Archive of Our Own

"You're the only one I trust enough to put a knife to my throat."

That's what Obi-Wan had said to him, placing the straight razor in his palm. The metal was cool between their warm hands, still flecked with the mud of battle. There were other, much more modern ways of accomplishing this task, but Obi-Wan was old-fashioned, if not old-world, about such things. However, without a mirror, he could not actually complete it himself.

Now, Anakin's spread across Obi-Wan's thighs, his own flexed and taut, just balancing over him. The straight razor glints under the moon, a narrow slice of light through their tent. He holds it in his hand, strong and still, as Obi-Wan tilts his head back. Exposes his neck, wet with just a small amount of shaving lotion, only what he can spare from his kit until the next time they dock at Coruscant. When will that be—every time away is longer. He feels Obi-Wan's pulse hammering beneath the blade, as if his own, so very close to skin.

"You sure about this, Master? I mean—anything could happen. I could…slip," and here, he grazes the razor even closer to flesh, but a smile unfurls on his face. Roguish but no less sincere, something in him always so earnest when he saw you. Obi-Wan laughs knowingly.

"Sure, Anakin. You could, but then who'd save your skin next time you were caught in an...uncompromising position."

"We agreed not to speak of that, as the whole story ends in scandal for us both."

Anakin pushes the blade just enough to taunt, to hitch Obi-Wan's breath. Mouth opens ebullient as he curves his wrist holding it in the beginning of his task. Brings it up to his chin, his jaw, keeps it almost hovering. He's wrapped his hand around the back of Obi-Wan's neck to keep him in place, can tilt him as needed and Obi-Wan, passive, is shifted in his hold. It would be intimate if—it is intimate. The planet was currently in its warm season, yet Anakin feels a shiver on his skin like a chill.

(He's not taking it all, leaving him bare, just a trim to ensure he wasn't looking unruly. Obi-Wan had the strangest notions of propriety, things that would have swam up to vanity had they not come from a place so ignorant of such an impulse. Anakin rarely prodded particularly hard anymore at the Obi-Wan who lived underneath layers of duty and decorum. The Obi-Wan before Anakin. He wanted to know, certainly, but a specific kind of no flashed across Obi-Wan's face when he had tried to ask. Live in the now, they both needed to learn in different ways, but Anakin had accepted that he knew more than most, knew an Obi-Wan so many others did not, which ultimately, was enough, even if it still left him awfully curious.)

Eventually, Anakin finishes his face and moves back down to his neck. Swipes it along the skin carefully, though not lightly, in quick strokes. This is the closest he's been to the pulse, to the blood pumping beneath. You're the only one I trust enough—sings out in his head—to put a knife to my throat. It's easy, how it pours out of Obi-Wan, and Anakin glows in the Force as it echoes through him. He had pushed his master—could, would push him again, but he still—

"Anakin, you're—you feel different. In the Force, I mean."

He shrugs at this, even feeling its truth. He, they both sparkled from adrenaline out on the battlefield that could carry a lingering brightness, and this is what it should be easiest to chalk up to. But Obi-Wan had become attuned to even the smallest changes in him, knows Anakin maybe better than himself. Has seen him in battle, has seen him in everything.

Anakin did not have vague, fleeting desires, easy to be rid of. If he chose you, you were underneath his skin, buried there by his own hand. You lived in his orbit, the pull of him acute. Loyal to a fault, to people not principles, he either held fast like you might not be there in the morning or grasped at your very life to save it before the sun rose.

Even if this is—not that, it's—Trust pulses between them, Anakin so enamored with such a thing being given to him. Here, on the fringes of the galaxy, dirty and exhausted.

"I'm—thank you, Obi-Wan. For trusting me," he gives back the truth, says it so assuredly that it wraps back around to entreating somehow.

"It's simply a—" but Anakin's face cracks and vulnerability seeps through. "Well. I suppose anything with a blade is not simply. You're welcome, Anakin."

The air is drawn for just a moment, both of them understanding the weight of the words, the weight they're always carrying without having to say anything, until it slacks as a grin breaks out on Anakin's face. It's buoyant, and it makes Obi-Wan smile in return. Anakin was mercurial, no doubt, and the storm of him could drench you to bone. But so too could he share his light, when the nebula burst and blinded.

"There," he states with one last flourish of his wrist against the skin. "You are once again a kempt gentleman."

