thank you, and good night. @travellingcircus - Tumblr Blog

May 10, 2023

~untitled 19th century au thing ? 1/

Very little seemed to quell Obi-Wan’s boredom.

He had returned home from boarding school, intent on spending his summer in Sussex, but there had been a fire, just a week shy of his arrival, that demoted him to his uncle’s estate in Devonshire. Smaller of course, than the family’s property in Sussex, though the rooms in Devonshire were certainly spacious, numbering twenty-two, and yet the staff left much to be desired.

There were five maids in total, a cook, a driver, a footman, and a gardener — though Obi-Wan had yet to see the latter materialise. Not one of them seemed entirely certain what to do with him when he arrived two weeks ago straight from boarding school, still bundled up to the throat in his uniform and coat, sweating under his hat.

They clearly weren’t expecting him, mistaking him, at first, for a family guest. A phone call had to be made, first to Obi-Wan’s father, then to the housekeeper, who lived out of town, and had, mistakenly, brought the master key home with her.

Obi-Wan spent an hour in the sitting room, waiting for his room to be aired, another hour for his dinner, another for his bath. He was appalled by the treatment. It was almost midnight before all of it was seen to, and by then, drained of all good humour, he ordered the maid to leave so he could unpack his luggage himself. In a mood, he phoned his mother while up to his ears in bathwater, complaining about the stuffy room, the moth-ridden blankets, complaining even, about how unwelcome he felt. He wanted to go home. He hated Devonshire. The weather was awful and often unpredictable, prone to temperamental shifts at the drop of a hat. His mother promised him it was only temporary.

Breakfast was served the next morning at seven thirty, toast with jam, a bowl of watery porridge, overcooked ham. The eggs, at least, were a saving grace: soft and runny, just how he liked them. There was a bowl of fruit by Obi-Wan’s elbow which he purposefully did not touch. He spat his tea and watered it down with half a thimble of gin, a gift from a friend before they parted ways at the train station. He had laughed it off, then, and didn’t think he would need it, as he’d always been a social drinker, but here, now, he was grateful he had accepted.

There were eight more weeks to this incessant restlessness. He could see himself going quietly mad without the aid of alcohol.

Obi-Wan took to walking around the house barefoot, moving from room to room, under the ever watchful eyes of family portraits hanging from every wall. Some of the rooms in the house were locked, others full of old furniture covered in dusty sheets, some gutted so they could be repaired, the tables and chairs moved to the attic, the lighting fixtures bared, pale shadows on the walls where portraits once hung. The guest rooms had been undisturbed for a time, as had been the study, which Obi-Wan had the maids clean top to bottom after an afternoon in the reading chair gave him the worst sneezing fits.

Obi-Wan missed home, dearly, the comfort of his four poster bed, his teetering shelf of books, the powder blue curtains framing his windows which overlooked the sweeping lawn outside and the overgrown cherry trees that fringed the crumbling stone driveway.

The estate was nearly forty years old, squat and obscenely baroque in contrast to home’s more Gothic leanings; there was an artificial lake and island just on very the edge of the property, a tennis court, and a greenhouse tended to by Obi-Wan’s uncle when he was in high spirits. The property was ugly and severe, red sandstone and brick, characterized by high turrets and prickly finials. Holly scratched at the walls cruelly. The bronze fountain in the garden had grown so green with algae that Greek inscriptions were hardly visible through the verdigris. Everything was old, in a state of disrepair.

Obi-Wan had planned to go on a boating trip with his uncle this summer but Qui-Gon had phoned last minute to tell him their plans would have to be put on hold. He was overseas on business and didn’t seem to be coming home anytime soon, so Obi-Wan wrote letters to all his friends in boarding school — Quinlan, Jape, even Dex — inviting them to the estate though he knew most of them would be in Paris, enjoying their summer, as it were, leaving him bored, alone, and friendless in his own house. He had imagined this summer to be full, as it was his last year in boarding school before attending university in September.

Clearly, he was mistaken. Clearly, all that lay in wait for him was terrible food and even worse company.

The tedium was most unbearable in the afternoon, when the yawning stillness of summer was at its peak, and Obi-Wan could stand neither his own company nor the company of his uncle’s books. There was nothing to read that he considered worth his time, and the books he had brought from school he had already finished cover to cover. Often times, he craved a cigarette. His need for it deepened in the afternoon after he woke from a thick humid sleep.

Barely out of his dressing grown, Obi-Wan upturned his luggage, crawling on his hands and knees to search the room vainly for his tin of tobacco. He had learned to roll cigarettes in his fourth year in boarding school, smoking one a day and then three every night he had to study for a final. It was one of the tricks he had been taught by his roommate, whose father worked as an accountant to the Bratva: the first trick was faking a fever in order to skip lessons, second was mixing gin and powdered orange juice. Quinlan, too, taught him the joys of reading Russian pornography, and taught him to say a filthy word in French.

When his efforts proved futile, Obi-Wan slumped at the dressing table in utter despair, reaching for the flask he kept in several pockets all throughout his room. He lifted it to his lips, and huffed in annoyance once he realised it, too, had been depleted over the course of two weeks.

Obi-Wan heard a series of soft taps from the window and from the corner of his eye saw that he’d left it ajar this morning, allowing a geometry of light to sliver across the floor, at his feet. The source of the tapping soon revealed itself upon closer scrutiny: a bee was beating its plush body against the glass, frenetically seeking freedom.

Obi-Wan walked over to the window to free it, and the curtains lapped at his face before whipping the breeze like sails. Outside, he spied the gardener on his knees, weeding the rugosa hedge, his back turned to Obi-Wan. He crouched, then finally stood, to smoke a cigarette pinched between two fingers.

Obi-Wan had only met him once, when the man had caught him asleep in the sitting room. He was sent by the valet to work on some circuitry. The lights in the sitting room had been flickering for some time, making it difficult for Obi-Wan to read in the evening, and of course, he had complained to his mother who assured him it was going to be taken care of, my darling.

The only one who was remotely useful was the gardener, apparently, or at least her son, as the actual gardener had retired shortly after Obi-Wan’s grandfather had died. Obi-Wan didn’t bother remembering the son’s name — he was half asleep when the man had introduced himself, thrusting out a dirty hand, and Obi-Wan was uninterested besides. What’s more the man didn’t leave a very lasting impression: his unkempt nails spoke of slovenliness as did his untrimmed hair, grown long and unchecked over his eyes.

Now, Obi-Wan almost regretted it, because he was thinking of asking the man for a smoke.

Obi-Wan shook his head to wean himself of the urge. He was bored, not stupid, and it didn’t do to fraternise with the staff.

There were other ways to curb the craving. Obi-Wan decided a walk was in order.

Obi-Wan stepped out into the terrace, his bare feet warmed by the crumbling Yorkshire stone. It was cooler outside, strangely; the grass tickled his feet and ankles as he negotiated the last three steps to the gravel path. He wore his dressing gown over his pyjamas, not caring for propriety, as the staff knew well enough to leave him be.

He was the master of the house, after all, could wear what he pleased, but as he approached the general direction of where the rugosa hedges hemmed the marble fountains, he felt increasingly ridiculous, like a child. His hair he held away from his face with a ribbon, and he could feel a slight breeze dry the dampness from the back of his neck.

Obi-Wan contemplated getting a haircut as he tucked an errant curl behind one ear. It wasn’t very masculine to keep one’s hair well beyond chin-level; he disliked how his long hair softened his features considerably, taking away the hard, boyish edges, but his mother liked it, so he grew it long for her.

The gardener turned just as Obi-Wan approached. He blinked, sucked on his cigarette, before nodding wordlessly in acknowledgement, his face completely blank and unreadable. Obi-Wan didn’t know why he felt suddenly flustered. It must have something to do with the heat, he thought, the way sleeping in the sitting room often made his thoughts lush and dreamy.

The man had cut his hair, he realised, since he’d last seen him, the fringe shorter, dragged back from a handsome face, and flecked here and there with tiny grey slivers. His shirt was open partway, revealing a column of tan, tawny skin, and a strong chest, built like the hull of a ship.

“Good afternoon,” said the man, drawing Obi-Wan’s attention back to his face.

Obi-Wan had always envied men like him, working class men who were tall and strong and exuded a confident sensuality. Often, he wished he were more like them: a real man who could hold his liquor and swear freely and make bawdy jokes.

At seventeen, he was of the bookish stock: awkward, gawky, erring on the side of sensitive, lacking an integral component of whatever it was that made men men. He was soft, in more ways than one, his nose perpetually buried in a book. The only sport he indulged in were chess and bridge. He had never even kissed a girl before.

