similarly sincere regards."
'Is that why you called? Jango, I swear, I wouldn't have left if I thought you had survived, but Myles—"
"Is dead," Jango said flatly, not wanting to revisit this topic. He had spent too many years, as Obi-Wan had put it, wallowing in regret.
"No, he isn't."
"What the hell do you mean he isn't?" Jango asked sharply.
"I mean he got me out. We laid low, we all did, what with Pre Vizsla gathering supporters and the Clan Wars starting."
Jango's heart clenched, sometimes he forgot that while he had been in shackles his homeworld had been submerged into full scale civil war. It haunted him every day of his enslavement, but by the time he was free, the war had been over and lost.
"I thought Myles was dead," Jango said softly. He would have to his own mentor if he had known.
"He's not the same."
Jango cocked his head, "We all changed."
"Yeah, but Myles is…"
"Is what?" Jango demanded, thinking of the man who had been Jaster's best friend.
Sometimes more.
Silas sighed, "He's a bit of a hoarder now, he processed his trauma by raiding freighters and battlefields for Beskar. I think he's richer than the Duchy now, though you'd never know it. His shop on Concord Dawn looks like a graveyard of ships. Thankfully no one has been fool enough to try robbing him and even the Nendos leave him alone, because sure, he might have a treasurer of Beskar hidden beneath grime and durasteal plates but he's also a renowned pyrotechnic."
"Nendos?" Jango asked, feeling lighter at the knowledge that while Myles might not be okay, he was alive and causing others grief.
"New Mandalorians, Dar'manda is sort of unspecified at this point given it's the majority of the population."
Jango grimaced, "Speaking of which, I heard rumours that Jaster's Codex has not been wholly forgotten."
Silas's breath caught before asking in a rush. "Is this a calling Mand'alor?"
"If it was?" Jango returned evasively.
"Then give me your coordinates."
"I need numbers first, Silas, and I need to know I can trust them. I may have gotten myself into trouble that is not entirely honourable but will require quite a bit of honour to move forward with."
"Cryptic much?"
"Silas."
"Yeah, numbers, I… Well, aside from you, me, and Myles, Clan Mereel is gone. But our allies… We have a lot of non-Mandos who picked up the Codex. There's a group on Kiros, another on Pantora, weirdly a group on Alderaan, then there's this little fraction on Jakku, and—"
"Why am I hearing so many pacifist names rolling off your tongue?" Jango asked. It wasn't like he needed or wanted more civilians to protect.
"Because the New Mandalorians brought the topic up to the forefront of public discourse and those who disagreed with pure disarmament and the Watch looked for alternative solutions. Jaster's Codex is taught at a few political academies throughout the galaxy. There's this scary group of girls on Naboo who I really wish we could coax into some Beskar."
"Academia is not a clan nor a people."
"We are a Creed," Silas countered. "Not a race. But the boundary between philosophy and formally establishing clans, is a shorter bridge than you may think. A lot of the people from these planets are interested in immigrating elsewhere. They just need a leader, Myles is not really all there and I'm not you. If you call, Jango, the call will be answered."
Jango was quiet for a long moment before he asked, "How many already consider themselves True Mandalorians, who live by the Way, not just sympathize with it?"
"A few dozen families, just including the adults, maybe two hundred. Capable warriors who aren't handicapped in some way? Maybe a hundred warriors. With foundlings, all together, maybe closer to three hundred."
"A hundred warriors, how many of those have Beskar?"
"Full armour? Twenty. But closer to seventy for those who have pieces. I bet you could get Myles to share. He keeps acting like Jaster is going to come back and tell him who to trust."
Jango flinched, in that last sentence, Silas had revealed much more about Myles state of mind than he had before.
Not all there indeed.
"You would vouch for these verda?" Jango asked.
"Almost all of them are veterans of the Clan Wars. They didn't fight for the Watch or the Nendos, but they did fight. And most of them would give just about anything to reclaim the homeland back."
Jango knew he shouldn't ask, Obi-Wan had more than proved himself, but he still needed to know how his people might react to a Jedi in their midst.
