Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was noon and the cafeteria was full. Masters, Knights, Padawans, Younglings, even the occasional Council member came in and took their meals at the sprawling tables that were lined side by side in the cavernous hall. Bright sunlight streamed through the windows dotting the high vaulted ceilings, illuminating the wide open space where most of the Order gathered to eat three times a day when its members were residing at the Temple. It lit up gleaming stone floors and polished wood tables, it illuminated elaborate mosaics and ancient statues in the deep alcoves lining the walls. Most of all, it played in the hair, fur and scales of the many Jedi who had come to partake in a quiet communal meal.

The Jedi, by nature, were not a rowdy bunch. They were taught from an early age how to mind their manners and not draw attention to themselves, unless it was on purpose for a mission. Even so, the sound of a thousand voices filled up the hall, a low, incessant hum that reminded Obi-Wan of a beehive.

He sat in his usual corner at the end of one of the long wooden tables and quietly ate his food without really tasting it.

The great hall was full to bursting today, what with so many of the Jedi having returned to the main Temple on Coruscant for the Tournament, some eager to participate and find themselves a Master, and others – to observe, and pick a Padawan, to share news and experience. The space around Obi-Wan, however, remained conspicuously empty, as if he were surrounded by a bubble that repelled people from coming any closer to him to the point where his immediate tablemates were huddling against each other, while several seats on either side of him remained free.

Obi-Wan barely noticed it, as used to it as he was by now, and continued mechanically lifting his spoon to his mouth to drink the watery broth in his bowl.

“Oh, look, Morgan, I think I found a place to sit! Come on over!”

The youthful voice voice came behind Obi-Wan’s right shoulder, but he continued eating without looking around.

“Master, is this seat taken?” the youthful voice said next. Obi-Wan quietly slurped his broth without looking up. His lunch break was going to end soon, and did not wish to be late.

“Master?” the voice insisted, and it finally occurred to Obi-Wan it was actually talking to him.

Slowly, he looked around, and then finally looked up, only to realize he was face to face with a young man, younger than Anakin had been when he had been knighted, dark-skinned and with a hair full of tight curls, his short, beaded Padawan braid falling over one shoulder. The boy was smiling brightly down at Obi-Wan, holding a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and a main of dark braised meat and some sort of spiced grain. Anakin, Obi-Wan remembered suddenly, had really liked that main once.

Obi-Wan blinked owlishly at him, not really understanding the question.

“Orin! Psst, come here!” a second voice called from behind the young man, and Orin turned to look at his companion, a male, blue-skinned Pantoran, who was beckoning his friend to come and sit with him several seats away from Obi-Wan, where the previously huddled crowd had apparently finished with their meal.

“But there’s seats here…” Orin said, clearly confused.

Obi-Wan took a better look at him, from his scuffed but clean robes, to the just as scuffed boots in need of replacement, and pegged him as a Padawan from a distant Temple in the Mid Rim, likely here for the Tournament.

“Come on over, Orin! I’ll get in so much trouble if Master found out I let you sit with him!” the Pantoran Padawan hissed, clearly trying to be quiet and in the process informing everyone around them of his opinions, Padawans and Knights alike turning to observe the minor commotion while carefully making sure they didn’t look directly at Obi-Wan. The Pantoran Padawan got out of his seat and hurried to his human companion, grabbing his sleeve and guiding him back to where the rest of their group had settled without a second look at the Jedi Master either.

Obi-Wan focused on his soup again and tried to tune out the rest of the Temple so he could finish and return to his work. His efforts were futile, however, because try as he might, his ears caught a name that had him breaking out in cold sweat.

“Can you believe this? Skywalker got visitation rights!” the Pantoran Padawan exclaimed incredulously.

“Isn’t he still in jail?” Orin mumbled as he ate.

Obi-Wan turned only minutely and observed them from the corner of his eye. Orin and the Pantoran sat huddled together, accompanied by a female Twi’lek Padawan, her dark green skin almost iridescent in the noon rays of the Coruscant’s sun. All three were eating and going through a datapad at the same time, huddled together so they could all read from it.

“No, I think they let out him a year or two ago,” the Twi’lek replied and scrunched her nose in disgust.

“Can you believe he only got ten years for the treason he pulled?” the Pantoran shook his head in disbelief.

“I thought they couldn’t prove treason?” Orin objected, pulling the datapad closer so he could read through the article properly. “He only got convicted for assaulting Master Windu,” he continued, scrolling through the article. “Well. And..and…” he paused again and turned to look at Obi-Wan, who quickly looked back at his half-empty bowl. The food turned to ash in his mouth.

“Still, should they be giving him any access to those kids?” the Twi’lek said. Obi-Wan could picture her scrunching her nose further.

“It says he got supervised visitation twice a month for a few hours a day,” Orin pointed out.

“The Senator must be very angry now,” the Pantoran gossiped. “Those kids don’t even carry his name.”

“If the courts have determined him suitable to be in contact with them, I don’t think we should be judging him quite so harshly,” Orin said, his tone as mild as before.

“Whose side are you on, anyway? That son of a Hutt must have been in on it the whole damn time! He was going to let his Sith sugar daddy kill us all!” the Twi’lek raised her voice. The Padawans and Knights in the surrounding seats were staring openly now, this time their eyes jumping to Obi-Wan as well.

“You don’t know that, Morgan! Nothing else was proven,” Orin insisted as he ate.

“I’m just saying…”

Obi-Wan did not wait to hear the rest. He got up, grabbed his tray and carried it back to the disposal station in the back of the hall, then he quickly made his way out, lifting the hood of his robe and pulling it as low as he could as he crossed the Temple to return to his station. With the War long over and the looming Tournament, the Temple was fuller than ever, and a lone Jedi with his face hidden in the shadows of his hood could cross its halls without drawing any attention to himself.

Once he reached the Archives, Obi-Wan went through a grand double door, took a turn down a spacious corridor, then finally entered through a much smaller side entrance. He had no business in the main halls anyway, with his brethren sitting at the polished tables, sifting through the numerous holobooks withdrawn from the vast colleactions of the Archives and scrolling through datapads to conduct whatever research or study they were focused on.

He made his way into the bowels of the Archives, where only the archivists, librarians and the Council had free access. Passing by multiple gloomy halls lit only by the eerie, flickering blue light of storage servers, Obi-Wan made his way further in. The servers gave way to similarly sized durasteel cabinets, the climate controlled air turning cold and dry to protect the integrity of the ancient, fragile documents printed on flimsy or even paper, that were housed in this part of the Archive. When he finally reached his tiny office with its rickety old desk and cabinets of documents lining the walls, lit by a single desk lamp spraying low yellow light and throwing dark, oily shadows, Obi-Wan’s already foul mood soured even further.

His office, it turned out to his great chagrin, was occupied. The painfully familiar and imposing figure of Mace Windu leaned against Obi-Wan’s rickety desk, his hood down, the man’s stern face lit up by the same yellow desk light, emphasizing every crease and crevice as he waited for his former colleague. The stress of the past decade had not been kind on the Jedi Master.

Obi-Wan came through the sliding down and it closed behind him with a quiet hiss.

“Master Windu,” Obi-Wan said evenly and bowed politely, hands hidden in the voluminous sleeves of his robes. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Kenobi,” Master Windu said and straightened up, nodding to him. “Let us not pretend that you are overjoyed to see me, or that I wish to be down here. I’d rather get straight to the point.”

