Seeing as I have a miserable cold right now, I commiserate with Anakin.
(Dubious Historicity ‘verse)
Over the breakfast table, Obi-Wan asked, “So, is the Jedi still here?”
Shmi gave him a disapproving look, which he ignored. “Yes, he is. He’s ill.”
That brought Obi-Wan up short. “He’s what?”
“He’s ill,” Shmi repeated, “He has a cold.”
“And you let him stay in his room?” Obi-Wan asked, incredulous.
Shmi sighed. “Don’t start with-”
“This is a closed environment!” Obi-Wan protested, talking over her. “Sick people have to be taken to the medbay, otherwise the illness spreads-”
“I’m not letting you quarantine him,” Shmi said. “He just needs bed rest and quiet, and he’ll be much more comfortable in his room.”
“Yes, but then you’ll be going in and out of his room, getting a dose of his germs, then spreading them around outside, and then-”
“Obi-Wan.” Shmi was using her ‘don’t argue with me, I’m a powerful Sith Lord’ voice. “Stop fussing. He’s staying in his room, and if you don’t want to get sick, you can avoid both of us.”
“You seem to have forgotten my lecture on infection vectors,” Obi-Wan grumbled.
“I remember all your lectures, dear, though that was one of the more staid ones.” Shmi wiped her mouth with her napkin delicately. “But your bedside manner is somewhat lacking. He’ll be staying in his room.”
Obi-Wan scowled down at his plate. “Mutiny,” he muttered under his breath.
Shmi only raised an eyebrow.
*
Obi-Wan did deign to visit Anakin in his sickbed – though he made sure to wear a surgical mask over his mouth and nose, just to make the point.
Shmi just shook her head when she opened the door. “Your last cold wasn’t that bad.”
“The last time I had a cold, it was only because everyone else caught the bug at the same time.” Obi-Wan folded his arms. “You can’t pretend it wasn’t miserable.”
“Just come inside,” Shmi said, stepping out of the doorway.
Anakin was a blanket-covered lump curled up on the bed. “I didn’t think this would be the way I defeated my nemesis,” Obi-Wan said, leaning over him, “But I must claim victory, it seems.”
Anakin opened one eye and glared up at him. “Not dead yet,” he muttered. His words were accompanied by a deep, hacking cough. “What’re you wearing that for?”
“Disease control,” Obi-Wan said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “The Jedi plague must be contained.”
Anakin made a grumbling noise and pulled the covers up over his nose. “Leave me alone, I’m sick.”
“You baby. When I got sick as a child, my master would abandon me on an ice world for three weeks to punish me for my weakness.”
“And when you get sick as an adult you retreat to your bedroom and demand meals and books to be brought to you,” Shmi said, squatting him on the arm. “You should be honoured, Ani. He never visits the others when they fall ill, not even me.”
“I do visit,” Obi-Wan protested.
“You ensure we don’t leave the medbay. That’s not quite the same thing.”
“Because you should be in the medbay when you are sick. In fact, Anakin should be there right-”
“Don’t think I won’t throw you out of here.”
“It’s my library.”
“This is my son.”
Anakin let out a long, agonised groan. Both Obi-Wan and Shmi turned to him immediately. “What’s wrong, Ani?” Shmi asked, worried.
“Two Sith Lords are arguing right above my head and I’ve got a splitting headache,” Anakin snapped.
There was a pause, and then Obi-Wan and Shmi looked at each other.
Prompt list- "We’re hiding from the authorities and it’s very close quarters in here, I can feel your body against mine." Maybe in the Black Library verse?
Ah ha, this one was perfect. A preview of certain escapades that might appear in future chapters, I think....?
List of prompts I’m currently accepting from
The thing was, ‘Quick, jump into this cupboard!’ had soundedlike such a good idea at the time.
Now, however, Anakin was beginning to regret not justbolting for the spaceport. The maintenance cupboard was very small, and he waspressed very close to Obi-Wan in the stuffy darkness.
“It’s been a while,” he gritted out. “Maybe we could make amove now.”
“Can’t you feel them? They’re still in the building.” Obi-Wansounded completely unaffected by their situation, despite the fact that he wassquashed between the door and Anakin.