So he prodded, "I heard it was a Jedi who put the Duchess on the throne."
Silas scoffed. "Well then, you heard wrong. The Republic's money kept the New Mandalorians ahead, the Jetiiese were… I mean, I hate the Order, but they didn't send a Jetii task force like they did against us. They just sent a Master and his adiik. The Master kept the little Kryze, Bo-Katan, and Gerret Kryze's pregnant Riduur alive through —I don't know how many— assassination attempts. But that Korkie and Bo-Katan are alive today is nothing short of a miracle. It's hard to fault Adonai for asking for their help, for doing everything he could to keep his ade safe."
"And the Jetii adiik?" Jango asked, knowing it had to be Obi-Wan.
"Bit of a kriffing legend honestly. I mean, he didn't win the war or anything but he joined a few scrimmages and the kid was a pretty impressive shot."
"What do you mean, impressive shot? Lightsabers are close range weapons."
Silas laughed, "Nah, unlike his Master he wasn't stupid enough to use his lightsaber. The Master had to take his charges out of the system to keep them safe. The adiik was more adept at blending in. He had a sniper rifle and he killed a lot of top warriors on the Death Watch side while he and the little Duchess fled through battlefields on Mandalore proper. They were in the thick of it."
Jango blinked, reminding himself that Obi-Wan was not untried when it came to warfare.
"You know this how?
Silas shrugged, "Couple documentaries, some interviews, and even some books about it. The Duchess might be a karking pacifist, but it's her and not her older brother on the throne because unlike him, she didn't run away to Coruscant. She stayed. She was there when the Capital was glassed."
Jango's heart sank at the idea of his lover being at the heart of such destruction.
"How did they survive?"
"The old Beskar mines, which I have no clue how the Jetii'ika knew about, the Nendos certainly didn't. But whether the adiik was a good spy or just lucky, they survived, and they saved a lot of people with them. Some say it's the only reason why the Duchess respects at least that much of Mandalorian history."
"And what was the Jetii's name?"
"No clue, the Master's name was Qui-Gon Jinn, I know that much. Dooku's apprentice as it so happens."
Jango closed his eyes at the confirmation, still, he asked, "But no one named the Padawan that literally fought and killed in our wars? "
"The documentaries I saw literally called him the Nameless Padawan. The Duchess doesn't answer questions about it anymore, not after a rumour started that she was possibly dating him. A mysterious Jetii sniper is a fun story, a Jetii Duke would have been a major scandal. She might have lost more than her throne if that stuck."
Anger filled Jango at her cowardness, and something filled him that felt like jealousy that he refused to look at too closely.
"It's a miss translation."
"What is?" Silas asked.
"What if I told you the Padawans name was Obi-Wan Kenobi?"
Silas was quiet for a long minute before saying, "Wait, you mean like an actual Jetii Mandalorian? Like one of ours trained by the Jetiiese?"
Jango nodded, "One abandoned by his dar'buir."
"You know him?" Silas asked, transparently curious.
I've kriffed him, Jango almost said.
What he said aloud was just a simple, "Yes."
"No joke, one who is without name and without clan. What a disgraceful practice…" Silas's voice trailed off. "His dar'buir were Death Watch?"
It was more a statement than a question.
Jango inclined his head in affirmation anyway.
Silas shook his head, "A Jetii Mando that hasn't happened since Mand'alor Tarre Vizsla."
"Obi-Wan was Tor Vizsla's youngest son."
Silas ripped off his helmet to gape at Jango's hologram, "No shit!? And wait— you know him?"
"He left the Order and found me," Jango said, knowing that of the surprises he had in store for his clansmen, Obi-Wan's heritage was the least of them.
Besides, with his Stewjoni accent, Myles, at least, would be able to figure it out, and he likely wouldn't be the only one.
Silas shook his head, "And you took in a Jetii, Tor Vizsla's son?"
"I've done a lot of things, Silas, and of my stupid choices, Obi-Wan doesn't make the list."
There was perhaps more truth in that statement than he wanted to face.
