Chapter Text
The chancellor’s secretary types every letter of every word with deliberate intent, methodical and precise. Each time her finger hits a key, a loud clunk reverberates around the quiet front office.
Anakin is sure that the secretary tampered with it somehow to make it so loud. He has no idea as to why a person would do such a thing, but she had to have.
Clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk.
Anakin hadn’t slept well last night. He’s been nursing the beginnings of a headache since dawn, and it’s only gotten worse as the day drags on. All of his reserves of kindness and patience were spent before he even stepped foot into the Senate building, and the chancellor’s secretary is currently dancing on his last nerve with each kriffing clunk of her type-writer.
The air around him—the Force—warps and shivers. Anakin’s headache blooms into itself properly, and he gives into the urge to rub at his temples with one hand. Of all the days for the Chancellor to request his presence for afternoon lunch, it had to be this one, when all Anakin actually wants to do is find a dark area and lie down.
The Force trembles again, reverbrating around the small waiting room with such intensity that Anakin straightens, skin crawling. It’s like the Force is screaming at him in a language he doesn’t speak.
He’s on edge, but he doesn’t know why.
Stars, he doesn’t need a fancy lunch with the chancellor. He needs a dark room to take cover in and Force-suppression cuffs locked on his wrists so he can focus on something other than nebulous, useless warnings.
And he needs this blasted headache to subside, or someone’s going to—
“Excuse me,” a soft voice breaks the stillness of the room, and—miracle upon miracles—makes the clunk of the type-writer halt. “Is this the Chancellor’s office?”
The Force rings one final time and then goes quiet, like it’s disappeared all together.
“Yes,” the secretary tells the newcomer. “But he’s currently in a meeting. Do you have an appointment?”
Anakin closes his eyes, letting his head fall back against the wall behind him. It’s not a posture befitting that of a Senator of his stature or age, but he’s weary down to his bones.
“I don’t, no,” the soft voice says, something like amusement curling around the syllables. There’s the rustle of fabric, and then the quiet sound of fingers tapping against the edge of the secretary’s desk. “Actually, I believe my grandfather is currently meeting with him. I was asked to join at the end to introduce myself. What benefit the Chancellor will receive by meeting a failed Jedi and boy from Serenno, I hardly know, but my grandfather is an ambitious man. At least when it comes to his grandson.” The speaker lets out a small laugh, more breath than sound. It makes the secretary giggle.
Anakin hadn’t known she was capable of making that sound. She hasn't so much as smiled at Anakin before, and he sees her several times a week.
He rolls his head to the side and opens his eyes a crack to look at the newcomer.
Ah.
Well, that explains the giggle.
There’s a boy leaning against the secretary’s desk, head tilted as he dimples down at her. He’s tucked a piece of his auburn hair behind his ear so that his profile is unobstructed to Anakin’s gaze, which is really quite thoughtful of him. More of the strands of his hair cascade to his shoulder, shining red-gold in the light of the waiting room. His eyes are a pale blue, his skin pale as well. His nose is narrow and proud, but it’s his smile that’s most mesmerizing. That, or maybe the twinkling of gold jewelry wrapped through his hair, dangling from his ear and neck. Gold powder is smeared across his eyelids and over his cheeks, making him glimmer even in the poor lighting of the Chancellor's office.
Whatever he may say, the boy does not look like just a boy from Serenno. And he certainly looks as far from a Jedi as it’s possible to be.
Poor girl, Anakin thinks with a slight smirk of his own as he lets his eyes fall closed again. If he were ten years younger and the boy was staring at him like that, he thinks he’d be similarly affected.
“May I have your name?” the secretary asks. “I’ll comm the Chancellor.”
“Oh, thank you,” the boy murmurs. “That would be quite superb.”
Superb. Honestly.
“I am Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he adds. “My grandfather is Count Dooku.”
“Yavi,” the secretary gives her own name, even though Kenobi had not asked. She sounds incredibly winded.
“Pleasure,” Kenobi tells her; there’s a slight shift in his tone, its volume, like he’s turned his head. The Force trembles. “I’ll wait here. Do me a favor though: if they sound like they’re still talking about tax exemptions and resource management for Serenno, spare me, please. I’d rather sit out here with this lovely company than in there listening to two old men arguing about water law.”
The secretary giggles once more and resumes typing, this time probably typing out the comm number of the Chancellor.
Soft steps signal that Kenobi has taken his leave of the secretary.
Fabric whispers as the air shifts slightly and the boy settles into the seat next to him.
Clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk.
“I was including you when I spoke of the lovely company in this room, sir,” the boy says softly, just for him.
“Do you always flirt with everyone you meet?” he asks, stubborn enough to keep still and not engage the boy, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed. He is tired. His head hurts.
Though—the headache has lessened, actually now that he’s thinking about it. It feels like half the pressure around his mind has disappeared.
The boy breathes out a laugh and shifts. “Senator, do you always assume everyone is flirting with you?”
“You called me lovely,” Anakin points out rather roughly. Lovely. He can’t think of the last time anyone has called him that.