“Anything I might help you with, Master Kenobi?” the gardener asked, not without a touch of sincerity, even though Obi-Wan was, at least a decade younger if not more so. He had an accent, and it rankled Obi-Wan like an itch that he was unable to place it.

“Mr —”

“Anakin,” said the man, with a small, private smile. “We met at the —”

“Yes, yes, you came to fix the lights,” said Obi-Wan irritably.

Anakin’s brows drew together in confusion though it smoothed away just as quickly, and he smiled again, deepening the crow’s feet wrinkling his eyes. “Ah, yes, of course. Are the lights still giving you trouble? I could come by again if you needed me. I have the afternoon free, I think.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to take you away from your …chores. The hedges seem to require a bit more attention, as of late. ”

Anakin gave him a startled look that morphed into one of slight irritation. It was meant in jest, any fool would realise that, but it appeared that Anakin had missed the joke and Obi-Wan had not yet earned the familiarity to make such comments.

“Is that right,” said Anakin, sharply. There was an almost mean glint in his eye. “Must be the pesticide then. Switched to a different brand, recently.” He took another puff of his cigarette, then flicked his eyes up and down the length of Obi-Wan, his gaze settling, very briefly, on Obi-Wan’s bare feet.

Obi-Wan curled his toes in the grass sheepishly. He wondered how he must look to Anakin, with his hair in a disheveled state, his left cheek creased with pillow marks from his afternoon doze, wandering around in his uncle’s shabby dressing gown, with no shoes on. Anakin must think him eccentric; he would, at least, be half-right.

“You’re going to get blisters, running around in your bare feet like that,” said Anakin, finally. “You should head back inside, or at least put some shoes on.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to protest, but shut it with a click. He fought the urge to roll his eyes, stamp his foot. He lifted his chin, felt the ugly shape of a rude word tickle the back of his throat, but tamped that down too. “Can you roll me one of your cigarettes?” he said instead. It took every ounce of self control not to huff in annoyance when Anakin simply smiled at him in reply.

“You smoke then, do you?” Anakin said as he raked a mud-stained hand through his hair. “I’ll be dismissed if I roll you a cigarette, you do realise that, right? Besides, you’re only a boy; you shouldn’t be smoking at your age. How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

“Eighteen next month,” Obi-Wan said, but Anakin shrugged like it made no difference to him. Perhaps it didn’t. He lifted his cigarette, pinching it between thumb and forefinger like a chronic smoker, and as if to make a point of savouring it, took a long, slow drag.

Anakin blew smoke out of his mouth and nose without fanfare, and it rose, thick and hazy in the still, drowsy air, making Obi-Wan cough in a sputter.

He flicked what remained of the filter onto the dirt, grounding it under the heel of his boot, compounding it into the grass. Then Anakin picked up his pruning shears, his gardening gloves and his hat, and nodded at Obi-Wan, just the once, before going on his way.

#obikin #in progress #au #fic

travellingcircus

Apr 18, 2023

you're on your own, kid

I was going to fill this prompt for the Bottom_Wan fest, but decided to drop it as this wasn't the direction I wanted the fic to go. Also, thematically wanted to explore other things, and the tone of the fic didn't fit that, lol. Neither did the style lol. 🥲

Please read the prompt for warnings.

Padawan!Obi-Wan x Master!Anakin, 11.4K words

Anakin was ill-equipped to deal with an apprentice, much less his old Master’s castoffs in the wake of Qui-Gon’s death.

Anakin was ill-equipped to deal with an apprentice, much less his old Master’s castoffs in the wake of Qui-Gon’s death. But the Council had insisted, Yoda more specifically, as Anakin had been closest to Qui-Gon when he’d been alive. Anakin would argue that their teaching styles varied greatly and anyone else might be better suited to handle a Padawan suddenly orphaned in the midst of their training. There were others, certainly more tempered, who possessed the patience and the deep well of empathy necessary to handle someone reeling from the loss of their previous Master.

But the Council had voted unanimously: Anakin would be taking a Padawan. It was time, they said. He was ready.

Anakin met the boy a week after Qui-Gon’s funeral; enough time, he thought, for grief to have given away to calm acceptance. He’d expected hysterics, even volatility, when the boy first introduced himself, but all he saw in Obi-Wan was a kind of resigned exhaustion that reminded him of his early years as Qui-Gon’s Padawan.

Obi-Wan moved into his quarters shortly thereafter, occupying the spare bedroom. He had so few personal effects on him—it seemed Qui-Gon had been, just as he was with Anakin, stingy with his gifts. Obi-Wan had his accoutrements, which consisted merely of three rotations of clothing, robes included, some undergarments which he folded into neat squares in a half-empty cabinet furred with untouched dust. Other than some negligible baubles scavenged from past missions, Obi-Wan’s room was bare, utilitarian, same as his hair which stood in spiky tufts like wild bits of nutgrass.

It lent him a perpetually startled look. His eyes were wide, a watery blue that gave the impression he was always on the verge of tears. His thin shoulders flinched at every minute change in Anakin’s voice. Anakin thought it was interesting—a detail worth examining later.

Bonding Obi-Wan to him was his top priority. It was not something that was so easily accomplished, and made harder on account of Obi-Wan having already lived and trained with a previous Master. Obi-Wan spent three years under Qui-Gon’s tutelage. Anakin was now tasked to unravel the threads of his and Qui-Gon’s connection. He would cultivate his bond with Obi-Wan using a different method, one that would not remind Obi-Wan of Qui-Gon who was often in the habit of making vague pronouncements that couched some invaluable lesson Anakin was often too impatient to glean. Anakin hated fanciful sentiments, and preferred clean, straightforward truths.

He could tell Obi-Wan felt similarly, which was why Anakin thought of employing a wildly unconventional approach to building their bond. Obi-Wan would not come to Anakin of his own accord: that much was clear. He was slow to trust, waiting for the other shoe to drop, like a frightened animal trapped in a cage with a sleeping predator.

Anakin observed him, week after week. There was no change in demeanour, despite Anakin’s best efforts to engage with him: Obi-Wan still wept nightly, mourning the loss of Qui-Gon when he thought Anakin couldn’t hear him. He followed orders to the letter, but only because it was expected of him. There was no rush of authentic pleasure behind it, though his blind obedience amused Anakin greatly. He was an automaton: nodding yes to everything Anakin asked, with hardly a second thought: worrying, true, for it was a trait that was easily exploitable, but the lack of resistance also made Anakin’s training easier.

Anakin visited him in his dreams.

Dream-walking was a skill he’d taught himself in his later years as a Knight. He did this sparingly when he was still apprenticed to Qui-Gon, for he recognised the risks and the boundaries of the untrained mind. Qui-Gon would click his tongue at him, and possibly berate him for trespassing where he did not belong, but Qui-Gon was dead, and there was no one to stop him now. Anakin was free to do as he pleased.

Well: freer than usual.

There were certain courtesies when one traversed the landscape of someone’s dreams. One had to be careful not to leave a trace: to remain a spectator and not a participant, keeping to the fringes of consciousness—a shadow in the periphery, a spectre hanging like a dark cloud but never glimpsed.

This was the sad truth: dreams were boring. Even the ones that were supposedly salacious. Real dreams were fragmented, nonsensical, jerking from one scene to the next with no internal logic behind them. But Anakin had long mastered his understanding of dreams, for it was in them that a person revealed their true desires.

Obi-Wan’s dreams held a melancholy sweetness to them, like the scent of dried dates at the end of summer, with a crystal clearness like spring water— a fresh taste to be savoured. He dreamed, fittingly, of Qui-Gon who had swooped in and saved him from a life in the AgriCorps when he was only thirteen. Now, three years later, Obi-Wan dreamt of Anakin too—his new Master, and the reputation that preceded him.

Obi-Wan was terrified of Anakin. Anakin felt his fear in his dreams, palpable as flesh; Obi-Wan had heard all kinds of stories about him, half of which were only true. The other half, well: they weren’t completely fabricated, but they weren’t untrue either. Anakin probed his young mind. Hidden in its depths was a desire hitherto unknown to him.

It was un-Jedi-like of any Padawan to want anything material, but it was not unusual for them to still be clinging to worldly attachments. They were young, after all: untried, and untested. Anakin remembered what it had been like for him when he’d been plucked from his home planet and taken to be trained at the Temple. The first years had been so lonely.

