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2dayihaveaheadache · 1 year

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I hear my heart breaking tonight

Guess who is back? Obikin RomCon AU, still inspired by Mitski lyrics, found another gem in my drafts...

(a movie still that may or may not have been the inspiration for the last scene :-)

AU prompt: Anakin is born in messed up circumstances, forced to travel from one city to the next, never forming any sense of real identity or feeling of belonging until they somehow end up in Tatooine, a town somewhere in Oregon - but that can't be it, can it? Is that all he can expect of life? That is until he meets Obi-Wan Kenobi, a boy two years his senior, so untouched by the bad sides of life, unreachable, that stands for everything that he can never have. An idolized love is born. But Obi-Wan deserves someone better than him, doesn't he?

(My roomate literally demanded for hours for Anakin's perspective on the happenings of "I glow pink in the night in my room" (here the original text if you are interested, it's not necessary to be read for this one) It turned into an expanded version with character study aspects (writer's anger I call it). Prepare for a long ride and a few TW unhealthy coping mechanisms, strong words, Anakin has anger issues and is need of a hug, seriously give the man a hug, and a steamy situation is mentioned. All thank my roommate for the idea and ENJOY!)

Anakin was six years old when the harsh realization of how fucked up his life is hit him for the first time. Fucked up, fuck, fucking, Life is shit. A cheap bitch with an open backdoor for every motherfucker. As an adult thinking back, these curses and slurs pass his mind. But back then, as an innocent kid, he might have not known them but til this day they express perfectly how he felt, rolling off his tongue with this perfectly burning sensation.

Fuck. It tastes as it feels. Harsh pronounced with a tad of spit to it, the k vibrating in the buccal cavity. Red-hot coal on his tongue.

Fucked up.

Sitting there on the terrace in their small backyard, his legs dangled over the edge, a crumpled tissue in his hands for his runny nose, it had hit him like a truck.

His 6th birthday was last week. A muffin on the breakfast table had marked the passing of another year in Oasis Spring. A cheap chocolate chip treat, that came bundled with others in the two-dollar section of the bakery aisle in the local supermarket. The muffins had smelled of lemon, not in a refreshing or natural way but in an annoyingly and excessively sugary manner, much like scented soap. The kind you find in tacky highway motels.

But his mother had smiled, so he had tried his best to smile too, forcing it onto his face. “Close your eyes, blow out your candles, and make a wish, Ani.”, she had said, “But don’t tell anybody or it won’t be granted.” He had nodded and then done as he was told, shut his eyelids, pursed his lips, and blown out his candles. Something inside him had halted. He hadn’t known what to wish for. Just one stupid wish. Something childish. Something other kids his age would wish for, but what did they actually wish for?

He didn’t know.

At the end of the day, what was there to wish for in Oasis Spring?

Six lit candles for another year stuck in the middle of the desert, six candles for more midnight microwaved lasagna dinner with plastic forks, country music, and fight at the breakfast table, six candles for more barking dogs in the neighboring backyards and the clinking of bottles next door, six years candles for another year closer to sweet sixteen and the taste of his first canned beer, six candles for being stuck here just like anybody else.

So, there he sat, a week later, barefoot on the terrace of their cookie-cutter tract house, with a runny nose and cargo shorts that barely covered his bruised knee. A band-aid had been plastered over it, carelessly, already peeling off. His skin itched, scratched from falling onto the sandy asphalt all day. He rubbed with his fingernails over the wound gingerly, careful to keep sand out of the scratch just like his mother had taught him. “You don’t want it to get infected.”

He was six and still not able to ride his bike properly. Shame tinted his cheeks and his eyes started to burn. Stupid training wheels. It was not his fault that here, in stupid Oasis Springs, all the roads were sandy and full of potholes.

And in this god-forsaken place, he would remain all his life, gradually becoming more and more like the others. The signs had always been there – the stale muffin with the floury dough for his birthday, the screaming adults inside doing “grown-up talk”, the bruises on his mum’s arm, the scratches on his knees. His life was a mess and he was stuck in it.

He was angry and at the same time he wanted to cry, so he pushed his knees up to his chest and swung back and forth, trying to calm himself down.

There was no one to console him. The other kids would only pinpoint at him and the adults were inside, the door closed, impossible for him to get in. His mum had sent him out to play like he was a toddler or a dog or some kind of pet. He scoffed angrily, wiping away his tears. She had knelt down to him, ruffling through his tousled curls, and told him that he should be a good boy now and go out and play with his friends – except he had no friends and she knew that.

He was too tiny for his age, all bones, and sinews, skinny like matchsticks, doe-eyed like a girl, always dressed in the same shorts and T-shirts from charity shops, and got his hair cut by his mum, which meant not at all or bowl cut at best. The curls reached down to his shoulders, and the ends were bleached by the desert sun, making him appear blond – like a stupid cherub or something. The kids at elementary school had dubbed him Tinykin. The perfect target to be made fun of. They grabbed him by the hair, rolled him over the asphalt (the one with the potholes) or stole his shoes – just as they had done today.

In the past, his mum had only smiled at him when she saw the bruises on his arms and legs. Bath day comes only once a week, Bathtuesday with lukewarm water and cheap shampoo. Sometimes he tried to avoid it, feeling ashamed of his marks, throwing a tantrum, and crying like a baby. Anything to escape her sad smile. Her treatment was always silent, almost mechanical. She never said anything and merely applied a band-aid over the black and blue marks, as if they would help anything. They never did, band aids were for open wounds, not bruised skin. But she felt better doing it, taking care of him. He recognized it in her eyes, so when he had to, he let her do it.

Just for the sad smile to stop.

He found himself on the verge of crying ugly his doe-eyes out, which made him look like a girl, feeling rejected, put back into the role of a toddler, unable to communicate his pain, clenching his aching knee and thinking how fucking unfair the world was. It was not his fault he was born this way, with a girly face, with a mum that does only sadly smile, growing up in fucking Oasis Spring in Arizona, in the middle of the unforgiving desert, with grocery prices unpayable and no way to escape it all.

If he could, he would grab his bike and ride into the horizon just like the end in one of these western movies, he watched in the middle of the night when mum and the man they live with were absent – just with his bike and not on a horse. In some daydreams, he pictured himself with a cowboy hat, a smoke nipped between the lips, his plastic Nerf gun clicked to his belt like Terence Hill or Bud Spencer in “God Forgives�� I don’t.”, a lasso coiled on his back, and a herd of cattle ahead.

But of course, he was six and was not able to climb on a bike properly. He was chained to this place like a dog to its cage. A sob broke free from his throat. Fucking life. Never granting him anything.

Maybe he should have wished for that last week, the candles still burning in front of him atop his pitiful muffin.

He pulled his legs closer, hugging them like they were his only solace, much like he’d hold his stuffed bear at night. Maybe his mum was right with sending him out, he was behaving like a toddler, sniffing back tears with his eyes filled to the brim. Six years of age but still a tiny-winy crybaby inside. He will not cry; he told himself and clenched the underlip between his teeth, refusing to let the emotions take over. He was not a girl like his peers said he was. Not a Pussy like Bud Spencer or Terence Hill would say – or he imagine them saying.

So, he roughly wiped away the tears, that kept coming, and grimaced, feeling utterly ridiculous. Like an idiot with a painted face in the corner taking up space.

Inside the house, he could hear his mum’s angry shouts; followed by a loud thumb as if something had been thrown down to the ground. This time the fight seemed to be different. The arguments were typically loud and harsh, but never physically violent. The property was never damaged. The things they own were sacred because they only own so little. Shoes were worn until they fell apart and even then they were hoarded rather than thrown out. In this family, they seemed more inclined to hurt each other than their possession.

Later, the windows were shut, sealing in the noise, the screams, the world – leaving isolated Anakin outside.

The adults had forgotten about him. Anakin spent the night on the terrace, curled together into a ball, still barefoot with a runny nose, clinging to his clothes and shivering in the night’s sudden chill. Sleep did not come easy to him, it always slipped from his grasp before he could dive into it fully. No dream he could escape into. So, he spent the night staring at the starry sky, cursing fate, doubting God (he never much was of a religious person), or whatever higher-up power was up there.

Was it too much to ask for just someone to hug him? To tell him that it is ok to cry?

Or simply remember that he was freezing outside and open the door?

The next morning, his mum packed their bags, stuffing random things into their suitcases. She was angry, cheeks redden with frustration. It was the first time Anakin saw her in furious and it was almost like she was ashamed of her wrath. She wandered around the house, piling up his toys, cooking utensils and other random items. At one occasion, she threw a plate against the wall in her haste. Then she felt apologetic, collected the shards, clumsily pieced them together with one minute glue from the dollar tree and then at the end, kissed him on the crown of his hair, telling him that everything would be alright. “Don’t worry, Ani, I promise.” He wasn’t sure whether she said that for him or for herself.

It was evident that more than just a plate had been broken and it wouldn’t be as easy to be glued back together as the cheap china.

She was like a hazard, pushing clothes into the suitcase with so much force, that the zipper ripped open. Anakin watched as she cried and then brought yarn and needle and fixed the bag. It was a never-ending cycle of emotions and shattered glass. Sometimes things got messed up in her hurricane. What followed was a halfhearted attempt of redemption and a kiss on top of Anakin’s head. The fleeting touch of her lips that she gave him out of some obligation she felt. To be a better mother, to look like a better mum or to feel like a better mum. She loved him, he knew that, so let himself be hugged, kissed, or plastered with band aid to make her feel better – or just to avoid her sad smile.

After a couple of hours, she packed their bags into her car, stuffing it to the brim until nothing more fitted inside. It was not her car technically. It belonged to the man lived with them in the cookie cutter trac house and who had been the other partner in the screaming match last night. But this morning his mum did not care for his and her, splitting things up, just taking with her whatever she could get her hands on. It seemed like she did not care for a lot of things, wandering around the house like a whirlwind, leaving behind a trail of destruction. So, she loaded their things into the trunk, fastened Anakin’s seatbelt, drove out of the garage and sped down main road.

It was a Friday morning, they left Oasis Springs.

The early morning sun had bleed over the horizon and the first heat shimmer lingered over the asphalt. It was four hours until school would start and two until the town would slowly start waking up. Most of their neighbors had closed window shutters, not noticing them passing by, too caught up in their own world. Only the old Nicky, an ex-veteran, sitting in his white tank top and boxershorts in the front lane, barely raised his head when they drove past him. He muttered something like “God...”

Oasis Spring wouldn’t miss them.