He is a man of forty years with more wrinkles on his face than laughter lines. He is a senator that is feared in the Chambers. His temper and incredibly high standards ensure that he cannot keep an assistant for more than a few months at a time before he grows sick of them or vice versa.
Lovely.
“You are incredibly bright in the Force,” Kenobi says. “It is almost blinding, but…pleasant to brush against.”
As if to illustrate his point in the physical plane, his sleeve whispers against the bare skin of Anakin’s bicep as he moves slightly.
“It is lovely,” the boy finishes. A moment passes, and Anakin can hear the smile in his voice. “And besides, I never flirt with someone whose eyes I cannot see.”
Anakin turns his head to look incredulously at Kenobi, realizing a beat too late that in doing so, he has opened his eyes and engaged the boy.
Up close, Kenobi’s smile is boyish and disarming and devastating.
“Hello there,” Kenobi says, two deep dimples framing the curve of his lips. “My name is Obi-Wan. I would have yours, Senator.”
Anakin’s mouth is opening, tongue moving almost against his will. Certainly not with his conscious permission. “Anakin Skywalker.”
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan repeats. “It’s lovely to meet you.” He holds out his hand, pale and elegant, slightly limp as if he requires Anakin’s help in holding it up.
Anakin is going to reply, mouth already open to once more protest the adjective even as he reaches out to take his hand, but the sound of a door sliding open interrupts him.
In the blink of an eye, Kenobi is on his feet, hands falling behind his back and pale blue sleeves engulfing that delicate skin. Anakin turns to look as well and rises to his feet at the sight of the Chancellor.
He is a good head taller than Kenobi, he notices and then dismisses the thought just as quickly as it occurred to him.
“Chancellor,” Kenobi murmurs respectfully, dropping into a deep bow. Anakin cannot remember the last time he bowed before the Chancellor, but then Palpatine has been his friend and mentor figure since he first donned the robes of a Senatorial aide. They are past empty shows of respect.
“This must be your grandson, Count Dooku,” Palpatine says, approaching Kenobi and holding out the back of his hand in a pantomime of the same gesture Kenobi had just shown Anakin.
Kenobi brushes his lips against the back of his hand before straightening.
“Well-trained,” Palpatine remarks, an odd, appraising tone note coloring his tone. “I understand there is no blood relation between you two?”
“No, Chancellor,” a white-haired man replies, slipping out from the Chancellor’s shadow to stand at the midway point between Kenobi and Palpatine. He looks stern, Anakin thinks. His lips have turned down into a frown naturally, accentuating the wrinkles around his mouth. His eyes move over Kenobi in a way Anakin can only call disinterested, detached. “Adopted.”
“What generosity,” Palpatine murmurs, tucking his hands into the balloonish sleeves of his robes. “How many years have you been living with the Count, Obi-Wan?”
“Ten years, sir,” Kenobi replies easily. “He adopted me when I was thirteen.”
“Ah,” Palpatine says. His voice is silky. “If I am not mistaken, thirteen is the age that Jedi Initiates are asked to leave the Temple if no Jedi Master has requested to take them as their padawan, yes?”
The muscles in Obi-Wan’s back tense and shift. “That’s correct, sir. I was a new arrival on Bandomeer, set to work with the Agricorps when Count Dooku found me.”
“If only he had expressed interest in training you sooner, when he was a Jedi Master and you an Initiate!” Palpatine remarks, tilting his head.
“You must be mistaken, sir,” Obi-Wan replies, sounding rather sheepish, as if he cannot believe his own gall at correcting the Chancellor of the Republic. “Count Dooku is not training me at all. Our relationship could not be further from that of a Jedi Master and Padawan.”
Palpatine’s eyes flash with something unreadable. “But of course,” he finally murmurs. “I was only referring to your...Courtly education. I apologize if my wording…pressed against a bruise.”
The Count clears his throat with a smile. It looks like it pains him. “No harm has come to myself or my grandson. There is no need for an apology, Chancellor.”
Anakin shifts and thinks of interrupting. The conversation is awkward, simmering with some emotion that Anakin cannot place. His headache is back in full-force, and he is quite sure he does not need to be here for this.
“Your generosity knows no bounds, Count. If I may inquire, how long will you be on Coruscant during this visit?” The Chancellor asks, turning his head to look at the Count.
“That depends on my grandson, your Excellency,” Dooku tilts his head, and Obi-Wan shifts and then smiles.
“I requested this trip, Chancellor,” Obi-Wan says. “It has been a decade since I last stepped foot on Coruscant, and I found that I missed it. Though I feel as if I have been rather rudely confronted by the reality that I may never have known the real Coruscant—after all, I lived in the Jedi Temple. Markedly different from the rest of the planet, I fear.”
“Ah,” the Chancellor replies. “So this is a trip fueled by nostalgia. How excellent.”
“Obi-Wan has his sights set on politics,” Dooku adds with a slight roll of his eyes. “Do not let him fool you. We’ve rented an apartment half a sector away for the season. He is hoping to find a temporary placement within the Senate.”
“Oh?” The Chancellor says. “Quite ambitious for one so young! Do you have your eye on any senator specifically? I believe both from Serenno have aides already.”