Obi-Wan took a step to the side and pressed the little old-fashioned switch by the door to turn the light fixture on the ceiling on. The cramped little room was bathed in sterile white light which hurt Obi-Wan’s eyes, but it was better than feeling like he was being interrogated in his own office.

The first thing that caught his eye, however, was not the man somehow looked even older in the brighter light, but the gleam of a dark gray mechno-arm between the folds of his own voluminous sleeves. For all his talk that such mechanised prosthetics took away from the humanity of the user, the head of the Jedi Council had finally conceded to using one.

“Have you spoken with Skywalker lately?” Windu asked, his tone sharper than before. Obi-Wan’s eyes immediately jumped to his face, searching his expression, but the man could give the best sabacc player a run for his money.

Obi-Wan straightened up.

“I haven’t had any contact with Anakin since he was convicted,” he said, his heart clenching at the unwanted memory. “You know this.”

“So you have claimed before,” Windu hummed unimpressed.

“And so it remains,” Obi-Wan insisted and took a step forward, without yet crowding the man against his desk. “Why do you wish to know?”

“The courts recently granted him visitation rights to his children,” the man said mildly.

Obi-Wan didn’t reply, waiting for him to continue. Master Windu stared at him for a long time, clearly expecting a reaction. When he got none, he spoke first.

“Senator Amidala reached out to us, wanting to know whether we had any information about his conduct and whereabouts ever since he was released. According to court records, he’s a model citizen. Fully integrated back into society, and with a job that allows him to maintain a residence, if a modest one, in the upper levels.”

Obi-Wan shook his head.

“I have not heard anything from him since he was convicted. I did not even know he was still on Coruscant," he insisted. "Will that be all, Master Windu?”

Mace Windu’s expression darkened, the branching scar left by Force lightning on his face creasing.

"He did call you once from prison, according to the Temple records.”

Obi-Wan blanched, remembering the late-night call.

He’d been exhausted, barely been able to remove his boots and outer robes, uncharacteristically just dropping them on the floor before he crawled into bed, and yet sleep would not come. Being removed from the council, being excoriated by the press in the months following his former Padawan’s conviction, his own brethren looking at him with suspicion and quiet accusation, his days had been, in a way, more stressful than when he had led clones into battle. He’d tossed and turned that night, his restless mind turning over his last meeting with the Council, the cold expression on Mace Windu’s face when he’d told him of the vote to remove him from his Seat, following the investigation into his conduct as Anakin’s Master.

“We know that you knew, Kenobi, and you chose to look the other way,” he had said, his face still bearing the reddened marks of lightning and falling through multiple layers of reinforced glass that even regular use of bacta could not fully heal. The man had survived only thanks to his incredible and yet desperate use of the Force to cushion his own fall. His right sleeve hung empty. “In the light of Skywalker’s own conduct, you cannot be trusted to remain a member of this Council.”

He had leaned forward then, his dark eyes like two chips of black ice in his head.

“Be grateful that we cannot fully reveal to the public what Palpatine had planned for us , or that Skywalker intended to step aside and let him do it. Perhaps even aid him in it ,” he’d said, then lowered his voice further. ”Considering your complicity in the perversion of justice, the only thing that stands between you and exile, is that you helped Master Yoda put a stop to those plans before they had been realized, and stopped your own Padawan from exterminating us all .”

Obi-Wan had bowed and left.

Questions mounted, of course. The full security recording from the Chancellor’s office might not have been available, only carefully chosen excerpts shown to the public – Anakin slicing off Windu’s arm , the duel between him and Obi-Wan, while Palpatine – Darth Sidious – had been locked in a fight to the death with Master Yoda, carefully molding public opinion so as not to cause panic by revealing how close the Republic had come to buckling. The fact that its Chancellor had orchestrated a war that had taken the lives of billions of citizens, even with the use of Clone troopers, had already been bad enough.

People, however, weren’t idiots. Obi-Wan’s fellow Jedi, even less so. Whispers followed him wherever he went. They were all suspicious. Had Anakin been plotting with Palpatine all along? How aware Obi-Wan had been of these schemes? Had he known about Anakin’s forbidden marriage, or the pregnancy that had followed? Had he chosen to look the other way, or had he just been a naive, incompetent fool?

Most people couldn’t decide which was worse. Neither could Obi-Wan.

He’d tried to take missions that led him away from the Temple and for a long time too, but those always suddenly dried up when he approached the roster clerks, even with their ranks thinned by the war. A little over a year after Anakin’s conviction, it had been made clear to him that he would no longer be given missions and the best he could hope for was a clerical position, out of sight and out of mind in a dusty corner of the Archives. It was either that or leaving the Order altogether.

Obi-Wan had been raised by the Order. It was all he had ever known. When he had been but a youngling, found to be wanting and wanted by no Master, the notion of being sent to the Agricorps alone had filled him with despair. He had had to fight tooth and nail, putting his life on the line, to prove himself worthy to Qui-Gon before the man had even considered making him his Padawan. Obi-Wan had done too much, sacrificed too much, to leave – it was out of the question. A clerical position in the Archives suited him just fine – books were something he enjoyed, and it meant that most of the time he didn’t have to face people who looked at him with a mix of pity, suspicion or resentment.

Even so, these changes left him exhausted, miserable and bitter, not to mention the loneliness pervading every moment of his life following his own downfall. At the time he had not even been able to acknowledge it to himself. His communicator buzzing insistently and drawing him out of his fitful sleep had not been a welcome interruption.

Blearily, he had checked the unknown contact and after a short internal debate, had finally picked up.

“Hello?”

There was a lengthy silence on the other end, interrupted only by labored breathing.

“I do not appreciate pranks,” Obi-Wan had groused, ready to hang up.

“Obi-Wan…”

The familiar voice had awakened him up completely. Obi-Wan had sat up, his own breath caught in his throat, suddenly feeling cold. He had sat there frozen, transfixed by the nerve of him, to dare call after all he had done. After all he had been planning on doing.

“ Master…” Anakin tried again. His voice sound wet. “I need…I…”

Really?!

Rage, the kind he hadn’t known since he killed the Sith on Naboo, flooded him.

“ Don’t you ever call me that again.” he had demanded, the hiss of his own voice barely recognizable to his ears. “You’ve long lost that privilege!”

“ Master, please…” Anakin whined.

“ Actually, do not ever call me again, at all!” he’d snapped at him, the rage turning to ice in his veins. He had hung up.

He didn’t want to see or hear from Anakin ever again. He did not wish to hear his voice. He wanted to forget he had ever had a Padawan, a Padawan for whom his Master had sacrificed his life. A Padawan who Obi-Wan had believed was the Messiah sent by the Living Force itself. What an embarassing joke.

“We only exchanged a few words before I hung up on him,” Obi-Wan said truthfully. He lowered his shields enough for Mace Windu to sense his intentions and his conviction. He had nothing to hide there. “I made sure any future calls from the prison would be blocked, after.”

Mace Windu searched his face. His mental touch slid over Obi-Wan’s thoughts, cold and impersonal. Finally, satisfied, the Master withdrew.

“I know. Should he attempt to contact you again, Kenobi, notify me. Skywalker’s sentence was a joke, and he remains a danger, even with the implant in him. The Senator may be blocking us from testing the children, but I have no doubt they’re Force sensitive too. He should not be having any kind of contact with them, even under supervision.”

Obi-Wan mechanically nodded away, raising his shields once again.