Anakin asked why they had left his bike in the house, he still wanted to learn riding it. His mum only smiled as answers. It was the sad one. The one he hated. So, he kept his mouth shut, not pressing any further.

He looked out of the window, recognizing remnants of his childhood pass by. The streets with the potholes, he had wished to speed down on his bike till the crossroad. The neighborhood, tract house lining up the next tract houses but not the nice variant Anakin saw in movies. No white picket fence, no mown front lane, no swings in apple trees. The difference to a trailer park was little. Then the concrete cuboid with the tiny sandy backyard, that was his elementary. The pathetic palm tree on Kinsey Alley, which he had fallen down and scarred his brow when he was four, doing some stupid bet with the neighbor’s boys. Mr. Miller’s house with the dog cage in the backyard. Anakin had sneaked to it one time, expecting cute pups. Instead, he found a Pitbull, barking at him aggressively.

Last night he had cursed Oasis Springs, his life, but even now driving past it, he was carrying it within him, in this car, in the air he breathed, in his mother’s heart. It was inescapable. There would be other Oasis Springs, different sandy streets, new kids mocking him, other barking pitbulls and more screaming matches behind closed doors.

Because his life was fucked up.

His mum’s eyes were focused on the road as she turned the steering wheel to the right, right like she was driving north, out of the town. She did not notice her son clenching his hands to fists – or if she did, she did not say anything.

After five minutes Oasis Springs was out of Anakin’s sight when peeked out of the window. Seven more hours and the godforsaken desert was gone, after two days the whole state of Arizona. Out of sight, not quite yet out of mind, he thought, running his fingers over his bruised knee.

After eight years of running, ending up in Oregon and with that in Tatooine was not the plan – at least not from the beginning. They just happened to stay there. At first glance, Anakin thinks Tatooine is just one of the many intermediate steps, they do on their trip. It always works like that, his mum chooses some town nearby, she gets a job there, they move out of their motel room into some kind of semi-permanent living condition with the new money and then she gets him to attend the education there. Once the bills start to pile up and the dept collectors chase them, she packs their things, drives north as she always does, and then they start somewhere else from scratch again.

But somehow, they manage to stay in Tatooine. The bills still come in, and the dept collectors still knock at their door but nothing drastic happens that would force them to run away like always. No screaming neighbor, no bad ex-boyfriend, and definitely no dead man in the pool.

After three months of working, his mum finds them a tiny apartment a five-minute walk down the main road, she takes over the night shift at the local Wendy’s and enrolls him in Tatooine junior high. He is 14 and a half, too old for junior high but that is their only option. His CV is a patchwork of gaps and bad grades, so he repeats a year. It’s only for his best, the teachers say and his mum believes that.

She tries her best, she really tries, he knows that when he sees her putting her strands into the hair net, flipping burgers in some greasy diner till late at night, and then cleaning the floor on her knees for the extra bucks.

He knows it when she comes home at night, still trying to be cheerful after a long day of work, and when she tries to buy him things to make him fit in better.

These things are clothes from Goodwill, band T-Shirts from the late 70s when she was young. Music, that nobody listens to anymore. They are not his style – they are black, at least - but she loves it when he wears them, make her feel like a good mum. So, he does it. No matter, that they do the opposite of what his mum thinks they do.

She never wants him to get a job, even though he has got pretty good at tinkering with vehicles, she wants him to focus on school instead. As if he would care for that, he curses silently, it is only purgatory. The moment he walks in, the teachers have already formed their opinions about him, just punishing him ends and ends for simply existing.

In Tatooine, he finds Mace, a grumpy old man, who owns a workshop on Jefferson Alley, a seedy neighborhood but good enough for him. Anakin is 15 now, all the height he missed when he was a kid, has rushed to him in his teens. So, now he towers over all his peers and most of the adults, tall and lanky, all bones and sinews. He looks older than he is and he uses that to his advantage – at least, he thinks he can outsmart Mace.

Mace knows Anakin’s real age but he decides not to comment on it. He lets the boy tinker in his workshop – that is more a garage than an actual shop – lets him spray paint the cars, wash off the dirt, and if Anakin is patient, lets him help fix the vehicles. He pays the boy a minimum wage in the garage but what can Anakin do? He is lucky enough that Mace even lets him work there.

Sometimes Anakin ditches school just to take over one shift, midday especially, feeling better with his hands dirty under some engine cover than in the hallways or the physics classroom. His engineering talent is only wasted there. He loves the smell of the motor oil, the grease of the machines, and the scent of the solvents in the paint, better than anything the school can offer.

But most importantly, Mace lets him be himself – or the version Anakin has become. Mace gifts him the first mechanical parts for the build of a motorbike, which he has no use for anymore. He does not comment on Anakin’s black-painted nails and once the boy asks him, he just shrugs with his shoulders and shaves off the boy’s curls with a razor blade. It is nearly buzzcut, in the back there are still some longer locks, that Anakin ties together to a tiny ponytail, a short mullet.

The haircut makes Anakin feel relieved like he finally shed off his past, he is no longer girly with his now-cut-off curls. No one can grab him by the hair, roll over asphalt or steal his shoes.

He is not Tinykin anymore.

The kids in school fear him with his shaved mullet. The scarred brow from the fall when he was four, the black nail polish, the oldies Rock’ n’ Roll’ T-Shirt, and the biro doodles on his arm, which he draws because he has no tattoos yet, looking realistic though. They all perfect the image people want to see in him.

For the first time, Anakin feels powerful. His looks, his attire, and his public image have become his armor, shielding him from any sort of harassment. Tinykin is gone. The kids whisper when they see him in the hallways with held-up hands but stop when they feel his glare on them. Fear is control, he realizes, brushing through his short hair with one hand, one leg crossed over the other, the used combat boots shimmering polished, red shoelace marking him as a leftist.

So, he lets them stare at him, he lets them call him a Satanist and he lets the teacher think of him as a delinquent, never granting him the hallway pass. As a provocation he smokes on the school grounds, shares a pack with the older students, smudges coal liner under his eyes, and picks up any fight he can, snarling with bared teeth like an animal.

There is surprisingly much power in his lanky limbs, he thinks one night, hunched over the sink, observing his bruised rips in the mirror. He hisses once he touches them, his skin is adorned by black and blue marks, some already fading while others blossom on top of them. Battle marks. Soldiers are proud to carry them, so he should feel the same.

Tinykin can bite now, he has gone through a metamorphosis, and he is like Chuck now. A Pitbull. No longer girly.

And it makes him feel good, the adrenaline rushing through his veins when he sees red. Him pushing his body further than he ever thought was possible, the limps aching out of exhaustion, the sinews impossibly stretched but still going further. And he likes the dominance, the sentiment, when the others crouch beneath him, feeling sorry about whatever comment they made about Anakin or his mum. Anakin makes them beg – or wishes to make them beg, wishes to spit on them.

The thought is aggressive and venomous. Suddenly he is afraid of it, afraid of going too far, afraid of the Pitbull inside. Still, he is dependent on it, addicted to the taste of blood on his tongue. So, he just continues. Fist fighting, bleeding, caring for the wound, and fighting again.

One day he will end up in the hospital but he still does not care.

One fistfight later, it is enough, states the school when they call him into the administration office. He just shrugs it off, his lips bleeding, from one punch, adrenaline still rushing through his veins. The other one looks worse, is his only thought as he stares down at his split knuckles.

It has consequences. Everything has consequences. Life does never grant him anything.

The principal’s office calls his mum and tells her about his disruptive behavior in class, how his grades have fallen since last December in every subject, that he has vandalized the school toilet with Anarchic political propaganda, dresses inappropriately, and is missing in every second-class unit. She apologizes over the phone, begs him to not throw him out yet, and gives him another chance, offering a donation with money they do not have.

So, they let him stay and punish him with detention. For two weeks he scrubs gum from school desks, cleans the dirty tiles in the toilets, or sweeps the schoolyard. His mum takes over another shift at Wendy’s to pay off the money and smiles at him sadly. There is disappointment in her eyes. He feels embarrassed, pinches his bruised lips, avoids looking at her, and still starts to cry, feeling suddenly like his real age, a fifteen-year-old teenager, and hugs her like a little kid. She only hushes, strokes through his now short hair, and plasters one of her infamous band-aids over the cut on his lips.

Her words are that people like them just have it harder in life, so they must keep fighting.

People like them? People who just take their legs and just run away all life?

He hates that expression, hates that he was born like that, that he never had a fair chance, and feels a sting of hatred for his mum. Why did she even get him in this messed up world if she knew his life would be a fuck? She had done that to him, chained him to this, made him endure it.

And if she talks about fighting back, why does she always submit to others and crawls on her knees over the dirty tiles in some diner just for a few bucks more while other people spit at her?

Why did she back off just because the principal called her? Why did she not have his back like a real mum would? Why did she not defend him?

But his mum only wraps her arms around him, holding him tightly, smiling at him. It is the sad smile, the one that always shuts him up. She walks through the tiny living room area, grabs two plates from the kitchen cabinet, and puts the takeaway on the dishes. It is left over from Wendy’s she got to take home after her shift. “Come on”; she says as if she had not just bribed the principal, “Turn on the telly, there is a Bud Spencer film on Channel 3.”

For a second he stares at her. He has just cried a minute ago but he turns to the TV, a cheap model he got from eBay for free, and turns on the screen. It awakes with a screech, that makes him wonder how long the model will last. She takes the seat next to him on the couch. “Everything will be alright.”

He cringes and feels the sudden urge to curl up into a ball or disappear. He truly feels like 15 now. Nothing is fine and she knows that. But she searches for his warmth and cuddles him. He feels uncomfortable with the contact, incredibly stiff, but he lets her do it just so that the fucking sad smile disappears.

That night his mom falls asleep in front of the Television while watching Anakin’s favorite Western. In the dimmed lights of the electrics, he recognizes the exhaustion, that marks her face, new wrinkles have formed next to her eyes. He carries her to bed, sitting next to her for an awkward minute. He fidgets with his fingers, feeling embarrassed of his teenage anger outburst from before but not knowing how to put it into words, so silence stretches out in the room.

“I’m sorry.”, he tries to whisper, barely audible. “I’m sorry for calling you a bad mum.” He nearly swallows the words, that is how uncomfortable he feels speaking them.

He waits for her to react but she is already asleep.

Maybe she is a fighter, he thinks as he rests her head on a pillow, a warrior just in a different way than him. She is not young like him and has not the power in her limbs to just start a fight with everyone who behaves nasty.

Another wave of embarrassment hits him, so he escapes the room, flinging a window open, gasping for breath, just out of that room.

