Work Text:
An explosion thundered to Anakin’s right—the unusual kind, likely a laser punching straight through a reactor core to unleash a wave of superheated light. Even with his Jedi reflexes flaring a split-second warning, allowing him to throw up a shield of dust and debris to protect his lagging squadron, the sheer heat forced a fresh sweat from his skin. It mingled with the adrenaline already boiling in his veins.
War was good for nothing, yet one could hardly deny its efficiency in forging a facade of battle instinct—a lethality unmatched by any other training. Tragic as it was, war acted as a steady, grinding lathe, slowly turning every soldier into a machine.
Anakin fought like one now.
But he didn’t quite think like one yet. While his body fell into a familiar, rhythmic violence—cutting, killing, destroying—his mind remained anchored to a single, burning certainty. It was a fire Anakin understood he was never meant to fully comprehend; it was a feeling meant only to be endured.
It was love, obviously. A sentiment stronger than durasteel, hotter than the glare of Tatooine’s twin suns, and truer than the ways of the Force the Jedi followed. It was also "wrong," according to every lesson the Order had ever ground into him.
In the heart of the fray, while his body operated on the autopilot of muscle memory, Anakin’s mind thrummed with that forbidden heat. He didn't care if his soul turned to stardust; the war was undoing him, yes, but the dealings of his own heart were doing the real damage.
Nothing could stop him now. He was driven by a singular urge: reach Obi-Wan.
He’d hated their plan from the moment Obi-Wan had relayed exactly what he expected Anakin not to do—which, in hindsight, was almost everything. Anakin loathed any strategy that didn't involve him standing back-to-back with his former Master, but this one was particularly egregious. How did Obi-Wan maintain such a serene, straight face while voicing such outrageous ideas?
The plan was a farce: Obi-Wan would enter "negotiations" alone, intentionally allowing himself to be captured as a distraction while the 212th set their trap. That left Anakin as a mere contingency—a backup in case the plan fell through, otherwise relegated to catching fleeting Separatists from the far side of the canyon.
Naturally, Anakin had told the man exactly what he thought of the idea... and naturally, he had fallen victim to Obi-Wan’s silver-tongued logic. His Master had dismantled Anakin’s counter-proposals one by one, mostly because they all involved:
- Blowing up the base;
- Blowing up the canyon; or
- Blowing up both.
Staring at the flickering image of his Master stroking that auburn beard—a transmission made glitchy by the turbulence of hyperspace—Anakin had wanted nothing more than to seize those slouched shoulders. They were dented downward by exhaustion and the crushing weight of command, and all Anakin wanted to do was to shake the man. He wanted to shake him until his vision blurred, then lean in and kiss him, refusing to let go until they were both parched for air.
Clawing his way forward now, lightsaber a spinning blur of blue to deflect the incoming hail of blaster fire, Anakin could barely endure the memory of Obi-Wan’s stupid plans. He could still hear that stupid mouth voicing them aloud, followed by that low, careful warning—“Anakin”—the moment he’d dared to reach out and do The Thing.
They had discussed this.
It was unacceptable.
Nobody could know.
It shouldn’t even be possible.
And yet, it was.
Their bond had always been sturdier than the typical Master-Padawan tether, though they’d spent years disregarding the sheer intensity of their connection. Through Anakin’s childhood and his years as a problematic youth, they had ignored the pull. It was Anakin, after all. Of course literally everything would be dialed to that Skywalker standard of intensity.
The real challenge, however, arose after his Knighting. Instead of fraying, their link only deepened, growing stronger—and stranger.
What they had once dismissed as a mere peculiarity of Anakin’s midichlorian count had bloomed the moment they were given space to breathe, and subsequently, the space to be apart. Because Anakin was absolutely, fundamentally, not ready to be separated from Obi-Wan.
At first, it manifested as shared thoughts, bleeding senses and synchronized dreams where they could speak freely—realms where touch felt tangible and the forbidden became permissible under the guise of fantasy. Precisely because they believed it wasn't real, they both—even Obi-Wan—had let their guards down.