“I am Stewjoni by birth,” Obi-Wan says. “Their coalition in the Senate is powerful, and I believe Senator Aaerul is in want of an aide. If I cannot entice him into taking me, I will look elsewhere.”
For the first time since the Chancellor arrived, Obi-Wan tilts his head up in Anakin’s direction, flashing his blue eyes and deep dimples.
“Perhaps Senator Skywalker would be willing to take me,” he purrs.
Anakin is, of course, aghast at the boy’s brazenness. “Unfortunately, I am not currently in need of an aide. Perhaps Senator Bail Organa, from Alderaan.”
Kenobi’s smile slips seamlessly into a small pout. “That is unfortunate,” he agrees with a sigh.
Palpatine’s eyes narrow as he glances between them. “Yes, I believe Senator Aaerul would be a worthwhile placement, young one. And I wish you all the best. Now—”
“Senator,” Obi-Wan says, eyes focused on Anakin’s face with such intensity that Anakin must look back at him. “How long have you lived on Coruscant?”
Anakin blinks. “Twenty-five years.”
“Would you say you know the planet well?” The boy’s head tilts, his hair a waterfall of golden autumn as it spills over against his shoulder.
“Yes, I suppose,” Anakin replies, tearing his eyes away from his hair to focus on his face.
“I am sure you are a busy man, Senator, but I would be quite obliged if you would accompany me around the sector. If you had the time. Perhaps on a day without a Senate assembly?”
Anakin can feel his eyebrows raise. “I would be terrible company.”
“We have been over this,” Obi-Wan’s eyes become slits with the force of his smile. “I think you are lovely.”
“I—” Anakin swallows and tucks his hands behind his back. His eyes dart to look over at the two older men, both of whom are watching carefully with great interest. He does not want to engage this fae of a boy, unsure where that could lead, where it would end.
But the idea of rejecting him once again in front of his grandfather and the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic makes Anakin feel rather…uncomfortable. He is not a heartless man.
He sighs, barely even noticing that his headache has faded to almost nothing. Perhaps it’s that release from pain that makes him give in. Perhaps he is just weak to a pair of earnest blue eyes.
“I…will see if there is time in my schedule,” he says, and Obi-Wan beams at him.
Lovely, the word echoes in his mind, though it is surely not Anakin who has thought it…probably.
“Thank you, Senator,” he murmurs, hands clasping in front of his chest. “I will give you my comm sequence, you’ll let me know when you have time?”
“Yes,” Anakin agrees grudgingly. “That is what I’ve said.” He slips his comm from his tunics and presents it to Kenobi. The boy takes it with another smile and enters his comm sequence with a flourish.
“Brilliant,” Obi-Wan says, passing it back. “I look forward to it.”
“Obi-Wan, we should take our leave,” Dooku says before Anakin can respond. “I believe the senator is overdue for lunch with the Chancellor.”
“Thank you,” Anakin dips his head automatically. He has, after all, been waiting for over an hour.
“Oh, apologies, my dear boy,” the Chancellor says, sounding startled. He lays a hand over Anakin’s arm. Anakin barely contains the urge to raise his eyebrows. The Chancellor has not called him dear boy since he turned thirty. “I did not even notice the time. We were too engaged upon tax exemptions on Serenno.”
Without conscious thought, Anakin’s eyes dart to Obi-Wan. The boy gives him a wink and a small smirk. Unbidden and to his utmost surprise, Anakin feels a responding smile twitch at the corner of his own lips.
“Chancellor, it was a pleasure to meet you,” the boy bows once more to Palpatine before he moves to the side, allowing Dooku to brush past him. “Anakin, I look forward to your comm.”
The gall of the boy. It’s almost impressive how brazen he is.
The pair take their leave, Obi-Wan throwing one more smile over his shoulder at Anakin, as if he cannot help himself.
The waiting room is still and quiet for several long moments in their absence. Anakin feels sort of like he’s been bludgeoned over the head.
“Senator, please,” Palpatine recovers first, a thoughtful look on his face as he gestures for Anakin to follow him into his office. “I feel there is much to discuss.”
Anakin cannot help himself from looking back at the door Kenobi has just left through, though logically he knows that no one will be there to catch his glance.
The only thing that greets him is the dour expression on Palpatine’s secretary’s face and the sound of her fingers on the keyboard as she resumes typing.
Clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk.
Four days after meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi for the first time, Anakin has an unexpected and incredibly unfortunate break in his schedule.
“Are you sure about pulling down the committee meeting?” He asks, verging on desperate. His eyes look through the tinny figure of his fellow senator and out through the transparisteel windows of his office. Coruscant moves around him, early morning settling gently into early afternoon. “It was supposed to be four hours.”
“Yes,” Senator Amidala says very slowly. “And everything on the agenda can be discussed via written missive. We do not need to physically meet to discuss things that can wait until after the coming assembly—”
“But I think I’ve found a solution!” Anakin interrupts, no longer bordering desperation but rather falling directly into near-begging.
“A solution,” Senator Amidala repeats. “To…galactic slavery in the Outer Rim?”