“He’ll slip up sooner or later,” Master Windu continued, a self-satisfied look on his face. ”Then we can give the Senator the ammo she needs to make sure he never gains any access to those younglings.”

Obi-Wan looked at him patiently, waiting for the man to leave. Windu caught the hint and headed to the door. Once there, he looked at Obi-Wan over his shoulder, a small smile playing on his lightning-scarred lips.

“Who knows. Perhaps he’ll even slip up enough for us to put him back where he belongs.”

And with that, he left.

Obi-Wan circled around his desk and sagged into his chair, covering his face with his hands. His fingers were shaking. How naïve he had been, to believe he could ever free himself of the apparition of his treasonous Padawan. He understood Qui-Gon better than ever now – his distrust, his reluctance to take on Obi-Wan after his own experience with a fallen Padawan. And Obi-Wan had, in the end, proven to be just as much of a disappointment. 

Anguish welled up in his throat, gripped his heart with icy fingers and he felt a sob trying to slip between his clenched teeth, his whole body shaking with the effort not to let it. Taking deep breaths, Obi-Wan tried to center himself again. He had spent years trying to exorcise those demons – that grief, the pain, the sense of betrayal, the disappointment. The accursed Attachment he suffered and struggled with.

A disgrace – that was how his fellow Jedi had viewed him for years now, and they had been right, if a single mention of the serpent Obi-Wan had raised in his bosom could have him losing his cool to that degree, even in the privacy of his own office.

With an irate huff, the Jedi Master stood up, his chair screeching on the dirty stone floor as he pushed it back. Sending a quick message to his supervisor that he was taking the rest of the afternoon off, Obi-Wan stalked out of his office, once again hiding his face in his hood. Unbalanced, emotional as he was, he was of no use to anyone. He needed to rid himself of this plague, and he headed to the one place he knew would help, if only temporary.

This trip was much longer, but thankfully the halls and corridors of his home were less occupied now, with noon rush hour over.

Soon, he found his way to the other end of the Temple, going even deeper than he had before. His path took him past familiar holding cells, especially built to contain Force users – one of them had held Anakin, once, even as injured as he had been, that had been the only way to contain him. Making his way even deeper down, Obi-Wan crossed the Room of One Thousand Fountains, with its bubbling water and lush vegetation, to enter a far more austere space – the ancient Meditation Chapel built eons ago when the modern Jedi Temple was first being built on top of the catacombs below.

The Chapel lacked the flair of the rest of the Temple. It had no artwork, and no tapestries, no statues, no lush vegetation or bubbling water. It even lacked modern lighting. All that could be found inside was stone, polished and deformed by the feet of thousands of generations of Jedi who had come in here with the same purpose as Obi-Wan, to release their turbulent emotions in the Force, a single candle in hand provided at the entrance, and one’s own devotion to the teachings of the Order. Even here Obi-Wan was not free of his own bitter legacy – right above the Chapel was situated the very cell that had held his own former Padawan after his fall from grace.

The Jedi Master took his candle and made his way in into the Chapel, his feet following the familiar polished trail, and settled on one of the thin meditation mats, assuming the familiar lotus position and lighting the candle in the holder on the floor. The Chapel was tended to be mostly empty, even in the evening, when most Jedi settled to meditate. The Room of Thousand Fountains was a far more popular choice, together with the numerous meditation gardens and halls the Temple offered to its adherents. In the early afternoon, Obi-Wan was, thankfully, the only occupant.

Gradually relaxing his muscles, he stared at the flickering light of the slow-burning candle and used it as his focus, quietly humming a familiar meditation chant that at this point had become a second nature. Slowly, painstakingly, he began sinking into the so desperately needed meditation trance. The flame of the candle brightened and grew, and grew, and grew, until its light engulfed Obi-Wan, its warmth offering him solace. Obi-Wan was one with the Force, and the Force was with him. Connected at that intimate level, surrounded by Light, it was easy to believe he could find peace by releasing all his rage and pain into the Force and let go of his Attachment. He could believe Anakin’s face, full of rage and pain, would stop haunting him.

There was a price to be paid in exchange for the peace the Force provided – a price most Jedi paid gladly – with the fear, and the pain, and the rage, and the Attachment, went his ego, his sense of self, what little joy he had left, as well as his non-existent dreams. It left him an empty vessel filled with serenity, who wanted nothing, and felt nothing.

When Obi-Wan finally slowly emerged from his trance, it was late, if he could judge by the thin sliver of moonlight streaming through the semi-open old-fashioned hinged door of the Chapel. When he looked around he noticed a second candle in the other end of the round chamber, illuminating the form of an elderly human Jedi with a long but well-maintained white beard and long white hair pulled in a topknot. In the low, flickering light, the man could almost be mistaken for Obi-Wan’s long dead master, had he lived long enough to age.

Obi-Wan sat there and watched the man for a short while, his ever-busy mind quietly cataloguing all the similarities and differences between the old Jedi and Qui-Gon. If he were capable of it in that moment, the whole exercise would have hurt. All Obi-Wan felt now, however, was a distant pang, a little hook pulling at his tired heart. He ignored it.

 Getting back to his feet wasn’t as elegant of an affair as it had been ten years ago, his knees twinging after spending so long folded, and he made a quiet note to visit the gyms more often. Just because he was unlikely to be given a mission ever again didn’t mean he had to let himself go.

When he got out of the Chapel, he checked his communicator and made note of the hour – he had stayed in the Chapel for much longer than he initially intended to, searching for the peace that so eluded him, something he had done often in the past ten years, with little success. His tired feet now slowly took him back to his quarters – the quarters he had been given after he had been stripped of his Council position.

Much like his office in the Archives, the small apartment, consisting of a bedroom, a fresher and a common room with adjoined cooking nook, was chosen to be as far away as possible from the rest of his brethren, at the very end of a row of private quarters given to knights who spent large portions of their time off world. The corridor leading up to it was dark and silent, the living spaces behind each door Obi-Wan passed largely empty of even the lingering Force echo of their occupants.

Obi-Wan made his way down the corridor to his door, unlocked it with his key card and went about his meticulous nightly routine of undressing, folding and putting away his robes before putting his underwear in the laundry and getting in the sonic fresher for a quick clean up before bed. Once he showered, he stood before bathroom sink and cleaned his teeth, glancing at the man that glanced back at him in his mirror – middle-aged, a bit heavier than he had been during the war, with graying beard that needed trimming and even more graying hair, now darkened and slicked back from the water, that framed an aged, tired face with dull blue eyes.

Once done, he made himself a glass of soothing, fragrant tea – one of the few treats he still allowed himself – and drank it without truly tasting it before finally sliding under his blanket. The lights in his bedroom went out at his quiet command and the room sunk into velvety darkness. He lay there and stared at the ceiling, waiting and hoping to nod off, to try and find oblivion, if not peace, in sleep, but sleep would not come. He didn’t toss and didn’t turn, but clung to his blanket and lay there stiffly with his eyes wide open, breath coming in slow, even puffs.

His old bedroom, the one he had occupied before Anakin’s fall, before his expulsion from the Council, had had a large, round window high up on the wall right above his bed, always letting in the light of the City That Never Slept. Back then he had told himself he did not care about such things, but the truth was, once they were taken away, he missed them. The window had made him feel connected to the world at large, a pathetic thought considering his connection to the Force, but it was how he felt nonetheless. This room, barely large enough to hold his bed and a small dresser containing his robes, without even his habitual flimsibook shelves, attached to Spartan quarters shoved in very end of a row of empty apartments, made him feel like he was in a tomb. Sometimes he wondered if anyone would even notice when he died in here, or he’d mummify in his bed long before someone decided the room was better off as a storage and came in to throw out his remains together with the rest of the garbage to free up space.

