I know I usually cross post to tumblr and write something, but I’m currently parenting my little brother while the parents are out of town and I no longer have the energy necessary to move fingers and do the type thing. Enjoy the plotless fluff!
Tag: SWWriting
The Way Home
20 Days of Obikin Challenge, Day 3: Hurt/Comfort
As expected, the work week kinda kicked my butt when it came to writing, but I’ll catch up!
Rating: T
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Anakin is…lost. Well, no, he’s technically not lost, he’s in a little nook on the Vigilance, a charging station for cleaning droids that’s currently not being used. But it gets him out of easy sight in the corridors, and he doubts anyone will look for him here. As far as he knows Ahsoka is in her own quarters, and Obi-Wan is on the bridge.
(Does the man ever sleep? He must do so at some point, right? Come to think of it, Anakin hasn’t actually seen him so much as nap since the clone wars started.)
He’s shoved himself back into the niche in the wall, kneeling with his hands folded in his lap and his back held rigidly straight. The posture is difficult to hold, and his muscles have started to quiver with the strain. It’s submissive, it’s controlled, and he can’t seem to bring himself to break it. How long has he been out here? Hours? Something like that. It’s a long trip back to Coruscant, and he’s planning to spend it all just like this. The ache in his knees and his back are just enough to make it impossible for him to think.
There’s no way he’s going to confront what just happened. He’d never thought he could fall back into that headspace so quickly, hadn’t felt this helpless since he’d become a Jedi. It’s ridiculous, and weak, and he shoves his shoulders back to throw off the thoughts.
Footsteps in the corridor draw his attention, and he holds his breath, waiting for the person to walk right by him. Instead they stop, and Obi-Wan seats himself on the floor, facing him.
Anakin squints at him, hands curling into fists on his thighs. He knows he’d had it easier than his former Master, kept like a prized pet at the queen’s side rather than sent to hard labor or dangled over the Zygerrian city in a cage—
The image of his Padawan in those bars with that…that thing standing over her with an electrostaff in its hand sends a wave of bloody rage through him, and he looks away before Obi-Wan can see it in his eyes. There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. Anakin tucks his head so he’s somewhat shielded behind his hair, and pretends he has no idea the other man is there.
“Will you come out here, please?”
It’s a request, not an order. Anakin wavers for a second. He wants to, wants to launch himself at Obi-Wan and reassure himself that they’re both free. More than that, though, he needs to refuse, just to prove he can. He shakes his head, scoots backwards.
Obi-Wan doesn’t push, just crosses his legs and settles in. Anakin peers at him through his fringe. “You’re going to get stepped on out there.”
“Mmhmm.” He shrugs, apparently unconcerned, and doesn’t move. “I thought you needed company. And I don’t think I’d fit in there with you.”
“Maybe I don’t want company,” Anakin spits at him, anger flaring at the assumption—
“I can leave if you want, then.”
Does anything ever ruffle him? Anakin’s suddenly determined to find out. He tries to lunge out at him—and instead folds over as his muscles cramp up after too long locked in one position. He lands in Obi-Wan’s lap, gentle hands on his shoulders. The other man doesn’t laugh at him, but he can feel his amusement through their bond, and it does nothing to help his sense of humor.
“I’ll take that to mean you want me to stay?”
Anakin lifts one hand in a rude gesture, but he doesn’t pull away. This feels…nice. One of Obi-Wan’s hands finds his hair, petting lightly. It’s more affection than his Master usually gives him, and he can’t help but think it might be purely out of pity. Yet the creeping feeling that his body no longer belongs to him is fading with every moment, and on impulse he reaches up to wrap his arms around Obi-Wan’s waist and pull himself closer.
Now both hands are in his hair, stroking and pulling lightly. His face is shoved into Obi-Wan’s robes, surrounded by the smell of tea and his Master’s sweat and a hint of burned hair (did he get himself electrocuted again? Most likely.). Obi-Wan leans forward, and there’s just a hint of tremor in his voice. “I’m so glad to have you back safe, dear one.”
The phrasing should seem possessive, but there’s nothing but love in Obi-Wan’s force presence, and Anakin revels in it. He knows he needs far too much, shouldn’t crave touch so much that physical contact is practically melting him with contentment, but right now that doesn’t matter. All that matters is Obi-Wan, and Anakin, and both of them together.