Anakin’s eyebrows furrow and his lips purse. “Yes.”
“Oh, by all means then,” the tiny comm figure crosses her arms, tilting her head to look disbelievingly at Anakin. “Please, tell me.”
Fierfek.
“Kill…them. All.”
“Kill them all,” Senator Amidala repeats. “Kill the slavers?”
“...yes,” Anakin says and then winces, knowing what’s to come.
Senator Amidala puts her hands on her hips as she tries to stare him down through the poor connection of the holo comm. “Alright,” Padmé decides. “What is going on, Anakin? You haven’t suggested such a policy since your first year on Coruscant when you actually started learning about how politics worked.”
Anakin scowls and looks away, jaw clenching and then unclenching. Most days, he still doesn’t think his younger self was wrong to advocate for the death of all slave owners, but Padmé is right: he knows better now than to say that. That’s how he and Padmé have managed to build and maintain their friendship over the years, even though their policies and values couldn’t look more starkly different on paper: Anakin swallows his words, and Padmé pretends she did not see him move as though to speak.
“Nothing is going on, Senator,” Anakin replies with a mutter, rubbing a hand over his eyes and then down his face. If she is calling him by his first name then it means that the official part of their business has concluded. Reaching up, he unpins his hair and tosses the ceremonial hair-piece to the side. It makes a heavy clunk as it lands on his desk. “I was simply looking forward to that meeting.”
“Banthashit,” Padmé surmises immediately. Anakin scowls. He hates when she— “Ani, ten years ago if someone told you that one of your four hour long meetings was cancelled, you’d be halfway down to the lower levels by now.”
“Maybe I’ve grown up,” Anakin replies and then winces again.
“If only the growing up had happened six months ago,” Padmé’s tone turns sharp. “Perhaps before the holonews were flooded with pictures of you pressing some podracer bunny up against an illegal pod we both know you’ve been flying for decades, handsstars know where—”
Anakin remembers exactly where his hands were, but he thinks probably that information is better kept between him, the stars, the woman he’d slept with that night, and all of the users of the Holonet who had thought to raise the brightness on those photos.
“You almost sound jealous,” Anakin’s mouth moves without his permission, and he can’t stop the wince that follows because karking stars, he shouldn’t have said that.
Padmé laughs, which is almost more offensive than anything else she could have said. “Of your image in the media? No, I wouldn’t say so, actually. Just tell me what is wrong, Anakin. You do not have to pretend to be so alone.”
Anakin feels his eyebrows furrow and a sneer grow at the edge of his mouth. Pretend? Rich, coming from Padmé Amidala, who grew up surrounded by people her age, other girls who adored her, a large family who loved her as well. Anakin did not have to pretend to be alone. He simply is and has been for more of his life than he hasn’t.
But…if Padmé is so insistent on being helpful, then…maybe she could help him solve his sudden and dire problem.
“There’s this boy,” Anakin tells her before he can think better of it.
Any malcontent seems to wash from her face at this confession, and her mouth falls open in surprise. “There’s a boy?” Her eyebrows fly down into a suspicious look. “How young is this boy?”
“Scandalously so,” Anakin admits, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Anakin—”
“I know, I do,” he cuts her off quickly. “But he is a visiting dignitary, the grandson of a Count who wants to get into politics—”
“Anakin, a boy saying he wants to get into politics does not mean he is interested in getting into the beds of politicians—”
“That isn’t what’s happened, Padmé, come on. He just—he requested that I escort him around Coruscant for an afternoon, and I couldn’t say no, his grandfather and the Chancellor were right there, alright, I’m not a monster. But I am uninterested in pursuing the boy—the scandal that being seen alone with him would bring me….It's a headache best avoided, the whole affair. Not that I'm saying there would be an affair."
Padmé’s eyes narrow. “What does this have to do with our committee’s meeting.”
“I told him that I would comm him should I have free time to escort him, Padmé! I am honor-bound to see that vow to its conclusion.”
The tiny figure of his friend raises her eyebrows. “Genuinely, you are not,” she says, but her words do not soothe the part of him that insists he must follow through on his word—the part of him that knows he will be comm'ing Kenobi within minutes of ending his call with Padmé.
“I am,” he insists, resting his hands on the desk in front of him. Perhaps not as gently or as naturally as he would like, he adds, “but if you were to escort me escorting him, there would be no scandal for the holonews to write about.”
Padmé blinks. “I’m sorry?”
“Think about it,” Anakin says, tone edging back into desperation. “If you accompany me, he will assume we are together and any interest he may harbor for me outside his ambitions in the Senate will dwindle.”
Without Anakin having to say anything one way or another, which is the best scenario Anakin’s thought of yet.
Though to be fair, he does not know if Kenobi has any interest in him in that way. After all, he had also flirted with Palpatine’s secretary.
But, a tiny, self-satisfied voice points out in the back of his mind, he did not ask her to show him around Coruscant, did he?
He shakes his head quickly to dislodge the thought. What he has to be self-satisifed about, he doesn’t know. Kenobi’s appreciation of him, perhaps the boy’s infatuation with him, will only cause him problems if he does not act to rid him of it.