He was feeling maudlin again.

He had spent the day meditating, seeking to release his anxieties in the Force, and had actually deluded himself into thinking he had succeeded, at least for a short while. Now it was all creeping back in, in this dark, tiny room with stale air, the walls closing in around him, the darkness of it feeling like it was seeping in through his pores and crawling up his spine to fill him like the empty vessel that he was.

…Anakin’s smile was a dazzling thing, his laugher loud and clear, his blue eyes sparkling in sheer delight as he piloted their speeder like a maniac, without a care in the world, weaving his way through the busy Coruscanti traffic, chasing something. Someone. It didn’t matter who, or what, or why, because all Obi-Wan could see was that smile, all he could hear was that laughter, the Force around him bright enough to blind, the sight of that beautiful boy driving him to the kind of distraction that would have him exiled from the Order if they only knew, but they could never know, nor could Anakin, and it was going to remain Obi-Wan’s horrible little secret until the day he died…

Anakin, glaring at him over his shoulder, blue eyes glittering like chips of ice, his generous mouth pressed in a pale, thin line, his very presence in the Force frozen with rage, turning away from Obi-Wan like he never wanted to see him again, a sense of profound betrayal permeating his entire being as Obi-Wan tried to explain himself, to make him see that a Jedi’s duty was above all else, even the feelings of his friends, as if friends was all they were, as if that was why he had done it, that was why he had taken on that mission and faked his own death, and it had not been a desperate attempt to exorcise those forbidden feelings, that taboo want out of himself…

…Vader, snarling, baring his teeth at him as their battle raged on the rooftops above Coruscant, the air thin and cold and damp, the high winds whipping their tabards and chilling them to the bone, the smog and mist covering the city below them in an eery, glowing blanket that hid it from view except for the very tips of the towers around them. It was as if they were the only two people left in the world, them and their duel for the fate of the Jedi as they struggled against each other with all their might, all their conviction, all the bitterness that had accumulated after years of silence and secrets and betrayal…

…Vader, finally fallen at Obi-Wan’s feet, squirming like a worm on a hook, horrified gasps and wails spilling from that plush mouth, now twisted in terror and agony as he tried to hold onto the railing with his remaining prosthetic, the rest of his limbs having tumbled into the abyss below.

His blue eyes focused on Obi-Wan, and for a brief moment, his rage drained away from him, leaving only the familiar boy, looking up at his Master like he had when he had been twelve and had crashed the speeder he had stolen out of the Temple hangar for a joyride, hoping to impress a few other Padawan in an ill-advised, futile attempt to make friends. Instead, all he had achieved had been causing a whole lot of property damage in a highrise belonging to the Banking Clan, one Padawan ending up with a serious concussion and another losing two fingers on his saber-yielding hand. He had looked at Obi-Wan like he was the most powerful being the world, and could fix any mess Anakin got into with a wave of his hand and a few charming words.

“Obi-Wan… Master…,” Anakin cried for him, his grip slipping, his limbless body sliding down the reinforced glass roof, about to plunge in the depths below like the rest of him had. “Master…please, help me!” he had wailed.

Obi-Wan woke up and sat up with a gasp, his sleeping clothes damp with cold sweat and clinging to his skin. He clutched at the blankets, shaking like a leaf, choking on his breath, eyes wet with tears, blood pulsing in his ears. A helpless, enraged sob tore through his clenched teeth and he drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping one arm around them and pressing his hand to his face, instinctively rocking back and forth in a childish attempt to soothe himself. More sobs came, pained and miserable and anguished, finally giving into his grief and his profound sense of failure. He had ruined it all. He had promised Qui-Gon, he had believed in his Master’s vision for the future, and for Anakin, and he had failed him. What a disappointment they had turned out to be, both himself and the worthless creature he had spent his life mentoring. If Obi-Wan had returned but a day late, if Yoda had not been struck by a vital premonition on Kashyyyk, the Order would have perished because one spoiled brat had wanted to have his cake and eat it too, and Obi-Wan had enabled his behaviour for years, blinded by his own accursed Attachment to him.

The Jedi Master shook, gasped, tried to reign himself in, grinding his teeth, forcing himself to control his panicked breathing, to find his center, to find balance, reaching for the Force like a drowning man reached for a floating piece of straw…

It wasn’t helping. It wasn’t helping!

He was still drowning, still trapped in that nightmare, in that loop of want and betrayal and self-loathing. He needed something different, Obi-Wan realized, fingers shaking as he reached for his communicator and flipped it open on the third attempt, going through his contact list, then entering a code to show him a few hidden contacts only he knew how to find.

The communicator rang for a long time.

It was torturous to wait for a response, unsure whether his acquaintance would even pick up. Obi-Wan had not reached out for nearly a year, after all, after telling her that he wouldn’t be needing her services anymore, sanctimoniously convinced of his own ability to find a semblance of self-control on his own, without resorting to debasing himself like a beast in the dirt.

After what seemed like an eternity, however, there was a click and the line went open.

Chapter Text

“Hello, Drexx,” Obi-Wan said, his voice perfectly steady even if his hands were still shaking so hard he needed to clutch the communicator with both of them to avoid dropping it.

“Kenobi,” Drexx drawled in her deep, reverberating contra-alto. She sounded annoyed. Obi-Wan heard a screech, followed by a crunch, then smacking and chewing. He pictured the old Hutt shoveling a struggling little creature in her ever-hungry maw and winced.

“It’s been a while. What happened with ‘I won’t be needing you anymore, Drexx’?” she imitated Obi-Wan’s accent perfectly, still chewing.

The Jedi Master glared at his communicator, some of his shaking subsiding out of sheer annoyance.

“Are you still open for business?” he asked instead, point-blank.

She laughed, low and derisive.

“I am always open, Kenobi. But you’ll need to pay double if you want my services, after the way you behaved last time.”

“Are you trying to rob me blind, Drexx?!” he exclaimed, balking at the sum it would cost him. Then again, he had more than enough money, even demoted as he was, his monthly allowance spent on nothing but a few books.

“I don’t like sanctimonious prats, Kenobi,” she informed him, and he could hear the shrug in her voice. “Well? What will it be?”

“…Fine.”

She laughed.

“I always knew you would come back, Kenobi,” she sighed. There was another terrified screech, then the now familiar crunch, and more smacking. “Your type always does.”

Obi-Wan clutched his communication so hard he could feel the material creaking in his grip.

“Get to the point, Drexx. Do you have a boy?” he asked.

“Ah, so eager, my friend. So eager. You must be real parched, ey?”

“Drexx…” he said, a warning in his voice, his finger on the off button.

“Fine, fine. I do have a boy. Right up your alley. Maybe a little older than a boy now. But still real pretty. A little rough around the edges, a bit banged up from previous use, if you know what I mean, but clean. And he’ll do aaaanythig you want,” she sing-songed. “Absolutely anything, as long as you leave no permanent damage. That is…no permanent damage that will prevent him from working. He’d do anything for some scratch, that one.”

She paused, giggled to herself, then continued.

“I know you like them that way, submissive, without limits,” the Hutt said knowingly. “What do you say?”