But whereas the Jedi discouraged attachment, Anakin learned to embrace and master it, so that it served him rather than weakened him. He saw in Obi-Wan’s mind a similar yearning for true connection: Qui-Gon’s lack of affection had fed into this need, this all-consuming hunger for everything Obi-Wan had been deprived of which Anakin recognised within himself.

Inside Obi-Wan was a yawning emptiness aching to be filled.

The first order of business was Obi-Wan’s awful haircut. Anakin called him over to the sofa that dominated the central room of their shared quarters. It was there Anakin conducted most of Obi-Wan’s training. They meditated daily, and took their meals together. Now, Anakin had a deeper understanding of what it was that his apprentice needed of him: affection, attention, but Anakin should be careful not to frighten him. Too much and he risked losing Obi-Wan’s trust. Too little and Obi-Wan would write him off as another Master who would easily discard him as soon as he had ascended into Knighthood.

Anakin beckoned him closer. Obi-Wan blinked at him, confused, but ambled over with his chin held high. It was a pretty chin, with a visible cleft in the middle. Obi-Wan stared at him, waiting for an order. He seemed to view their relationship as entirely transactional—Anakin would teach him all he knew, and Obi-Wan would learn from him. There was nothing more to it, and Anakin simply could not abide that.

He patted the empty space next to him. “Come sit with me. I’d like to do fix your braid.”

“My braid? Is there something wrong with it, Master? I tied it this morning before breakfast. I could do it again if it did not please you.”

“You care what pleases me?”

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose, then he flushed, when he realised he was doing it. “Of course I do, Master. You’re my—well, you’re my Master. It is my —duty to please you.”

Anakin considered his next words carefully. “It would please me if you sat next to me and let me fasten that braid of yours.”

Obi-Wan pursed his lips together, hesitating. Immediately, his fingers flew to tug on the frayed ends of his braid, and he began to fidget. “Do you think it’s unkempt, Master?”

Anakin sighed. “There is nothing that pleases me more than looking at you, my dear apprentice.” At this, Obi-Wan’s flush rose higher and he squirmed even harder. “I asked you to let me fix your braid, Obi-Wan; I did not say there was anything wrong with it. Now, come, before you test my patience.”

Obi-Wan nodded, and gingerly seated himself on the sofa, careful to keep a respectable berth between them. Anakin studied him. It was not a lie that he enjoyed looking at Obi-Wan. He was like a precious jewel whose worth had been kept secret from him so that he failed to see his own beauty. Every angle was a marvel. He was of the Stewjoni race: a species known for their unique biology and their mating habits. Anakin had read the literature, and ever since began wondering whether Obi-Wan had ever been taught his own history.

But they would have time for that later, Anakin thought. Now, there was the matter of Obi-Wan’s braid.

Anakin shifted so that he faced Obi-Wan, who angled his body without needing to be told. Anakin began undoing the ragged yellow band at the end of Obi-Wan’s braid with firm, purposeful tugs, pausing only upon hearing Obi-Wan’s gasp of discomfort.

“Does it hurt?”

“N-no, Master,” Obi-Wan said. Anakin noted the peculiar colour of his neck, heat rising to make the tiny hairs on his skin stand on end.

“You would be honest with me,” Anakin said. “If I were hurting you. Won’t you, Obi-Wan?”

“Yes, Master,” said Obi-Wan.

“Always with the yeses, aren’t you,” Anakin said with a grim smile. “You could say no to me. I value your comfort over anything else.”

Obi-Wan paused. Anakin didn’t even think he was breathing. Finally, a sigh was loosened and Obi-Wan peeked at Anakin over his shoulder. His braid hung like an unraveled rope, in a thin gold wave shot through with red. “That’s very kind of you, Master.”

“I am kind,” Anakin told him. “I wouldn’t hurt a fly, contrary to the rumours you might have heard about me. Have there been rumours? You could tell me, you know. I won’t get mad.”

Obi-Wan chewed on the inside of his cheek. It was clear he was debating whether or not he should be truthful. He tugged at the remainder of his braid, unknotting the strands that curled shyly behind a red ear. “There were some that were concerning.”

“Like?”

“Like how you almost—they said you married a senator in secret. That you almost absconded your vows to the Order because of her.”

Anakin needed to address this with some tact. That had been a long time ago now. He and Padmé hardly ever crossed paths anymore. It was true that he had married her in secret, but the marriage soured quickly after a series of push-and-pulls. The final straw had been Padmé’s refusal to carry his progeny. She loved her ambition more than she had loved him. In the end, she left him for politicking.

“Do you believe any of it?”

“I—I don’t know.” Obi-Wan’s eyes shone with confusion.

“The past does not matter, my darling apprentice. What matters is the present and what we make of it. I am more man than myth, you will find. I can be kind, but I can also be cruel, but you can rest assured that I have nothing but your best interests in mind. I would train you to the best of my ability, but my only requirement is that you would trust me. Blindly and equivocally. Do you think you can do that?”

Obi-Wan did not answer. It appeared he was mulling over the question. He was a lot cleverer than he seemed. Anakin liked that: if he were dull and easily manipulated, this would not make for an interesting partnership.

Anakin let him stew on the question for a long time afterward. Meanwhile, he set Obi-Wan’s braid to rights, carefully separating his hair into sections to tie into a neat braid. Two bands cinched Obi-Wan’s braid when Anakin finished, one at the end of his braid and another at the start of it.

Anakin patted him on both shoulders, not missing the flinch that followed that Obi-Wan tried desperately to mask under forced, awkward laughter. “Thank you, Master,” he said.

Anakin waved him off, and then continued to stare at the back of Obi-Wan’s head merely because he could. “You have such soft hair, Obi-Wan,” he said, unable to help himself for some reason. “I hate seeing you with this hideous haircut.”

“You think my hair is hideous? But it’s regulation—”

Anakin snorted, and rolled his eyes. “—Which is all fine and good, of course, but you’re my apprentice now and not Qui-Gon’s. The Council could care less how you choose to wear your hair. But I care. And I want you to grow it out.”

“Like yours, Master?” Obi-Wan asked.

Anakin smiled, in spite of himself, and he reached over to tap Obi-Wan on the nose, a quick, fleeting gesture and yet it made Obi-Wan squeak in surprise. “Just a little bit like mine, sure. Not too long that it would hinder your training, but long enough so that it frames that lovely face of yours.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to speak, but then shut it without saying a word. It seemed almost impossible to turn an even redder shade than he was, but he managed it, somehow, seemingly embarrassed by Anakin’s constant praise of him.

Anakin had been Qui-Gon’s apprentice too, after all, and he knew all of Obi-Wan’s sore spots. Qui-Gon was not a man generous with his affections, nor his praise. Both had to be rightfully earned, and even then Qui-Gon offered them sparingly lest pride overly-inflate Anakin’s head.

Anakin would treat Obi-Wan better than Qui-Gon ever could: he would show Obi-Wan where he and Qui-Gon differed, both in their methods and their treatment of him. He would demonstrate what he was capable of: affection, empathy, praise, all the things the boy seemed to need in order to flourish under his tutelage. Anakin would mould his young mind and make him the best apprentice yet.

Routine was important in the early stages of their bond. Anakin had to bring some semblance of order into Obi-Wan’s life. Though predictability bored him as a Padawan, he recognised its importance now that he had his own apprentice. Obi-Wan needed stability after losing his previous Master. His grief had left him tender in the aftermath of Qui-Gon’s death, and he blamed himself constantly for not having been enough to save him. Really, nobody could have. It was Qui-Gon’s own bullheadedness that got him killed in battle. He’d put too much faith in his own invincibility, and charged head-on into a fight where he was sorely outnumbered. Not even Anakin could have stopped him.

Obi-Wan’s new routine consisted chiefly of physical training in the morning. Anakin left him alone in the Archives for most of the day, but he made sure that they shared every meal together. Breakfast they took in their shared quarters. Lunch they had in the mess hall. Though Padawans often sat together at a long, communal table, it was not unheard of to sit with one’s Padawan. Anakin could tell Obi-Wan was unused to it. Supper was another affair: Anakin loathed preparing his own meals, so he had a server droid ferry theirs from the kitchens to their quarters.

Obi-Wan’s hair was growing out nicely. Three standard months into his apprenticeship, and it was long enough to flop over his eyes. He often swept it back in irritation, or blew it out of his face when he thought no one was looking. The longer hair made him more pleasing to look at as it softened the sharp angles of his face, though Anakin strongly suspected that his rough appearance had more to do with Qui-Gon’s habitual negligence to feed him.