Then, the truth hit them like a sandstorm. Stripped of the privacy of their “imaginary“ encounters, they were left baffled when Anakin first managed to manifest a ghostly presence across several star systems. He had reached through the Force, his hand coming to rest softly on Obi-Wan’s back, his breath a warm, exhausted huff against the man's neck: “I miss you.”
Neither of them was ready for it the first time it came, blurring the edges of what they thought to be mirage distortions of their exhaustion.
Anakin’s hand, even if not fully material, felt very real, his breath very warm and his eyes… so confused and happy when he understood his consciousness just brought him to Obi-Wan, who was similarly baffled but also weirdly comforted by it.
It had become a relentless back-and-forth since then. Anakin allowed himself to feel, finally understanding that his Master had been responding to his affection and love all along, only to be crushed when Obi-Wan smothered the moment with logic. For his part, Obi-Wan remained a contradiction: fascinated in a scholarly way, yet condescending even as a spark of genuine hope flickered in his eyes. The man was a terrible, masterful liar when it came to his feelings, and Anakin loved him for that, too.
All the while, Obi-Wan had tried to impose sense onto the wrongness of it. Yet, despite his frequent threats that it was high time the Council was informed, he had never uttered a single word. He remained as silent as the stars between them.
So for two long years, Anakin—and now, occasionally, Obi-Wan—had been reaching out across the void. Sometimes it was just a hand tangling in hair to offer comfort; other times, it was the ghost of a pair of lips pressed to the frantic pulse point of a wrist.
It was forbidden, wrong, and unacceptable. And still...
Even then, following the gruelling debrief of this latest stupid plan of infiltration, Obi-Wan couldn’t resist but first sigh out of relief when Anakin did The Thing.
As his former Padawan’s hand slid over his cheek to ruffle the graying hair at his temple, Master Kenobi had closed his eyes. For one fleeting, fragile moment, he allowed himself to enjoy the wrongness of it—before, naturally, reassembling his mask and putting an end to the very thing they were never supposed to be doing at all.
It had hurt then, and it hurt still. Yet Anakin pushed on, living for those fleeting moments, fueled by a persistent hope he was certain could sustain them both. But more than the sting of repeated rejection, the true, searing agony stemmed from the bond itself—for it wasn't just affection and comfort they shared.
Moments before, Anakin had been drowning in boredom—a capriciously stubborn mood fueled by his desire to blame Master Kenobi for this idiocy. Forced to stay behind in ambush formation, he’d spent the time petulantly kicking stones into the air with the Force, watching them clatter uselessly down the far side of the curb.
Then, without warning, the world tilted.
Anakin nearly doubled over as a sharp, raking pain sliced through his abdomen. For the last thirty minutes, he had endured Obi-Wan’s trademark nagging anxiety and self-doubt though it had been largely overpowered by a steady confidence—the signal that his Master was still mid-mission, playing the part of the helpless captive while the trap was being sprung.Those familiar echoes usually settled in Anakin’s stomach like a cold stone, but this new sensation was too violent to process.
It wasn't just a feeling; it was a physical rupture.
Seeing their commander buckle, several men from the 501st rushed to his side, their helmets tilting with visible concern. But Anakin couldn't hear their questions. He could only feel the void where Obi-Wan's composure used to be, now filled with a white-hot agony that screamed into the stardust that made the universe. And Anakin couldn’t suppress a muffled groan of his own, a mirror to the one escaping his Master, as his clones started asking whether he needed help.
He did need help. He needed someone to hold him down, because he felt poised to detonate like a supernova, taking the entire quadrant with him. Someone had hurt Obi-Wan.
With their plan gone to Sith hell, Anakin threw himself into the fray.
Only one singular drive remained: Get to Obi-Wan.