So, he sits on his windowsill, biting his bruised lips ashamed, the pain clearing his head. With his nails, he breaks off the Black polish, a nervous habit. His mind conjures images of his six-year-old self. The same heated anger wrenches his heart, he hears the phantom scream of his mum inside, cries ugly with a runny nose, cursing the world silently for his fucked-up life.

He does not want to wake her up that night. Does not let her see that she made him tear up.

Half a year after his 15th birthday, he has collected enough parts to build an entire motorbike from scratch. Mace helps him and tells him the do-s and don’ts of the process while handing him the screwdrivers. Once it is finished, he pads the teenage boys on his shoulders. There is even a spark of pride in his eyes.

Mace has grown into some sort of fatherly figure over the last year for him. The man has a stoic face, never emotionally caring for others, never hugging Anakin, never asking how he feels – but he helps Anakin, never asks questions when the boy is on his mat at 2 am or if he has school tomorrow, just silently guiding the boy into the garage and to his newest project.

Mace never raises the wage, still paying the boy only a few bucks an hour but he buys him lunch when Anakin takes over the midday shifts – that is the deal, midday shift for a Chicken Sandwich, or he gifts the boy mechanical parts for Anakin’s projects and lets him build them in his garage once he is finished with his tasks.

One of them is the motorbike. At 15 and a half Anakin’s bike is finally ready, half a year too young to be legally driving it, but who cares for a license in Tatooine? He grabs a can of spray paint and colors it in black to match him but something is missing. Mace nudges him slightly, handing him another spray can. It is red. He adds another single line, creating the illusion of fire when it is speeding down the streets. A flaming motorcycle, could be a reference to a Comic book, Ghost Rider, or something, Anakin grins to himself as he puts on the helmet to drive it for a test run.

It is Mace’s Helmet, the same for the Jackett, that Anakin has thrown over his shoulders, some bike gang insignia stitched on the back, two knives crossing. The older man has said that he had no use for it anymore and now that Anakin has a bike, it would be better off with him than lying around in the dust of his closet. Anakin had started to tear up but Mace had just hushed, grabbing the boy for a brief hug, in which both felt uncomfortable and later just stared at the ground embarrassed.

It was too early for such an intimate act.

When his mum recognizes him pulling up in front of their apartment building, she is anxious. She runs down the stair, meeting him, about to scold him but then she sees the joy in his face.

So, she asks if he is now finally able to live his dream and ride a bike. He nods and he speeds down Jefferson Alley, his mother clinging to him in the backseat, screaming against the wind.

For the first time in fifteen years, Anakin feels truly happy, adrenaline rushing through his veins. Maybe his life isn’t as fucked up as he thinks.

He is sixteen when his curls have grown back so that they reach his jaw now. He lets them hang loose, never caring for them with any styling product like his peers do. They frame his angular countenance, the small chin, the sharp bone structure, that has grown more prominent in the last year. His face still has big eyes and plush, reddish lips but they are contrasted by his sharp jawline now. He looks different, harder, matured, marked by life just like his scared body, he thinks when he sees himself in the mirror. A fighter. A troublemaker.

The brio doodles on his arms have become real tattoos, once he has hit sixteen. Now a barbed wire twines around his triceps, fading down into billows of smoke, a cityscape blooming on his lower arm. His chest is covered by a St. Andrews cross. Rex looked at him strangely when Anakin requested to let a catholic motive cover his chest and lower abdomen. He raised his brows the stencil hovering in the air. Are you Sure, his eyes said. Anakin has only nodded.,

He is not religious but it’s a sign of protection. Why should he not feel a need for protection?

He still spends most of his time at Mace’s workshop but somehow school has become more prominent too. The cause is the invention of the Tatooine High Physics Club – not that he is particularly interested in Physics, quanta, or atoms, they just give him the perfect opportunity to tinker. Last month he built his first robot and the other had helped him with the programming. IT has never been his strong suit. To a certain degree he was interested in the construction of electronic devices but the world inside, the software has never been his aim. Partly fault for that was that he has never had a computer at home and has ditched most of the classes where it was used – but suddenly it became of interest to him.

It is a better future, his mum tells him one dinner, IT is better than whatever he does at Mace’s garage. He could study computer science someday. He looks at her, suddenly feeling nausea, the leftover from yesterday rumbling in his stomach. He digs his nails into his palms, biting his tongue, holding any backlash back.

They have started to have a lot of conversations like that since he started Highschool.

Just look at him, he thinks, the tattoos, the black painted nails, the music taste, the red shoelace in his combat boots, the biker jacket over his shoulders, he is not the guy for Uni. It would be the same as in school. Everywhere he goes prejudice marks his way. He would have to fight harder than anyone else, suddenly get a good GPA, and find a scholarship. As if he could ever afford to go to college on his own.

He would just end in a purgatory of endless debts, that he never in his life could pay back.

He will just end like his mum. After the school graduation, he will work at Mace’s workshop full-time but that will never be enough money to support them both, so he will take over any job he finds, flipping burgers in some kind of fast-food chain and cleaning the floor for the extra few bucks.

He swallows. It is like he was born to become like that. It was his destiny from the start and after all these years of ditching school, fighting, and doing the absolute worst he has only dug his grave further. Life was never fair to him. The fucking world is unfair. He was destined to become like that and everybody has pushed him further on that path.

Anakin feels sad and then angry. All the sadness that does wrench his heart, he pushes it into his anger. Wrath is an easier emotion to deal with than tears and all the fuck. When he feels angry, he can get drunk and pick up the next fight till his knuckles split open and blood runs down his cheeks. Life does make Anakin kneel to it but in a fight, he can make others kneel to him. Be the one in the prominent position for one fucking second in his life.

When adrenaline is running through his veins, the only thing that counts is who is the better fighter and not who was born in the better situation.

Or he could fuck, get wasted and pick up someone, lets himself be dragged into a cheap motel, and then shag like an animal. It’s carnal intercourse, not lovemaking – who has time for that and who is the idiot and believes in love – then he is like a predator, just doing whatever his body needs to let go of this anger. The next morning, he forgets whoever his partner was, not that it does ever matter to him. He just leaves the motel room early the next morning.

He has become an arsehole, he realizes, and his mum would be disappointed.

So, sitting there at the dinner table, all his behavior of the last years, all the time he has acted out of anger or thought he has fought the unfair system, start piling up on his shoulder, revealing themselves to be only burdened.

Others have never liked him, so he became unlikeable instead of trying, bared his teeth, and hissed like an animal.

Others have seen the delinquent in him, so he has become the delinquent, smoking on school grounds, fighting, and ditching class.

He runs to the bathroom and only vomits, tears streaming down his cheeks, his hands gripping the sink. His mum does ask him what happened later, there is a spark of worry in her eyes, but he refuses to answer, once again putting up the face of the insolent child, the troublemaker.

“I’m sorry.,” something deep inside whispers.

Anakin has his first time with a man the day his mum gets the cancer diagnosis. It is a rainy day in August, and the cloud ceiling lowering over the town of Tatooine, suffocating him from above. How ironic, a fucking symbol for his emotions. He chokes, he swallows, he lights himself a smoke, grimacing bitterly.

The hospital calls him at work, midday shift like usual. Mace tells him to pick up the phone, he suspects nothing, speeds down to the telephone, and answers. For the next fifteen minutes, he listens to the doctor in a trance, answers yes when it is needed, yes to if he would pick up his mum – she is still affected by the anesthetics from the screening, yes if she should start chemo and yes if he would cover the costs.

It takes him another fifteen minutes to realize what it does mean for them as a family, what he has agreed to. Stage four breast cancer, chemo, no health insurance. They do not have the money for treatment, in no world will they ever have. The doctors tell his mum, she knows it, he knows that she knows. He picks her up, she tries to say it, he ignores her, and the rest of the ride home is silent.

He carries her up the stairs, sets her down on the couch in the living room area, pulls her favorite blanket over her, and rests her head on a pillow. She tries to protest, tell that she is no porcelain doll but her voice is hoarse, her arms are shaky and midway she realizes that herself, so she stays silent, ashamed. He makes her a cup of chamomile tea, the cheap one from the supermarket around. They talk, they talk about everything, how lovely he was as a child – he only remembers himself crying, how she always dreamed about opening a real restaurant – he only knows the taste of leftovers from Wendy’s, and what his dreams for the future are – he lies to her about studying, she knows but she still smiles, clinging to the nice words because what else has she left?

They talk about everything and nothing.

In the end, he is exhausted, excusing himself, lying about having a shift at Mace’s workshop, willing down the sobs that want to escape his mouth, brushing his hair into his face to hide the specks.

He wants to escape the apartment where he only finds disappointment in his mother’s eyes, where they only lie to each other, and where the air tastes of death, that suffocates him with every breath.

He feels bad for going, leaving her alone, leaving the death-forsaken woman but he still does it., crying with a runny nose, feeling selfish, and at the same time desperate for a hug.

That day he finds himself in the same bar, he always goes when something bad happens to drown himself in liquor. The barman Yoda already knows him and his favorites. The first few shots are on the house and then an “anonymous” person starts paying for them. Anakin does not care enough to actually ask who it is, he just drowns them in one go and grimaces at the burning feeling in his throat.

The world starts turning around him and it is a pleasant feeling, nothing is clear, and everything is hazy. He roars like an animal, falls from his barstool, and fails to stand up again when a stranger helps him up. He has a nice face and friendly hazel eyes – at least Anakin thinks he has. He offers the teenager a hand and tells him he would drive him home; the smile is open and honest – too nice for a seedy town like Tatooine.

Anakin tries to protest but the stranger has already manhandled him out of the bar. He is placed in a car, diagonally laid over the backseat. He feels like he wants to vomit but the stranger is nice, helps him up, holds up his hair, and helps him unbutton his shirt. It is hot in the car, and the stranger smiles.

The moment, Anakin lays bare on the cheap plastic leather of the Ford, he realizes what is happening. The stranger has started to fidget with Anakin’s jeans, fumbling at the zipper. There is still a genuine smile on his face, telling Anakin that everything will be ok, abusing Anakin’s drunkenness. His jeans are pushed down to his knees, exposing his boxer shorts and his bare tighs. Anakin is suddenly shy, trying to cover his naked skin but the stranger pushes his hands away, pining them over his head with force.

Anakin’s mind is still gone, still sitting in his apartment with his mum, conversing stifling Smalltalk, crying for his mum and missing her so much but his body does react for him instead. He feels a warmth forming in his core, a tinge of drunk arousal, mixed with disgust for himself. It is strange and his drunk body tries to convince him that it is hot.