Anakin was pleased by this new, physical change, but there was still something inside Obi-Wan that refused to settle. His dreams may have become less troubling, but his guards were still up like flags on a military campaign map.

Anakin tried thinking of another activity to bond them together. Sparring would have been the logical next step, and indeed it was one of Obi-Wan’s favourite pastimes, but it was too reminiscent of his training with Qui-Gon, and Anakin refused to follow in his former Master’s footsteps. He was going to be unorthodox in his training of Obi-Wan. They would spar, certainly, that was integral to a Padawan’s apprenticeship, but not until after he had gained Obi-Wan’s full trust, and all memory of his former Master was blurred by time and forgetfulness.

So he took the boy to a bathhouse.

Obi-Wan stared, wide-eyed, at the frescoed ceilings of the lobby. The floors gleamed under their boots: a smooth, black Obsidian like spilled ink. Droids were stationed at every corner, ready to offer refreshments while they awaited the preparation of a private room. It was one of the few indulgences Anakin had not completely been able to wean himself off of, despite it costing him an arm and a leg, but it was the most harmless in his slew of other vices which would no doubt set tongues wagging if little else.

Finally, Obi-Wan asked, “How could you afford all this, Master? Are we given all this for free because we’re Jedi?”

Anakin forced himself not to laugh. The sound nearly escaped him, but he hid it deftly and coughed instead. He didn’t want to embarrass Obi-Wan, who was always so careful not to displease him in any way though he could not help but bombard Anakin with questions at every turn, which ranged from the benign to the absurd.

“No, Obi-Wan,” Anakin told him, patting him on the back and leaving his arm draped over his shoulder. “I spent my own hard-earned credit on this little field trip of ours. I wanted it to be special.”

“You…earn credit?”

The stiffness in Obi-Wan’s spine had yet to loosen, but Anakin knew not to take it personally. It was not that the boy disliked being touched; it was simply that no one was so free in their affections as Anakin, and Qui-Gon had starved the boy of such casual, physical intimacies that he had become so awkward in his response to them.

“I used to ah, bet on podraces when I was younger. Perhaps you’ve heard that about me,” Anakin said.

“No, Master,” said Obi-Wan. “I was under the impression we were…not allowed to indulge such vices.”

Anakin could tell Obi-Wan was struggling to make sense of the concept. Anakin flicked him gently on the forehead to smooth the furrow of his eyebrows. Obi-Wan rubbed at the spot absently and worried his bottom lip instead: always the fidgeter.

“I used to have such trouble tempering my impulses, when I was your age,” Anakin told him. “Does it worry you, that I am not like other Masters?”

“I am…grateful for your apprenticeship, Master.”

Anakin waited before responding. “That does not answer my question, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan hesitated, but was saved from a reply by the sudden emergence of the bathhouse attendance, a Twi’lek who led them down a long winding corridor of sliding-glass doors and inside their own private suite. Steam rose from shallow pools carved into the floor. The scent in the room was faintly herbal, the air laced with humidity Anakin could feel sweat beading on his upper lip. There were two pools: one for washing, and another much wider one for soaking.

There was a small bench jutting out of the wall where identical woven baskets sat, containing their bath kits. Anakin handed Obi-Wan his, but Obi-Wan faltered, seemingly at a loss as to what to do next. Anakin instructed him to follow his lead.

Anakin took his robe off, and hung it on a peg on the wall. Jedi tunics were a beast to unfasten, with its myriad of ties and hidden buttons, as if the heavy layers that covered them weren’t bad enough. Finally, Anakin was down to his under tunic and trousers. He shook off one boot, and then the other, and laid them side by side by the wall.

He took off his shirt, and did not miss Obi-Wan’s small intake of breath. But he went on, uninterrupted, peeling himself down to his undergarments before seating himself by the washing pool where he dipped his feet in the shallow end.

“You can begin undressing, if you like,” Anakin told Obi-Wan who stood behind him, still fully clothed. Anakin threw him a teasing smile over his shoulder, and winked, just to see the bloom of embarrassment in his apprentice’s face. “I promise not to look.”

And Anakin made good on his promise, at least for the most part. He heard the telltale rustle of clothes being shed behind him, followed by the thunk of boots as Obi-Wan discarded them.

“I’m ready, Master,” Obi-Wan announced, and Anakin slung a look in his direction, quick, before remembering himself, and glimpsing blurred, naked skin.

“Shall I close my eyes then, Padawan?” he asked with a smirk.

“If you don’t mind, Master.”

Anakin closed his eyes, and gestured Obi-Wan over to join him. He could sense Obi-Wan hesitating, as usual, as no sounds ensued for a little while. Eventually, Obi-Wan got over himself. Anakin heard him testing the waters. His eyes were open to tiny slits and he saw his apprentice dipping his toes into the pool.

“The water is shallow, Obi-Wan. I assure you, you will not drown.”

Anakin heard a bigger splash, and blinked his eyes open at the noise, glancing up. Obi-Wan was half-submerged in the water, sitting across from him. Water sloshed around his arms, disturbed by this sudden movement. There were also small puddles of it on the tiled floor where the pool had overflowed. Obi-Wan’s face was all red, and his arms were crossed tightly over his chest which the water was partially covering anyway, so Anakin could not fathom the need for modesty.

“Why do you do that?” he asked, genuinely curious.

When Obi-Wan blinked at him questioningly, Anakin refined his question: “Why are you embarrassed to show me your body?”

Perhaps that had been too blunt after all. Obi-Wan’s eyes widened, and he kept his gaze firmly lowered. Rude, but Anakin would wean him off it, soon. He liked it when his apprentice looked him in the eye, and did not hide anything from him.

“I look…strange, Master,” Obi-Wan confessed, haltingly. “I have these…my chest isn’t… I’m not like you,” he finished.

“And thank the Force for that,” Anakin said with a light laugh. He softened his voice, and that did the trick: Obi-Wan’s arms loosened though he still had his hands hooked on either shoulder to shield his chest. “I don’t think the Council could ever endure two of me. Lower your hands, my darling. There should be no shame in this. Bodies are armour. Each one is unique. Look, allow me to demonstrate.” And here, Anakin stood to his full height, emerging from the pool to showcase his body. He was scarred from war, and hardened by it in more than visible ways. A long sliver of raised skin bisected his chest, matching the one that ran from his forehead and down the top of his right cheek. Obi-wan examined him: at first Anakin noticed him looking away intermittently, but then Anakin gave him an encouraging nod and the boy fixed his unblinking gaze on Anakin’s form, studying it.

Curiously, his eyes lingered on Anakin’s cock, before pivoting away. “See? Nothing to be ashamed about,” said Anakin, and he slid back into the water as gracefully as he could but he still made a splash. “Now, your turn. Let me take a look at you.”

Obi-Wan didn’t immediately rise to his feet, and required a little coaxing: he was shy, and clearly mortified Anakin had even asked to see him. But Anakin was patient, and he waited until Obi-Wan was ready before letting his eyes feast on his form. Obi-Wan’s arms hung awkwardly at his sides, and he stood pigeon-toed, in a feeble attempt to cover his cunt. Anakin had known, vaguely, of the existence of it, but he was tactful enough not to dwell on it too long, moving his gaze to other parts yet to be chartered. Obi-Wan’s body was yet to be fully-formed. He had muscles under those robes after all that always swallowed him up, but he was still undernourished thanks to Qui-Gon’s lack of care, his ribs visible when he breathed. Or perhaps, Obi-Wan was naturally lanky. No matter: Anakin was going to take care of it.

What was curious was the budding pink nipples of his chest. There was some heft to Obi-Wan’s pectorals, not immediately noticeable under his clothes but visible now that he was naked. His features resembled a boy’s, but his biology apparently had other ideas.

Anakin nodded to signal his satisfaction. Obi-Wan’s slow blush did not escape him, ripe like a desert sun. Obi-Wan sat back in the water where he immediately threw his arms around himself again, until he noticed Anakin watching him with a raised eyebrow and lowered his arms.

“I apologise if that made you uncomfortable,” Anakin said. He meant it: he’d soured the atmosphere and now Obi-Wan’s demeanour mirrored that of a flighty bird. He didn’t want Obi-Wan to be scared of him, but his Padawan’s trust was something that Anakin had to win, not so easily surrendered and quick to be withdrawn.

Obi-Wan shook his head, sucking his bottom lip inward, leaving a wet shine. Anakin stretched his arms broadly across either side of the pool. It was small enough to only house two people comfortably, wide as the span of two spread of his arms, and only a few feet longer in length than his full height supine. He’d booked them a couples suite, with the express purpose of intimacy. Not of the sexual kind, as Anakin still possessed a great deal of self-control, but of the kind still missing from their student-teacher bond.