Silas's expression became serious, "You're in trouble."
"I need help," Jango admitted.
"What do you need from me?"
"I need a gathering place and I need every warrior who would call themselves Haat Mando'a to show up. It won't be a war, per se but there are lives on the line, it will have to be a coordinated effort."
"You need to vet them yourself, right?"
"Yes," Jango said.
"Consider it done," Silas said with a smile. "What sector should we be near to?"
Jango named it
"There isn't much that isn't Hutt owned out there."
Jango grimaced, "It would be best if we could meet on Republic territory."
"Why?"
"Because the Duchy may abase themselves to the Republic, but they remain a neutral system, and we cannot be associated with the growing Seperatist movement on this one."
Dooku could still easily backstab them, but why make it easy? It would be simpler for Jango to point a finger at the Republic for slave trading than it would be for him to disprove they were a part of a conspiracy with Separtists.
If the latter happened, Obi-Wan had already told him the Jedi would step in.
Jango liked Obi-Wan, but he would rather deal with a Republic's planetside government keeping tabs on them than directly invoke the Jedi's hand in this.
"Odd request but doable, I'll send over the coordinates once the rendezvous is confirmed."
"Thank you, Silas."
The man grinned at him, "I'm glad to have you back, ner Mand'alor. Our people need you."
Jango nodded before signing off.
On one hand, he felt a bit better about things, on the other, he dreaded what the fall out of all this would be.
oOo
Jango couldn't help that he was becoming more enamoured with his Jetii every day.
The man was a menace.
The man was a warrior, and a better Buir than Jango had ever been.
He never failed to tell a bedtime story to the vode, who now all slept in the same enormous room.
Obi-Wan spent most nights with the vode, but a couple of days each week he would stay with Jango.
Like tonight. He entered his apartment, Boba and Omega in his arms, asleep on his shoulders.
Jango stood to open the door to their room for him, and helped him get the younglings, as Obi-Wan insisted on calling them at times, into bed.
Omega still hadn't warmed up to Jango yet, and he didn't blame her in the slightest for that.
"You hungry?" Jango asked.
"No," Obi-Wan said, looking half asleep on his feet.
Jango took his hand, "Come."
Obi-Wan didn't resist as Jango led him toward his room and began undressing him.
Obi-Wan sighed, "Mand'alor, I'm tired—"
Jango shushed him, pushing him down on the bed on his front.
He was terribly tense.
Jango didn't undress as he sat on the man's still-clothed bottom. He sprawled his fingers onto that scared back. His skin was soft despite the abuse it had suffered. Jango didn't linger over the old scars, instead, he dug his fingers into the tense muscles.
Obi-Wan's moan was deep and low.
Jango chuckled and began to work his way through each knot.
What he could see of Obi-Wan's face relaxed, eyes shut as he submitted to Jango's ministrations.
A near half an hour later, Obi-Wan murmured, "This is better than sex."
Jango grinned, "I feel like a should be insulted."
No response.
"Obi-Wan?"
He was asleep. Jango laughed and got off his Jetii and went to go get a shower.
A cold shower.
Obi-Wan knew it was a dream, a memory.
The night when Mandalore had descended back into hell.
All the Satine's carefully maintained, torn apart as the people chose violence over the strick laws that governed their every action.
The heightened surveillance tracking their every move in a city of glass.
The clan's fiercest warriors, the ones who had fought in the wars, who had won and lost, were forced to give up their weapons or be forced into exile.
It had been too much.
And the gage had broken.
They had been so close to escaping but Bo-Katan had blown Obi-Wan's cover and with a blaster to Satine's unprotected head, there had been no choice but to surrender.
It did burn that if Satine had just bent a little, just donned the damn armour he had acquired for her, they would have made out.
But Satine was who and what she was, she had made her choice to sink with this ship.
Obi-Wan hated that her death would be nothing but confirmation of the Watch's victory.
"Traitor, you betrayed everything."
"I betrayed everything?" Obi-Wan asked, disgusted. "You became our father."