Obi-Wan knew he should have ended that call right there and then and went down to the Chapel instead. He didn’t.

“Tell me the address. Half the money upfront, the other half – after I am done with him.”

There was barely a screech this time, the final creature all but resigned to its fate. The crunch, however, was louder than before.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, my friend. Let me give you the coordinates.”

The date Drexx set for Obi-Wan’s illicit little rendezvous turned out to be nearly a week late. He had barely contained his irritation when he asked her why he was paying her double for it then and she had laughed derisively in the comm.

“The boy is popular, Kenobi, and therefore busy,” she’d said. “Take it or leave it. I’ll find someone to fill up his time either way. After the shit you pulled last time, you’ve run out of favours with me, Jedi.”

And that was that.

Obi-Wan had backed down with a sigh, unwilling to risk antagonizing her further. He was in no mood to venture out in search for another discrete purveyor of flesh. Coruscant was full of them, but word travelled. His reputation, within the Order and in public, was shot already, there was no need to add to it.

He spent the next week trying to focus on his work one day at a time, which meant that he spent his mornings holed up at the Archives, cataloguing and digitizing meaningless documents, most of which had little value beyond being a historical curiosity. Jocasta was never going to let him anywhere near the truly important collections, and he had long stopped feeling bitter that he wasn’t trusted even around books anymore, so he focused on quietly obsessing over the appointment ahead. It was something he hadn’t done in a while, but it was something he was intimately familiar with. The truth was, he had picked this habit long before his Padawan’s downfall, introduced to it by his own Master.

Obi-Wan been but a fresh-faced youth when Qui-Gon had brought him to a bustling brothel on the outskirts of one of Corellia’s largest urban centers. Obi-Wan had been scandalized at the time, loudly hissing his objections, spouting scripture and doing his best to avoid looking at the employees at all – in other words, he had behaved like an absolute boor.

Qui-Gon had huffed, smiled patiently, and said:

“Master Yoda says we are all luminous beings, Padawan, and he is right. But we are also creatures of flesh and bone, and we need to satiate the needs of the body to free up energy for the needs of the spirit,” and he had gently beckoned one of the workers, barely older than Obi-Wan himself.

“I won’t force you, Padawan. I’d never force you. But know doing this does not break our Code – it is attachment that it forbids. It does not demand celibacy.”

At the time, Obi-Wan had been a sack of flesh driven by teenaged angst and hormones, much as he had tried to present himself as a serene, cool-headed Jedi. For all his objections, he had followed the prostitute back to their room.

After, he had felt vaguely unclean, and guilty, and ashamed, like he had done something bad, despite his Master’s reassurance. But Qui-Gon had been right about one thing - the physical satiation stemming from the act had brought a sort of peace and serenity, a bone-deep calm, especially once the vague queasiness after passed, that could not be compared to anything else and certainly not meditation, for it sated a hunger that was purely physical. Once that hunger was gone, at least for a time, Obi-Wan had discovered he could focus on better things.

It became a habit he quietly indulged in, off and on, together with Qui-Gon and once he got older - on his own, but the sense that he was doing something wrong never truly left him, even if his Master had rationalized it all away. Were Jedi not supposed to be above such desires of the flesh?

He stopped altogether, for a long time, after a mission that brought him and Anakin, who at the time had been barely old enough and competent enough to go missions with his Master, to another such establishment. Anakin had looked around, his young face scrunching in immense disgust, blue eyes darkening to stormy gray, and he had huddled in his robes, without saying another word for the rest of the day. Any attempts to engage him had been rebuffed, and the boy had then retreated to his room, surly and sullen, only to emerge the next morning almost as surly as the night before.

“They peddle people, Master,” he’d finally said, when Obi-Wan gently prodded him about his reaction, as if that was explanation enough. And Obi-Wan supposed he was right.

Anakin’s irate reaction had squashed any vague plans Obi-Wan had had about following Qui-Gon’s footsteps in mentoring him into adopting the same habit.

“You make me a better man, Anakin,” he’d said to his Padawan one day. At the time, it had even been true.

Following Anakin’s Fall, all that had seemed meaningless to him. Anakin had betrayed every oath he had ever taken, every trust placed in him, every principle he’d been brought up with and purported to believe in, every hope that had been placed on him, every sacrifice made in his name and for his future, to kneel at the feet of a Sith out of greed and cowardice. Obi-Wan had nothing more to learn from him. All that was left was to attempt to gather the pieces of his own life and figure out a way to move on, while continuing to serve the Order as best as he could, even if the Order didn’t even want him there to begin with, in a miserable attempt to make up to Qui-Gon’s memory.

“…We need to satiate the needs of the body to free up energy for the needs of the spirit,” Qui-gon had said back then, and with his spirit in disarray at the mere mention of his former Padawan, Obi-Wan had resorted to following his Master’s teachings, hoping that doing so would help him regain the balance that so eluded him again.

By the time the week passed and the day of his appointment came, Obi-Wan was all but vibrating out of his own skin. He had spent the past few days desperately trying to quiet his mind, searching for ways to either distract or center himself. He spent his days working, and evenings meditating in the Chapel until his knees began to ache. One day, toward the end of that accursed week, he caved and circled back toward the arenas Tournament still continued. All this time he had avoided attending, but loneliness and anxiety and need for company spurred him into going there, despite knowing very well what a poor idea that was.

When he got off the turbo-lift and walked onto the crowded walkway overlooking the arenas where younglings competed, he was struck by a strong sense of deja-vu. Obi-Wan had been one of those younglings once, down there, seeking to show off whatever they had learned at the creche and with his clan, to show he was fast and strong and smart, that he was studious and measured in everything he did, in an eager attempt to impress a Master who’d take him on as a Padawan.

One by one, the Masters observing the younglings competing for their attention had each picked their new Padawan and had walked away from Obi-Wan, whose desperation and anxiety grew and grew. Nobody wanted him. He was too angry, too impulsive to make a good Jedi, and he was going to be discarded into the Agricorps like all the other rejects. Even Qui-Gon had thought so at the time.

He watched other younglings now, struggling with the same anxieties, same trepidations.

Am I good enough to keep? Will they just discard me and send me away from everything I know because I am unworthy?

The irony of it all, he thought bitterly as he watched, feeling eyes on himself too, cool and disapproving - his presence had not gone unnoticed. Once, when he had been a youngling, he had been deemed unworthy of being a pupil. Now, as an adult, he attended the same event, and he was deemed unworthy of being a Master. Qui-Gon had made a poor choice after all.

In the end, Obi-Wan had all but run away from the event, and had returned back to his rooms, unable to withstand the blatant hostility and disapproval of the Jedi attending the event. He was even less welcome there than he was the Council Chamber, it seemed.

So his days went, plagued by memories of his Padawan, of Anakin laughing, of Anakin fighting, blue eyes glittering under silky bronze curls as the young man teased him, the generous mouth twisted in a pleased smile or a severe frown, always so expressive – far too expressive for a Jedi. He spent his nights staring at the ceiling, only nodding off in fitful sleep in the early hours of the morning, haunted by more memories, more nightmares, of Anakin’s eyes flashing golden up on that accursed roof, the pretty mouth twisted in an animalistic snarl, the blows of his lightsaber coming lightning fast and yet each landing with the power of freight ship.

“Master…please, help me!”