Interlude
20 Days of Obikin Challenge, Day 2: “Hold me, just for a bit, okay?”
2 for 2! But now it’s my work week so the momentum may be hard to keep up.
Rating: T
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This is a bad idea. This is a very bad idea. Which is honestly a thought Obi-Wan has frequently around Anakin. But this might break some kind of record. They’re in the middle of both the 212th and 501st, separated from several hundred clones by nothing but too-thin cloth. Anyone could walk in at any point. In fact, people are in and out all the time, updating the Generals to every development in their little corner of Outer Rim hell.
The cot is only meant for one, and sharing it means that he’s more than half underneath Anakin’s heavy body. He’d done his usual grumbling as he rearranges himself around ridiculous long limbs, but they both know it’s mostly performative at this point. Anakin’s tactile nature comes out when they’re in the field, and Obi-Wan quickly learned that if he didn’t indulge him now and again then he ended up with an increasingly clingy Jedi Knight constantly underfoot. So, purely in the interest of keeping the grand army of the Republic running smoothly, he no longer tried to kick Anakin out of his tent at night.
That was before things started getting so very out of control. Before there was Anakin’s lips against his neck and the weight of a hand on the small patch of bare skin between his shirt and trousers. His heart is beating far too fast, thumping in his throat, and he’s sure Anakin can feel it. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
That hand doesn’t move, but Anakin lets out a shaky sigh before propping his chin up on Obi-Wan’s collarbone and looking down at him. “I don’t know.”
Of course he doesn’t. But he’s trembling against Obi-Wan and his wide eyes look so vulnerable and Obi-Wan works his arms around his body to hold him closer without even thinking. They’ve both had a hard day, lost far more men than anyone expected, and only to be driven back again and again from their objective. Pinned under and surrounded by Anakin, so close that nothing else in the galaxy matters besides the heartbeat against his ribs and the wash of breath over his skin—Obi-Wan needs this too.
At some point in the last few years Anakin’s gotten much too big to just manhandle where Obi-Wan wants him, but he manages. Some lifting and shoving aligns their bodies, foreheads pressed together, sharing air. Anakin’s shirtless—he’s had the weird aversion to sleeping fully clothed as long as Obi-Wan has known him—and the places where their skin meets feels like sparks. His thighs are parted around Anakin’s hips, but there’s no urgency. No rush. Just the heat of Anakin’s stuttered exhale against his lips and the way his curls feel tangled in Obi-Wan’s fingers.
“Master, please,” he whispers, and Obi-Wan suppresses a shudder with some difficulty, deciding that reaction is something to be examined some other time. “Please just hold me. Just for a bit. Please?”
“Of course.” As if he could ever deny Anakin anything.
They fall asleep with Anakin’s chin hooked over his shoulder, his nose mashed into the pillow in a way that looks incredibly uncomfortable, and Obi-Wan sleeps better than he has in a very long time.
Aftermath
20 Days of Obikin Challenge Day 1: “I’ve got you. Breathe, okay? I’ve got you.”
Well lets see how many of these I can actually get out in the 20 days! This’ll be good for me. Read on AO3 or below on tumblr!
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There are times when it’s clear Anakin Skywalker isn’t completely human.
Obi-Wan’s fairly certain that the only people who have really noticed are himself, Ahsoka, and a few of the clones of the 501st. No one else gets so close to Anakin in battle, close enough to see the way his pupils blow out and his breath slows until it’s barely there and he moves like he’s only barely tethered to reality. Like with the slightest push he’d lose himself to the Force that wraps around him like a cyclone, dragging in the eyes of every creature that’s even the slightest bit sensitive.
The power he radiates is dangerous, and a bit intoxicating. It’s so easy to get caught up in his wake, dragged along into a frontal assault that by all rights should end with all of them dead but somehow never does. And then when they’re left in the smoking remains of whatever stronghold they’d been sent to take, Anakin shuts down. Stands in the middle of wreck and ruin and just…stares at something no one else can see with those dark, empty eyes, unnaturally still.
It’s not so common a thing that anyone expects it to happen. No one wants to approach him when he’s like this. No one except, of course, Obi-Wan. He picks his way through smoldering debris, puts himself in his former Padawan’s line of sight, and nudges him in the Force.
“Anakin. Anakin, come back now.”