“You won’t be in any meetings, will you?” he adds innocently, and when Padmé does not immediately scold him for the cheek, he knows he’s won.
After all, they have been good friends for years now, and she stepped up to guide and mentor him when he first arrived on Coruscant to be Senator of Tatooine. Their names are tied together on the holonews—any scandal that Senator Skywalker invites reflects badly on Senator Amidala.
“Alright,” she relents. “I will join you two.” The edge of her mouth curls up into a smile. “It will be an excellent jaunt down memory lane, won’t it, Ani? I have not had to act as your shield against suitors since we were in our twenties.”
“Yes, well. Who knew you would have to reprise the role?”
“Certainly not me,” Padmé tells him archly. “After all, from what I’ve seen, you’ve been handling your suitors just fine.”
Kenobi is, of course, free. His comm message comes through perhaps half a minute after Anakin had sent him an inquiry as to his schedule for the rest of the day, given that Anakin’s own had opened up rather unexpectedly.
Yes, Kenobi types. I will be free at 1700. Perhaps we can meet at the North Entrance of the Senate Sector Gardens? I have always thought they looked beautiful from the outside.
Anakin wrinkles his nose and wonders if he can beg off because of allergies. The Senate Sector Gardens are, in Anakin’s mind, one of the most offensive displays of wealth and greed on Coruscant. They are open most of the calendar year, regardless of the manufactured temperature of the planet. This is because each of the plants grow inside a near invisible force field, one that carefully monitors the temperature and humidity and soil texture of its plant. It’s Coruscanti artifice at its most beautiful.
But, he remembers, a walk through the gardens has a set beginning and end point: a destination where he can separate from Kenobi, duty fulfilled and honor intact.
Of course, Anakin replies. I will meet you there at 1700.
Kenobi does not respond, and Anakin does not think anything of it until he sees him several hours later, waiting quite docilely with his hands behind his back as he appears to study the entry requirements of the gardens.
He must not have responded to Anakin’s comm because he must have thrown his own down and spent the next five hours getting ready.
Stars.
The curse is apt, at least, as upon his approach, he sees that the boy has placed strategic flecks of silver glitter on every one of his freckles, and the boy has many cascading down his shoulders and back, which is bare to Anakin’s eyes. A silver chain rests loosely against the dip of his lower back. There are freckles made into stars here, too, at the base of his spine, Anakin’s eyes tell his brain, as if this is necessary information to know.
Kenobi turns around, as if waiting for him to get closer. His smile is bright, a flash of white teeth framed by deep dimples. The neck of his tunic stretches almost up to his chin, but his shoulders are bare, the edges of his clavicles visible before the dark blue fabric stretches up his neck.
He has woven silvery chunks of metal into the fall of his hair, and they hit the light each time he moves his head even slightly.
Anakin is quite upset to realize that his memory of the boy does not quite do him justice. His eyes are paler, his hair a crisper strawberry blonde. He’d somehow forgotten the beauty marks on his face, a faint one on his forehead and the other on his cheek. What a great disservice Anakin had done him by forgetting these marks.
“Hello, Senator,” Kenobi says, stepping forward and offering up his hand. Anakin would be a fool to take it. He would be a fool to scorn him. He takes his hand and brushes a kiss over his knuckles, lips catching on the cool bands of metal that frame his knuckles. Rings, each with intricate patterns and bright jewels set into them. “You look lovely.”
Anakin does not, of course, having worn the same dark clothes he wore to the Senate today.
“I think the dark tones suit you,” Kenobi adds, hand coming to rest on the large wine-red collar of Anakin’s outer tunic. “It makes you look powerful.”
“I thought you said I looked lovely,” Anakin replies, taking an unnecessary yet completely rational step closer to the boy. His hand is still extended between them, laying almost on his chest. It looks rather delicate—pale and willowy against the darkness of Anakin’s robes.
Obi-Wan has painted his eyelids a glittering silver, a color just a few shades lighter than his eyes. It’s…enthralling, especially when the boy looks up at him from beneath his pale eyelashes. “Do you not believe that something can be both lovely and powerful at the same time, Senator?”
Anakin has the unignorable and quite worrying feeling that he is looking at one such thing now. The boy’s hand is still on his chest. There are very good reasons why this cannot continue, and Anakin is quite sure he recalls them all.
“Powerful things are not lovely,” he murmurs. “Not by their nature. But lovely things…” Kenobi cocks his head as Anakin trails off. A piece of his hair falls out of its delicate arrangement and rests against his cheek. Anakin watches his hand reach out and grasp the strand as if he was not in control of his body. He carefully tucks it behind Kenobi’s ear, only just realizing that the boy has draped his ear with a dangling, sparkling silver chain that wraps along the shell, threads through the lobe and hangs down almost to his shoulder. Kenobi shivers at the touch of his finger. The reaction makes Anakin’s mouth dry. “Lovely things are always powerful, one way or another.”
When their eyes meet once more, Kenobi’s seem to have darkened considerably. A faint flush has bloomed across his cheeks.