Pre smirked, the blonde perfection their parents had praised all their lives. He looked as highborn as Satine, like their grandfather, nothing at all like their mother. Their mother who dyed her red hair black, who had tattooed her face, to cover up her Stewjoni origin, the lowest class of anyone born to the Mandalore system.
"Buir was a hard man, but he was right about the galaxy. Besides, I'm not the one licking the Senate's boots."
"You think razing Mandalore is better? If you can't have it no one can? Say what you will of Satine, but she brought freedom to those who you would have suppressed and executed rather than nurture and protect. Can't you see there is no victory in civil war? Pre, ner ori'vod, you are not this short-sighted."
"Said the greatest General of the Republic and Jetii Order," Pre spat at him.
Obi-Wan's heart twisted, shame, fear, and desperation filling him. "I cannot abandon the Fett Ade, not to Corellia, not to the Sith."
"No, but you'll send them to slaughter in a civil war?" Pre sneered.
"A war against slavers, Sith, and droids, what else would you have me do?" Obi-Wan asked even though he knew arguing with Pre was a lost cause. That didn't mean he didn't want to try to have his older brother understand him. "Join them? What do you think will happen when the Core finally calls a draft?"
Pre scoffed, "The Core doesn't have that kind of strength."
"They have everything," Obi-Wan disagreed. "They have the population and every imaginable resource. And the first thing they will do would be to hunt both the Jetiiese and Mandalorians into extension. We do what we must to survive. If you send Mandalore back into a civil war, the Republic will pick you off."
Because the war was already lost. Millions of vode dead and Jedi dead. Their numbers had been waning before the war, barely ten thousand Knights. Now, there were barely three thousand, and that was if you included the Padawans. The last three years had been bad and their numbers weren't replenishing.
The Order only took in Force sensitives who were orphans or refugees.
There was so little they could offer them now.
Dooku was a monster, the Separatists had hit any Outer Rim or Mid Rim planet that accepted Jedi aid. Given there were next to no Corps members in the Inner Rim or Core, they had been decimated there as well.
When one accounted for the Jedi Order as a whole, their numbers had been in the millions. Millions of Force sensitives and their families and friends who worked with no fanfare or press.
The Separatists had all but eradicated the Corps.
Millions to hundreds within the first few months of warfare before the vode had even been deployed.
The Order wasn't just fighting this war because the Republic told them to, but because Dooku, the Trade Federation, and the slavers were evil, and if the Order failed, if the Republic failed, the clones lives would be forfeited and any strong Force sensitive that couldn't hide themselves would be hunted into extension or sold to the highest bidder.
Obi-Wan needed to win this war, not because the Republic was just, because the alternative was annihilation.
"Please, ner ori'vod," Obi-Wan pleaded, not too proud to beg. "The Sith are not your allies, and the Jedi are only your enemies if you force them to be. If you do this, Mandalore, our people, our cultures, will be forfeited. You are the only power left in the galaxy if the Order fails, the Sith will burn Mandalore down without hesitation."
"I don't need allies, traitor," Pre spat at him, picking Satine up by her hair.
She grimaced, her cheeks wet with tears, but she did not cry out or flinch away as Pre ignited the Darksaber.
"Remember, my dear Obi-Wan... I loved you..." she said, meeting his gaze. "Always."
"Pre, please —NO!"
Pre plunged the lightsaber into Satine and Obi-Wan saw the fate that would befall Mandalore because of this.
Mandalore glassed.
Mandalorians hunted to the brink of extinction, prized for their Beskar shells.
Tears spilled down his cheeks, and Obi-Wan wondered why Anakin ever wanted this.
Why did he want blood family and a wife?
What was blood family? Obi-Wan's blood had cast him aside from the day of his birth. Even Pre, who had claimed to grieve him, cared more about Obi-Wan's suffering than the consequences of his own actions.
And love?
Remember, my dear Obi-Wan... I loved you... Always.
Satine's last words had been a lie, a last plea for her people, so that Obi-Wan might avenge her and save her people.
But Obi-Wan was an outsider.
Nameless.
Clanless.
His own brother condemned him for not being blood thirsty enough.
