if you have time and inspiration, I would love to see what you'll do with obikin + 51 or 6 from the dialogue prompt list!
Here you go! I went with #6 from THIS list
Premise: “Am I going to die?” with a Hanahaki twist 🥰
This got very fluffy at the end, hopefully that’s alright with you.
The sterile scent of bacta brings Anakin out of his restless slumber. The stark white glare of the Halls of Healing is blinding for a moment, light making his pupils wide and sore. He blinks awake steadily, heart monitor beeping faint and rhythmic by his side. Consciousness slides in, the force slamming into him in urgency.
There’s a tube down his throat.
Anakin grapples at it for a brief, panicked breath. Swallowing around it is sharply painful and his eyes widen in alarm.
“Anakin, Anakin, please,” Bant’s voice is low and frantic, even as she tries to send him soothing waves of energy. She’s an exceptional healer, Anakin’s seen her in action many times, what with her and Obi-Wan’s years old friendship. “Calm down, young one. I hadn’t planned on you being awake quite yet.”
She holds him back against the pillow even as Anakin gags. The tube dislodges gently from his esophagus with an expert wave of her hand.
Anakin coughs as he spits out the tube, inhaling deeply enough to feel the familiar pinpricks of pain in his chest. Petals fall from his mouth as he does, white and blood-tinged and just as frightening as it had been the first time.
Somehow, he’d thought he’d get used to it at some point. But the sensation of retching jewel flowers is continually jarring. At least this time there hadn’t been any thorns.
Bant’s eyes are sad as she regards him, even if Anakin flinches away from it. She gentles him back against the pillow once more. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner, my dear?”
“Why? What good would that do?” Anakin keeps his eyes firmly away from Bant’s searching look, tracing the blue bedcovers intently. “There’s no cure.”
A small, wounded sound is emitted to his left. Finally, Anakin’s conscious mind acknowledges what the force has been trying to tell him.
Obi-Wan.
Bant sighs heavily, straightening. She lets down the curtains that surround his bed to give him a semblance of privacy. “Your master insists on speaking with you, young one. I couldn’t keep him out.” She squeezes Anakin’s shoulder in what is most likely supposed to be an act of support before she turns away.
Anakin swallows down another mouthful of petals. “Hello Master,” he snarks, eyes still averted, “come to watch the show?”
He feels the bed dip at his side as Obi-Wan sits. Anakin resists the urge to squirm away.
“Anakin.”
Now there are fingers under his jaw, tipping his head upwards. Obi-Wan’s eyes are like storm clouds when they meet his own, brows knitted together until the skin between them dimples. Anakin grits his teeth against the urge to do something stupid, like kiss him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The question hangs between them, caught on a plethora of unspoken words.
Anakin laughs. The sound gives way to another fit of coughs. This time, he ends up having to spit out thorns. He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his hospital gown and the fabric comes away bloody.
Obi-Wan looks absolutely stricken, hands rubbing at Anakin’s back in soothing circles.
“How could I have possibly told you?” Anakin counters sharply. “I’m a Jedi. I’m supposed to live by the code – ”
“Do you really think me so heartless that – ”
“Well you’ve given me enough lectures about my attachments – ”
“I’m trying to help you, when will you understand that I can’t if you don’t tell me anything.”
“Are you even listening to me?” Anakin grits at last. He fights the urge to shove Obi-Wan off the bed. “It’s against the code – ”
“To hell with the code, Padawan.”
The world bottoms out from under Anakin’s stomach. He’s sure that if he was standing, he would have fallen over by now. “What?” he croaks.
Obi-Wan seizes him by the shoulders, bleeding desperation into the force. “Bant told me what kind of sickness this is. Force knows how you’ve hidden this from me for this long. But this ends here, you understand? She said there’s a procedure – ”
“No.”
Obi-Wan looks at him helplessly. “Be reasonable, Anakin.”
“No,” Anakin chokes. He tries to imagine life after removing those precious seeds of love from his lungs, stripping his feelings for Obi-Wan from his soul. The sweet air of the galaxy, free from gore and thorns. Tries to imagine his death as the ultimate consequence. Fear grips him for a singularly tense moment as he meets Obi-Wan’s anguished gaze. “Am I going to die?” he asks, breathless.
“No, my dear one,” Obi-Wan soothes a hand down his cheek, leans in to press their foreheads together. His voice is hushed. “If we can get you to surgery in time, then everything will be fine, Anakin.”
“No.”
Obi-Wan makes another hurt sound, like he can’t quite hold it back. He’s silent for a moment before he continues, voice pained. “Perhaps if – if we spoke to the person who’s. Who you – ”
Anakin tenses. “He doesn’t feel the same way.”
Obi-Wan squeezes his eyes shut. Anakin watches the line of his throat work as he swallows, sweeps his gaze up to the neatly trimmed beard, the faint lines that bracket his mouth where his smile dimples.
He tries desperately to keep his hands to himself.
Obi-Wan leans back, but the space between them remains infinitesimal. Anakin trembles as lips settle gently on his forehead in a kiss.
“Then he’s a fool, my dear,” Obi-Wan murmurs against heated flesh. Another kiss. “I am sure you will love again. If you would only – ”
“It’s you, Master.”
Anakin shudders as Obi-Wan’s body tenses in a single, terrifying moment of silence. He needs to cough, but he doesn’t dare do so. He’s thought of this moment a thousand times over, worked through every possibility of rejection, every serene, reasonable explanation Obi-Wan could possibly give him. The only mystery that remains is which scenario will manifest itself.
The answer, however, is none of them, for Obi-Wan laughs.
When he draws back, his eyes are wet, but still unbelievably kind. Anakin’s stomach plummets. “Anakin,” Obi-Wan pushes saber-calloused fingers into the tangle of Anakin’s hair. “Anakin. Come now, we’re smarter than this.”
“Speak for yourself,” Anakin snarls in response. “Some of us – ”
“Oh you misunderstand me, dear,” Obi-Wan murmurs, silencing Anakin’s words immediately. He draws Anakin near, settles their bodies together, the warmth of him seeping through the thin layer of Anakin’s hospital tunic. “I’m merely poking fun at how we’re both apparently blind.”
Anakin blinks, dares to raise his eyes to meet Obi-Wan’s. “What’re you saying?” he asks, something hot blossoming in the very core of his psyche. Their bond throbs. “Master – ”
“Contrary to your opinion of me, Anakin, I am not a fool,” Obi-Wan looks almost amused now. “At least, not enough of a fool to ever turn you away.”
Anakin scrambles forward the second the words are spoken. Obi-Wan nearly stumbles backwards from the unexpected force of his kiss, but he smiles into it, mouth curving upwards in that absolutely maddening way. His mouth his sweet, honey suckled, and Anakin feels like a man starved.
“Easy,” Obi-Wan murmurs against his lips, “Slowly, Anakin.”
“No.” Anakin nearly grumbles, he’s quite literally a dying man, but of course Obi-Wan would –
“I take it you won’t require further treatment?”
Bant’s voice is jarring, but playful, as she calls at them from outside the curtain. Anakin almost bowls over at the thought; he’d somehow managed to completely forget the situation in his euphoria. Obi-Wan gasps softly as he pulls away and Anakin wants to hear that sound again and again and again –
Then they’re all laughing, Bant included, the sound of it carrying brightly through the wide, airy room.
Obi-Wan grins at him, eyes squished into little half-moons of happiness, and Anakin takes a deep, clear breath for the first time in months.