“Anakin!” A voice cuts through the charged moment, and Anakin steps back from the boy automatically, as if he’s been caught red-handed. He hasn’t been caught at all.
Obi-Wan’s face shutters at the interruption, though his eyes remain fixed on Anakin’s face, like he expects Anakin to get rid of the intruder and return his attention to Obi-Wan alone.
Unfortunately for him, Anakin has invited this intruder.
“Padmé,” he says, turning from the boy completely to face her. He even holds out his arm for her to loop hers through, thinking that maybe such a gesture is overkill until he catches sight of Kenobi’s sour expression and the way his eyes are focussed with laser-like intensity on where Anakin’s arm is covered by Padmé’s hand. “You look wonderful.”
Padmé had dressed in a soft pink outfit, like the sky just as dawn breaks. With a wide golden headband and her hair loosely braided, she did look wonderful.
And yet Anakin couldn’t stop thinking that she paled in comparison to Kenobi.
“Thank you,” Padmé replies gracefully, smiling up at him the same way she did when he was twenty and she twenty-five. It makes her look girlish and soft around the edges, and Anakin can barely stop himself from snorting. He knows her too well to fall for such an act after all these years.
But Obi-Wan Kenobi does not.
“Sorry,” the boy says, not sounding very sorry at all, “who are you?”
Padmé’s smile turns a hair more genuine as she turns to look at Kenobi. “My name is Padmé Amidala, young one. Ani said you were interested in learning more about Coruscanti politics? I am one of the senators of Naboo.”
Kenobi scowls. “I’m twenty-three,” he says, no sign of the temptress angel anywhere in his tone or face. He ignores the last part of Padmé’s question, running his hand over and behind his ear instead—perhaps subconsciously copying Anakin’s last gesture.
“When you’re our age, young one, everyone thirty years and below looks young,” Padmé replies, waving her hand through the air with a slight smile.
“Your own failure to age with grace should hardly color your perception of the faces of the many who are younger than you, my lady,” Obi-Wan says rather scathingly. “Such a mindset is indicative of an underdeveloped and immature worldview, one I am surprised to hear come from a senator.”
His eyes land once more on Anakin’s arm, and his lips soften from a scowl into something more closely resembling a pout.
For a man who insists on being treated like a fully-fledged adult, he certainly knows how to look rather young and indubitably pathetic.
Anakin sighs inwardly and offers his other arm to Obi-Wan. The boy’s face lightens considerably as he accepts it, and Anakin feels suddenly infused with a strange sense of warmth, almost like he can feel the boy’s pleasure wrapping around his mind.
Maybe he can—after all, the boy was trained in the Force, up to a certain point at least. That sort of control and power isn’t so quickly forgotten, despite how many years it’s been since he received a proper education. After all, Anakin had had several lessons in the Force when he was a teenager, once it was clear that even though he was too old to be trained as a Jedi, his connection with the Force was not fading and in fact only growing more feral and out of control.
Instead of simply locking their arms together as Padmé had, the boy curls his hand to rest on top of the length of his arm, bare fingers touching his bare wrist.
The scamp, Anakin cannot help but think. He keeps his face resolutely straight forward as he leads them both into the gardens, ignoring whatever look Padmé is shooting him.
What was he supposed to do? The little harlot was pouting up at him like he’d broken his heart and left him for dead simply because he’d given Padmé attentions he hadn’t given Kenobi. And Anakin isn’t a monster.
“Shall we?” He says, not giving Padmé time to speak or Obi-Wan time to protest.
“I hadn’t realized you would invite another,” Obi-Wan says finally, after several minutes of tense silence.
Anakin makes sure to shrug artlessly, carelessly. “I remembered you told the Chancellor that you were interested in immersing yourself in Coruscanti politics over this next season. He advised me to bring along another Senator so that you could begin to make connections.”
Obi-Wan falters for half a moment, head snapping to look at Anakin’s face. “He did?” he asks, sounding rather strange. Perhaps slightly disconcerted that the Chancellor had opinions and advice on his life.
Palpatine hadn’t said anything to that effect of course. All he’d said about the Count’s grandson after they’d left the office had been a short and rather mysterious: “Be careful with that one, my dear boy.”
Anakin hadn’t liked the idea—or rather, the reality—that even the Chancellor of the Force-damned Republic not only knew of Anakin’s…appetites, but also felt the need to warn him away from them.
“What did he say?” Kenobi insists, hand tightening on his wrist, like he’s considering jerking Anakin to a stand-still.
“Nothing of note,” Anakin reassures him. “Only that it may do me well to...help you find your way.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes narrow, as if silently calling the words banthashit in his mind. He’d be right, of course, but he doesn’t need to know that.
A moment later, his face smooths out, as if a change has overcome him. His eyes brighten and widen, and his grip softens significantly. “And would you, Senator?”
“Uh,” Anakin says, distracted by the appearance of a moue between the boy’s eyebrows. “Would I what?”
