Bower bird home decor AU, or more precisely Alphas Act Like Bower Birds Home Decor AU, is my non-traditional A/B/O fic with alpha!Cody and beta!Obi-Wan. Instead of the usual "Omegas nest etc. etc." I went with "Alphas court by trying to build a living space for their potential mate and make it look really nicely decorated", so we have Cody picking flowers for Obi-Wan or gifting him pretty rocks to put in his quarters etc. since it's not like Cody can build a space for him anywhere.
Snippet under the cut!
One flower would hardly be enough, Cody thought absently the next time they were planetside, taking note of the plants growing around the camp as he did his rounds. He would simply have to pick more. They were smaller than the last flower he had picked for the general—wilted by now, even with Obi-Wan using the Force coaxing it to keep longer.
He considered the pale blue flowers growing in small patches, frowning. He would need something other than an empty canteen to put them in; their stems were so short, barely longer than the width of his palm.
Cody’s fingers twitched. He would have something figured out by the time it was time to break camp and head back to the Negotiator.
F. Favorite Sith?
Is it cheating to say Darth Vader? I’m going to assume it’s not, because he’s one of the core Sith of Star Wars and also I really love him a lot. I love the way the canon has underscored that, yes, he is Anakin Skywalker and his issues stem from the things that Anakin always struggled with and ultimately refused to face within himself.
Darth Vader is someone who cannot admit to what he’s done. Darth Vader is someone who cannot stand anyone knowing him as Anakin Skywalker because then he’d have to face what he did. Darth Vader is someone who has an entire parade of Jedi before him that chose different paths once the shit hit the fan and knew he could go back, knew Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both loved him, and still said, “No. This is all there is.” because he couldn’t stand admitting to his horrific betrayal.
And I love him because it’s a story that inspires such sympathy in me, that makes me ache for Anakin, and reminds me to get my own shit in check, as I struggle with a lot of the things I see him struggling with, like anxiety and depression and a fear of doing the hard work to really change myself.
Anakin Skywalker is the most fascinating Sith because we truly see his full story with it. (Like, I love Maul and we see so much of his story, but I will forever pine for a world where he could bring himself to let go of the hate and anger.)
I. Best Clone?
Answered here!
Q. Any Rare pairs?
I know Dark Disciple is controversial, but I do really enjoy Quinlan/Asajj from it and pine for more content of them. I’d love more Obi-Wan/Asajj, actually, too! And, honestly, I read one really good Ben/Rose fic and now I’m forever crying that there isn’t a small but dedicated fandom to them because I would love that dynamic so hard. Also, NEVER ENOUGH REY/ROSE.
Specifically for “Nor the Suns Themselves Brighter” and how I always sort of pictured that universe eventually folding to match canon. For @mid-nighttiger, who wanted to know. I do so enjoy being enabled :D warnings for character death. (canonically, in a way)
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Obi-Wan Kenobi killed a Sith at the age of twenty-five; well. He’d thought he had. He beat a Sith, to be more accurate. He killed, successfully, another at thirty-nine. It was a fairly good record, and, if he’d had the time, he might have thought of it as he moved through the halls of the machine the Empire called the Death Star, aware that another Sith was stalking him.
But he didn’t have the time, because his son - son in all but blood, and what did that matter, when he had raised the boy, loved him, cared for him, taught him everything - was on this cursed machine. Luke needed to get away. Needed to escape. Needed to take his sister - and Leia had grown so much since Obi-Wan saw her last - and the plans to destroy this thing and survive.
Which meant Obi-Wan needed to keep the Sith tracking him busy.
He’d fought Sith before. Successfully. But he’d been twenty-five and thirty-nine and on the Death Star he was almost sixty. His life had not been sweet nor peaceful. He’d fought in one battle or another since he was fourteen.
The years had taken their toll, and he knew it when the dark figure finally made himself known. There was something familiar about the tall, imposing figure in black. A sense that Obi-Wan knew them, something that reminded him of the man who had once been Chancellor Palpatine.
The Rebellion knew Palpatine had engaged in cloning and other misuses of his genetic material. The Sith who drove Obi-Wan back, impossibly, viciously strong, was too tall, too strong to be a perfect clone. Perhaps he was another child like Luke and Leia. Perhaps it didn’t matter.
He wore a mask that Obi-Wan could not see past, in any case.
He knew he was going to die before the last blow fell. Knew it from the moment he ignited his lightsaber, Knew it and felt regret that he would not see Anakin again and that Luke would have to see it happen.