“Do you like your new hair?” Anakin asked, after a few minutes of silence during which Obi-Wan kept trying to get his Padawan braid out of the way, twirling and re-twirling and hooking it behind one ear to avoid getting it wet.

Obi-Wan shrugged. His soft chest heaved a tiny breath. They were flushed, his nipples, round and no bigger than the size of the pads of Anakin’s thumb. Anakin watched them harden as Obi-Wan shivered, goosebumps rising along his arms as recycled air rattled through the vents in the ceiling.

“I get looks,” Obi-Wan confessed. “But I don’t completely mind it.”

That was good enough for Anakin, who rose once more to collect the motley variety of oils and tinctures from his bath kit: miniature bottles filled with dense liquid, each with a different purpose, not all of them for bathing.

“I’d like to wash your hair, if you let me,” Anakin offered, fingering the bottles he had assembled next to him on the flagstone decking of the pool. He plucked one between his thumb and forefinger, before beckoning Obi-Wan over who scooted on his hands and knees before shifting around so that his back faced Anakin. He had freckles, a smattering of them that swept like wings across his back. Anakin was tempted more than once to peer over his shoulder and check whether he had them on his chest as well, but there were so many boundaries being crossed today that he feared Obi-Wan would shy away from him again if he asked. So he kept his intentions purposeful. He was going to simply wash his Padawan’s hair.

Anakin started by wetting it, drawing water in cupped palms to pour it over the boy. Droplets slid down Obi-Wan’s cheeks like tears, but Obi-Wan kept his eyes closed, and his head tilted back as Anakin bid him.

“My mother used to wash my hair for me,” Anakin told him, as he worked up a lather with his palms and began massaging it into Obi-Wan’s hair. “I come from a desert planet. Or did you already know? I was nine when Qui-Gon brought me to the Temple to be trained. Where I come from, water was sparse, but every year that I could remember, my mother took me to the public bathhouse to get my hair washed.”

“You bathed only once a year?” The credulity in Obi-Wan’s voice made Anakin chuckle, despite himself. He squeezed Obi-Wan at the base of the neck. Obi-Wan shivered in response, but otherwise let Anakin keep touching him. His breath was even: a good sign.

“We had sonic showers, my insolent Padawan. But water: water was a luxury.”

Anakin threaded his fingers into Obi-Wan’s hair, and began pressing down his scalp with his thumbs. “But it’s not my birthday,” Obi-Wan said.

“It doesn’t have to be for a Master to do something nice for their Padawan.”

Obi-Wan nodded. He was letting the comment sit for a moment. Anakin let him mull it over, and continued his methodical work on his hair, lulling them both into a meditative state. The suite was quiet, still, except for the hum of air vents and the frothing of warm water from the jets in the pool adjacent to theirs. The cloying scent of bath oils permeated the air.

Obi-Wan’s shoulders began trembling. Anakin heard him sniffle, so he dropped his hands abruptly from Obi-Wan’s head and grasped him by the shoulders instead, turning him around so they faced each other. Obi-Wan shook his head vigorously, digging the heel of his palm into his eyes to keep himself from crying.

“Are you all right?” Anakin asked, concerned. “Have I upset you, Padawan?”

“Yes. No, I’m sorry, Master. I’m sorry.” Obi-Wan shook his head one final time and offered Anakin a shaky smile, which Anakin returned before moving his hands up the sides of Obi-Wan’s neck, his thumbs sweeping up his smooth jawline. He could kiss him, he was so beautiful like this. Something about his youthful vulnerability called to a primal need inside Anakin: to covet, to protect, to conquer.

“I was moved by your kindness,” Obi-Wan said. His sincerity in turn moved Anakin and tugged him sharply from the murk of his thoughts.

“Has Qui-Gon never done anything nice for you?” Anakin asked. “Not even for your birthday?”

“He sold my robes once,” Obi-Wan said, snorting. “On a mission.”

“Is that right?”

“But he was a good man,” Obi-Wan added hastily, courteous enough not to speak ill of the dead.

“Then I will endeavour to be equally as good, if not better,” Anakin promised. Obi-Wan’s smile grew in the corners, uncertain but still hopeful. Anakin pressed a kiss to his forehead, a benediction of his favour. Obi-Wan stayed put to receive it, closing his eyes as Anakin’s lips lingered a fraction of a second longer than was appropriate. He blinked his eyes open drunkenly when Anakin pulled away. He looked like a baby bird, with his lips parted and his face tipped up, seeking.

“What was that, Master?” Obi-Wan asked. Always with the questions.

“A gift from me,” Anakin said. “A token of my affection.”

Blatant displays of affection were not strictly prohibited between Masters and their Padawans, but it was probably unwise to be so bold as to kiss an apprentice on the forehead, all because he would let you. But Anakin had already seen Obi-Wan’s naked, what’s a harmless little kiss going to do?

“Is that something you do on your planet?” Obi-Wan asked. “Kiss people on the forehead?”

“I suppose so,” Anakin said vaguely, which was not a complete lie. His mother did it to him, and he used to do it to Padmé any time he was overcome with tenderness for her. Was that what he was feeling, he wondered. Tenderness for his Padawan?

“How about you finish washing your hair while I start on mine, and then we can finally have a nice, relaxing soak together?”

“I can wash your hair for you,” Obi-Wan offered. “If you like,” he added.

“Perhaps another time,” Anakin told him, amused by the disappointed look that befell Obi-Wan’s face upon the rejection. He reached over to cup Obi-Wan’s face to soften the blow. “I appreciate the offer, Obi-Wan, I truly do, and I promise you, there will be other opportunities.”

The smile that lit up Obi-Wan’s face was almost searing in intensity the way it burned Anakin from within.

There were, of course, going to be good days and bad days. Anakin had steeled himself for the inevitable, but he was still unprepared the day Obi-Wan came running inside their shared quarters with the seat of his trousers visibly stained in blood. Anakin waited a moment, pausing in his work at his desk where remnants of his latest project were spread out in a half circle. He powered off his schematics, the blue light of the holo-projection fizzling and casting his corner back in shadow. He strained his ear for any telltale sounds of Obi-Wan’s seeming distress. There were none.

Anakin entered the code to Obi-Wan’s door, and found Obi-Wan knelt on the floor in a pair of white linen trousers that he often wore to sleep, a scrub brush in one hand and his bloody trousers in the other. He was frantically scrubbing the stain out with some gummy paste that smelled frankly revolting, and looked up, frowning, when Anakin knelt next to him on the floor.

“What happened?”

“There was—an accident.”

That was one way to put it, Anakin thought. Obi-Wan’s shoulders slumped and he huffed.

“You didn’t tell me you experienced bleeding.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “My cycles have never been regular, Master. It wasn’t a problem before, so I didn’t think to tell you.” He fumbled on his next words. “I was sparring with Jape when it happened.”

“Have you seen a healer about this? Did Qui-Gon know?”

Obi-Wan shook his head: no to both questions. Anakin expected that much. Anything to do with his body filled him with such shame. Anakin reached for his hands and Obi-Wan let him take the scrub brush. Anakin set it aside so he could examine the damage inflicted on the weave of Obi-Wan’s trousers. Most of the blood had come off, but there was still a visible residue left behind, a darker, deeper colour outlining the very edges.

“This is nothing to be ashamed of,” Anakin said. “Come, and let’s see a healer, and see what else they have to say.”

Anakin stood to his feet, offering Obi-Wan his hand. Obi-Wan took it with some reluctance but then refused to be pulled to his feet. He stayed knelt on the floor, not budging at all.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I just—” Obi-Wan’s eyes were wide, humiliated. The expression suited him, but even Anakin’s patience had its limits.

“You just what? Use your words, Obi-Wan.”

“I felt something,” Obi-Wan said. “—it leaked out,” he said in a softer voice.

“In your trousers?” Anakin asked, incredulous.

Obi-Wan nodded, shamefaced. Anakin would laugh, but it didn’t seem appropriate, given Obi-Wan’s visible distress. He’d been married before, and so was privy to at least some of these issues and knew exactly what Obi-Wan meant.

“Wear a robe over it.” Anakin grabbed the spare robe that was hanging on a hook by the wall, next to a wilting fern that seemed like it was in its death throes. “We’ll get you the things you need at the Halls of Healing. Let this be a lesson in keeping things from your Master.”

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said quickly, hanging his head further.

