#of course he was gonna quote it in the wedding vows

[tennessoui]

for obikin, maybe pretending to hate each other au? (sth where their ages are a little closer, perhaps, so obi-wan can be intensely petty and not feel the need to Set an Example)

45. (Pretending To) Hate Each Other (raised as Sith!Anakin, salty!Padawan Obi-Wan)(1.6k)

Obi-Wan turns away from the training stalles with a barely suppressed sneer. Anakin, as he is to be called, has defeated his opponents. His fellow Padawans. Darth Vader has become a Padawan and everyone is just fine with it.

Obi-Wan marches out into the halls, not knowing where he’s going, but knowing he must get away from the smirk on Anakin’s face as he had lowered his training saber to his opponent’s neck. Does no one but Obi-Wan remember how just months ago Vader’s saber had been pressed against his neck and it hadn’t been a training exercise? Does no one remember the atrocities Anakin had committed, the sentients Anakin had killed?

And yet Obi-Wan’s master seems infinitely fascinated by the boy. And yet Obi-Wan, it seems, cannot step out of his own room without finding this Anakin underfoot, either taking tea with his Master, or dolefully skulking around the doorway of Obi-Wan’s quarters. What draws the boy, he has no lasting idea.

They’re approximately the same age, he supposes, although Obi-Wan has a few years at least on Anakin--it’s clearer to see now that Anakin has stopped wearing his helmet and armor into battle, now that the lines of his face are not hardened by scowls and snarls. Really, he’s a boy. His medical chart puts him at eighteen, making him four years Obi-Wan’s junior.

And, he supposes, Qui-Gon was the one to find Anakin wounded on the battlefield, the one to insist they treat the Sith, heal him, and give him shelter. But Obi-Wan was the one who had found the slave chip embedded between his ribcage, the one who had alerted the Council to its presence, so it could be used to find the boy’s master, to capture him or kill him, to end the war.

But surely, whatever small part Obi-Wan had played in the war’s conclusion, the Force should have known better than to repay him by gifting him with the care and keeping of a Sith Lord, Chosen One or not.

Although Obi-Wan can admit, even if only to himself, that it’s worse when Vader latches onto anyone else in the Temple. His master is too starry-eyed by his ideas of Vader’s midichlorians, his destiny as the Chosen One, to see the boy in front of him now.

And anyone younger than Vader is too easily swayed by his looks, his charm, his disgustingly transparent eagerness to know about the Temple, about the Jedi way of life.

Obi-Wan knows this. He’s fought a Sith at 20, fended it off after it dealt a nearly fatal blow to his Master. They cannot be reasoned with. Vader cannot be reasoned with.

Anakin exists only as a figment of their imaginations, their desire to have the Chosen One fly under the Jedi colors. He is not real, not anymore.

Gradually, Obi-Wan finds himself making his way up the stairs of the Jedi Temple. Of all the spots to hide--to sulk, as his Master would say--the rooftop is the one least likely to be checked. It is one of Obi-Wan’s favorite areas in the entire building.

But he had not thought to check for stragglers before arriving at his destination, had thought the thunderstorms of his own Force presence would keep others at bay. He hadn’t yet figured Vader into his calculations, hadn’t remembered the propensity Vader had for showing up right when Obi-Wan least wanted him to.

“You left,” Vader--Anakin--whoever accuses, as Obi-Wan sits down on the rooftop. The wind howls around them. Obi-Wan has the distinct thought that they’ve lived through this before, that last time Vader had cornered him on a rooftop, he had threatened to take a piece of his body home to his Master. Now, Vader is standing in his home.

Obi-Wan takes a very deep breath and banishes those sorts of thoughts. Anakin, he reminds himself. Anakin.

And just as importantly, the chip. There had been a chip. Not controlling Va--Anakin’s thoughts, but certainly controlling his actions. What he would do to survive is no different from what Obi-Wan had done to survive; they had just been on opposite sides of the war.

Is Obi-Wan weak for not being able to move past that? For not being able to greet the boy--the man--Anakin with open arms into the folds of his family?

“I did,” Obi-Wan replies, keeping his eyes on what he can see of the city skyline.

Anakin steps closer. “Why?”

He turns to face him, takes in his sweaty appearance and messy tunics. He must have been looking for Obi-Wan’s reaction. He must have seen the exact moment Obi-Wan had turned, must have scrambled to cloth himself as he followed after.

“Why does it matter?” He asks instead of answering, always instead of answering.

“Because I wanted you to watch,” Vader says.

“I’ve seen you kill Padawans before,” Obi-Wan turns away and stands up until he can lean against the high protective walls of the roof. “I wasn’t impressed.”