He’d wake up covered in cold sweat and he’d curl in on himself in his bed and weep in the dark, wrapped in the protective cocoon of darkness in his room, where no one could see him, nor judge him, dry sobs shaking his body, the years and years of Jedi training having stripped him of the ability to cry the way he truly wanted to.

That day Obi-Wan worked until the end of his shift, then kept going for another hour, deliberately crushing the urge to walk out early and rush to the lower levels the way his whole being screamed at him to do.

He was a Jedi, and even if he had lost all his hopes for the future, the least he could do was to behave like one.

By the time he left the Temple through one of the smaller service entrances, having switched his habitual Jedi robes for far less conspicuous civilian clothes – gray cargo pants, dark boots, a sandy shirt and a dark jacket with its hood covering his graying hair - the sun had already set, the only memory of it being a quickly fading fiery glow on the horizon embellishing Coruscant’s magnificent skyline is spectacular detail. The sky was already dark, featureless, moonless and starless in the bright city lights.

Obi-Wan avoided taking one of the Temple’s speeders, unwilling to have the route of this trip recorded, even if those records were likely to be examined by maintenance droids only and then promptly deleted. He hopped on a train heading down to the lower levels, then on another that transported him even deeper still, then finally got into a cab driven by a shifty-looking togruta who looked at him in his rearview screen when Obi-Wan told him the address, entered said address in his navicomputer, then promptly demanded the money for the trip upfront.

Obi-Wan paid him in cash with a sigh and relaxed in the back seat, watching Coruscant’s changing skyline as they headed even further down. The deeper they went, the darker it got. The entertainment establishments, restaurants, luxury services and colourful holos advertising goods and curiosities from around the entire galaxy gave way to tightly-packed residential neighbourhoods for the people who made this world run and yet lived paychip to paychip, stuffed on top of each other in tiny, featureless domiciles that stretched into the dark depths below.

As they sank deeper still below the residential levels, they found themselves in an industrial district, its vast, automated factories barely lit by signal lights.

The cab, however, went even further down, descending past the industrial levels through yet another vast ventilation shaft, reaching the border separating the factories from the levels below, where the planetary authorities barely set foot. The lights returned, but they were not the glowing, colourful holos advertising luxury goods and the latest performance by a visiting opera star. They were haphazard, and while no less colourful, they spoke to their audience in code, full of symbols and imagery only the locals understood, advertising goods and services most of which were undoubtedly illegal. The Coruscant Underworld was bustling with traffic, its hive-like arcologies built on top of each other, twisting together in a dizzying mix of pipes and cobbled together walkways, a labyrinthian megapolis which, according to some scholars, was the second center of power in the galaxy, to rival the glittering high-rises and institutions on the Surface. This was a city beneath the city, where every criminal syndicate in the galaxy had its own district, tightly packed with foot soldiers, lieutenants, and the representatives of the syndicates themselves, equipped with all the additional infrastructure and personnel necessary to make their daily lives as normal as possible this deep under the surface.

In between the compounds of the syndicates, there were also markets where all manners of illegal goods could be found – from drugs, to weapons, to art and trafficked flesh, to obscure curios and rare animals, jewels, forbidden technologies and assassin droids, to street food and clothes and groceries and children’s toys, all items that were necessary for the everyday life of a Republic citizen, be they a senator or a drug dealer.

Obi-Wan had not come this far down in many years, since before the beginning of the Clone Wars, and his memories of the place were hazy, but it seemed largely unchanged.

It begged the question, however, why Drexx’s boy had chosen to conduct his business this deep below the surface. Prostitution was not illegal on Coruscant, but it was strictly regulated, with brothels and freelancers all subject to licensing and registration laws and paying a hefty amount of taxes.

As the cab finally parked in front of a rundown building with a flickering blue neon sign labelling it a motel without any other name, with steam wafting from vents in the dark alley on its side, Obi-Wan had half a mind to tell the driver to get him back to the surface and forget about the whole thing. He fingered the comm in his pocket, considering whether to call Drexx and give her a piece of his mind about the way she ran her business.

The togruta driver eyed him nervously in his rearview screen.

“You gonna get off or not?” he demanded. “My next client is already pinging me.”

If he returned, Obi-Wan thought, he’d have to start the whole process all over again. He would have to search for a legal but discrete establishment. He would have to kiss his deposit with Drexx goodbye. Most importantly, he’d spend the weeks or even months until he found a suitable substitute barely able to function, haunted by the memories and nightmares of a beautiful, treasonous boy.

Without a word, he tipped the driver and got out of the cab, then headed into the motel.

The lobby, if it could even be called that, was a narrow hall leading to a sturdy panel with blinking lights grafted into the wall, which Obi-Wan quickly realized was actually a receptionist droid.

He approached the thing suspiciously.

“Hello there,” Obi-Wan tried to be nice, despite his misgivings. “I have a room reservation for tonight.”

“Name?” the droid’s voice modulator still used the highly processed, mechanical timbre of what could only be its factory settings.

“Ben. Ben Kenobi.”

The blinky lights blinked faster. A featureless pale keycard suddenly popped from a small slit on the side of the panel.

“Sixth floor. Room 23,” the droid informed him.

A sliding door next to the panel suddenly opened and led him into a narrow corridor with an elevator and a service area door at the end of it. Obi-Wan called the elevator and got in it when it arrived, scrunching his nose in disgust. It was illuminated by a single flickering fixture on the ceiling and reeked of old piss. This whole misadventure seemed like a worse and worse idea with each passing moment.

By the time Obi-Wan left the elevator, hoping its stench would not cling to his clothes and headed down  yet another narrow corridor with peeling paint and dirty carpets, he was once downright questioning his decision to pay the kind of money he had for an experience like this. Qui-Gon most certainly would not have approved.

Then again, Qui-Gon would not have approved of a great many things in his life up to this point. Paying an exorbitant sum of money for a cheap whore would have been at the very bottom of the list of his aggrievements with Obi-Wan’s life choices.

Finally, he found room 23.

The Jedi Master pulled the key card from his pocket – a pale, featureless piece of plasteel. It didn’t even have a name of an establishment on it. He turned it in his hands, eyeing the door and its key panel. There were scratch marks on it. Someone, at some point, had tried disassembling it to hack the door.

Instead of using the card he lifted his hand and knocked.

There was no response.

Obi-Wan knocked again. The silence stretched out.

Then, suddenly steps behind the door, coming closer. It slid open.

Obi-Wan stared.

It was Anakin standing there, staring back at him.

Chapter Text

The first thing that registered in Obi-Wan’s mind was that his former Padawan too had aged. A twenty-three-year-old boy had gone to prison, and that was how Obi-Wan had thought of him during all the long, lonely years that followed – silky bronze curls framing the youthful, unlined face of an angel with a dark heart. He’d spent the trial in a hover chair, courtesy of the devastating injuries dealt by Obi-Wan’s own lightsaber. He’d sat there, listening the prosecution listing his myriad of transgressions, of flouting the rules, questioning how long he had been in Palpatine’s pocket, whether he knew his war “victories” had been but theater arranged by the Sith Lord or he had wantonly participated in the deception that had led to the loss of millions of lives. He’d sat and listened, sometimes furiously denying the accusations, sometimes sullenly ignoring them altogether.

Obi-Wan had attended every single session, had listened to testimony after testimony, from Knights who’d been Padawan together with Anakin, to clones under his command, to Jedi Masters and civilians alike. The prosecution had painted a damning picture of an ambitious, reckless young man who did not care for the consequences of his actions, as long as he got what he wanted.