As the initial agony subsided into a dull, throbbing ache, Anakin refused to sever the tether. He was determined to endure every hardship alongside his Master, clutching their bond and pulling it closer to his heart. The pain eventually settled into a cold, sizzling sensation—the unmistakable, hollow drain of blood loss. He didn't like it. Not one bit. He moved faster, his mind working overtime as he overwhelmed the enemy with a deadly cocktail of calculated strategy and reckless, berserker momentum.
As he drew closer, a pressure clamped around his heart, making every breath feel like inhaling parched dust. Everything became a blur: droids falling, massive machines crumbling, and the gold-marked figures of the 212th appearing through the smoke. They were victorious, claiming the perimeter in a standard formation, but the ceasefire was a distant noise to Anakin as he ran, the pommel of his lightsaber squeezed so tightly his knuckles turned white and he felt that usual cold pressurised stutter of his mechnohand.
Closer. Closer.
Anakin shoved several 212th clones aside, ignoring Commander Cody’s startled shout as he collapsed to his knees. There he was. The stupid, terrible man was caked in canyon grime, his eyes rimmed with red and his lips a pale, sickly purple. He was clutching his side, smiling through the haze of an adrenaline stim—the phantom sting of the injection had rippled across Anakin’s own skin only minutes prior.
"Obi-Wan," Anakin gasped. He pulled the man into his arms, his grip meticulous as he searched for the angle that would cause the least agony, cross-referencing the physical touch with the feedback screaming through their bond. His lightsaber lay forgotten in the dirt, extinguished and cold, having rolled half a meter away.
"I’m fine," the man whispered, the words a ghost of a breath against Anakin’s temple.
Anakin hated that answer. While it was a familiar, sacrificial lie Obi-Wan told his troops to keep them moving, here, in this moment, it was an insult. A terrible, blatant lie.
Obi-Wan was hurting—shuddering with a level of pain Anakin felt too well. Even as his remaining sanity insisted that immediate medical intervention could do him good, the bond told a darker story. Anakin felt the severity in his own bones; he felt his own skin burning and a hollow, echoing cold settling against his ribs. The blood hadn't fully soaked through the layers of Obi-Wan’s tunics yet, but the wound was deep, because of course ridiculous, self-sacrificing Obi-Wan had discarded half his armor for the sake of his "decoy" persona.
"Idiot," Anakin muttered, pressing his face against a patch of Obi-Wan's salt-rimmed skin. Then, he breathed.
"Stop," Obi-Wan rasped, his voice too weak to carry more than a few inches.
"Shut the kark up," Anakin snapped, refusing to take directions from a man who clearly didn't value his own life. It wasn't exactly breaking news in the galaxy, but it stung nonetheless.
"I’m taking half."
Anakin inhaled again—a rushed, broken sound—pulling the agony toward himself even as Obi-Wan tried to push him back.
"No," Obi-Wan pleaded.
Anakin didn’t listen. He simply took.
He took half the pain, half the raw trauma, and half the cold drain of blood loss. Then, he reached deeper, halving the crushing pressure of command, the exhaustion, and the uncertainty. And finally, he took half of the "I love you"—the radiant, hidden pulse that always thrummed in Obi-Wan’s chest whenever Anakin reached in this far.
It felt only natural. They were already two halves of the same warrior, forged from the same stardust. They had shared that love on too many levels, for too many years, to stop it from spilling over now.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan gasped, finding the strength to pull back as the agonizing strain began to ebb from his body. At least, half of it did.
When he looked into his Padawan’s eyes, he couldn't hide his concern—the same million unspoken warnings he had voiced a thousand times before. You shouldn't do this. He saw the cost of the transfer written across Anakin’s face: the fading of that youthful twinkle and the uncharacteristic, dark hollows beneath his eyes. It was unnatural to take so much, and more unnatural still to give so much back. It was aging his soul, withering his body, but Anakin didn't care. If he had to pour every drop of his own life into Obi-Wan’s veins, he would do it without a second thought.