“I’m sure we could slip past them-”
“We’re fine where we are for the moment,” Obi-Wan saidsharply. After a short silence, Anakin felt him turn his head. “At least, I am. Are you uncomfortable, Jedi?”
Anakin shifted restlessly. “Er. A little.”
“You’re too tall for your own good.”
“Not exactly something I can help,” Anakin snapped, internally grateful that Obi-Wan hadn’trealized the real reason he felt souncomfortable being pressed up against him. “Also, it’s pretty hot in here.”
“I can’t take you anywhere.” Anakin thought he could feel –or maybe just about see – Obi-Wan shaking his head. “Please keep your whiningto yourself for just a few more minutes.”
Anakin huffed, and they both fell silent. Closing his eyes, Anakinreached out with the Force, letting his awareness wash over the building aroundthem. The cops they were hiding from were a floor below, spread out in a fewdifferent rooms. “I’m a Jedi,” he said, “I could tell them we’re… on Jedibusiness.”
Obi-Wan scoffed. “They’ve been bought off by Illtaza. If youtell them you’re a Jedi they will only be moreeager to bring you in.”
Anakin gritted his teeth. “Point taken.”
Maybe he could try meditating. That was the kind of thing anupstanding, morally correct Jedi should do in a situation like this. He triedclosing his eyes and slowing his breathing, but achieving any sense of innerpeace seemed impossible when Obi-Wan kept… moving.
Eventually Obi-Wan muttered, “Alright, they’ve left,” andslowly opened the door.
Anakin pushed out past him, taking a deep breath andimmediately wishing he hadn’t. The ‘tenement block on Nar Shaddaa’ scentedcandle certainly wouldn’t be gracing the shelves of any homeware store in thenear future.
“We’ll go out the back door, just to be safe,” Obi-Wan said,already moving away along the corridor.
Anakin watched him go for a minute, then snorted andfollowed him, shaking his head.
Obi-Wan hadn’t noticed anything, and that was one smallblessing.
hi! about the black library au. i can’t remember if it was you or hemelin-born but one of you mentioned in one of your past answers that at one point anakin /decides/ to start courting vex. i’d like to know /why/ and /when/ he consciously makes that decision and also… well, i’m trying to picture how does he go around his courting and all i can see now is the guy sneaking into the forbidden parts of the jedi temple to steal shit he can gift upon his intended. (1/3)
like, taking pictures of old artifacts, weapons and books - to take to his mother or venge because if he’s gonna risk expulsion it will be for high quality goods only, damn it! - duplicating the chosen good and then making his mother or venge to bath the replica in dark energy so he can leave it in the place of the original. (2/3)
i mean, does obi-wan even realize he’s being wooed? how long does it take him to notice? is the sith storage at the temple half filled with forgeries by the time shmi decides to put her foot down? (3/3)
I’M SO SORRY I TOOK SO LONG TO REPLY TO THIS!!! Life has been manic lately.
To answer the second part of the question first….this idea is so great! Tbh I bet this is what Anakin starts doing - but Obi-Wan doesn’t catch on that this is anything romantic, he just thinks Anakin has found an ingenious way to subvert the Jedi and get Sith artefacts back into their correct place. Basically he thinks he’s finally convinced Anakin of his ideological position that Sith artefacts belong in Sith hands xD Anakin and Shmi are so frustrated like how are you not getting this Obi-Wan???? (Eventually Shmi may decide to er…take things into her own hands xD)
As to consciously deciding to court Obi-Wan…well, from Anakin’s POV, there’s been chemistry, there’s been attraction, but he wants to take it to the next level. Make it obvious. So, the only possible answer is courting! So that’s the why. As for the when…that’s a little fuzzier. I haven’t completely sorted out the timeline for the fic yet xD
Thanks for these asks! Again, sorry I didn’t get to them in a timely fashion! :D
(And just to clarify Obi-Wan’s Sith title in this is Vex - Venge is someone else’s character :) )
Re: The construction of the Black Library - honestly, I have no clue how Vex would have gotten the Library built to his exact specifications. It would have been easier to re-purpose an existing structure - but with all the work that would have to go into installing power, climate control, the vaults, living quarters, etc, one might as well have just constructed an entirely different building. (cont)
(cont). Which means a construction crew, experts, etc. However, there is at least one potential answer to all of this. Vex, due to his talent in Foresight and speculation on the equivalent of the Star Wars Stock Market, has oodles of money - literally more then he could ever spend. He's comfortable, financially. He could probably afford to buy an entire construction company's worth of droids to prepare and build the Library - and wipe their memories before returning/selling them.