Then he is flipped over, his chest hits the backseat and he moans at the sudden friction. His jeans are pushed down even further, his boxershorts following. Nervous fingers explore his backside, the touch is fleeting, unsure, embarrassed. The fuck itself happens in haste, it is quick and dirty, the other man fucks him bare, nervously, fingers grabbing Anakin so tight that it bruises for a second and then disappearing, never quite there, as if he wants to leave no trace. The stranger gives Anakin the feeling that he is a plastic toy, something to be used and then thrown away.

For a second Anakin does not care, likes the sound of bodies slapping against each other, the feeling that he has some use. It does his job and makes him forget about his fucked up life for a second.

Once the stranger is finished, he cleans himself with a wipe, pulling up his trousers as if nothing happened, and leaves Anakin dripping on the backseat. So, there he lays, another man’s body fluids running down his thighs, still in a drunken haze, with a mum with stage four cancer, he grimaces bitterly.

He does not feel angry, he does not cry. He just feels empty. The St. Andrews Cross burns on his chest.

The embarrassment takes another day to enter his system. Then the wrath follows, wrath is easier to deal with than embarrassment, than feeling dirty, than the need he has to shower to wash off the other man’s scent from his body. So, he lets the anger roar in his chest.

He meets Obi-Wan Kenobi for the first time at a house party – meeting for the first time is not the right expression. He knew Obi-Wan Kenobi before, he recognized him in the hallway when he saw the copper strands and the horn-rimmed glasses. Kenobi is the president of the Physics Club Anakin sometimes attended, Kenobi is the golden boy of the student newspaper, he was the guy on the bleacher that Anakin saw when he finished PE class and Obi-Wan has collected his dad's car a few times at Mace’s garage.

So, technically he knew Obi-Wan Kenobi before but this evening he gets to know him for real. Whatever that means.

Rex, Anakin’s tattoo artist, and semi-best friend, drags him there. Rex is two years Anakin’s senior, has a bleached buzz cut, arms covered with black and blue Ink, and a smirk, that Anakin can hardly say no to. Last summer Mace hired him and the two have instantly linked. Rex is not the best mechanic but he needs the money, so they made a deal. Anakin taught him the fundamentals and for that, he got a discount on the tattoos he wanted to get.

His mum has stopped working four months ago, half a year after her cancer diagnosis. Too late in Anakin’s opinion, too early in hers. They have started to fight more often. She thinks that he is too overprotective over her, he thinks she is only working herself to death. She scolds him for his life choices, he screams at her how she thinks he is paying for her chemo. It only escalates and, in the end, both cry and he is feeling once again like the true teenager that he is, clinging to her like a little child.

So, Anakin lets himself be manhandled by Rex to the party in Quinlan Vos’ house. It is near the Jefferson Alley, a quick walk by foot from Mace’s workshop, far enough from his apartment, and far enough from his mum.

Since his mum’s cancer diagnosis, he has dropped out of school, working full-time at Mace’s garage, the count of his tattoos has doubled, now covering more than just naked skin. There is now a bike and a sandy backyard on his left thigh. Fucking Oasis Springs, he thinks, he could not escape his past, so why not embrace it?

He has thought about a tattoo of his mum’s name but then he discarded the idea, as too cheesy. She would hate it, tell him that is like looking at her own gravestone and she is still very much alive.

He has just grabbed his third beer – his drinking habits have become worse too – when he notices Obi-Wan. The other man, also two years Anakin’s senior – in the same year as Rex, wears a white polo shirt, stuffed into his cord jeans and cute horn-rimmed glasses. He looks like he does not belong to this party, totally out of place with his outfit and the nervous laughter that speaks of insecurity. Anakin nudges Rex’s shoulder but the other man just shrugs in a manner of Why would I care, so Anakin steps closer to Obi-Wan.

The other man has something about him, that makes Anakin want to look closer at why he is so nervous. Anakin has no savior complex but something like the abuse, that happened to Anakin in the parking area of Yoda’s bar should not happen again – or at least, if Anakin can do something against it, so he steps closer to overhear the conversation.

They talk about “Seven Minutes in Heaven” and Obi-Wan seems nervous, and uncomfortable with taking part but Quinlan Vos - Anakin cursed a silent “arsehole” – seems to be reluctant to listen to his friend. He has put one arm around his shoulder, nudging him closer, trying to encourage him. It makes Anakin cringe, it is uncomfortable to watch, makes his inner Pitbull bark aggressively, and makes him want to split his knuckles open on Vos’s skull.

Since his mum’s diagnosis, his anger issues have become worse, too. He fights, smokes, and fucks more than ever. – much to his mum’s disappointment but it is the only thing keeping him together, keeping him working at Windu’s, and with that the only thing paying for the chemo.

So, Anakin joins in last minute, kneeling himself to the circle, taking another sip from the beer. Some raised brows but nobody refuses him to take part. He is Anakin Skywalker, a heavy drinker, a delinquent, known for his bed stories – why not have him in a round?

The bottle gets spun a couple of times but nothing happens to him or Obi-Wan. People get taken to the closet; they snog there until the next couple takes their place. Anakin is bored, he stares at Rex who has already found himself another activity, he yawns bored. Maybe he should have stayed at home.

That changes when the bottle stops in front of Obi-Wan, who lets out a nervous laugh. “I guess it’s my turn now.”, he says with a voice that sounds surprisingly tiny for a teenager. He brushes with one hand through his copper strands and rearranges his Polo Shirt, the glasses nearly fall from his nose because of his hasty movement, his cheeks are blushed and his body posture speaks of insecurity. “Who wants to do it with me?”

The question is asked with a tone that breaks Anakin’s heart. It reminds him of himself, him before most of the bullshit had taken place, before his job at Windu’s, before his first tattoo, before his first fist fight, before his mum’s diagnosis, before he has become who is now before he was broken. It is like looking into a mirror and seeing the young boy in Oasis Springs with a runny nose who just wanted to learn to ride a bike to make friends. Tinykin, he wants to sigh.

Anakin feels stupid to raise his hand that quickly but what else can he do? The Pitbull in his chest roars with the need to protect, bite away Quinlan’s greasy hand from Obi-Wan’s shoulder, protect Obi-Wan at all cost, shower him with compliments till all insecurities go away – but Anakin is not a man of nice words, life has hardened him, so all he can do is stand up and play the part of the heartbreaker who has taken a liking in the shy boy.

Nobody makes a comment, they do not care enough – or they care enough to spread a rumor the next day, whatever. So, the two get taken to the closet and Obi-Wan laughs more nervously as if his insecurity would disappear if he does it more often. It is a painful sound in Anakin’s ears, making his heart wrench. He wants to grab Obi-Wan’s hand, squeeze it, tell him that everything will be alright – but it would only scare Obi-Wan way, too soon.

The closet is so small that both must stand with only a few centimeters between them, a contact that is forced to be intimate and uncomfortable. Obi-Wan shivers, trying to distance himself, laughing one more time when he realizes that Anakin notices it, it is like saying “Nothing against you, but could you please stop invading my personal space?”

Anakin clears his throat and steps the tiny step back, that he can take in the small closet. His back hits a shelf with canned food.

“So, we have to kiss now, don’t we?”. Kiss is pronounced breathy, a word with insecurity laced to it. Obi-Wan has never kissed anybody, it is clear as daylight, and he is nervous to do it now. He does not want to do it, he just feels like he needs to do it.

“We don’t have to do anything”, Anakin answers and takes another sip from his beer. It is room temperature now, tasting disgusting on his tongue but still better than nothing, a bit of liquid courage for the next words. “Just because some bastards tell us to do something, we don’t have to do it.”

“You are Anakin, right?”, Obi-Wan asks unsure, trying to change the subject. “I saw you a couple of times in Mace Windu’s shop, you work there, don’t you?”

Anakin only nods, adding another “Still do.” after the silence stretches out uncomfortably.

“I have not seen you in school for a really long time. You used to attend Physics Club; I noticed you there a few times but then you just stopped coming. CP30 still needs the new gadget for his eyes, the boys have been too shy to add it without you.” Obi-Wan’s chuckle is still nervous. “Why did you stop? – I mean coming, why did you stop coming?”

“Bad things happened.”, Anakin answers taciturnly, taking the last sip from his bottle, already regretting it. The closet is so tiny that he feels the warmth the other man radiates, a bead of sweat runs down his cheek, and he wipes it away, trying to grin reassuringly. Everything is alright. He brushes a lock behind his ear, suddenly feeling itchy, and uneasy on his feet like he needs to do something. He starts drumming on his empty bottle, avoiding eye contact.

It was a stupid idea to cage himself with Obi-Wan in a closet that barely measure two square meters.

“You still can come, CP30 is waiting, nobody will touch him if you don’t want that.”

“I-“, tries Anakin but Obi-Wan’s nervous talking interrupts him, the other man fidgets with his fingers. “We have classes as always and the Physics classroom is open as usual, Thursday afternoon and Fridays till 3 pm.”

“Yeah”, grumbles Anakin, staring at everything other than Obi-Wan, trying to get his inner Pitbull under control that roars to surge forward and kiss him til all the nervous words stop flooding from his mouth. The other man’s cheeks are still blushed from the heat and some of his copper strands are damp, slightly curled, making them look impossibly fluffy, that Anakin gets the itch to brush through them.

It is an itch he should not scratch.

“I’m sorry, I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“No-“

“I just thought after you volunteered that you might be slightly interested.”

The shy man makes Anakin cringe. Obi-Wan looks so unsure of himself, pushing and pulling at his Polo shirt, cheeks heated because of his words. Obi-Wan has never kissed anyone before, roars his inner Pitbull, why don’t you take his first kiss? You are a good kisser, you could make him enjoy it.

Anakin plunges forward, cupping the other man’s face with a swift movement, surprised by his actions. He turns his head away, staring at his shoes instead, the combat boots are old and used, has bought new ones since his mum’s diagnosis, saving any money he has. His voice is hoarse and slow when he continues, “Ehm -I am interested.”

Then he leans in, brushing his lips slightly against Obi-Wan’s forehead, getting addicted to the taste of the honey-kissed skin with the slight hint of male sweat, the urge blooming to taste it with his tongue and then he wills it down, jerking back like he has burnt himself, nearly falling over himself, embarrassed by his own animal-like thought just to take.

In that second the closet is opened and a weirdly grinning Quinlan Vos eyes them, scanning for a sign of snogging. He eyes Obi-Wan’s damp curls, his heated cheeks, and the Polo shirt.

“Happy Seven Minutes in Heaven, Obi.”