And Satine, who Obi-Wan had once offered everything he was to, had shunned him as well, but for the opposite reason, for having too much blood on his hands for the pristine utopia she had dreamed of.
Extremists both in their own ways, and where there was extremism and absolutes, the Darkness won.
The Sith won.
Pre laughed at his distress, at his tears, not understanding that Obi-Wan wasn't grieving a teenage romance but the fate of their entire people.
"Come now, ner vod'ika," Pre laughed, unclipping Obi-Wan's lightsaber from his belt and tossing it on the ground before him. He motioned to the cultist holding Obi-Wan down on his knees. "I'll give you the chance to have your revenge. Show me what the Force can do. Show me what your hatred and sorrow can do."
Nine against one.
Obi-Wan had faced worse odds.
The cuffs fell away from Obi-Wan's wrists, the full wash of the Force coming at him like the rising tide, he breathed it in, breathed in the life of it.
Though their actions mattered, though everything had cost, the Force remained, life remained, and Obi-Wan had responsibilities beyond the hell fire Mandalore seemed set on letting itself be consumed by.
He called his lightsaber to his hand and in a graceful movement, cut through the two terrorists behind him, their helmeted heads and armoured bodies falling to the marble with delayed clangs.
Seven to one.
Obi-Wan held his lightsaber before him. "The Darkside is easy, brother, and you are both its novice and its slave."
Pre hissed, darkness writhing around him like the white light that haloed the black saber in his hands, "Power is power little, brother, it is a tool, not a friend."
Obi-Wan smiled, "I'm proud to not be of your clan, Pre. Willful stupidity just isn't for me."
Pre snarled, lunging at him.
Obi-Wan dodged him easily, letting Pre wield the Darksaber like an axe, letting his momentum unbalance him on each and every blow.
He wasn't Anakin. All the power that his older brother had, it was untested, unfocused, and it helped give away his steps as opposed to lending him speed. It was near child's play to evade him.
Only, unlike Anakin, Pre very much was trying to kill him, and unlike any other saber, the Darksaber had weight to it. Weight and a wider blade.
Dooku probably would have thought it a barbaric weapon.
Obi-Wan personally thought the thing was cursed, drenched in blood and vengeance. Maybe it had been more once, now it was nothing but a blood prize.
He had never heard of a kyber bleeding black and white blood, but the soul of the Darksaber was twisted and cold.
It moaned Tarre Vizsla's death, and it wished for the suffering of anyone who would seek to disturb it from its rest.
Tarre Vizsla had been a Jedi and a Mandalorian, and he had not left the Jedi because he had hated the Order, but because at the time, his people had needed him.
Pre and Obi-Wan were both his descendants, and Obi-Wan knew that neither of them was destined to save Mandalore.
But if Mandalore was about to descend into another Clan War, then Obi-Wan was content to leave Clan Vizsla without its head.
"You aren't strong enough to defeat me," Pre snarled over their clashing blades.
Obi-Wan met his brother's gaze and said only, "I loved you once, but I have brothers and sisters who have taught me what family is meant to be, what love is meant to be."
Pre's smile was feral, "And what is love meant to be, Kenobi?"
Pre calling him that… it was the first time, it did hurt, but it was a familiar pain, one as familiar as an old charred robe.
"Love is trust, it is compassion and it is not real if it can only be asked to be given blindly."
"Your soft heart will be the death of you," Pre snarled, pressing down harder, their blades crackling, the Darksaber sounding more like an animal than a weapon.
Obi-Wan pitied his brother, pitied that he had traded who he was for power.
Still, something cold and sardonic rose in Obi-Wan's heart as he countered with defence, yielding half a step back as if he were bending to his ori'vod's greater strength, "Do you know what my Master taught me, Pre?"
"How to grovel?"
Obi-Wan's smile was small and bitter, unafraid and unmoved by the life he was about to take.
Obi-Wan was no longer Tor's whelp, no longer the Vizsla clan's dirty secret.
He was High General Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he had a Commander to report back to.
Obi-Wan twisted his blade, "There's always a bigger fish."