The defense, undoubtedly hired by an influential senator seeking to minimize the damage to her career, had presented his former Padawan as a deeply idealistic Knight in over his head, manipulated by a much older man Anakin had trusted and looked up to. Perhaps both had been true.

In the end, it had been Obi-Wan who had taken the witness stand, forcing himself to look at Anakin’s youthful face and resentful blue eyes as he recounted, under pressure from the prosecution, all his failures as a Master and as a Jedi. All the times he’d looked the other way. All the times he’d kept Anakin’s secrets. All the times he’d covered for his transgressions.

After the guilty verdict, there had been nothing left to say. The Council and public opinion had both excoriated him and all he had been able to do was take it with his head bowed in shame.

The man that stood before Obi-Wan now was marred by age and, undoubtedly, stress. The bronze curls were cropped shorter and were shot with silver. But it was his face and form that carried the worst marks left by the past twelve years. There were lines now, in the corners of his mouth, and the corners of his eyes, between his eyebrows, his blue eyes dull and empty, with deep, dark shadows underneath.

He wasn’t as tall as Obi-Wan remembered, as if the prosthetics that had been afforded to him were shorter than his own legs had been. He’d lost a significant amount of weight and bulk, the body under the loose, thin dark shirt and pants he wore appearing much thinner than it had been before the war. The prosthetics themselves, only partially concealed by his clothes, were odd things, delicate, pale and glossy like fine china. They were almost human-shaped but stylized, and together with the odd, porcelain-like finish to them, they made Anakin look like a doll. The young man Obi-Wan had known would have worked tirelessly to modify them into something far sturdier and more intimidating.

The older man before him now was but a shadow of the Padawan he had raised, had loved, had trained in all that he had learned from his own Master and all those who came before him. And yet, he was still the most beautiful thing Obi-Wan had ever laid his eyes on, for the marks time had left on him made him appear raw and vulnerable, and the sight of him cut the Jedi Master to the bone.

It took Obi-Wan several long moments to connect the dots and realize why Anakin was standing there, why he had been waiting in that room, already reserved and paid for by the credit Obi-Wan had deposited in Drexx’s account and why he was staring at Obi-Wan in such alarm. And when he did, he felt cold.

This was it. This was all Anakin Skywalker had ever amounted to – a whore turning tricks in the shadiest parts of Coruscant. All that had been sacrificed for him, all the hopes and dreams, the years of Obi-Wan’s life he’d spent teaching and loving, all the religious adoration heaped upon him, Master Qui-Gon’s life, and in the end, it had been for nothing. It had been for less than nothing.

In the wake of that realization came heat, born of pain and grief and indignation, of disgust and disappointment, as raw as they had been the day Anakin had tried to murder him all the while aiding and abetting a Sith planning to murder the rest of Obi-Wan’s family.

Anakin wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was nervously eyeing the corridor behind him, his blue eyes jumping from Obi-Wan’s face to the barely lit space behind him, his expression tight, shoulders drawing up, the prosthetic hand clinging the sliding door frame clearly tightening on it, judging from the sound of ceramics grinding against metal.

“Hello, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, because his Padawan clearly did not intend to speak. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

An unbidden, nervous laugh slipped between Anakin’s clearly clenched teeth and his blue eyes jumped to back Obi-Wan’s face, then quickly slid off to look at a point slighting above his left shoulder.

“Ma…Obi-Wan,” Anakin quickly corrected himself, his expression doing something complicated. “I…I have an appointment, and soon. Now is not a good time.”

Obi-Wan drew himself up. With Anakin’s change in height, they were almost eye to eye.

“I’m your appointment tonight, Anakin,” he said to him.

Anakin’s eyes finally shifted to truly look at him, then widened in even bigger shock than before. The lush mouth dropped open in surprise, revealing several missing and chipped teeth inside, before Anakin quickly snapped it shut.

Obi-Wan reached, placed his splayed palm on Anakin’s chest and pushed him back inside in the motel room, following him in. Anakin went easily, without any resistance, still staring in shock. The door closed shut behind Obi-Wan.

The Jedi Master looked around and took in the surroundings. Unlike the rundown exterior of the motel and its less than stellar common areas, the room was clean, at least, and neat, if minimally furnished. It was spacious, especially for an establishment such as this this, the bare duracrete walls painted an indistinct beige colour, a large double-bed shoved against one of the walls, flanked by a pair of bedside tables with light fixtures on them. Their pale light was the only source of illumination in the room. A large, clearly locked chest sat by the opposite wall. When Obi-Wan briefly looked up that in the middle o the ceiling was installed a sturdy, wicked hook. The only other furnishing was a couch by the wall opposite to the bed, arranged so as to give any possible spectator the best view of the goings on. The floor under Obi-Wan’s boots was smooth, polished tile, clearly installed for ease of cleaning the place up after use. By the bed there was a narrow door, likely leading into a fresher, hopefully as clean as the rest of the room.

Obi-Wan took it all in, and then looked back at Anakin, who still stood there, his surprisingly fragile shoulders – when had he lost so much weight? – drawn up nearly to his ears, silently staring back at Obi-Wan, as if his old Master visiting a prostitute was so out of the norm that he had no idea how to react to it. His expression, apart from his unblinking stare, was completely shuttered. One prosthetic arm was holding the other’s wrist, slowly rubbing back and forth, a clear self-soothing gesture.

The silence stretched, became uncomfortable.

Obi-Wan cocked his head to one side.

“Do the courts know what you do for a living now, Anakin?” he asked, marveling at the nerve of him. “And where you’re doing it? I can’t imagine how they gave you visitation rights if they knew.”

Did Padme know? He couldn’t imagine she did, or Anakin wouldn’t have been allowed to breathe in the children’s general direction, let alone spend time with them.

The mention of his children pulled Anakin out of his stupor. Blue eyes narrowed, full lips pulled back in a snarl. So, the Anakin Skywalker Obi-Wan had once known wasn’t fully gone yet, after all.

“Leave my children out of it!” he hissed. His shoulders were still pulled up. He was leaning forward, reminding Obi-Wan of a cornered, wounded animal about to lash out.

Suddenly the Jedi Master felt terribly tired. He’d already had that fight with Anakin, and he had won. He did not care for a repeat, especially knowing that in their current state, he wouldn’t have to put in much of an effort to win, even out of shape as he was. Still, he extended his senses toward Anakin, feeling for his presence in the Force, diminished as it was now with the implant in him – another part of his sentence at the time. He found his mind as tightly shuttered as his expression had been a moment ago – clearly, he had learned to shield himself like politicians did, despite being largely cut off from the Force. Still, there were cracks in that armor, especially for someone like Obi-Wan, who had always been so talented with the Mind Trick, and thanks to their long torn and battered Bond. There was still a gossamer-thin thread connecting them, much as the Master had grown to revile it over the years. Behind those cracks, Anakin was scared spitless.

Disdain and disgust bubbled in Obi-Wan’s gut. Coward, a mean little voice hissed in his mind. All that loss, to raise a coward.

“Oh, quit with the dramatics, Anakin! I have not the patience for them anymore.” he snapped at him and reached for his jacket, sliding it off his shoulders and folding it neatly before walking to the couch and placing the garment over the back of it. “I couldn’t care less about what you do with your life now. I am here for the services you have apparently been offering for a while now, nothing more.”

Stunned out of his rage and fear, Anakin gaped at him again.