“Ehm-“

Anakin feels like he wants to vomit.

Anakin is 17 when Obi-Wan graduates. He watches from afar, sitting on the bleachers Obi-Wan used to sit on, smoking a pack – he has even called Mace for a free day, knowing that this will only end in Yoda’s or some stranger’s backseat, all just to stop the throbbing sound of his breaking heart.

It’s like watching everything, that could have been, and at the same time never will be. He could be standing there, getting his A-Levels done, posing with his friends in these stupid robes, hugging his mum, and hearing her whisper into his hair how proud she is.

But it will never be. He will never finish school and instead works full-time to pay the bills. And what friends? The kids, that have harassed him in Oasis Springs or the kids who were afraid of him in Tatooine? Who would be standing here with him now, grimacing like an idiot for some graduation photos?

You could have been a part of this now, the Pitbull whispers to him bitterly as Anakin lights himself another cigarette, you could be standing there now, planting a kiss on the shy boy’s lips if you just had been brave back then. You could be there now as just a friend and maybe even as his boyfriend.

I am broken, sighs Anakin, I have a fucked-up life. Obi-Wan deserves better, Obi-Wan deserves the world, he should leave this shit hole that is Tatooine and finally find someone who cherishes him.

So, he sits there and watches from afar as everybody becomes older, graduates, leaves the town, starts studying and he just stays Anakin, working in Mace’s garage, sitting the evening with his mum in front of the telly, watching some western, crying himself to sleep at night for everything that could have been.

Anakin is 19 when he meets Padme again. The night before he has drunken until he blacked out and she had been the first face to greet him in A&E. As strange as it sounds, they fall in love quickly – or she falls in love quickly. She is a doctor, she likes to heal, likes to take care of, likes to amend and he is her little project. She thinks she can fix him, takes him out, controls his drinking and smoking habit, stops him from fighting – she is good for him, his mum smiles.

He reads that Obi-Wan has left Tatooine. He is for the first time in the Newspaper for some charity event in New York, that he attends with his newlywed wife. She looks pretty, tall, blond with a perfectly proportioned body and the wedding ring glimmers on her finger. Obi-Wan has not changed much, it has been years and yes there is a beard now covering his dimples, but there is the same insecurity, the same shyness in his posture, that makes Anakin's inner Pitbull beg him to take care of him.

He is happy now, he tells himself and smiles bitterly, Obi-Wan has become what he has deserved, a perfect life.

But Anakin cannot help to feel jealous of the other man, of all the possibilities the other has, no chain caging him in Tatooine, no mum with stage four cancer, no same old job, that he carries out every day since he is fifteen, no debts that he can never pay back, no emptiness in his heart, that he cannot fill.

But isn’t Anakin happy now, too? He has Padme – at least he has someone, he should be happy now.

And his mum loves Padme, they form a bond quite easily – she loves Padme probably more than he does and that hurts. Padme is perfect for his mum, the definition of a woman with a golden heart, for the first time his mum is truly proud of him. It hurts his heart to lie to her like that, to pretend to be the happy boyfriend in love but he does it.

When their high school friends start asking them why they are not married yet, he decides to propose to her. He does everything the others do, he books a restaurant, hides the ring box in his best jacket, and then falls to his knees when it is the right moment. She smiles, cries out of joy, and showers him with kisses – he only feels uncomfortable, fidgeting with his fingers. Later on, he blames it on his nervousness.

He is 20 when he stands at the altar waiting for the bride. He is 21 when the twins are born and he holds Luke and Leia for the first time in his arms.

He tries to be happy, tries to be a good father, reads all the fucking books about parenting, makes himself a total idiot just to make the kids love, shows them his favorite westerns, lets them ride on his back, and sleeps next to them every single night for the first three nights of their life.

And he tries to love Padme, God knows, he tries so much. He takes Padme out for date nights, tells her how beautiful she is every morning, and kisses her open-mouthed and hungry to make her feel loved and desired in the marriage just to make him feel less guilty that he thinks of another man every time in bed. Over the years, he learns to love her, as cruel as it sounds, he learns to pretend to love her, to say the right things to make her smile.

And no matter how hard he tries; his life remains fucked up.

Anakin is 36, a divorced man, father of two teenage kids in puberty, with the first few grey hairs growing on his scalp when he wakes up early, yawning, rubbing his tired eyes, expecting to find the bed next to him empty and unused, just like he is used to it.

But instead, this morning a warm body is curled to his, a chest and a soft belly pressing against his backside, arms intertwined with his face and grumbling something like “Don’t go. It’s too early.”

A sweet, soft smile curves his lips as he leans down to kiss the other man’s cheeks and brushes his fingers through the copper strands. “Obi-Wan.”, whispers into the other man’s hair, tracing the jaw with his fingers, tracing the lines of his beard.

For the first time in 36 years, he has a chance to be happy - however, his fucked up life may be.

(this is a draft, that means it is still in the condition of a draft, not betaed... just wanted to rant about the idea, so enjoy!)

#idk what im doing #author is sleep deprived #very tired #all thank exam phase love you uni #obikin #obi wan x anakin #just wanted to write some obikin to calm down my raging mind and my insataible roommate #seriously obikin is balm for the soul even if this is a bit angsty now #anakin angst #sw thoughts #sw fic #obikin au #make it obikin modern au with angst #or a lot of angst #anakin needs a hug #anakin needs therapy #maybe the author too i mean i invented that in my head doesn't that say something about me too #felix's weird thoughts and drabbles #no why no literature quotes i really tried #padme amidala mentioned #sorry honey i didn't mean to do you so dirty #same for you Vos #star wars prequels #star wars au #not that much of a love story #some how unhealthy relationship but Obikin is nearly always somehow unhealthy #or at least when i write it #what am i even tagging here?#felix's try on humor #dark humor

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2dayihaveaheadache · 1 year

Text

I glow pink in the night in my room

It's Obikin time again. I know, I wrote another AU yesterday but this draft was just irresistible, I found it in a pile of other drafts and cleaned it, cut the edges, clearing the hidden gem it is. So, enjoy!

A Break in Their Day - David Hettinger American, b. 1946 (insipired a scene in this story)

AU prompt: Obi-Wan is getting divorced, ex-wife Satine (maybe? choose whatever char you think would fit, 'not the most amicalable divorce'-ish), he looses himself in the process, make him miserable, (down bad coping habits, smoking, a night out with Vos, something in that line, nothing too bad, treat him tenderly). So, he drives back home, Xmas-rom con style, (Hallmark-ish but not too cheesy), great reunion with the fam (please single parent Qui-Gon!) and then meets his great love Anakin. Give them some sort of happy end!

(thank my roommate for that prompt, and yes, that is word by word how she sent it to me. She loves her Hallmark romcoms.)

I glow pink in the night in my room.

Obi-Wan lives through the divorce but he loses three things: his condo in Fort Greene, his social circle of the last decade, and their cat – his beautiful, beloved Arfour. He is not thrown out like some stray; Satine isn’t that kind of person and she isn’t heartless, no enfant terrible. He can stay, she offers with a friendly expression, that does not reach her eyes, one hand gripping the other tightly – until he finds himself his own apartment he can stay. She even offers to give him a hand financially.

It is NYC, he adds mentally. It will take ages. Momentarily they can continue in their living situation, spending their evenings together like they used to, like friends before they became a couple – she stresses.

On Wednesday takeout from their favorite Thai around, when both of them run home late, Mango sticky rice, Panang curry, and fake, greasy Wan Tan wrapped in tin foil, which Satine loves with all her heart. Every time Obi-Wan runs over the street to the tiny shop, half past ten, they already know the order, just handing him two steaming plastic bags.

Bucatini Pasta on Friday. The Trattoria da Paolo is a lot more elitist and pretends to be the perfection of every cubist’s dreams. The inside is a cuboid made of white-washed concrete walls and a lot of glass, the former construction metal peeking through the concrete in a sense of beautified industrial style for people like them, that have never seen a factory from the inside but still idealize it from an aesthetic perspective because goddamn, a manufacture-like building can be pleasing to look at if it is designed by a multimillion-dollar architect.

And on Sundays Brunch with Mace and Depa, a befriended married couple, they meet every second week. A social obligation. Nothing quite pleasant.

They will continue as they used to, she says. Dining in the same room as the last fifteen years, drinking Chablis from the same crystal glasses, that were gifted to them over a decade ago, and setting the table with the same china, that Obi-Wan bought when he first moved out as a student, an Ikea snap.

Everything is static. Nothing needs to change; she explains with a soft undertone – just because they have gotten a fucking divorce.

Somehow their friends have taken her side. At least to him, it feels like they have, he thinks bitterly to himself after his second glass of Chablis. They smile at him with their paperwhite teeth like he is the casting director of some toothpaste commercial and then tell him how perfectly he and Satine have fitted together for the last couple of years, a dream team, their Emily Blunt and John Krasinski. Two stars in each other’s orbit, competing who can shine brighter.

Then they wait for Obi-Wan to grin to assure them that everything is all right like it’s his job to do, not the other way around. So, he does, he rubs their backs, puts on his most magnificent grin, and then talks about their amicable parting. No matter what has happened to their wedding band, they are still perfect for each other.

They have always been Satine’s friends, colleagues, or acquaintances, he thinks, whom she collects like pearls on a necklace to complete her image of perfection.

Although she is already perfect, a Wycombe Abbey graduate and human rights advocate for the International Committee of the Red Cross, considered to be one of the people to hold a speech for the UNO this year. The public adores her, what else is left for her to achieve?

And he had been – well, just Obi-Wan, a graduate of a community college, born in the middle of nowhere in Oregon, no prestige legacy awaits him.

She needs space and time to experiment – that is her reasoning when she sends her parent’s lawyers, all armed with Mont Blanc fountain pens. They have gotten married too early, foolishly young – but she will always love him some way, she states with her red lips curved into a soft smile.

The same expression the young girl wore, he once met fifteen years ago. Back then she had leaned over a bar counter in West Harlem, some bar with cheap lush, a glass of whiskey balancing in her hand. Her hair had been chopped off as if she had cut it herself, the bangs seventies styled, which reminded him of Stevie from Fleetwood Mac, and her jeans were decorated with feministic patches, idolizing Simone de Beauvoir, and Margaret Atwood. Absolutely charming.

She had asked him out first, a witty remark on her curved, red lips about his grandpa-like sweater, some snap from a Pittsburgh Vintage store. Then she had drowned her drink and kissed him, open-mouthed like he had been never kissed before. It had felt like he was destined to fall for her.