The blue blade cut through Pre's neck and spine without resistance.
He should have felt hate, he should have felt sorrow.
But Pre had stopped being his older brother, his ori'vod, the day his mother had tried to drown him and Pre had run rather than go against her. He couldn't hate him for that, their mother being who she was, but Obi-Wan could not love the man Pre had become.
A man who chose fear over honour.
His death was nothing compared to every sister and brother he lost in the GAR and the Order.
Pre's sightless eyes stared at nothing as Bo-Katan took Obi-Wan's wrist to pull him either away from or toward the next fire fight.
Obi-Wan made to look away but his brother's blue eyes spun, turning yellow broken through with red.
Bo-Katan let him go.
His brother was glowing, radiating with pain and malevolence. The ground beneath Obi-Wan feet was no longer polished marble littered with glass but unstable stone carpeted with black ash.
His brother's eyes were alive and inhuman as struggled up the bank with a metal arm.
Obi-Wan's breath caught, pain beyond grief, loss beyond hope.
The vode had turned on them, Cody had turned on him.
It was forgivable, at least, it was understandable; the Jedi had failed them. the Bill of Citizenship that Obi-Wan had spent countless sleepless nights strategizing with Bail Organa and Padme had been usurped by the celebration in the Senate of Count Dooku's death.
Three years was too long for such a bill, three years was too long when the Kaminoans had outmanoeuvred them even with the Jedi planetside.
Cody's betrayal made sense, even if logic dictated that the vode would be slaughtered in mass or slowly picked off by the remainder of the Sith.
The defeat of the Jedi was not freedom for the vode.
Anakin's betrayal, however, was not understandable.
Obi-Wan could understand that he felt betrayed, could even understand his hatred of him.
But he couldn't understand his brother turning on the Order.
On their younglings.
Their babies who had viewed Anakin as Obi-Wan's generation had viewed Mace Windu or even Yoda.
Obi-Wan could understand being hated, unwanted, and untrusted.
Those were things he had earned.
But not this… Anakin was not Pre, Anakin was good and strong and valued the life of others—
Obi-Wan could not understand.
"I hate you!"
Obi-Wan felt as if he would choke on the broken shards of his heart. He was a man who had killed his own flesh and blood brother. A man who had watched everyone he had ever loved die or betray him.
Qui-Gon's words about his being destined for suffering were true.
But nothing had ever hurt like this and though Obi-Wan could not bring himself to end Anakin, he despaired.
And despair… apathy. Or perhaps that was the wrong word. He didn't feel nothing, he felt everything. He felt as if he was bleeding out, bleeding more blood than there existed inside of him. It left him cold, and what filled him was a colder and crueller power than the Dark Side of the Force.
"You were my brother, Anakin," Obi-Wan said in an effort to wound Anakin in a way he had never wished to hurt another person before. "I loved you."
It was a lie.
Obi-Wan still loved Anakin. Despite everything he was, despite everything he had done and become, Obi-Wan loved him still.
This is why the Temple warned against love and why others were warned never to kill a Master's Padawan.
Anakin had in essence killed himself, his future, his family, and his honour.
It hardened Obi-Wan's heart against him, against himself.
Fire bloomed around Anakin as the heat of the lava set his robes ablaze.
Obi-Wan did the one thing that he could never hope to recover from, the one thing that would damn them both, that he could never heal from.
Obi-Wan didn't want to heal, and if he had to survive this, then he would execute any hope of happiness or peace.
He didn't grant Anakin the mercy he had shown Pre, did not do the honourable and moral thing of killing the boy turned Sith.
No, Obi-Wan chose dishonour, chose disgrace, and the resulting pain that would be nothing compared to the suffering their actions had reaped upon the galaxy.
He let Anakin burn and Obi-Wan left his shields down to feel it, to feel it all.
They would burn together.
Obi-Wan might go on, but it wouldn't be life, there would be no hope, nothing left of him to live anything outside of whatever resistance against the empire they could manage. There would be no peace.
Because Anakin was more than just Obi-Wan's brother, he was his son.