Anakin sighed as he helped Obi-Wan into his robe, careful to keep his eyes averted from the fresh stain marring Obi-Wan’s crisp, linen trousers, which Obi-Wan vainly tried to cover with his hands. “We’ll let the cleaning droids take care of this…little accident. Do you have clothes to spare in the meantime? A pair of pants?”

“These were my last clean ones.”

“Very well, then you’ll have no choice but to walk around in your undergarments while wait for your clothes to be washed and dried.”

Obi-Wan squeaked, whirling around, mortified. “Master!”

“I’m joking, Obi-Wan. I’ll lend you a pair of mine.” Anakin grinned and flicked Obi-Wan behind the ear before tucking his braid behind it. He felt Obi-Wan’s resulting shiver, and saw the pebbling of goosebumps across the back of his neck. “There is no need to look so despondent, my apprentice. We’re going to fix this. Together,” he said, patting him on the shoulder. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes, Master,” said Obi-Wan. “Of course.”

The visit took longer than anticipated. Obi-Wan was escorted into a private room to be examined by a medic droid, and he emerged nearly a standard hour later, looking so inconsolably upset that it was almost funny. Anakin remembered his own teenage years, and how he felt everything with frightening intensity. His emotions were as wild as the sandstorms that blew over the desert plains of his home planet. It was worse for Obi-Wan, who abided by the Code with such unwavering deference that he worked hard to suppress any irrational displays of emotion.

They walked in silence, back to their shared quarters. Anakin asked no questions, and waited patiently for Obi-Wan to break first. He did, naturally. It only took seconds. “The Healers have provided me with products to help stifle the bleeding.”

Anakin hummed. He pretended to consider this carefully. Smirking or worse, bursting into laughter would only further humiliate Obi-Wan who was once again close to tears but refused to let his misery show. Anakin could hear the wavering in his voice, however. He’d spent a considerable amount of time around his Padawan after all, and his dreams.

“Good,” Anakin said. “I’d hate to have you bleed on my pants.”

Obi-Wan shot him a worried look, and Anakin patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, a gesture to mean it was said in jest.When Obi-Wan was finally situated back in his room, Anakin took the liberty of taking his laundry and tossing it into the wall chute to be collected for washing. Obi-Wan was still in the fresher when Anakin returned to his room to lend him a pair of his own pants. Spilled across the bed were the products Obi-Wan had talked about: sanitary pads, thimbles of painkillers in clear glass tubes. He had lain out a change of clothes on the bed: a tunic of coarse, inexpensive material that was the standard uniform for all Padawans when they sparred, a pair of cream, innocuous underwear.

Anakin set the pants down on the bed, and purposefully kept himself from touching any of Obi-Wan’s clothes. But the edges of the cotton underwear brushed the back of his knuckles on accident, and he seized abruptly, drawing his hand away to frown down at the offending item. He almost picked it up to examine its heft but managed to exercise some level of restraint and forced himself out of the room.

Anakin worked on his droid project for the rest of the day to distract himself from the thought of Obi-Wan wearing his clothes, more specifically his pants. They were a few sizes too big and had to be cinched with a belt. Obi-Wan spent the afternoon holed up in his room after Anakin had given him leave of his lessons, emerging only at dinnertime after their food had finally arrived, delivered by a kitchen droid fresh from the mess hall. His face bore soft creases where he must have slept on it.

They sat together on the table that folded out of the wall, where they sometimes worked on Obi-Wan’s lessons together, poring over texts that documented the long and illustrious history of the Jedi.

Anakin noticed Obi-Wan wriggling one too many times and put his spoon down with a sigh. “What is it,” Anakin asked, cutting to the chase. He’d been in a dour mood all day, thinking of his Padawan and the secret he concealed underneath his clothes, the things that were unaccessible to him, kept hidden. Anakin hated secrets, though his early years as a Knight had been pervaded by it.

“I’ve run out of clean underwear, Master,” said Obi-Wan, staring at the half-eaten food on his plate.

Silence, and Anakin licked his bottom lip to stall for time. There were so many things he could say in response to that, but he considered each one carefully. This could be an opportunity to strengthen their training bond, though it would do to tamp down on his eagerness so he didn’t overwhelm his Padawan.

Anakin picked up his spoon and stirred his soup. It burnt his tongue when he swallowed, but the minor discomfort was bracing. “We’ll go shopping then, tomorrow.”

“I don’t understand, Master.”

“Clearly you need more clothes,” Anakin said, and the more he thought about it, the more logical it seemed, less absurd. “We’ll get you more underwear if that is what you need. And pants. What else should be on the list?”

“But Master— where would we get the money?” Obi-Wan asked. “Do Jedi Masters receive a stipend for clothing?”

“If only, Padawan. But no, we do not: we subsist merely on the charity of others. Luckily, I have plenty of credit to spare from my days in the podracing circuit—yes, that’s ah, a story for another time. We’ll leave early tomorrow so we still have time for lessons. Finish your food now and prepare for bed. That’s an order.”

Obi-Wan nodded, and thanked him quietly. He finished his dinner, and spent a great deal of time in the fresher: brushing his teeth, switching out his pads. Anakin heard him groaning in frustration, knocking a few items off the sink with a resounding clatter and an emphatic hiss. “I’m fine!” he assured Anakin, who stood just outside the fresher door, poised to knock.

The next day they headed bright and early to the shopping district. In the air taxi, Obi-Wan sat by the window with his face tipped up to the sun. His eyes were closed. The shadows of passing speeders dappled his cheeks like ghostly fingers. His hair shone in the morning light, a vibrant red curtain. Anakin wanted to run a comb through it to free the tangles, but it wasn’t long enough yet. Almost, but not quite.

“Excited?” Anakin asked, patting him on the knee to get his attention.

Obi-Wan blinked an eye open to regard him. “This is…new to me, Master,” he confessed. “I don’t think Master Qui-Gon ever took me shopping. I didn’t realise that was even allowed.”

Anakin pressed his lips together grimly. Qui-Gon was, despite his eccentricities, also deeply restrained. He had no earthly pleasures to speak of, save for his occasional partaking of the Marcan herb which allowed him to deepen his connection to the Force, or so he claimed. After Anakin had passed the Trials, Qui-Gon had no token to offer him, no gift, just some asinine advice that Anakin had quickly discarded for the way it made his insides seethe.

“What’s not allowed is neglect, Padawan. As your new Master, it is my duty to ensure your every need is met. If one must strengthen their connection to the Force, then one must be properly clothed and fed. We nourish the body first before we nourish the spirit. Also, I can’t have you running around without any pants on in the training gallery. What would everyone think?”

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too, having grown accustomed to Anakin’s ribbing.

The shopping district was awash with activity by the time they arrived. Shining, multi-level buildings flanked the sun-lit promenade, thronged by pedestrians headed opposite directions. There were humanoids walking their pets, mothers trailing after hover-strollers. Vendors hawked all manner of items from colourful stalls: meat sizzling on griddles, cheap plastic baubles hanging from rotating display racks.

Anakin could tell Obi-Wan was entranced. There was so much to see. Qui-Gon probably took him to severe, backwoods planets in the Outer Rim for their missions, and nowhere else. It was clear the boy was hungry for some type of stimuli. Obi-Wan stopped to admire everything but touched nothing, his fingers wavering a few times over some shiny trinket before he pocketed them to fight off temptation.

Their destination was a store inside one of the buildings. Anakin had done his research for lack of a better thing to do the previous evening. The store sold inoffensive ready-made apparel. There were plenty to choose from, whole spinning racks of clothing for all species, genders, sizes.

A shopping assistant with green tri-coloured eyes pointed them to a section that housed more neutral palettes— browns, beiges, creams, shades that Obi-Wan typically wore day to day, and were therefore uninteresting. Obi-Wan gravitated in their direction, pulled by familiarity. Across the store was dangerous territory: livid pinks and reds and vibrant yellows.

Anakin did his own discreet browsing, and imagined what Obi-Wan might look like in slips of cotton and lace.

He saw Obi-Wan lingering by a rack of sleeping gowns and ambled over as quietly as he could, but Obi-Wan heard him, and startled as soon as he approached. He had leapt away from the rack and hid his hands behind his back, as if he was ashamed of having touched something in the store.

Anakin picked up a sleeping gown by the hanger. The material was light and thin that it would be sheer under certain lighting. Its hem was delicately frilled. Anakin held it up against Obi-Wan’s chest to determine whether it was in his size.

Obi-Wan stared at him, wide-eyed and perfectly still.

“Did you want this?” Anakin asked.