But there was peace, beneath that. Acceptance. He’d walked alongside death for so long. He rather expected its embrace would feel like that of an old friend and he grinned, helplessly, as the red lightsaber--
#
Parsecs and parsecs away, Anakin stopped walking in the middle of a hallway. He’d been arguing with Padmé as she insisted that they come up with a plan, in case Obi-Wan, Luke, and Leia could not bring them the plans for the Death Star. Her voice fell away. Everything fell away, as his heart stopped beating.
It was not an exaggeration. He flailed a hand out for the wall and caught her shoulder instead, on his way to his knees. For almost twenty years, his heart had beat in time with Obi-Wan’s. They’d not discussed it, when it started, their hearts echoing one another. It was only one more thing they shared.
His heart stopped. The connection, the warmth always in the back of his mind, went away. He heard, impossibly, sweet words of goodbye and felt the soft brush of a kiss across his forehead, and knew what had happened.
“Don’t,” he managed to rasp, as he slumped to his side, vaguely aware that Padmé was calling for medics, pushing him onto his back, bracing her small hands on his chest. “Don’t.”
She ignored him. So did the universe. His heart jerked in his chest, finding a rhythm again before she managed to begin compressions, re-starting, and he ignored her as she asked, “Anakin, Anakin, what happened, what’s--why are you crying?”
#
“I’m so sorry,” Luke said, the first words out of his mouth when the shitty ship that had brought him to the base landed. He stood on the ramp, not looking at Anakin, caved in on himself, his expression some empty, stricken thing. Leia stood beside him, an arm wrapped around him, and looked equally stunned.
She’d come to be a part of their little family, too, after all.
Anakin stared at him, feeling each treacherous beat of his heart in his chest - how dare it continue to beat when Obi-Wan’s had stopped - and swallowed. “It’s not your fault,” he said, and the words were calm and orderly. He did not scream and rage.
He held Luke, when Luke stumbled down the ramp and into him, held him tightly, the way he had when Luke was a little boy, held his son and wept no further himself, for all his tears had burned away to dust.
#
They destroyed the Death Star. Obi-Wan would have been happy about that, Anakin knew. He joined not the celebrations, for all the joy within him had passed beyond reach. There was only the next battle to be fought, the next step in destroying the Empire that had ruined so many lives, that had taken Obi-Wan from him.
He moved forward with nothing but calm purpose. Padmé checked on him often, concern in his dark eyes and comfort he didn’t want in her touch. He thought sometimes about just leaving, taking a shuttle and flying off into the black until he ran out of fuel or food or water.
But he looked at Luke, his bright-eyed boy, Obi-Wan’s son, and he stayed, he fought, he kept breathing and living. He held Leia, after that Solo boy was taken from her above Bespin, and tended Luke after he lost his hand, and allowed Padmé to pull him into discussions of strategy.
#
The Empire built another Death Star. Of course they did. And the Rebellion went to destroy it, of course they did. And Anakin ended up on the terrible machine, beside Luke, facing two Sith, facing the man who had killed Obi-Wan.
The fight was a blur to him, left him aching from the moment Luke turned on his lightsaber, because his forms were all Obi-Wan’s. Obi-Wan had been his teacher, guiding his style, and for a moment it was like Obi-Wan was alive again, like he’d never died, like he continued onward, in their son.
Anakin watched Luke bring down the younger of the Sith lords, and wondered how closely it resembled Obi-Wan’s actions, nearly forty years ago. There was little time to think about it, really. Not with the Emperor there, laughing and cackling and taunting, urging Luke to the Dark side.
Torturing Anakin’s son.
Obi-Wan’s son.
Force lightning hurt, when it started dancing across Anakin’s skin. But he knew pain. Most of his life had been pain. He’d take it all, every bit of it, to keep it off of Luke. Really, there was no thought to grabbing the Emperor, to throwing him down into the abyss.
His last thoughts weren’t about the pain that tore through him, leaving behind nothing but ruin. He was thinking about Obi-Wan and it was strange, after, when Luke tried to drag him away, weeping, begging him to hold on, leaning over and touching his face…
It wasn’t Luke’s face Anakin saw, or Luke’s hands he felt, or--
#
The Empire fell.
The galaxy celebrated, the inhabitants of countless planets and moons bound together in a mutual sense of relief and elation. Not everyone celebrated with only joy in their hearts. On a moon, a nowhere place, a group huddled together, a young man and woman held one another, their mother standing to one side, a taller man next to them.
Luke wept and wondered if anyone else felt the phantom hands on his shoulders, the kiss against his brow, the sense of love and pride that echoed with each beat of his heart.
for the meme: wake the storm for some of my favorite obi-wan & anakin, and queen's gambit for getting me into ot3 (and many many other things) :3 i reread both every few months
Aww, thank you! Wake and Gambit are over 400K together, so that’s a lot of commitment. <3