He would do it for that healthier shade of blue in his Master’s eyes. He would do it to hear the strength return to that voice.
In a galaxy where losing this man was a possibility, Anakin would much rather surrender his own life so that Obi-Wan might live.
The emotion finally surged over the walls of his restraint, shattering them completely. With Obi-Wan’s thoughts seeping directly into his mind, Anakin finally snapped. He seized the man’s shoulders, hauling him close to bridge the final few inches for a kiss.
Before the clones, before their enemies—he didn't care. Anakin would have done it before the entire Jedi Council; he would have done it in front of Palpatine himself just to prove him wrong. Because nothing had ever felt as right as kissing Obi-Wan Kenobi, especially when the man finally opened that aching chest of his—spilling out years of longing and whispered “I love you's”—and kissed him back.
Anakin woke to the scent of coffee and pancakes. There was, quite literally, nothing better to wake him as his body slowly acknowledged the grim reality of a Monday morning. Almost nothing, anyway.
A warm hand against Anakin’s cheek coaxing his head off the pillow, followed by a quiet, teasing voice was an absolute winner in this morning's equation.
“Good morning, sleepyhead. Don't you have stars to look at today, or have you decided to sleep in?”
Anakin almost purred but decided to play hard-to-get, plopping his head back into the pillow with a groan. “The stars are already dead anyway…” he rasped. “No rush there.”
“Is that so? And what about your very alive husband who made you breakfast?”
Anakin received a well-deserved pinch to his cheek, finally prompting him to open his eyes. Laughing, he sought the fleeting touch of that warm hand, guiding it back to its rightful place against his face. The movement toppled the warm body next to him, allowing Anakin to pull him close and squeeze—an embrace he still couldn’t get enough of, even six months after their wedding.
“I’ll take the husband. Every minute of the day. Oh, I even dreamt about you last night,” he whispered against Obi-Wan’s temple. He began a trail of kisses along the man’s jaw, moving over that neatly trimmed beard toward the temple—the spot he knew Obi-Wan loved most. Anakin was all about giving away his favorites for free; he’d do that every minute of the day, too.
“Really?”
Obi-Wan looked gorgeous in the morning. He always did, but nothing compared to this version of him—wrapped in domesticity and comfort that never quite translated to the stiff poise he wore with his suits and lab coats. “And what was I doing in this dream?”
“Mmm... the usual. Being the ridiculous, self-sacrificing, brilliant man I love,” Anakin accentuated each word with another kiss.
“I am not—”
“What? Ridiculous? I bet you measured the jam for my pancakes with those tiny measuring spoons of yours, gram for gram. You know I’d eat it however you served it.”
“Well... there is nothing ridiculous about monitoring glucose spikes in the morning. High-fructose corn syrup can lead to a mid-morning energy crash, you know. And I am not self-sacrificing—”
Anakin laughed, pulling the man tighter against his chest. “Oh no? Then why didn’t you say anything when Quinlan was nominated for the particle collider project? You wanted that lead.”
“Quinlan could use the experience... and—”
“And don't you dare tell me you aren’t brilliant. I love your brain. I like most of your body, obviously, but I have a particular preference for that brain of yours and your co—”
“How do you wake up like this every day, Anakin?” Obi-Wan silenced him with a firm peck to his lips. “Are you just permanently horny?”
“You tell me... you’re the one who married me. Am I?” Anakin couldn't stop the provocative arch of his brow. He knew the answer a bit too well, and it wasn't as if either of them actually minded the way his brain was wired. He leaned in, licking a long, slow line against Obi-Wan’s neck while his hand teased its way past the elastic of his husband's pajama bottoms.
“Insufferable…” Obi-Wan rasped. He made his usual half-serious attempt to pull Anakin’s hand away, only to relent a moment later, allowing Anakin to stroke him to a slow, agonizingly good hardness. “What else... was in this dream?”