"Not so sure any of us are gentlemen out here. I'm going to remember this system for awhile, if the mud under my fingernails is anything to go by."

Anakin makes no move to leave Obi-Wan's lap, still poised above him, not quite letting all his weight down. He looks into his eyes intently, searching. They are close, close enough that Anakin could lean forward to rest his forehead against Obi-Wan's. He still has a grip around his neck, casual even if firm. Obi-Wan's hands had come to rest on his thighs, and now the pads of his fingers push into fabric and flesh. He sets the straight razor down beside them, wandering back to Obi-Wan's jaw. Runs his fingers along his handiwork, tips his chin up to examine his neck.

"Just checking that I didn't miss any spots."

"Oh, is that what you're—"

He swoops in and presses his lips to Obi-Wan's throat, against the newly-sensitive skin. Obi-Wan hisses, and Anakin feels the tremor under his mouth. The fingers on his thighs clench harder, and finally he rests fully upon Obi-Wan, pushes him to his back, like he has before.

(Anakin had tugged at the thread of that itch for as long as it took—and it took awhile, but the war had made the pull easier. Weary and worn out, resigned to being only capable of death and destruction, Obi-Wan had finally allowed himself something else. Reminded himself that there was more his body could do, could feel. Strung tight as a violin, he at last loosened, the sounds of him ringing out so instinctual in their music.)

He nips down the elegant curve of his neck, tonguing over the bites in a push-pull of pressure change that he knows Obi-Wan likes. Hands slide from his thighs around him and up his back for his trouble. They dig into the thin fabric of his last tunic and scratch, how they know Anakin likes. A moan escapes him, a flat palm against his back pushes him up to meet Obi-Wan's mouth, who swallows it. Hips roll into each other, and when they touch, electricity races through them both, passing desire back and forth so it compounds and multiplies—the Force bright and straining.

Trust—that is what thrums between them, what Anakin chases along his skin. Mouth dragging down his chest, stopping to take a nipple in his teeth here, lingering to bite at a hip there, as he moves himself to settle between Obi-Wan's legs. Pries them open further with a knowing, filthy smile that makes Obi-Wan's breath catch, stutter when he lowers his head again to mouth at his cock over fabric. His back arches and his hips want to push against him, want more, so Anakin pulls away and lets them shift futilely against nothing but air.

"Anakin."

It is crisp and instructing, with just a hint of desperation below the surface. Anakin responds to both its parts. He peels away the last barrier between their skin and takes, at first, just the head of his cock into his mouth. With only a few sweeps of his tongue, Obi-Wan's fully hard. He makes an amusing sound around him, that ripples up Obi-Wan's spine and tumbles out his mouth as a sigh. Anakin pulls off to lick messily up the shaft, gets it wet enough to slide easily back into his mouth, deeper. A rhythm, in-out, in-out, deeper still. Obi-Wan's head rolls back, as his hips again pitch up, and he cannot stop the rapid little noises that come out of him, cannot stop his fingers twisting into Anakin's hair.

Pulls off him again so he can murmur you know you can—with a long lick up him—Master. Obi-Wan groans and tugs, too tight, too hard. Anakin melts in his hand, lets Obi-Wan guide him back to the head of his cock, push him down onto it, lips falling open so naturally. They're shiny with spit and his cock slips back into Anakin's mouth with a wet glide. Slips deep enough that Anakin gags, has to all but unhinge his jaw to accommodate him, but then he's got all of it in his mouth, a tight heat that moves up-down the length of him with Obi-Wan's pushes and pulls.

Anakin's grinding himself into the floor, needing more friction than he can find. Trust—beats in him again, travels through him like his very blood. Thinks about the blade shining against Obi-Wan's throat, choking on his cock steadily, losing control of his mouth so it can only hang open and take it. Feels it—soft and plastic, a smeared haze that will veil over him—beginning to build up-up-up as he sucks Obi-Wan off. His whole being is pliant in Obi-Wan's grip, and he eventually can think of nothing but all the places their skin meets, feel nothing but Obi-Wan clinging to him, needing him, using him. He lets it all gather and pool at the base of him, wring him out until the excess drips away. There's only his mouth, and the slick slide of Obi-Wan fucking it. There's only his pulse pounding at his edges, keeping time. There's only stardust spiraling out behind his eyes, only strange dark matter unspooling into his veins, only vast emptiness, only wondrous light.