Vader feels frustrated in the Force. No. Anakin.

Anakin. “It was a training exercise.”

“Now,” Obi-Wan points out. “Or do you mean then?”

“Would you hate me if I said both?” “I hate you now, Vader.” The other boy’s Force signature withdraws, flinching away from Obi-Wan’s ire. He hears him sit down. He’d rather throw him off the roof.

But: “Don’t call me that,” the boy pleads quietly. “I know I can’t--that I don’t--” he cuts himself off and grows quiet.

Obi-Wan would say something to break the silence, but he doesn’t want to engage the boy if he doesn’t have to. If he closes his eyes, he can feel and see the Force raging around them, violently buffering them as it demands some sort of denouement.

The boy inhales and stands again, stepping forward hesitantly until he’s a scant foot away from Obi-Wan. “My mom always told me she thought for ages about my name. That it had come to her in a dream after I was already a month old, that it was bad luck to have waited for so long to name me because infants on Tatooine can die as quickly as their mothers.

“And then I...I couldn’t use it or hear it or speak it for so long that I think I almost forgot it, almost lost it to Sidious and...and Vader. So even if you hate me, and I know you should hate me, I know I’ve never done anything to you that cancels out the bad I’ve done to you, but. Please don’t call me that. I think it would have made her sad."

Obi-Wan works his jaw as he stares off into the city. He doesn’t think V--Anakin has ever said so many words to him. If he gives in now, he’d be just as bad as the other padawans who had welcomed Anakin in amongst them because of his big eyes and soft lips and earnest enthusiasm.

Anakin seems to take his silence as permission to continue, which it isn’t. “And I know I’m not. That I can’t be--won’t ever be a Padawan, or a Jedi Knight, that. That I’ll never wear a braid or anything. I’m not--I don’t want another Master. I never want another Master.”

Obi-Wan turns his head just enough to look at Anakin. He’s spent an awfully long amount of time hanging around Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s quarters if he doesn’t want a Master. But...what he’s saying makes sense, and, more importantly than that, soothes the furious emotions in Obi-Wan’s chest enough that he can speak. “Then I can’t understand why.” Why you’re here, why you won’t leave me alone, why you chose to follow me if you’re not trying to dispose of me and take my Master for yours.

Anakin sighs, leaning his head on his hands as he looks out at the city. Obi-Wan finds himself annoyed with that as well, even though he’d just been doing the same thing. Now he can’t tear his eyes away from Anakin’s profile.

“You’re warm in the Force,” Anakin says eventually. “I think maybe I spent too long in space, because I’m always cold. Except when I’m around you. You burn. You always have. I used to think that maybe--it was hatred or disgust at me, when I met you in battle, and you were an inferno. But you burn when you’re on creche duty too. A different kind of fire, but still so warm. It’s just your soul. It’s just who you are.”

Obi-Wan blinks open-mouthed at him. He’s never considered the thought that Vader--Anakin--had been trailing after him for anything other than easy access to his Master. Now he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do or say.

There’s a part of him that still doesn’t understand what Anakin wants to get out of his tenancy at the Temple, a part that whispers that the Sith can’t be trusted, no matter how blue they can make their eyes look. But the Jedi part of Obi-Wan is bigger.

The Jedi part of Obi-Wan tells him to extend his hand just enough to brush against Anakin’s exposed wrist. It’s a point of vulnerability the boy doesn’t shy away from.

“Would you…” he asks slowly, forcing the words out of his tight throat. “Like to meditate with me?”

Anakin looks astonished, then hopeful, then disappointed, then dejected. “I’m no good at meditating,” he says, scuffing the point of his shoe on the ground. “It wasn’t a huge part of my...former Master’s curriculum, and the Force is just so loud in my head that it’s hard to do anything but react.”

He looks up at Obi-Wan through his eyelashes, biting his lip as if he’s afraid that he’ll be turned away for this.

Instead, Obi-Wan turns fully to face him and latches onto his flesh hand. “There are some things, I’ve found,” he murmurs, leading them away from the edge of the roof before pulling Anakin down to sit cross-legged in front of him, “that are much easier done with someone else. Done together.”

#that last line shows up in anakin's wedding vows #like eight years later #and obi-wan thinks anakins making fun of him #but really that was just the moment sith!anakin decided obi-wan would singularly possess his heart and soul for the rest of his life #of course he was gonna quote it in the wedding vows #OBi-WAN #what did you expect?? him to quote the line about killing padawans?? #asks #obikin #my fics #omg im so happy i told myself when i finished writing and posting this i would get to eat two gyoza and now its gyoza time #its also 12:33 am #but most importantly its gyoza time #prompt fill