Anakin was more than happy to abandon conversation in favor of tangling their bodies together, but this time, he persisted. “So... remember how we watched A New Hope yesterday?”
Obi-Wan hummed—a sound that was half-memory and half-reaction to the pressure on his length—before groaning. “You aren't going to let that go, are you?”
“Well, you do share a name with that handsome silver fox character—”
“Anakin! Stop comparing me to a literal gray-haired old man from a movie. You promised you’d stop yesterday.”
“Okay, okay. Though you know I have a weakness for older men... but only when they go by the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Anakin chuckled, peppering kisses along his husband’s neck. “You know I love that little bit of gray at your temples. I’d love you in any way, shape, or form—you know that too. Doesn’t mean that I am not going to tease you about it.”
“Anakin...”
“My second favorite part of you literally jumped when I said that. Love you so much, my gorgeous old man... oh! There it goes again.”
Anakin slid upward to catch Obi-Wan’s lips in a kiss, catching a glimpse of those blurred, hazy eyes. They were so familiar through the haze of the fantasy of his mind—exactly the ones he’d seen in the dream.
“Don’t tell me... you were dreaming about the actor?” A distinct tang of jealousy sharpened Obi-Wan’s voice.
Anakin hurried to explain, turning the morning into a rollercoaster of fantasy, emotion and touch. He didn't let go of his husband's length, nor did he abandon the idea of flustering the man as Obi-Wan began to rock his hips into the motion. But he told him everything—the surprisingly real pressuring reality of the war, the weight of the armor, the strict laws those Jedi went by according to his brain…and the crushing feelings he’d lived through. It was a lot to process, yet the core concept was uncomplicated. It mirrored their own history: mentor and apprentice, a relationship once complicated by obligations and professional boundaries. That was before Anakin had earned his rank at the observatory, finally securing his own office and the research program for the unmanned satellite everyone now lovingly called Skywalker.
It mirrored their true feelings, too—a love that constantly threatened to overflow.
“In the dream… it was such an amazing feeling, actually. Like I was connected to everything. And most importantly, out of all the things made of the same stardust, I was connected to my Master.”
A sharp gasp escaped Obi-Wan’s throat.
“Even your dreams are horny, Anakin,” Obi-Wan breathed, his head falling back. “Why would your mind conjure such a word?”
“What? Master?” Anakin felt the shift in the air, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Oh... you liked that one, didn't you? You’re so hard. Fuuuck. Love you, Master.”
That served as the perfect final push. Obi-Wan groaned, his body shuddering under the force of his release as he searched blindly for Anakin’s lips—a gift the younger man was more than happy to give.
Ensuring his husband didn't run off to work too early was another blessing Anakin took pride in bestowing now with their early morning shenanigans; he knew they’d both have to shower now, especially if Obi-Wan had any intention of dealing with Anakin’s own lingering, interested length. He liked Master too—perhaps a bit too much.
But while the man crested from the high of it, Anakin simply enjoyed being pulled close to that warm, damp body, he breathed in the scent of him, saving a surplus of that peace for the long day ahead in the lab.
When Obi-Wan’s breathing finally stabilized into a steady rhythm, he spoke up: “I do agree with the dream ‘me,’ though. You do give a little too much of yourself sometimes. Especially to me… You could run out, you know.”
“No way,” Anakin murmured. “I’d give you everything. It was in my vows, if you’ve forgotten. My soul, my heart, my body. I’m incomplete without you.” He repeated the words he had rehearsed so many times before, smiling as he watched the man melt at the confession—just as he had on their wedding day, though thankfully without the tears this time.
“Obi-Wan…” Anakin called after a moment. “Do you.. think we’re together? In some other parallel line?”
“Hmm…”
Anakin almost hurried to clarify that he wasn't looking for a purely scientific answer—though he’d appreciate one of those any other time—but he didn't need to.
Obi-Wan just smiled, pulling him closer. “Of course we are. Didn’t you say we were made of the same stardust?”