So Obi-Wan spared himself nothing, Anakin's every scream, every spike of agony along their shrivelling bond struck at Obi-Wan —soul deep.
He would never recover from this, and he never wished to.
Obi-Wan woke up choking on a scream as his every nerve ending burned in remembered agony.
Jango was startled awake as the man beside him tensed and began to writhe in his sleep as if he were a slave having his chest and back flayed with a shock whip.
"Wake up, Obi-Wan!" Jango called.
But the man made no response.
Jango growled, having spared with the man, he was pretty sure the Jetii was just as capable of killing someone without a weapon as he was with one.
Jango debated the merits of causing a potentially worse episode but then decided that being flung against a wall because the man felt trapped was preferable to seeing his lover being physically as well as mentally tortured by a night terror.
Sitting up, Jango yanked the blankets and sheets off of them both, baring them to the cold night.
The Jedi didn't seem to notice and Jango decided that, no, Obi-Wan wasn't being whipped, but being slowly burned alive.
Jango ripped the sheet into strips and prepared himself to work fast as he tied a loop and pulled the long strip through the bar at the head of the bed.
If the Jedi summoned his lightsaber, hopefully, he wouldn't have the right angle to kill Jango with it. Without touching him, Jango straddled the crying man's body on his hands and feet so he could position himself before he wrestled him. He took in a deep breath then sat on the man's thighs, pushing his arms up and yanking on the makeshift rope he had made from the sheets.
There was nothing titillating or sexaul as he braced against the Jedi who woke with a swallowed scream and yanked against the restraints with strength augmented by the Force.
Jango tucked his head beneath the man's chin, as he held the man down.
No lightsaber was summoned, and though Obi-Wan remained as tense as an asp readying for a strike, Jango was not flung against the wall.
Success.
Obi-Wan let out a harsh breath and tipped his head back; baring his throat. His breathing remained ragged, his arms tense against the bindings but he neither fought for nor asked to be released.
Rising cautiously, Jango searched Obi-Wan's face in the dim light. His eyes were squeezed shut and he was shaking as he tried to steady his breath.
Jango placed a tentative kiss on the man's collarbone. Given that he was calming down and not fighting Jango, he gambled on whatever trauma this was, intimate touch was not the cause of it.
Obi-Wan's body arched toward.
Jango laid a second brush of lips to the side of the man's shivering Adam's apple, "Obi-Wan, mesh'la, are you awake?"
Obi-Wan let out a shuddering breath, the tension going out of him like a droid whose power had been cut.
Jango kept one hand on the sheet rope but, tangled his other hand in the man's sweaty hair
"Are you here with me, ner mesh'la?"
In answer the man turned his head to the side, further bearing his throat.
Jango obliged him with another kiss on that luminous skin.
"Please?" Obi-Wan whispered, shifting beneath him but not away but pressing into Jango's hold over him.
Jango pulled back again to see the man's broken expression, a grief so deep that he had no words that could do it justice.
Jango moved slowly, deliberately, giving the other man every opportunity to say in word or action to stop.
But Obi-Wan only exhaled Jango's name like a prayer when their lips parted from the telegraphed kiss.
Jango went slower than he had ever gone before with a partner, searching for any discouragement as he did so, but Obi-Wan just looked up at him with pleading eyes.
A drowning man reaching for a lifeline.
Jango kept Obi-Wan pinned down even as the Jetii spread his legs for him, to bring them closer. Jango took him gently, neither of them as aroused as they ought to be but that's not what this was about.
No, this wasn't about sex for pleasure's sake, this was about intimacy, it was about distraction, it was about encouraging the senses in the here and now with an unignorable grounding touch. Each movement was a reminder that neither of them was alone and that they were safe.
The latter was maybe a lie, maybe an illusion but when the Jetii finally came undone in his arms, the tortured grief giving way to limp limbed exhaustion, Jango followed soon after from the relief as much as the physical sensation.
Jango remained on top of the slighter man, even as he undid the bindings.
"Ner Mand'alor," Obi-Wan whispered against Jango's chest.