“N-no Master, of course not! And even if I did, I have perfectly fine sleeping clothes!”

Anakin hummed and nodded. “This isn’t in your colour anyway,” he mused, and spun the rack until he found precisely what he was looking for. He checked the length of the sleeve first before pulling the sleeping gown completely out: it was still a touch sheer, the sides closed with a long pale strips of satin ribbon. The collar was edged with soft, white lace. Anakin permitted his imagination to wander this time, but only briefly. He could feel his breath accelerating in eagerness, and had to tamp down his excitement with a bland smile.

“This one,” he said, removing all emotion from his voice. “This is better.”

“But isn’t that—” Obi-Wan coloured, his lower lip trembling with words he kept back. “I can’t wear that to sleep, Master. I simply can’t.”

“Why not? It’s very pretty, don’t you think? Certainly prettier than the one you were looking at. You deserve pretty things, Obi-Wan. Consider this my gift to you.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you, Master.” Obi-Wan did not even deny that he was, in fact, looking at sleeping gowns. “But—what if I bleed on it and ruin it? I wouldn’t want to sully your gift.”

Anakin felt his fingers clench in the soft material upon hearing that word. Sully. He could think of a few situations in which that word could be better employed. He almost laughed. “Then we’ll get you a few more so you wouldn’t have to worry about ruining anything. One for each day of the week, how does that sound? Would you rather I pick the rest for you, or would you prefer to do it yourself? And do not fight me on this, Padawan: your stubbornness will not go unpunished.”

Raw panic flashed across Obi-Wan’s face. Anakin could somehow tell what he was thinking: punishments often came in the form of restrictions—fasting, sometimes meditation. Most of the time, Padawans were given such ridiculous, mundane tasks that the boredom was enough to compel them to obedience, but in Anakin’s case, he’d simply learned how to be more discrete in his rule-breaking.

Anakin would be more creative in his own punishments now that he had an apprentice, for he resented following in Qui-Gon’s footsteps. He would not repeat the same mistakes; he would raise Obi-Wan with a steady, but tender hand.

“I know you’re a good boy, and a good student, Obi-Wan,” Anakin said. Obi-Wan relished the praise: Anakin could see the flush of pride in Obi-Wan’s cheeks at the mention of being good. “So I will leave you to your shopping, and I expect that basket of yours to be filled by the time we’re done here. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good.” Anakin patted him on the head, smoothing down strands that had strayed from its middle part.

Obi-Wan sighed again, and let his shoulders sag, but he turned on his heel and faced the rack of sleeping gowns, dutiful and obedient.

Qui-Gon had never been in the habit of giving Obi-Wan gifts. Besides a ratty scarf that he had lent Obi-Wan during a mission on an ice planet, one that Obi-Wan had eventually lost, anyway, he’d given Obi-Wan nothing but miserly praise and vague pronouncements that were supposed to be nuggets of wisdom in disguise.

Master Anakin’s kindness was unexpected. Welcome, certainly, but it overwhelmed Obi-Wan to the point of nervousness. Why was he being so patient with Obi-Wan? Why so sweet? And now Anakin had even brought him along shopping, had paid for Obi-Wan’s things with credit from his own pocket. They took an airtaxi back to the Temple after their little field trip was finished, and later in the afternoon after Obi-Wan had resumed his sparring lessons with the dojo master and was dismissed for the day, he’d lain out all the pretty things his Master had bought him on the bed.

Obi-Wan stared at his Master’s gifts: several sleeping gowns in cream shades, with the hemline down to the knees. Two had frilly ribbons on them. The sleeves varied: elbow-length, one with a split in the middle, short-sleeves, cuffed-sleeves, another one that ended at the top of his arms and showed off the shoulders.

There were more: boxes and paper bags were heaped across the floor, balls of delicate tissue paper like spun sugar.

His Master had bought him trousers like he’d promised. And underwear, which Obi-Wan tried hard not to think about. So many gifts, and he felt undeserving of them. He’d only been apprenticed to Anakin less than a year: he failed to see the motivation behind them. Was there some hidden motive, he wondered, and immediately tabled that doubt as it was completely un-Jedi like. His Master recognised a need, and fulfilled it. That was all.

Obi-Wan poured the rest of Anakin’s gifts from the last of shopping bags: underwear, a good handful of them for everyday use—innocuous, functional—and yet he burned with embarrassment knowing his Master had picked them for him. Cream-coloured, just like the sleeping gowns, and one had a tiny pink ribbon at the centre. He picked the pair up and held it carefully in his hands, wondering how he hadn’t noticed it the first time because it did not look like the others; his Master must have made a mistake.

But it was—what was the word his Master had used? Pretty. He never had anything pretty before. Obi-Wan fingered the tiny ribbon before stuffing the underwear back in the bag, where it would sit for the rest of the week.

Masters and their learners often shared living quarters. This wasn’t an issue when Qui-Gon was still Obi-Wan’s Master, for Qui-Gon came and went whenever he pleased and was hardly in their shared space. But Anakin hovered. There was no other way to describe it. He was simply always there, and often sat in on some of Obi-Wan’s sparring sessions, observing, commenting on his form. They ate all their meals together, and talked about their day as if they hadn’t spent the majority of it side by side.

And then there were their little rituals: every second evening of the week, Anakin called Obi-Wan over to the sofa so he could fix his braid before bed. Sometimes, while he did this, Obi-Wan read him the news on his datapad, cross-legged in front of Anakin whose warm fingers caressed his hair.

Tonight was one of those evenings. Obi-Wan finished brushing his teeth and pulled on his sleeping garments—the ones that had been provided in his training kit when he first became apprentice—coarse, weathered after many washes. Wearing his Master’s gifts felt strange to him; they were simply too luxurious. He’d wear them to bed and feel unbearably restless, and in the morning there would be a yawning ache that sat in his belly at the thought of having to take off the sleeping gown for the rest of the day. He wore them only in private. It was like the underwear: these were secret too, things he wanted to keep for himself so they could not be taken away.

“You don’t like my gifts?” Anakin asked, as he unraveled Obi-Wan’s braid from its tight plait. Obi-Wan felt Anakin’s breath steam the shell of his ear, and caress it like a kiss. He shivered, swallowed, felt the ripple of something unseen move through him like a fever. “I never see you wear them,” said his Master. He didn’t sound angry, only disappointed, which Obi-Wan thought was even worse. The last thing he wanted was for his Master to think he cared little for his gifts.

“I just—” began Obi-Wan, already fumbling on the lie. He was just what? Really, there was no excuse. Now his Master thought him ungrateful. “I’m sorry,” he said, instead. “They were too pretty, Master and my—my cycle had just ended.”

—Partly the truth: his cycle had ended two weeks ago. But now he had no legitimate excuse other than the strange, heady feeling wearing his Master’s gifts had brought him. Jedi were supposed to be hardy, they were not made to wear fine, pretty things. And that word—pretty—Obi-Wan had never heard used in reference to him.

His Master hummed thoughtfully. His fingers finished their work on Obi-Wan’s braid, and then he turned Obi-Wan around to face him gently. His gaze was tender, and this too made Obi-Wan’s breath hiccup. Anakin tapped the divot on Obi-Wan’s chin, lifting his chin up with two fingers so that they looked at each other eye to eye. There was no hiding, this time. Even Obi-Wan’s hair had been swept out of the way.

“I’d like to see you wearing them tonight,” said his Master. “Would you do that for me? Would you show me how they look on you?”

“All of them? All seven?” Obi-Wan asked, in disbelief. He fastened his lips together at Anakin’s amused smirk.

“Of course all seven. Now—” Anakin arranged himself on the sofa, leaning against the cushions so that his arms were spread open on the backrests. Obi-Wan almost stumbled on his feet when he felt an invisible force nudge him in the direction of his room. His throat closed up, but he managed to quirk a smile and nodded at Anakin.

When he was finally alone in his room, he took inventory of all the things his Master had bought him. He placed each item on the bed: sleeping gowns side by side and the underwear crumpled in a small hill at the foot of the bed. He smoothed out the soft creases. Was he expected to wear them too? He didn’t know. He wanted to ask, but it seemed foolish. A wiser Padawan would know these things intuitively, he thought, and not have to keep asking a barrage of questions every single time, like he’d done with Qui-Gon and now with Master Anakin, too.

Obi-Wan undressed quickly, his heart a clenching muscle inside his chest. He folded his clothes and neatly set them on the bench next to the only window in the room, which was fringed with a profusion of small, unhelpfully shaped cupboards in which he could have stored more of his belongings had he owned enough of anything.