He looks up at him through hooded lids, eyes glazed over though his familiar intensity still flickers. When he holds Obi-Wan's gaze rapt, his cock hits the back of his throat. He gives a strangled gasp, lets Obi-Wan jerk and thrust deep into his mouth. A whine sounds out, not from the Obi-Wan that will leave this tent tomorrow morning—no, only this one, here where only Anakin hears it. He draws himself up the length then impales himself back down. The wet slurp blares out, and Anakin drools out the sides of his mouth, down his cock. A heady melody of skin and sweat and salt, of submitting. Indecent, mouth swollen and red and obscene, and Obi-Wan chances even just a look at him. It's too much. His eyes have closed again, concentrated so keenly on this, he's—Ah, Obi-Wan realizes—feeling it.

(Anakin had fought it, the need for the haze, the need for this way to find it, the need, the need, until he couldn't. He'd shoved the desire down deep, ignored it, almost convinced himself that he didn't—born a slave, a Jedi and a soldier—how could you ever—but he did.

When he'd finally exhumed the buried need, something in him had come alive, bloomed sharp and wild. Tensed and sparked under Obi-Wan's broad hand around his neck, yielding to the press of each finger and laid bare in his hold. For all the times he'd been locked inside himself, he could at last fling the doors open and run, a lit match on the kindling of him, broken and catching fire. Rush into the beckoning void, float adrift in the need. Destroyed, consumed, and spit back out someone new.)

Immersed deeply, purely in sensation, in every minute twitch. Soaked in the infinitesimal, engulfed in the universe of this moment. Tears run down his face, dazed and pouring over. His hips, his cock rut against whatever they can, while his mouth is so full. Obi-Wan's hand still threaded through his hair pulls again, and Anakin whimpers beneath him, a stifled thing that lodges itself low in Obi-Wan's gut and diffuses throughout him.

"Anakin, I—I want to—" he cannot quite finish, but he casts out his feelings. In return, there's the vaguest do you trust me, answers immediately, automatically, yes—

Anakin practically screams in the Force, everything about him bright and overwhelming. He doesn't pull off him, if anything, pushes himself down further. Sucks, chokes—the air is thick and Obi-Wan's hips stutter and arch as he comes. Anakin's nails are digging into his thighs, he's trying to swallow, sloppy, his mouth still shines with spit and come when he finally lifts his head. He shifts just a bit, and Obi-Wan can feel how hard he is against his leg. Rolls his hips, grinds desperate, grasping at Obi-Wan's side. Whispers into his skin I'm so close, pleads I'm so close, please—can I—Obi-Wan responds yes, commands come for me—and with one last harsh throaty sound, he comes, sweaty, writhing in the aftershocks.

Obi-Wan props himself up onto his elbow, looks down at Anakin, trying to even out his breath, steady himself back in his body. He pulls the hand, even still twined in Anakin's hair, through the strands and brings it to rest against his cheek, cup his jaw. Tips his chin up to meet his eyes. They're lingeringly glassy, and Anakin curls into the touch. The heat that had permeated the Force begins to cool. His thumb strokes skin softly.

"You are, perhaps, far too skilled at that."

"Well I have to be a master at something, Master."

An involuntary shiver runs up Obi-Wan at the word, which Anakin knew full well it would. He coughs behind a closed mouth, only a half-hearted chiding all things considered. Anakin laughs, a flutter across his hip, something that starts small until it can't help but bubble out of him. It's expansive and effusive, fills the tent to the brim and spills from Obi-Wan's mouth too.

His emotions could reverberate off the walls, embed themselves in the Force and crackle along the wires that bound Anakin to the people he loved. Too loud, too big, maybe even for someone who wasn't a Jedi, but even so—Obi-Wan allows it, as he has come to allow much of what Anakin simply is. What years couldn't change, what years had set in him so firmly. It was wrong, Obi-Wan knew, like their relationship had become, though it did not always feel that way—certainly not at the moment, Anakin, even still a mess, able to drift off easily beneath his hands. Maybe a day would come when Obi-Wan would stop it, stop him, implore him to have control over himself and cut the thread of them—something he knew both he should do and would wound their connection, likely leave it only a scar. And that connection—it was easier to ignore the Code than that, a blazing, weighty thing he trusted in, depended on, for more than just this, for matters of life and death.

Here, on the fringes of the galaxy, dirty and exhausted.