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It was the end of a rather uneventful week at the temple. Obi-Wan and Anakin were between missions and aside from the odd meeting, it had been especially quiet. The week had been so mundane that the fact that despite their loose schedules and shared living space, Obi-Wan hadn’t seen very much of Anakin, did not even occur to him until he brought his evening tea and a novel into their common room and found Anakin curled up on the far couch, watching something on the holonet with the sound off. He sat down on the opposite couch, assuming Anakin wouldn’t mind if they went about their individual activities in amiable silence. Obi-Wan began to read, and didn’t notice when Anakin turned off his holoprojector to stare blankly at the carpet.
“How come nobody likes me?”
Anakin meant to speak quietly, but his voice rang loud in the near perfect silence.
Obi-Wan looked at him with confusion. He hesitated, waiting for Anakin to explain. He almost looked like he was about to say more. Obi-Wan sensed a brief inhale, but it caught in his throat and Anakin closed his mouth again. Anakin’s eyes remained cast down, hiding from his former master’s gaze. He looked small.
Obi-Wan closed his book, “What do you mean?”
“Why doesn’t anybody like me?” he said again, quieter but without trepidation.
“Lots of people like you.” Obi-Wan wasn’t surprised at his question. Anakin had always been prone to these kinds of feelings, these waves of anxiety that would break against their Force bond and knock the wind out of Obi-Wan. Anakin had learned to shield his emotions from his master when he was a teenager. Obi-Wan had to admit he was relieved, after the first several years of being attached at the heart to a live wire. Every emotional hiccup was a punch in the chest. At least learning how to reel in Anakin had taught him how to have an expert grip on his own emotions. Now when Anakin breaks, he usually only feels the initial jolt of the onset interrupted by solid stillness. It can be eerie. Obi-Wan respected his padawan’s privacy when it came to their Force bond, but part of him always wished that Anakin would at least tell him what he’s going through, if he didn’t want to let him inside his head. Obi-Wan wouldn’t pry; he needed Anakin to come to him first. And sometimes he did.
“They don’t. And don’t say you like me, like I know you’re going to, just to make me feel better.” There was no bitterness in Anakin’s voice, his words were level and genuine. Obi-Wan could tell he was holding back something that had been spiraling in his mind all day, had rehearsed the words to sound like a person you could take seriously.
“Okay.” Obi-Wan felt the urge to move towards him but was wary of making him feel threatened, and leaned back where he sat instead. “Why do you think so?”
“Because I’m alone. Because when we’re not on a mission or in a meeting no one has any reason to talk to me. Because the council doesn’t trust me. Because everyone else has friends - I mean, almost everyone has known someone else longer than they’ve known me, and they’re just closer and I’m always just, just kind of outside of everyone.” Others would have cut this ranting short, but Obi-Wan knew there was a script in there that needed delivering. There was something beginning to smolder in a building with no fire escapes.
“That must feel terrible.” said Obi-Wan after a moment. “It must feel awful to believe that is what other people actually feel.” He was being delicate, hoping he didn’t sound condescending. “What about your friend, Senator Amidala?” he asked gently. “Don’t you usually visit with her when you have extra time on Coruscant?”
“When Padmé is on Coruscant. She’s off world on a diplomatic mission this week. Between her duties as a Senator and mine as a Jedi, our schedules rarely overlap. And usually she would at least call…” Anakin shrugged weakly, “but sometimes she’s just too busy.”
Something changed in his face, like he was surprised to find himself about to cry, but he simply winced and carried on in the same straightforward tone.
“It isn’t something you can argue with me about. I know that if I asked the council, or the clones or Padmé or Ahsoka if they hated me all of them would tell me they didn’t. Some would even believe they didn’t. But they do.”
“If even they feel that they like you, how could you sense that they don’t?”
“It’s not a sensing thing, it’s in their behaviour. If anyone liked me, they would say something when I feel this way.” This way was a concept Obi-Wan only had a vague idea of. Only flashes of pain, the silhouette of something haunting him since childhood, an insidious phantom that had followed him from Tatooine. Sometimes it seemed like it was killing him, other times it seemed like it was him. All he knew was that Anakin was never truly safe being alone with himself. “They would help me, they would do something. Instead of avoiding me and pretending they don’t know about it. People say they care, believe they care, but don’t ever do anything.”
Obi-Wan slowly rose from the couch and sat down next to Anakin, being careful not to touch him at all. Anakin curled away from him.
“Anakin, I would do something, if I knew. It doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“If you liked me I wouldn’t have had to be the first one to talk about it. You must have sensed what’s been happening to me over the last week, and if you cared you would have done something about it. But you didn’t.” Anakin still didn’t look at him. Obi-Wan’s jaw tightened and he willed his patience to hold strong.
“You do know you slam the door of our bond every time your heart starts to race, don’t you?”
“I know I’m not that good at cutting it off...”
“Well, I take your attempt at cutting it off as a sign that you don’t want to talk about what you’re feeling.” He tried not to seem like he was arguing. He knew Anakin didn’t respond well to logic at the best of times.
Anakin stayed quiet for a few moments. He looked down as he rubbed the hem of his tunic between his fingers.