In answer, Jango kissed the top of his head and commanded, "Rest."
Obi-Wan let out a breathy huff but curled into him as Jango began to run a soothing hand up and down his back. In response, Obi-Wan tangled their legs together, arms going around his back.
Jango hated when people touched his back, hated the scars they would find there from a slaver's whip.
But Obi-Wan had the same scars, they had literally been enslaved once together in the same mines. So it felt right Obi-Wan's calloused hands touched that part of him as Jango's own hand robbed along the mirrored marks on Obi-Wan's.
Jango admitted to himself, whatever this was, this was more than he'd ever done with a lover before.
No one had ever given him everything of themselves before, he had never been trusted like this, never been…
Depended on like this.
He had been young when Jaster died, and his clan had never quite listened to him the way they had to Jaster.
Maybe if they had, no one would have shouted at the Jedi without his command.
Boba depended on him, but he was a child, and trust came as naturally as breathing to him.
The vode were a different matter, little ones he failed each and every day, but they still wanted to trust.
Obi-Wan was different. He was a broken man who had been tested cruelly by the galaxy, his traumas, his disappointments, were there for all to see. So much so that grief appeared an integral part of him.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was a man who expected to be betrayed, who thought nothing of being hurt, and yet…
And yet he had seen in Jango an equal, someone who could be trusted if just given the means of a second chance.
It was beautiful, and wholly undeserved. Still, as they laid together in silence, waiting for the dawn, Jango found himself impossibly grateful. He thought again what he thought before, that this was more than sex.
This was intimacy on a level he never contemplated before. But perhaps this was the unexpected gift of being broken, of knowing a life filled with innumerable regrets, that when the improbable arose, you didn't let it go out of fear.
You took it with both hands, held onto it, because a broken heart is nothing compared to being alone with one's own failings.
That this man in his arms, Jetii or no, Vizsla or no, cared more about his children than Jango himself had dared to allow himself, meant one thing and one thing only.
He's keeping him.
He's keeping Obi-Wan and all of his beautiful jagged pieces.
Jango knows he isn't a particularly good person.
Maybe he had been once, but while the Zygerrians hadn't been able to break him, they had twisted him.
Twisted him in ways where nothing and no one seemed important, where vengeance and bitterness were all he had had.
When Dooku played his sick game, using his own fallen Padawan as the prize, Jango had agreed because nothing then had mattered.
Even Boba, Boba who Jango had never intended to be his son but his legacy, hadn't mattered.
Not until he held his baby in his arms, not until the first time Boba collapsed from his 'illness' did Jango wake up to the noose around his neck.
To all that he now had to lose. And Jango had continued to walk the line because he hadn't seen a way out, and he was selfish enough to keep Boba as his own and continue this inhuman program.
Because the alternative had been losing all of them. Jango was selfish but he was also practical.
There was a reason he had survived all that he had, and it had nothing to do with him being a good person.
Obi-Wan was an unmistakably better person than him, but he also knew that Obi-Wan didn't truly have a grasp on self-preservation.
The Jetii was a man who survived and saw that not as a victory or luck but as misfortune. He wasn't someone who understood how much he was loved, how much he was treasured.
The words he had whispered into his ear after their spar, after Jango had lamented that maybe Obi-Wan ought to consider himself to be the next Mand'alor; You will always have the upper hand, ner Jan'ika, because I could never kill you.
Obi-Wan had meant those words, meant them as a man who had drawn his line in the sand, damned be the consequences.
A man like that, needed someone else to keep him alive. Boba, nor any of the vode, would ever forgive Jango if he let their favourite Buir come to harm.
Which meant Obi-Wan had won and Jango's delusions of him and Boba against the galaxy had crumpled like a cheap lamp in hyperspace.
Jango sighed, he guessed the new plan was to remake the galaxy for his ade'ika. For this broken man who had somehow managed to rearrange the stars in the sky, had convinced Jango that maybe they had the power necessary to do just that.
AN: Thoughts, varactyls, or feedback on this excessively long, plot-thick chapter, pretty please?