After the first time they witness it the clones always give them a wide berth, evidently unwilling to intrude on such intimacy between their commanders. Even Ahsoka finds somewhere else to be, but Obi-Wan’s seen the way she looks at Anakin when he’s like this. She is scared, unsure what to make of her Master in this state. Jittery with those too-wide eyes on her, unwilling to meet that vacant gaze. She will only approach once Obi-Wan has his attention.
“Anakin, I’ve got you. Breathe, okay? Breathe now.”
There’s a small part of Obi-Wan that loves the feeling of Anakin’s focus in these moments. For once his Padawan is still and quiet and every bit of him is centered on Obi-Wan’s words. He does as he’s told, ribs expanding suddenly in a gasping inhale, as if he’d forgotten he needs oxygen. His pupils contract back down, blue eyes unfocused and lost until they find Obi-Wan’s face. He blinks once, twice, and now Obi-Wan reaches out to touch, both hands on Anakin’s shoulders, holding him to reality.
“I’ve got you.”
Anakin smiles, he always does, and for that briefest of moments his shields slip and there’s an instant of possessive, insistent joy that Obi-Wan never comments on. They’re both keyed up and shaking and alive and he’s not about to break the fragile balance.
Whatever Anakin is, whatever the Force has shaped into a semblance of humanity, Obi-Wan loves him, and he will always be there to bring him back.
Kaesoka Ficlet #2
Warnings for canon character death and description of beginnings of an anxiety/panic attack. Also fluff and kisses and Jedi learning to not be emotionally constipated all the freakin time.
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The whole thing stems from an innocent moment of sibling pettiness. On one of the infrequent times that both Ahsoka and Miara have managed leave simultaneously, Miara manages to dig out several old holos of Kaeden as a toddler. It results in a chase around the living room and a friendly, slightly vicious wrestling match on the floor of Kaeden’s hallway. While her girlfriend grinds her sister’s face into the carpet Ahsoka flips through the data disc, enraptured.
“This one is good, Miara, thank you,” she calls, waving a particularly fetching one of Kaeden sucking on her tiny fist and drooling down the front of a lothcat-themed fleece shirt.
The noise from the hallway was probably a ‘you’re welcome,’ though it’s hard to tell through the flooring. Kaeden abandons her sister after doing something that draws out a squeal, returning to the couch and swinging her legs over Ahsoka’s lap. “You know, you have to show me baby holos of you now. That’s how this relationship thing works.”
“I don’t think there are any holos of me before the war and you’ve seen all of the ones on the holonet,” Ahsoka says absently, flicking to the next one and smiling at Kaeden’s toothless grin down at a man who must be her father.
“Aw, no fair,” Kaeden teases, reaching up to grab one of her still-growing montrals and gently shaking her head back and forth. “I wanna see holos of stubby-headed little ‘Soka!”
The silly nickname feels like being doused in cold water, her whole body going icy and the disc dropping from suddenly numb and tingling fingers. It’s utterly stupid, she knows it is, it’s been years since…
Since Master Plo called her that. It would have been before she left the Order, so almost half a decade ago now.
Ahsoka swallows hard and clamps her eyes shut, shoving down the combination of grief and panic that rises like a monster in her chest. No. No, she knows how to deal with this, the Order taught her how to deal with emotions. Well, technically they taught her to release them, but that requires examining and accepting the bone-deep loss that claws at her throat, and the idea is nauseating. She’ll settle for the next best thing: compartmentalizing, shoving it down and out of her mind to be examined at a later date (aka never).
Her self-induced paralysis is interrupted by a light tap against her cheek. She blinks, and focuses on rich brown eyes just inches from her own. “Hey there, Jedi, come out of your head,” Kaeden says softly.
The warm touch of a hand against her lekku makes Ahsoka shudder, but Kaeden strokes gently up and down, the rhythm soothing. “I’m sorry,” Ahsoka whispers, leaning forward into a strong shoulder and lets out a shaky breath.
“No, don’t apologize,” Kaeden murmurs, curling around her protectively and breathing hot against the side of her neck. “You know you shouldn’t do that.”
Ahsoka stiffens defensively, opens her mouth, and finds herself smushed harder into Kaeden’s body. “No. Shush. You shouldn’t bury everything like that. It’s not healthy, it’s…you’re hurting yourself with everything you refuse to deal with. And I don’t like seeing you hurt.”