“Guide me,” Obi-Wan replies, finally pulling Anakin to a stop in the middle of the garden path. “You are in need of an aide, I checked the Senate accountant files myself. I know it wouldn’t pay much,” his nose wrinkles at the thought, and a part of Anakin has to stop himself from snorting. Most honest jobs would pay less than being a Count’s grandson. “But I would be such a hard worker. Diligent and passionate.”
“Uh,” Anakin says, unsure if the emphasis he’s hearing on certain words really exists or if his dirty mind is tricking him into all the ways Obi-Wan Kenobi could be a hard, diligent, passionate worker. For him.
“Do you have a resumé of past work experience?” Padmé asks with interest from Anakin’s other side. He almost startles, having forgotten she was there at all, despite her holding his arm.
Obi-Wan’s face scowls as he remembers her presence as well. “I may,” he says shortly.
“I would be interested in taking a look,” Padmé says with all the grace of a queen. “At the very least I could perhaps offer some insight into ways to improve it. At best, I myself am looking for another aide—”
“I was under the impression that all of your staff must bear a resemblance to you in order to work in your office,” Obi-Wan lifts his nose in the air and turns away from both Anakin and Padmé. “I would sooner die than bear that burden.”
Anakin chokes slightly on thin air and then on the ghost of a chuckle when he realizes what Obi-Wan’s just said. Padmé lets out a vaguely offended noise, and Anakin pats her on the arm. “There, there,” he says in an undertone as he watches Obi-Wan stalk further up the path from them. The loose chain against his lower back swings with each step, and Anakin finds himself halfway to entranced just watching it move.
“He is incredibly….” Padmé trails off with a shake of her head.
“Beautiful, I know it,” Anakin agrees, running his eyes up to linger on the boy’s rather muscular back.
“I was going to say spoiled,” Padmé replies with an arch of her eyebrow. “Conceited, in fact. Catty, not to mention outright rude. ”
“There, there,” Anakin repeats, patting her arm once more. “You know you’re beautiful as well. The opinions of a twenty-three year old hardly matter.”
Padmé arches one fine eyebrow, but before she can say in return, Obi-Wan is calling Anakin’s name from further onward.
Anakin goes, only realizing he has let go of Padmé when he arrives by Obi-Wan’s side unencumbered. “Yes?”
“Look,” Obi-Wan murmurs, eyes fixed on a fully-bloomed light blue rose, growing out of harsh, dry desert soil. “They say it is from Jakku.”
Anakin hums, looking between Obi-Wan and the rose. “Do you have—some sort of connection with Jakku?”
“I’ve never visited a desert planet,” Obi-Wan tells him lightly, fingers hovering over the forcefield protecting the plant. “Tatooine is one though, yes?”
Anakin grunts his agreement.
“Do you believe something as beautiful as this could grow on Tatooine?”
“This isn’t even growing on Jakku,” Anakin points out rather dismissively. “Beautiful, fragile things do not last long on desert worlds.”
Obi-Wan does not reply for long moments, studying the rose. “Stewjon is a desert world,” he finally murmurs, allowing his hand to drop once more to its side. “I was shocked when I found out…I have no memories of the planet. The Jedi took me when I was quite young, you see. Just a babe. But when Dooku found me, he took me there.”
“I thought you said—”
“I requested that we leave before the ship even broke atmo,” Obi-Wan admits quietly. “I knew just from circling the planet that it was not my home. It could never be my home.” He looks once more at the rose before turning to study Anakin, expression unreadable. A moment later, his face breaks into a small smile. “I’m far too pale and fair for a desert planet, I would burn to a crisp within a week.”
“When I’ve visited Tatooinee, I’ve worn light protective cloth and escaped without a single burn,” Padmé remarks, having silently come to stand beside Anakin’s side. “You do not have to renounce your home just because you feel as if you are ill-suited for it.”
Whatever vulnerable light that had been shining in Obi-Wan’s eyes shutter once more at the interruption. “I like to think that the planet is ill-suited for me, Senator, not the other way around.”
“Does Serenno suit you more?” Anakin asks curiously, allowing Obi-Wan to take his arm once more.
Obi-Wan grins, a small, artificial thing. “Does it look as if it suits me, Senator?”
Anakin swallows rather uncomfortably. It does, of course. Obi-Wan Kenobi looks resplendent and wonderful and angelic and lovely. He knows better than to say this.
As a group, they move further into the gardens. After perhaps an hour, Obi-Wan stops frowning whenever Padmé speaks, settling into a chilly sort of acceptance rather than throwing out outright insults.
Over a particularly rough patch of cobblestoned path, Padmé trips, and Anakin moves to catch her automatically.
Whatever progress Obi-Wan and Padmé have made withers and dies the moment Obi-Wan turns from examining a hanging vine to see Anakin’s eyes wrapped securely around her waist, her hands braced on his chest.
Thirty minutes of what Anakin can only describe as fistless fighting later, Padmé decides to take her leave. They’ve barely started through the section of the gardens dedicated to the Mid-Rim planets, but Padmé will not be convinced to stay.
“Ani, if he says one rude thing about Naboo’s willa flowers, we may come to physical blows,” she tells him in an undertone as Obi-Wan moves ahead of them, carefully examining each plaque beneath each plant—looking, no doubt, for the ones from Naboo, for no other reason than to release barbed and vitriolic comments in Padmé's direction.