Yes! Droids! That’s the perfect solution, why didn’t I think of that. Yes, I think Vex would definitely buy an army of construction droids - from different places and manufacturers, most likely, to hide his tracks - and get them to build him the library. Probably they use the natural caverns as a starting point, because my conception of Nohir is that it’s a world that was formerly very volcanically active, but isn’t any more. Also I was thinking I might retcon so that it doesn’t have a breathable atmosphere? I think that would be more believable scientifically tbh.
And Obi-Wan would probably have to hire at least one expert to plan the whole thing, but rich as he is, he could probably give them enough money (and scare them enough) so that they wouldn’t blab.
Ex-librarian here, weighing in on the Black Library archiving post - how it's sorted would probably depend on how many people actually can or need to access the materials. Assuming enough materials, I would probably sort by subject, media type, and then alphabetical or numerical, with particularly hazardous and/or fragile objects in a 'Restricted Access' separate section to keep them from being damaged or damaging other materials. (At least, that'd be the heavily simplified description.)
@hamelin-born we got an answer!
Thank you for this! I think this is how my school library is very generally arranged, so this makes a lot of sense for me. I was thinking of having all the hazardous stuff off in like, a separate underground room or something, too (like a more high security version of Hogwarts’ Restricted Section xD)
I mean, the Black Library is very much sorted for Obi-Wan’s convenience, but he does also want other people to be able to navigate it, because he gets the odd research assistant or two.
hi! no idea if i should be writing to you or hamelin-born, tbh. i've been through both your tags of the black library and i have a few things i'd like to know. so, what can you guys tell me about obi-wan’s childhood? because (and i’m probably messing dates here somehow, sorry) all i’ve been thinking about for the last 5 minutes is small-kid!obi-wan in training, early-20s!shmi in training and 30-something!sidius hating to still be in training. (1/3)
i can see shmi and obi-wan teaming up to make sidius life plain miserable because the guy is /mean/ and sidius trying to /fried/ both of them at the same time if possible and plaugius just smiling in the background, messing around with his experiments and happy because the house is just lively while the other three are trying to kill each other to /death/. (2/3)
i mean, can you picture the guy rising the his voice every now and then, ‘aim for the jugular the next time, shmi!”, “that’s it, obi-wan! you draw first blood! well done!”, “now, sidius, that’s not evil enough for your age. you shouldn't go easy on them just because one of them is a kid and the other one is a woman. in fact that's really sexist, kid!” (3/3)
Hey! Nice to hear you like the AU ;) You can talk to me or @hamelin-born about it, really, we both developed the AU together. We might give you slightly different answers though!
As for Obi-Wan’s childhood, if I get my ass in gear and get this AU properly off the ground, there should be a few flashback chapters that go into some detail on this topic. But basically, I too am not 100% sure of all the dates but I know that, at least for some of the time, Shmi, Obi-Wan and Palpatine are all apprentices at the same time - but not apprentices of the same person, or who all know each other. Shmi I think is always Plagueis’ “secret weapon” apprentice, so to speak - and he keeps her training a secret from Palpatine. In parallel, Palpatine ‘trains’ Obi-Wan in secret, although he doesn’t do much of the actual training - that’s someone else’s job (~mysterious). And Palpatine is trained by Plagueis just like in canon, with both of them keeping secrets from each other (as all good Sith must).
(...but if they did all live together, you can bet this is how it would go. That or them all plotting subtly, Obi-Wan + Shmi vs. Palpatine. Of course Obi-Wan and Shmi do eventually join up together to stop Palpatine...we’ll see how that plays out, hopefully ;))
Any more questions, feel free to send them my way! :D
So I finally put my Black Library/Darth Vex fic (originally published here) up on AO3! Under the title Dubious Historicity, it’s been edited slightly to fit in with a few things we’ve discussed since I wrote it and changing characterizations. Also, there’s almost definitely another chapter or so in the works, so stay tuned ;)