After the next rendezvous, he found out two more things about her. Firstly, she was always on the run for the next riot on the street, demonstrations for women’s rights, world peace, against capitalism, the elite her parents belonged to, et cetera. Secondly, she never truly lived in present; her mind was already away on the next barricade of some street fight for justice.

Fifteen years, two apartments and one adopted stray cat later, her hair is now cut by a professional once a month, she books online, and the pair of jeans, she usually wore, has been exchanged for a suit, unpayable for a normal wallet, tailored specifically for her, the rebellious phase overcome.

At heart she is still the same young girl, that wanted to see the world burn, fighting against policemen on street riots – that’s what he tells himself when he returns home late and finds her asleep on the kitchen table over some court case, fighting for justice – she has just adapted, matured, become more like her parents, something he would have never guessed back then. But that’s the way of time, isn’t it? He swallows.

Their marriage does only chain them, both of them, she stresses and tries to reach for his hand, almost tenderly, he jerks back. She wants to feel young again, going to modern art exhibitions, buying cheap tickets for movies in arthouse cinemas, illegal star gazing on some rooftop they broke into, dancing through the night to techno music – fucking feeling in love again.

She has fallen out of love with him although she is clever enough to leave that part out, he is sensitive enough to hear it.

So, he signs the papers, takes the Mont Blanc pen from her parent’s lawyers, and sets his name under the document, which seals the fate of his broken heart, biting his lips.

That night he finds a pack of smokes, bought ages ago, probably back in his twenties when he was still a student, half buried under a vintage copy of Stephen King’s The Last Stand, a book Satine hated for its apocalyptic content. He lights himself a smoke and hunches over the railing of the balcony. It had been her fucking idea, the condo in Fort Greene, the balcony, the cat, the entire status quo – and now it will be hers again.

Then why does it hurt so much?

He stares up at the dazzling night sky. The scene could be romantic if it would be shared, perfect for a Hallmark rom-com, he thinks to himself bittersweet. Or it could be painted by some artist of romanticism. Casper David Friedrich. The wanderer over the sea of fog. He nips his cigarette between his lips and breathes in the tobacco. For the next minutes, he only coughs, throat burning, suppressed tears of months streaming down his face.

Nothing so romantic about that.

The next months come, the snow melts on the streets and the first green decorates the trees of Fort Greene. Half a year passes and Satine stays to be right like she always does. No changes happen. It is like Fortuna is Satine’s goddess, her word is law, and luck blossoms along her way – at least to him Satine seems to be happy.

They smile at each other at the evening’s dinner table with stifling Smalltalk about their work. “How was your day?” “Good.” “Nothing stressful?” “Just the usual.”

They smile at their cat when they pet it as if they have not talked about split custody before. They smile at Mace and Depa at their usual Sunday Brunch while eating brioche and French butter from Ladurée Soho. They smile at his parents-in-law at their monthly visit, drinking Tea in a painfully expensive café and talking about how wonderful it is to live in NYC, pretending to be happy even though it hurts deep inside.

They smile at Satine’s charity events; he puts his arm around her shoulder and she gives him her hand. The paparazzi take photos of how perfect they look together. The next morning it is all over the press. The NYC dream team strikes again. The only thing missing is their wedding band, but nobody seems to notice. They see what they want to see.

Satine and him, they do everything the way they normally would, following their strict schedules, Satine fighting in court and him teaching at university. Happy and successful together, a true power couple, everyone is inspired by their achievements.

They attend his annual faculty party and Satine does it perfectly, dressing up in a red slip gown, laughing at his colleagues’ jokes, presenting her public persona of charming Satine, whom everybody adores and makes them tell him how beautiful his wife is – even though she is not his wife anymore. The word slips so carelessly over their tongue, marked by years of practice. Then his colleagues apologize, pad him on the shoulder and say that they still seem happy together.

They are in modern times, you still can be together as a divorced couple, right? Obi-Wan nods and smiles painfully.

They attend his parents in law golden wedding and this time it is his turn to behave perfectly. He wears the tailored suit, Satine picked out for him, and the watch, a Christmas presents he hates for everything it stands for a tedious status symbol but it does its job, making her parents happy. He jokes around with the guests, old-fashioned, sexist jokes, that taste bitter on his tongue. He talks publicly about his research and brags about his Ph.D. from Oxford – just as Satine wishes him to do, flaunting their happy and successful lifestyle into everybody’s faces.

The next morning, he struggles to come out of the bedroom. She sees it, she ignores it. They do not talk about it.

So, all they do is smile, talk, and pretend. They even smile in court like it is a contest, who can smile longer and brighter? Who can persuade more people with their smiles? Who can convince the public better, that they have been fine after the divorce? – it had been a mutual decision after all, hasn’t it?

Each day he applies a new layer to his masquerade of being perfectly fine until he feels like there is nothing else left of him inside the shell – but that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? He feels like wax from a candle, something she has molded more than ever into the perfect husband. As if now that he lost it, he tries more than ever to be him.

His smoking habit becomes worse. He can recognize it on her face, the slightly scrunched nose, and she can smell it on his clothes. He waits for her to ask him to stop. She never does.

So, he smokes on the balcony, a pack a week. He pets his cat, the same kitty she wanted to get. He kisses Arfour on the head, sleeping in the living room with her curled in his lap, afraid of what demons will await him in his bedroom, the empty bed staring at him daunting. Light still lingers under her threshold, he wants to know what she is doing, tell her how he is feeling, and tell her that he is a mess inside. But he does no such thing.

Another half a year later, he resigned from his job, cleans his office at Columbia, bides his colleague goodbye, and packs the cardboard boxes into his Bentley, leaving everything else in the fucking condo in Fort Greene – after all it’s not his anymore, it hasn’t been his for a long time. He toys with the thought of driving back, thumbing the key angrily on the kitchen counter, causing her the same pain, she had done to him. He shakes his head.

A fresh spring wind hauls through NYC when he decides that it is time to drive East.

Driving East means coming home. Oregon. The tiny town of fucking Tatooine.

He does not call Qui-Gon because he can’t stand the tears that will run down his face if he does. He is an emotional wreck and all that is holding him together is clenching the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white, feeling the wind on his face from his window as he passes the streets.

Homecoming. He tries the words on his tongue. Homecoming. He has not been home since his last year of high school.

Two days and one night in a cheap motel later, he pulls the Bentley over. His neck is aching from the long drive when he drives past the town sign of Tatooine. He pushes down the brake pedal to look around, noticing the differences between his childhood memories and the present.

Everything is like it used to be: there is still the gas station right behind the town sign decorated with spray paint, where he bought gas for his first junk car, which he had owned with barely over eighteen. Qui-Gon had helped him scrap it together, it was his father’s present for Obi-Wan’s graduation. Just a few meters down Mainstreet there is still the old barn, where he and his friends would meet up, drink their stolen lush, smoke their cigarettes, or kiss and make up for the first time – he can still feel their hopes and dreams clinging to that place.

They had felt on top of the world back then, invincible like only teenagers could, that had not been hurt by the world yet.

And somehow the town has changed too: The old VHS store, always lit by 80s-looking neon lights, is nowhere to be found. Instead, a new convenience store has taken its place, a glass cuboid with a green logo. So, there will be no more borrowing Child’s Play and getting scared to sleep alone at night, Obi-Wan chuckles. No more sneaking into Qui-Gon’s bed and no more midnight peanut butter jelly sandwiches to cheer up his mood. No more sneaking into the adult section as a dare. No more flirting with the cute girl behind the counter and totally embarrassing yourself.

He pushes down the accelerator pedal, ignoring his burning eyes. Old and new puzzled together as he passed the streets and new buildings, a patchwork of memories and slate-grey asphalt. Only a few remnants have been left of his childhood, but what did he expect? Just two blocks until he will reach Qui-Gon’s house. He bit his lip and clenches his hands around the steering wheel.

The town hall has been renovated too, the 70s-style building has become modernized, glass and concrete greeting him as he drives by. The High School is still the same grey cuboid that reeks of purgatory. From the car, he can make out the hockey field and bleachers. At seventeen he spent a good chunk of time there, writing or sketching in his notebook – or secretly watching the team train on the ground, sweaty jerseys clinging to toned upper bodies in summer. His first boy crush had been awkward, unreachable, tinted by anxiety and internalized homophobia, and the end had been misery, crying his eyes out in bed for a week straight. Qui-Gon had been helpless.

He turns his head away and concentrates on the street again. Just a few blocks then he will see Qui-Gon again. Nausea creeps up his gullet. He stops the Bentley in front of his childhood home and lets the engine rev one last time.

The grass lane needs to be mown; he thinks as he watches the house from afar. There is still the apple tree in the garden, where once a swing hung. Qui-Gon had installed it so young Obi-Wan could play outside while he harvested his vegetables in the garden. There are still some of them left, salade, carrots, and Qui-Gon’s favorite herbs. From the street Obi-Wan could recognize a couple of wooden boxes of beehive huts hidden behind the lush green grass, seems like Qui-Gon had started a new hobby, that would fit him.

The white picket fence desperately needs to be colored again but Qui-Gon never really cared or better said, detested the image of a perfect suburb family connected to it, so the crumbling paint fits him better. He had always loved the mood of vintage, the nostalgia clinging to it. The kitchen window is open and some 60s pop is played somewhere in the house, probably a record player. The Zombies, Obi-Wan realizes and smiles softly, a vinyl he gifted his dad.

Obi-Wan steps out of the Bentley and walks the last step towards the door. He rings the bell.

The Qui-Gon, that opens, is different. His long grey hair is tucked away into a low ponytail, held together by a leather band. A few white strands have appeared at his temples and he wears machine-oil-stained jean overalls, that smell as if he has just tinkered in the garage behind the house – but most importantly, he looks at Obi-Wan like only a stranger could, confusion is painted on his face.

The other man clears his throat, hesitantly raising his hands to Obi-Wan’s face as if he wants to touch it, feel the difference, and then jerks back as if he has burned himself, turning away from his son.

“Obi-Wan… God, it must have been ages.” The voice sounds old, strange, and pained like it hasn't been used for ages. Obi-Wan averts his gaze and looks down at his wingtips. The leather is worn out and the stitching needs to be repaired. “Hello, Dad…”

Qui-Gon offers Obi-Wan a cup of tea as they stand silently in the kitchen.

The kettle boils on the gas ring and the older man thumps down two mugs on the kitchen counter, both handmade. The green one is taller than the other and the clay is uneven, shaped by a kid’s hands. Obi-Wan crafted it in kindergarten and Qui-Gon has ever since proudly used it as his go-to tea cup. An old Father’s Day gift. A bright, yellow sun is painted on top of it, stating “Tomorrow the sun will shine” in the cranky handwriting of a preschooler.