“Padmé, come on, you know the risks, if I—”
“It occurred to me several hours ago that you never said that you did not want to sleep with him,” Padmé interrupts, eyebrow raised. “Just that you were uninterested in pursuing him because of the threat of scandal.”
Anakin flushes. “I am uninterested in sleeping with him.”
Now, both of Padmé’s eyebrows raise. “You would lie to me so blatantly after I just spent the last two hours putting my life on the line as a favor for you?”
“You’ve hardly put your life on the line—”
“Either tell him you will not fuck him or fuck him somewhere private, where no holo cameras can find you,” Padmé says in a very no-nonsense tone.
“Pads—”
“And then after, refer him to my office,” she adds, looking down the path at the boy. “He’s quite—lethal. If you do not want him as your aide, I’ll take him as mine.”
Anakin blinks. “What?” he says. “He hates you.”
“Then be a dear and fuck it out of him,” Padmé replies archly. “He could be useful if all that hate were directed a different way.”
“I don’t want to fuck him,” Anakin protests far too loudly. His eyes dart to Obi-Wan, but the boy seems distracted by a venus fly-trap from Dereak.
Padmé looks pitying and unamused. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Ani. Please don’t tell me the details.”
Anakin scowls and opens his mouth to argue once more. Before he can, she turns and leaves in a tidal wave of soft pink.
He hates it when she does that.
“Oh,” Obi-Wan says when Anakin comes to stand next to him. “Did your friend leave?”
The brat.
Anakin purses his lips. “She had somewhere to be,” he lies.
“How unfortunate,” Obi-Wan lies in return, and Anakin’s lips twitch up into a slight smile before he schools his expression.
“We should hurry through the rest,” he says, “as it is almost dark.”
“Yes, of course,” Obi-Wan says, entirely docile once more like a loth-kitten allowing its fur to be smoothed flat now that the danger has left.
Anakin shakes his head. If the boy is serious about getting into politics, the first thing he should learn is how to be a better actor—or at least, how to better control his emotions.
“I was thinking,” Obi-Wan tells him thirty minutes later, twilight now fully taking over the Coruscanti upper levels. “This was quite fun and very educational.”
“Yes,” Anakin agrees, only slightly reluctantly, but he cannot pretend that he did not have fun. Obi-Wan’s company has been surprisingly pleasant, the boy surprisingly endearing.
“Thank you for acting as my escort,” Obi-Wan adds, gently touching the back of Anakin’s hand.
“You’re welcome,” he replies rather roughly. The twilight throws fascinating shadows over the lines of Obi-Wan’s face. He shines in the pale light, like something truly ethereal.
“But this is not really Coruscant,” Obi-Wan says, blinking up at Anakin’s face. “It is too…artificial. It reminds me of the Jedi Temple gardens: carefully tended to and carefully curated. Incredibly fake.”
Anakin had thought the same thing when Obi-Wan first suggested the location. “I feel the same way,” he says, feeling as if he is walking into a trap.
“I would like to see the lower levels,” the boy says. It sounds like a demand, and it must to the boy as well, because he adds a nice little please at the end.
It doesn’t do much to soften the blow of the words. “The lower levels?”
Obi-Wan nods, looking quite serious. “We could get something to eat down there, you could show me what Coruscant is truly like! Please, Senator, this is the only home I have—I want to see it all now that I have returned!”
“You can’t go down to the Lower Levels dressed like that,” Anakin shakes his head and rubs his free hand over his mouth as he looks at the boy. “Stars, you’d be torn to shreds.”
“You’d protect me,” Obi-Wan says confidently. Too confidently. Anakin resents the assumption the boy has made, similar to the one Padmé had made: that he wants this boy. That he will go out of his way for him.
“No,” he says, shaking Kenobi’s hands off him. “I will not. The Senate meets for assembly tomorrow, and—”
“Please,” Obi-Wan interrupts, voice shaking. “I would like to see them, and you make me feel safe, Senator—”
“And I said no, Kenobi,” Anakin snaps, and Obi-Wan recoils as if he has been slapped. "It must be far past your bedtime, young one."
The rejection hangs in the air between them for several still moments before Obi-Wan throws back his shoulders and tosses his hair back. “Fine,” the boy sniffs, somehow looking cooly down his nose at him, despite their height difference.
He spins on his foot and stalks away from him.
“Where are you going?” Anakin snaps, moving forward to keep up with the boy without consciously deciding to follow him. “It is late and dark—I must ensure you get back to your apartments—”
“I’m going down to the lower levels,” Obi-Wan declares, halting in his path to glare at Anakin. The garden lights have flickered on as the night fully descends. The golden lights of the floating orb fixtures dance across Obi-Wan’s face and make his eyes glow slightly as well. “Without you if I must.”
“Obi-Wan,” Anakin starts, but Obi-Wan turns his cheek away from him.
“Must I?” he demands, blue-gold eyes finding Anakin’s and fixing him in place. “Must I go alone, Senator?”