That’s playing dirty, and Ahsoka tells her so. Kaeden shrugs, her hand still running up and down her lekku. “You don’t have to tell me, but at least let yourself cry. It kills me when I watch you freeze up and look sick and then get lost in your own head for a minute. Just cry for once. I bet you’ll feel better.”
She takes in a deep breath. “It’s nothing, really,” she starts, and Kaeden’s arm tightens around her. “No, really. It was just a nickname. The Jedi who found me and brought me to the temple called me that. He used to check up on me when he could. He’d bring me sweets.” She laughs weakly, tears finally leaking down her cheeks. “Jedi aren’t supposed to have favorites but I knew I was Master Plo’s. After the war started we got to work together sometimes, and I wanted him to be proud of me…”
She chokes, inhale catching in her throat, abruptly overwhelmed. Unlike most of her friends in the temple she knows Master Plo’s fate. She ran into Wolffe a couple years back, heard about how Plo was shot down by his own men during the Purge. She can picture the way his face would crinkle around his mask and goggles when he smiled, the way he would sneak her sweets behind his back and whisper not to tell Yoda, the way Master Kenobi’s nose wrinkled when he caught them and tried to hide his smile.
That’s what breaks her down, and she sobs into Kaeden’s shirt. She cries for them for the first time in years. For Anakin, for Master Obi-Wan, for Master Plo. For Masters Unduli and Secura and Fisto. For Barriss and all the Padawans lost in the war and all the younglings slaughtered in the temple. She’s completely incoherent and she knows it. Now she’s just blubbering names wetly into Kaeden’s neck between great, heaving sobs. Through it all the hand on her lekku strokes up and down, up and down.
It’s the light touch that brings her back, ever so slowly. She tries to match her breaths to it, interrupted by hiccups and whimpers that keep escaping even as the tears dry up. In, and out. In, and out.
She feels a little sick still, and there’s a distressing amount of snot on her girlfriend’s shoulder, and her head is starting to throb a bit. But there’s a light buzz under her skin, a freeing looseness about her joints. It feels like she could float right off the couch if she wasn’t wrapped so tightly around Kaeden.
Speaking of Kaeden, when she leans back to blink at her she sees tear-tracks on her dark cheeks. “Hey, wait,” she says, and her voice sounds far more broken than she’d expected. “I thought I was the one crying here. You told me to.”
Kaeden laughs, leans down to kiss the skin beneath her eyes (she can already tell it’s getting puffy), then her nose, then her mouth. “We’re in this together, you know that,” she murmurs. “I don’t like seeing you cry, and yes it upsets me, but I’d rather know you’re letting it out instead of bottling it up.”
The smile she manages in response is tremulous, but she reaches up to rub a thumb across the salt stains and pull Kaeden back for more kisses. “Thank you,” she whispers against soft lips.
“Of course.” Kaeden indulges her for a few more minutes, slow pressure back and forth, leisurely and warm. Finally she pulls away and presses two fingers against Ahsoka’s mouth. “Come on, my sister made a tactical withdrawal but we should call her back for lots of sugary foods and some holodramas, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Somehow, snot and headache and all, Ahsoka feels more complete than she has in years.
Kaesoka Ficlet #1
Alex prompted me “Person A feels someone touch their back. Person B is on the other side of the room.” I don’t think she expected me to go 100% pure distilled shmoop. (This tag was looking slow. Help me out with prompts so I can fill it with space lesbians!)
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The first touch against her back is light, barely there. After looking up and spotting Ahsoka on the other side of the room, Kaeden puts it down to her imagination and goes back to her work.
The next one is much more distinct, trailing from her spine around the curve of her ribs, making her shiver. A glance reveals that Ahsoka hasn’t budged, and Kaeden frowns as she twists around in her seat. Nope, her back is still to the wall, and the little house is still empty besides the two of them.
As she turns back around she catches a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. Ahsoka’s finger had twitched, barely there, and there’s a light caress against Kaeden’s neck.
Right. That’s it.
She sets aside the coded message she’d been decrypting and gets up. Ahsoka doesn’t even pretend to be sorry, opening her arms for her girlfriend and pressing a kiss to the junction of neck and shoulder.
“This is what I get for falling for a Jedi, isn’t it?” Kaeden says, laughing lightly, leaning to try to catch Ahsoka’s lips with her own.
“Mm.” Ahsoka tucks her head, careful of her montrals as she noses under the collar of Kaeden’s shirt. “I am, very definitely, not a Jedi anymore.“
konekorambles 