He slid on the first sleeping gown. There was a mirror right above his work desk, water-spotted and only about a foot in length and width. But it was enough that he saw his reflection from the waist up: the nervous eyes, the warm flush of his cheeks, his parted lips. The sleeping gown’s collar draped across his pale shoulders, with sleeves that billowed and ran down to his wrists. He considered which pair of underwear to wear next. All had been freshly washed and smelled of the industrial cleaning agents the cleaning droids used when laundering their clothes.

He picked one up without thinking too much on it—overthinking simply made him even more nervous—sliding the underwear up his hips and snapping the band across his waist. It embarrassed him how well it all fit. With his hair longer, he didn’t look like himself. He spent a few short moments admiring himself in the mirror, tilting his body this way and that, the sleeping gown bunched up to his waist. He jumped when the door to his room suddenly slid open.

“—Obi-Wan, are you going to keep me waiting any longer or—” His Master stopped abruptly. For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was that of the door hissing shut behind him.

Obi-Wan quickly let go of his sleeping gown, smoothing his hands over the newly-made creases in the material. He felt his face burn; he wanted to die of shame. “I didn’t mean to make you wait so long, Master,” he said, and something about the way Anakin looked at him, made him take a cautious step back. No one had ever looked at him like that before. It reminded him, a little, of how his friend Jape stared at a piece of dessert that he was told he couldn’t have.

“Are you wearing them?” Anakin asked. “The—” He swallowed visibly, gesturing vaguely at Obi-Wan.

“Let me see,” he said, and sagged on the floor on his knees. “Lift your dress up, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan dragged his eyes away from Anakin’s face. The intensity of his expression terrified him, so he focused instead on his Master’s command. Obedience was, after all, crucial in strengthening their bond. And it was such a harmless request: his Master simply wanted to see how his gift fit him.

Obi-Wan lifted the hem of his dress, higher and higher until the tops of his thighs showed, and then higher still when Anakin made an impatient gesture with his fingers. There was nothing remarkable about the pair he wore: it fit him snugly, but didn’t pinch his waist.

“Do you like them?” Anakin asked. “Are you comfortable?”

Obi-Wan sucked in a breath and looked up when he felt his Master’s hand touch his knee. His thumb stroked the raised skin of a scar he’d borne while on a mission with Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon did not have bacta patches on hand at the time, and so Obi-Wan’s wound had to heal without medical intervention.

The intense look on his Master’s face had fallen away, replaced with a softness that made Obi-Wan’s posture loosen. He still felt nervous, shaky and afraid of what Anakin might do next, but he softened at the sudden tenderness of his touch. No one had ever touched him in this way, after all.

“What happened here?” Anakin asked.

“Just a little accident, Master.”

“It looked like it hurt,” said Anakin, as if he could sense Obi-Wan reliving the memory. He glanced up at Obi-Wan. “Did it hurt?”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “It was so long ago now, Master. Happened while Master Qui-Gon was still—” He hurried to correct himself—“It was so long ago I barely remember.”

“Qui-Gon took so little care of you.” Anakin’s tone was sharp and frustrated, and he stood up in one smooth motion and squeezed Obi-Wan on the shoulder with a warm, firm grip. “I’ll rectify that. I’ll take care of you.”

“You already do,” said Obi-Wan.

“Not in the way you need.” Anakin looked around the room, and he summoned a comb from the desk with aid of the Force. It flew into his waiting hand, and then he seated himself on the edge of Obi-Wan’s bed, casual as anything, his knees parted.

“Come sit with me. Let me brush your hair.”

“But you’ve already mended my braid, Master,” Obi-Wan said, raising his eyebrows skeptically, tugging at the yellow band cinching the end of his braid. “You’d have to undo all your hard work.”

“I won’t undo your braid, Padawan, I promise. It’s the rest of your hair I’ll be tending to. Now come up here, on your Master’s lap, before I grab you myself.”

Anakin patted his knee. Obi-Wan’s gaze was immediately drawn to the spread of his legs, the way his trousers bunched up and stretched taut across his Master’s thighs. Sometimes, Anakin trained alongside him in the dojo, and he’d discard his outer tunic completely, fighting only in his trousers and boots as he demonstrated a series of moves to a rapt audience, Obi-Wan included. He was a lean man, quick on his feet, but he had muscle and fought with the relentless strength of a battleship with the zeal to match.

Obi-Wan padded towards him. His bare feet felt leaden on the cold, stone floor, but whatever dread he felt was immediately quashed by the gentle motions of Anakin’s fingers as they carded through his hair. Then he felt the bristles of the comb gently prickling his scalp, and he shut his eyes, thinking of his crèche-masters, how they were the only ones to care for him in this way, and how it had been so long since anyone had paid him this level of attention. Qui-Gon had not been neglectful, at least not in any recognisable way, but he often failed to provide Obi-Wan comfort, not because he was cruel or unkind, but because he could not conceive of it that his Padawan might need some tending.

Anakin finished combing his hair. Obi-Wan entered a meditative state meanwhile, dozing against his shoulder, before he was gently shaken awake by Anakin’s soft murmur. A hand had inched up his knee as he slept, hiking up the hem of his sleeping gown, but his Master’s hand simply stayed there, unmoving, a warm, steady pressure that made Obi-Wan take note of it only in passing.

“Sleepy now?” asked his Master, as his thumb stroked over Obi-Wan’s skin and made him shiver.

Obi-Wan nodded, his next words warped by a yawn. Anakin tucked him in bed, collecting the rest of Obi-Wan’s sleeping gowns and setting them aside on the bench. He stayed standing over Obi-Wan while Obi-Wan fought hard to stay awake, forcing his eyes open every few seconds only to sink into comfortable exhaustion.

“Sleep now, Obi-Wan,” said his Master, and hovered for a moment with his face so close to Obi-Wan’s. He ran his knuckles down the length of Obi-Wan’s cheek, and Obi-Wan tumbled quickly into dreams, the sensation of his Master’s hand following him even there.

Anakin kept vigil over Obi-Wan long after he’d fallen asleep. At first he simply stood there, watching the minute rise and fall of his Padawan’s chest, but impatience eventually won over and in the end, he pushed the thin covers aside.

Anakin rucked up Obi-Wan’s sleeping gown the farthest it would go without disrupting Obi-Wan’s sleep. There, in the quiet stillness, in the dark of Obi-Wan’s room, Anakin admired the beautiful shape of him. He was so trusting, so untouchably pure. There was no other Padawan like him, no one as earnest nor as beautiful. The cotton lay snug against his skin, thin enough that Anakin could see the barest outlines of his biology.

I could ruin you, he thought. He knew that Obi-Wan would let him.

Anakin’s training methods were unorthodox. He took Obi-Wan to the lower levels where he thought Obi-Wan might immerse himself in what he referred to as local colour. He wanted, he said, to show Obi-Wan what lay beneath the surface. The Temple had ensconced them in bubble, and buffeted them from the harsh realities outside the Core Worlds. Anakin had grown up as a slave, and he had a wildly different upbringing before Qui-Gon had found him: undisciplined, unstable, and he had a mother who raised him all on her own. He wasn’t trained in the ways of the Force until he was nine years old and taken from his home planet. Anakin hadn’t known what the Force was at all, only that there was a silent, invisible energy that moved through him that he could call on when he was in a dire situation.

Excursions to the lower levels when they weren’t saddled with missions Anakin liked to call field trips. Each one had a different purpose, whether it was to introduce Obi-Wan to an exotic delicacy, or show him how the other half lived—another turn of phrase he liked to use when he steered Obi-Wan in the direction of the cramped, dimly lit alehouses that smelled of sweat and mildew.

They were filled wall to wall with all manner of unsavoury folk: sentients from all over the known galaxy who leered and stared at Obi-Wan as they passed. His Master liked to keep a low profile, and Jedi in these parts attracted attention like flies, so he made Obi-Wan change into simpler garments before every excursion: a nondescript robe of some roughspun make, his lightsaber expertly tucked away. Worst of all, Anakin had Obi-Wan clip his Padawan braid under his hair, hiding it from view and pinning the end to the opposite side of his head. Without the braid and with his hair longer to cover most of it, Obi-Wan looked less like himself. He felt less like himself too; a different person, perhaps, with a life outside the Order. He could be anybody at all: not a Jedi, but a young boy with his head full of silly dreams.

There was freedom in it, and it terrified him.

#obikin #feminization #intersex obi-wan #bad touching #age difference #unfinished #top anakin skywalker #fic

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