Now Qui-Gon hesitates for a moment as he realizes what cup he has pulled out of the shelf. He looks over his shoulder to Obi-Wan, offers a weak smile – almost shy like you would smile at a stranger, not your long-lost son – and then drops the tea bags into the mugs before pouring the hot water over them.

The tea tastes stale, green tea from the convenience store nearby. Nothing compared to the morning brew Obi-Wan buys for himself in NYC Chinatown when he runs the errands. Qui-Gon is not prepared for visitors, he realizes.

The simple green tea, the brown bottles of milk from the farmers around, and the handmade cups. That is how Qui-Gon lives all by himself, austere, like an old man living by himself. He cooks his vegetables from the garden, receives pickles and silver skin onion jars from the neighbors for the winter months, and buys only the necessities from the supermarket around.

“How have you been?”, tries the older man weakly as the silence becomes palpable. He is hunched over the counter and has offered Obi-Wan the only chair in the cramped kitchen. The other one, which used to be there, has disappeared, probably somewhere in the attic or sold. Without Obi-Wan, there had been no use for it. Obi-Wan cringes when he is spoken to.

The older man’s face is turned away, his gaze directed somewhere outside of the kitchen window, the garden, his vegetables, or the apple tree, lovelier things to look at than the stranger, that his son has become. He behaves strangely, not like the Qui-Gon Obi-Wan is used to. He behaves like a man, that has not spoken to a lot of people in the last few years.

“Good.,” Obi-Wan speaks softly, unsure, trying the words on his tongue. No one has asked him how he was feeling since his divorce, they always avoided the topic and pretended as if nothing happened, complimenting his new publication on astrophysics, or going on about how awful New York’s traffic is. Or they offered him their toothpaste commercial smile and rubbed their hands over his back as if he is a little child that you can console with a pad on the head.

As he takes another sip from the mug, he feels Qui-Gon’s eyes on him, calculating his reaction.

“You drive a new car.,” says the other man, averting his eyes again. A quite expensive one is left unspoken. Not the scrap car we built for your graduation. That one is gone too, isn’t it?

“A Bentley.,” Obi-Wan explains, nodding softly. “A wedding gift from my parents-in-law.”

Qui-Gon looks at him for a second, one lip between his teeth. Hurt flashes his expression before his face becomes stoic again, pain hidden in his grey eyes. Then they continue to drink their tea, too many broken promises hauling in the silence between them and no one dares to speak a word.

When the sun is about to set, they step out of the house to load the boxes out of Obi-Wan’s car and store them in the attic. “You can sleep in the garage.”, Qui-Gon explains as he opens the trunk and balances a box filled with books in his shaky arms.

The cardboard rips open and for a second all the books seem to hover in the air before they fall down on the asphalt of the street. All the book spines are exposed. Hemingway, Atwood, Steinbeck, etc. Old Secondhand shop copies from all over the place, Portland, Philly, Seattle, New York – and Tatooine. They are used, dog-eared, and pages filled with notes and drabbles.

“I…”, Qui-Gon stutters and kneels down to pick up a copy of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

The soft cover is broken, and one corner is ripped out but the young James Dean in the 1976’s version is still easily identified, staring dreamingly into the landscape. “You still do love John Steinbeck.”

Obi-Wan only nods and takes the book from Qui-Gon’s hand, cautious to avoid skin-to-skin contact.

He throws it into his cardboard and picks up the other books from the street, averting Qui-Gon’s eyes. John Steinbeck was or still is Qui-Gon’s favorite author.

He stacks the hardcover of Wuthering Heights on top of the Penguin classics from Jane Austen and lines up Nancy Fraser with Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman, keeping his hands busy, just to avoid Qui-Gon’s eyes on him.

“You haven’t changed that much.”, exhales Qui-Gon as if he is gasping for air, grabbing blades of grass and ripping them out with his left hand. “You’ve grown a beard to hide your dimples but they are still there.” He clenches his hands into fists, crushing the grass blades. “Sometimes things aren’t as easily erased as we wish them to be.”

Obi-Wan just stares down at the box on his arm

It is filled with remnants of his old life, which he had tried to bury in his office, far away from Satine. Notes, Books, Polaroids, etc, little gifts Qui-Gon had bought for him.

“Still, you are not …”, tries Qui-Gon with a hoarse voice before it breaks off and a sob escapes his lips. He is hunched over the last book in the grass, fidgeting with its pages.

You are not the same as you used to be, Obi-Wan. You are 41, have greying temples, and suddenly wear tweed jackets with elbow patches, a cliché you mocked when you were 16. You have married a woman, I have never even seen and divorced her before I could ever do it. You are a professor at Columbia and not an awkward high school student anymore, who I drove to school with every morning and who stole my wine from the shelf for a night out with friends. You are not 12 anymore and get scared of Child’s Play, so you sneak into my bed at night. You are not 9 anymore and beg me to go to a real hair salon because you are embarrassed about your bowl cut. You are not 7 anymore and hate your tooth gap.

You are not 5 anymore and love playing with your swing at the apple tree – you are not my Obi-Wan anymore.

It pains Obi-Wan’s heart to see the old man so desperately trying to find the right words to express his agony. He kneels too and takes the last book out of Qui-Gon’s hand, carefully, only shortly brushing skin against skin. It is Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the book Qui-Gon used to read to him when he was a toddler and now the older man is clinging to it as if his life depends on it. Diamond tears running down his wrinkling cheeks, fighting his voice.

“It is fine. Everything is all right. I’ll just take my old room.”, Obi-Wan assures, hesitantly grabbing the older man by his shoulders, and pushing him to his chest, unsure, an embrace of strangers. “I’m here.”

“You will not fit anymore. The bed is too small.”, cries Qui-Gon into the shoulder of his son, all the hardness of the years breaking down. All Obi-Wan can do is murmur a soft “Sorry” into his father’s hair, caressing him gently.

Convenience store sandwiches. Obi-Wan stares down at the plastic-wrapped packages and sighs. Two Rows of tasteless bread, glued together by mayonnaise, that has already diluted into egg and grease again, and sometimes a pitiful lettuce peeking out – if you are lucky.

Still, he is indecisive, letting his hand hover over one of the sandwiches. For some reason, he keeps buying them as if they will taste any different this time. They were his normal midnight snack when everything was closed except for the 24/7 discounter a walk down his street in New York.

In Tatooine, it is not any different. Qui-Gon has fallen asleep in front of the TV, a model from the 90s while watching some Game Show about parents guessing their kid’s lover, a ridiculous concept and yet so close to the truth.

After Qui-Gon’s heavy breathing turned into snores, Obi-Wan picked up a quilt blanket from one of the neatly folded stacks in the living room and put it over Qui-Gon, softly as if Qui-Gon was a child. He lifted his dad’s head, pushed a crocheted pillow underneath it, and kissed his forehead. Then he went to the kitchen to scan the fridge for a possible dinner solution. Except for two jars of pickles and a piece of margarine, it was empty, after a quick search a loaf of bread was found in the kitchen cabinet. He sighed. So, he figured, he could just drive to the new convenience store and buy some dinner while his dad got some well-deserved rest.

An electric bell pings as he crosses the opened door and one look over his shoulder informs him, that he has 20 minutes left to search for groceries before the store will close, fucking Tatooine. He strolls down the aisles, scanning the rows for necessities, a shopping basket dangling from his arm. For a supermarket, that barely measures two rooms, they have an astonishing variety in their alcohol collection. A Limoncello opens it on the top shelf and two steps away a Johnny Walker Black Label is just waiting for someone to take it.

“Kenobi?”

Obi-Wan grabs a beer, pushing it into his shopping basket, before turning around. Smiling through the pain, he thinks, and the next moment shame heats his cheeks.

It takes him only a second to recognize the man behind his back. Towering a few inches over him, still wearing his biker gang leather jacket just like in high school, grinning, is Anakin Skywalker. He still styles his hair in long loose curls, that make him look like a Movie Star from the 80s, though the roots have started to grow grey over the years, his eyes still gleaming with a friendly spirit.

“Kenobi?”, the man asks again, this time with a crooked grin, finger grabbing a beer next to Obi-Wan.

“The one and only.”, Obi-Wan answers. His voice sounds hoarse, embarrassed to be found in the liquor section, and the opposite of content to see an old friend again, so he pushes the basket behind his back.

“How long has it been? Nineteen years? Too many, anyway.”, Anakin grins, grabbing himself a bottle from the shelf, no shame in his action. His eyes roam over the label, before taking another one. “I thought you moved to New York, married a nice chick, and live your best life as a rich man there.”

“How would you know?”

“The press wrote about it, was hard to miss.”, Anakin grins again and raises his hand defeated. Obi-Wan sighs, as if Anakin self-centered Skywalker has read articles about him. At seventeen the man had barely thought about anything else than how to get into other peoples’ pants and his motorbike, why should that suddenly change? They have never been great friends anyway, barely greeting each other when they had met in the hallways. Anakin was two years his junior. Fate had diced them up once at a tedious party, letting them share one deep conversation, nothing more.

“Obi-fucking-Wan Kenobi, ex-president of the science club of Tatooine High, now suddenly an accomplished Physics Prof at Columbia.” Anakin lets his head fall back as laughter shakes his body, curls tangling around his sharp jaw. “We all thought you’re gonna win the Nobel prize one day, turns out we weren’t so far from the truth back then.”

Then he turns to Obi-Wan and his smile broadens. “I’ve got an idea. This lush is shit in here, convenience store shit. Often tried it and it won’t get any better this time, wanna go out for real? For the sake of the good old times.”

What go old times, thinks Obi-Wan. They have been acquaintances, not friends, but he lets himself be dragged out of the supermarket.

Half an hour later they sit in an Irish Pub, Yoda’s, a five-minute walk down Jefferson’s Alley. The area around Jefferson's Alley is a seedy neighborhood with tiny houses, crammed around square shaped backyards, like tenements, and no green can be found. The houses look grey and desolate in the light of the street lamps. It’s where Anakin has grown up, isn’t it?

As a teenager, Obi-Wan often hung around here, cycled around, played baseball in the yards with some other boys, and threw stones at Quinlan's window, a friend of his who had lived around. Now, Quinlan Vos was gone, married, a tattoo artist somewhere in Philly. He should visit him some days, thinks Obi-Wan, and focuses his eyes on his surrounding again.