“You never take it as a warning sign?”
“Anakin, it happens nearly every day.” Obi-Wan did worry, he cared too much not to, but at some point he had accepted that that was just the way Anakin was.
“And you never take it as a warning sign?” Anakin was finally looking at him, a tear beginning to fall down his cheek. Obi-Wan furrowed his brow.
“Are you… testing my affection? Seeing if I can decode your clues?”
“I just wanted to know if you cared. Because I never know. Until everyone around me fails the test and the answer becomes very clear.” There was a bite in Anakin’s voice that wasn’t there before, like crying made him angry the way being angry made him cry.
“We will always fail a test we don’t know we’re taking.” Obi-Wan reasoned.
“But I’ve talked to you about it before! You know what happens to me.” Anakin bit back.
“Yes, and it’s been a long time since you’ve shared something like that with me.” His Master-to-Padawan voice was coming out in response to Anakin’s emerging petulance.
“So you assumed it’s just gone away since then.” He answered flatly, and Obi-Wan thought for a moment.
“I trusted you to come to me when you needed me. And if you didn’t talk to me, you must not have needed me anymore.” Despite this practical approach, the one emotion Obi-Wan often failed to keep on a tight lease was his concern for Anakin. He tried to make himself content with leaving Anakin to process his larger emotions alone, knowing he needs to learn to figure things out on his own, but there remained a twitch of guilt in the back of his head that pleaded for him to let himself be the intrusive, overbearing, overprotective mentor caricature he feared to turn into.
“No. I…I always need you, Master.” Anakin softened and reached out to cover Obi-Wan’s hand with his own. Obi-Wan immediately turned them palm to palm and squeezed their hands together. “It’s not better during those times I don’t talk to you about it. It’s just that it’s the same. Maybe a little worse. It never gets better… if anything I can get numb to it.”
Obi-Wan moved closer and briefly searched Anakin’s bleary blue eyes for permission, receiving pure desperation in response, before wrapping his arms around him and pulling him into his chest. Anakin’s face burrowed into his neck and his hands clutched at his robes. Obi-Wan held him as tightly as he could, trying to still the tremoring.
“I’m sorry, Anakin. For all of it.” For the way Anakin felt, for all that he had to face alone, for never seeming to be what he needed when he needed it.
“It’s not your fault.” He rasped, “It's me. I know that if I were a better Jedi, a better master, a better person…I would be the kind of person people take care of. I would be worthy of it.”
“You are worthy.” Obi-Wan pulled back just enough to hold Anakin’s face in his hands. He looked into his eyes and wiped away the tears streaming down his red cheeks. With nothing else he could say, he brought Anakin’s face close enough to kiss his forehead, his temple, his cheekbone, his jaw. You are worthy, he pressed into their bond. You are so worthy, he kissed all over Anakin’s face until his padawan drew back.
I can’t believe that he sent back, turning his face away. Obi-Wan reached down to find his hands and bring them to his lips, kissing the backs, the knuckles, the inside of the wrists.
“People are just busy sometimes Ani,“ Obi-Wan rarely called him that, saving the nickname for particularly sensitive moments like this, and it made Anakin look back at him. “We’re in the middle of a war. Our lifestyle is not conducive to many personal relationships in general.”
“I know. But it seems like some people are able to make time for each other. Master Plo keeps in touch with Ahsoka, the clones share meals together when they’re not on duty, I know you reach out to Satine…” a flash of tension crossed Obi-Wan’s face, only for a moment. “You haven’t even spoken to me in the past week and we live together.” Anakin stated, the edge of scorn cutting through his despair.
Obi-Wan sighed.
“You were extruding a very heavy “I do not want to talk” energy.”
An intense sincerity grew in Anakin’s eyes as he held his former master’s hands tighter.
“I always want to talk to you.”
Obi-Wan began brushing his thumb over the back of his hand and continued.
“I don’t always know when you need your Master to give you space and when you need your best friend to stay with you. I wish you could let me know, I want you to tell me.”
Anakin thought, nodded, and looked down at their hands.
“I could tell you that…but I don’t want to tell you how to feel about me.” Guilt spread through their bond.
“I want to be what you need, as much as I can be.” Obi-Wan implored, “That’s what I’m here for. As your former master but also as a companion.”
Anakin squeezed his eyes shut against the sting of fresh tears.
“I don’t want to ask you to do that for me.”
“Shh,” his friend tenderly stroked a hand down his hair and settled at the base of his neck. “You’re not asking. I’m just telling you. We’re a team, you know?”
Anakin nodded once, then surged forwards to all but fall into Obi-Wan’s arms again. His friend leaned back on the couch, gathering Anakin to his chest, kissing his forehead and petting his hair, running his hand down his back and settling into a pattern of slow circles. When Anakin’s breathing finally evened out after several minutes, he shifted his head to tuck his face into the other man’s neck, his lips against his steady pulse. Obi-Wan smiled gently.
“You really are my best friend. Even if you weren’t the Chosen One, you’d be the one I choose every time.” Anakin laughed against him and pushed him away playfully, although he remained close. He looked at Obi-Wan like he was an idiot who he loved so much.
“Thank you, Obi-Wan. For everything.”