Anakin and his friend had been rather infamous around here. For hours they would be lying in wait on the lawn in front of houses, spyglasses in their hands, just to catch a glimpse of the white plaid skirts, or rather a glimpse under the skirt of the neighbor’s girls.

The entrance to Yoda's is a staircase to the basement. Well-trod wooden steps and a time-worn railing lead the two down. The interior is filled with a cozy atmosphere, a jukebox plays in the corner, to the right a pool table, and on the left outside the bar counter, behind which stands a grim old man, a pipe in the corner of his mouth. With the deep wrinkles on his face, the man looks like he is over 80, with one carved crutch in his hand, and the other one on his pipe.

“Should I order something for you, my old friend? A Guinness?”, Anakin asks looking at Obi-Wan. He sits down straight at the counter and peels himself out of his leather jacket. It is thrown without caution over some chair nearby. The jacket used to be Skywalker’s treasure, the statement piece that dominated every outfit, his holy grail to impress every girl – or boy.

Obi-Wan only nods, testing the waters, and sits down on one of the barstools. After the grim old man taps two glasses of beer and pushes them over the counter, Quinlan turns to Obi-Wan, grinning, He grabs himself a pint, toasts it to his friend, and drinks off the foam with a deep swig. “So”, he says, wiping the foam from the corner of his mouth with one hand, “How have you been?”

“Comme ci, comme ca.,” Obi-Wan only offers with a small grin, tasting his Guinness, not wanting to dive deeper into the topic.

“Life is a bitch sometimes.”, answers Anakin, “I stayed here, and started taking shifts at Watto’s workshop after my graduation. I am now officially co-owner even though the old man rarely gets his hands dirty nowadays. But what did I expect.” Obi-Wan pads Anakin on the shoulder with the same pads he hates, but what else should he do to console him? He cringes inside at his inability. The other man turns his head to him and states, „You know what, I was jealous of you, all these years. You got to leave this shit hole.”

“There is nothing to be jealous about.”, starts Obi-Wan, “I resigned last week, no longer Prof at Columbia, I’m jobless for the first time since my Ph.D. I said ‘fuck you’ to my friends, moved out of my condo and now sleep in my childhood bedroom. After living in New York for fifteen years, or any other place, you realize that all cities are the same, all the same, shit holes.”

Anakin has laid down his head on the counter, staring at Obi-Wan from the side, one of his curls falling into his forehead, the others framing his sharp countenance. He still has the 80s movie star vibe to him, even nineteen years later with the first few grey strands and wrinkles next to his eyes. “I thought you married a nice, rich chic, living your best life there.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “Divorced?” It feels weird to nod now, admitting it for the first time in over a year even though it had happened so long ago. He takes another sip from Guinness. Anakin raises his head again, suddenly stating out of the blue, “Me, too.”

Obi-Wan raises a brow, the heartbreaker fucking Prince Charming is divorced? It does not fit into his view of the world. Back in High School Anakin could have had anybody with one snap of his fingers, how does it come that he is not a happy family man now? “I mean, I married.”, tries the other man, “Everybody else did it when the time came, so I did it, too. Saw Padme again, started a relationship, and proposed when it was reasonable. 9 nine years, that was how long our happiness lasted. I am a father now.” He sighs and taps on the counter to order himself another pint.

“Padme Naberrie?”

“Yes. You graduated together, didn’t you? She was on the top, perfect GPA, and had endless opportunities but she stayed here and went to the Community College. Later, working here at the local hospital. A nice girl with a golden heart, my mom loved her and that is the most important thing to me. Now she is the mother of my twins.” Anakin looks sad when he adds. “Nothing more I could wish for.”

“What happened?”

“I lied to myself and at some point, I could no longer pretend.”, states Anakin vaguely and drowns down his pint. “But what about you? Are you a father?”

“Yes.”, he answers fast without thinking about it. “A daughter – I mean, ehm, my cat.”

He expects Anakin to behave strangely now, be angry or disappointed, to tell him how dare he compare having a cat to having a kid as if it’s the same, but he does no such thing. Instead, Anakin asks softly. “What is her name?” Anakin uses the present form, not the past, not like Obi-Wan has lost her. Somehow Obi-Wan wants to hug him for that.

“Arfour.”

Laughter burst out of Anakin, which shakes his whole body. “You still love that Sci-fi series, don’t you? How was it called again? Star Destroyer? Something with Star.”

“How do you know- ehm, how do you remember?”

“Seriously?” Anakin looks jokingly offended. “Your whole locker was plastered with stickers from it and –“Anakin grins evilly. “I remember you having a crush on the main character. You would doodle pictures of him in your notebook when you would think nobody notice.”

“But you did?”

Suddenly Anakin’s expression shifts back to sad, his lips are pinched, and his eye bags are visible like he has trouble sleeping. “As I said, I was a liar for great parts of my life. The best probably and now it is most often too late to break free with the truth. All it does is getting people hurt who have been comfortable for years, who have settled down and fought for their luck. Who am I to suddenly destroy that because I have decided to speak the truth now?”

“Is that why Padme left you?”

Anakin buries his face in his hands before continuing more silently. “I, ehm, I slept with men during our marriage. Most often I would meet them through my work, I repaired their cars and they flirted with me. Later I would come to visit them in their hotel rooms and they would fucked me like a common whore on the cheap bed or against the shower while Padme set at home caring for the twins. That was what I wanted, no love, just the nagging in my heart to stop, the feeling that I was missing something.”

“She found out?”

Anakin nods. “I’m sorry, I feel ashamed for it. She found out one night, found the texts on my phone, screamed at me, packed the twins, and drove to my mother. I spent that night alone in the living room, asking myself why I was so fucked up as a person, why I could not be like all the others, happily married, a content father, why I always felt like there was missing something, why I was such a liar.”

He pauses, then he continues. “You know what is the worst? She came back the next day, told me she forgave, hugged me, and let me, the bastard, cry on her shoulder. She told me that she understood me, understood why I married her, understood why I always felt absent, understood that I loved her just not like that, and that I had tried my best. She felt sad for me, not for her and her wounds, for me, that I’ve been lying to myself my whole life.”

Anakin orders another pint. “Another one for you too?” Obi-Wan only nods.

Then he leans close, cups Anakin’s cheeks and kisses him like Satine has kissed him all those years ago, open-mouthed with tongue and everything, pouring all the suppressed sadness of the last months into the contact. Anakin responds in the same manner. It is not tender, it is harsh, and demanding, everybody grabbing what they want from the other, Obi-Wan’s hands in Anakin’s locks, and Anakin’s fingers sneaking under Obi-Wan’s grandpa sweater.

It grows messy quickly, threads of salvia connecting their lips, them rutting against each other like teenagers, that found out what their crotch is used for the first time, fabric rubbing against fabric. It is not about Anakin’s coming out, it is not about Obi-Wan’s divorce, and most definitely it is not about finding love in each other. It is about forgetting the pain, the suffering, the agony, freeing the emotions, that were locked inside. It is a happy, sad, angry kiss, with biting, tongue, and sometimes a moment of tenderness, when one of them needs it.

“Your house?”, Obi-Wan asks breathlessly before leaning in again. Anakin nods and grabs Obi-Wan by the hair, forcing their mouths together.

Later, laying in a bed together, Anakin’s arm possessively around Obi-Wan’s waist, they stare at each other in silence, a silent smile on their lips, that Anakin wishes to kiss. It was Obi-Wan’s first time with a man, Anakin noticed it, Obi-Wan sees it in his face, and they choose not to talk about it. Rather, enjoying what they have as long as it last.

As the sun raises, Obi-Wan finds himself in his kitchen again. “How did you sleep?”, asks Qui-Gon, taking a seat on the only chair in the kitchen, his voice high-pitched and still unsure. The old man has wrapped himself in a cardigan, blue and crocheted, the long gray hair is muddled together into a low-bun, yesterday's green cup in his trembling hand.

"Good," says Obi-Wan, turning away from the sink to his father.

Crockery is piled up in front of him, cheap porcelain with kitschy floral patterns. Primroses, which entwine around a single daffodil. Obi-Wan never liked the painted plates, but they have been cheap, a bargain in a Goodwill in Philly and they have been doing their job ever since. Qui-Gon liked the nostalgia he associated with them. Christmas dinner with some stubborn British great-aunt, he had, a Dolores Umbridge-like person from the outside but with a warm heart. So, Obi-Wan tries his best, puts on a crocked grin, one lifted corner, hums, and does the washing-up.

"And the bed still fits? No problems with the mattress?" asks Qui-Gon again. He has lowered his eyes, fiddling with a sleeve of his cardigan, where a hole still needs to be filled. He twirls the yarn thoughtfully between his fingers, furrowed eyebrows, too shy and unsure to look up into his son’s face.

"No problems," says Obi-Wan, leaning against the stove, trying not to think about last night in Anakin’s bed. He turns slightly to his father; his head tilted to the side and tries to smile. It feels convulsive and unnatural, yet he assures in a calm voice, "All right."

"I woke up in the middle of the night," says Qui-Gon, continuing to stare at his hands, which are busy with the cardigan. “You were not there anymore. I thought you might have left again.”

Obi-Wan stops moving, the dishwashing sponge hovering in the air, and the hot water continues to drop down on his skin. He clears his throat, tries to get rid of the bitter taste on his tongue, and lowers the sponge. "I was shopping," he explains and points to the fridge, "I just refilled what you were missing."

"Thank you," Qui-Gon says quietly, almost hoarsely. Again, he lowers his gaze to his hands, which play with a thread. Soon there will not be much left of the cardigan. "You didn't have to do that. I'll get along all by myself. "

"I know, Dad." Obi-Wan shifts back to the sink, his back turned to his father, absently biting his lower lip. “I know you are capable.” His voice is hoarse when he tries to speak again. “I met someone.”

“While you were shopping?”

Obi-Wan nods weakly, trying to hide his face from his dad, unsure of his reaction. “I felt like a liar for a long time in my life, stifling, chained in a corset. That person showed me the way out. I know at my age, finding true love is unlikely and it is not about that, it’s about trying, finally speaking the truth even though it might hurt yourself.” He pauses. “That Person is a man, ehm, his name is Anakin and I would like to introduce you two.”

“I would be honored.”

When he turns around, he can see Qui-Gon smiling, he is still shy, but it has gotten better. They are on the way; they just have to keep trying and fighting. One day, they might be able to smile like they used tp, happy, but it feels daring to say that.

(To be honest, I have soft spot for this Obi-Wan, maybe I come back later and write more for him, grant him some more happiness. It's a draft, will be rewritten someday, maybe more cleaned, made more suitable for Ao3, let's see. Untill then enjoy!)

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