“You can’t be serious!”

“You heard me, Anakin.”

Anakin drew himself up.

“Is that what you do now, Obi-Wan?” Anakin challenged back, spitting his name out like an insult, his expression ugly. “Spending taxpayers’ money on whores?”

I raised this treasonous little snake, the same voice hissed in Obi-Wan’s breast. I will not explain myself to him. Not anymore.

“I honestly couldn’t care less what you of all people think of me, Anakin,” he replied mildly. “I am wholly disinterested in having any kind of conversation with you, really. All that could be said between us, has already been said.”

Something about his words made Anakin recoil a little as if struck. The gossamer thread still connecting them vibrated with the backlash of emotion, but Anakin was too tightly shuttered to understand whether the emotion was hurt or anger.

Obi-Wan took a step forward and Anakin took a step back.

“I came here after paying a considerable sum of money, Anakin…” Obi-Wan started, voice cold and quiet, taking another step forward, forcing Anakin to retreat further. “…expecting to receive the service you happen to offer now.”

He took another step forward and Anakin’s knees hit the back of the bed. Clearly not fully stable on his prosthetics, the younger man swayed and then sat down, looking up at Obi-Wan with huge blue eyes. Obi-Wan leaned forward, looming over him.

“I could leave, of course, if you do not want to do business. But I will have to call Drexx and request a refund, because you did not follow your end of the bargain.”

Obi-Wan half turned toward the front door.

“Should I do that?”

A mechno-arm suddenly gripped his wrist, fingers glass-smooth smooth and surprisingly warm.

“No! No, please! Master…I cannot…I…”

Obi-Wan sharply pulled his hand back, out of Anakin’s grip.

“What will it be, Anakin?”

Anakin was shaking. His expression crumpled. The pretty head bowed low, the bronze and silver curls gleamed halo in the pale light illuminating him from behind.

He has always looked like an angel, Obi-Wan thought, my lovely serpent.

“Please, don’t leave. I’ll…I’ll give you anything you want. However you want it, okay?”

There had been a time in Obi-Wan’s life when fantasies of such words spilling from his Padawan’s lush mouth, then a youth close to his knighting, golden hair cropped short except for a long braid, each bead in it lovingly twined by Obi-Wan’s own fingers, had haunted his dreams, sometimes even his waking hours, much to his great shame.

He was intimately familiar with shame. It accompanied his every breath, every footstep within the hallowed halls of his home, where he was in the constant focus of his peers’ silent, sanctimonious judgement, where his own profound sense of failure kept him up at night, eyes open and staring in the darkness of his room. And yet, in comparison to his own shame, his own failure, Anakin’s were that much greater. Between the two of them, only one of them had committed the sin of treason. It was freeing, in a way, to finally find himself uncaring about propriety when it came to his wayward Padawan, or even Anakin’s well-being. So Obi-Wan let himself feel.

Anakin’s words, his open submission went straight to Obi-Wan’s cock. Lightning shot up his spine, heat pooled low in his belly.

Turning back to his former Padawan, he reached for the younger man, firmly gripping his chin and forcing him to look up. Anakin’s eyes were glittering when he obeyed, but his cheeks remained dry. Obi-Wan rubbed his thumb over the full lips that had so enticed him back then.

I can do anything I want, he thought giddily. He reached with his other hand and greedily ran his fingers through Anakin’s tresses the way he had always wanted to. His hair was as silky as he had imagined it to be, even if the curls were shorter now, like they had been when he first started growing his hair out, all those years ago.

“Since you’re so very insistent on still calling me Master,” Obi-Wan hissed quietly, his own mouth curling into a mean little smile. “…How about we go along with that. We can be a Master and Padawan again, for a little while. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

The lips under his thumb started trembling. Anakin’s blue eyes, up until now focused on Obi-Wan’s face, slid away, staring at the wall past him again. He nodded in his grip.

Obi-Wan smiled and patted his cheek.

“Good boy.”

Anakin swallowed, eyes still firmly on the wall past Obi-Wan’s side.

“May I visit the fresher first? I need to…”

Obi-Wan waved his hand.

“Go ahead,” he said and stepped away from him.

Anakin got on his feet and headed for the door on the side of the bed. His shoulders were hunched and still drawn up, as if he expected to be struck. If he were a dog, Obi-Wan thought, he’d have his tail between his legs.

“Don’t take too long, Padawan. That is not what I am paying you for.”

Even with Anakin’s back to him, Obi-Wan could see the flinch and reveled in it. In the Force, the younger man’s shielding contracted further, the gossamer thread connecting them still dimming to almost nothing. His Padawan nodded, then wordlessly got in the fresher.

Obi-Wan used the time to remove his shirt, folding it and placing it on the couch atop his jacket, but left his pants and boots on. In his mind, Anakin’s presence suddenly went oddly fuzzy and muted, what little he could sense of his turbulent emotions became diluted like a drop of ink in a glass of water. Obi-Wan cocked his head at the fresher door, briefly wondering at the odd change in him, then dismissed it and walked to the bed and sat on the edge of it, facing the door, leaning back on his hands.

A few minutes later the fresher door opened and Anakin walked back in, then paused when he saw Obi-Wan’s half-naked form, staring at him again. His pupils looked huge in the dim light. When he approached Obi-Wan shook his head.

“No, Padawan. Stand there. Undress. I want to see what I paid for.”

There was another pregnant pause, then Anakin obediently began undressing, dropping his clothes on the ground, until he stood naked before his former Master. This up close, and sans any clothes, the changes in him were even more profound. Obi-Wan’s impression that he had lost a lot of weight was correct, even though he remained quite fit. Like most people living or spending a lot of time on the lower levels, he was quite pale, the usual sun-kissed hue of his skin long gone. A number of scars of unknown origin littered his torso, likely acquired during his time in prison – cuts, burns, and a few that suspiciously looked like bitemarks. Obi-Wan’s eyes slid further down, and he deliberately stared at Anakin’s cock, cut, as was the custom of Tatooine slavers, hanging limp and pathetic between his leg from his hairless crotch. The prosthetics, now that he was naked, appeared all the more stark against his pale flesh, their material even paler than his skin, smoother, almost translucent. The elbows, knees and ankles were ball-jointed, Obi-Wan noticed with some surprise. Between that odd feature, the texture of the prosthetics and Anakin’s own weight loss, the impression that he was a doll to play with was that much stronger. Even his fingers and toes were sculpted to look almost human, the tips hinting at the shape of nails, the joints concealed, adding to the overall effect. The line where Anakin’s own flesh met the bio-mechanical ports connecting his prosthetic limbs to the stumps of his arms and thighs, however, was suspiciously reddened and sore-looking, clearly in need maintenance and likely some medical attention.

Anakin stood there obediently, head bowed low and submissive, waiting for his Master to inspect him. Obi-Wan’s eyes roamed hungrily over his naked body, taking in every detail of him, indulging in a fantasy he had had in a different time and a different life. Even with the changes, the younger man was still beautiful to him, from the elegant curves and lines of his body, to the pout of his lips, to his lovely bronze and silver curls.

“Turn around, Padawan,” Obi-Wan commanded, his voice having gone hoarse with the sudden and sharp spike of arousal that ran through him. “Bend over, spread your ass. I want to see everything.”

Another pause, shorter this time, then Anakin nodded again, looking away from Obi-Wan, blue eyes hidden in the shadow of his hair and his long lashes. He turned around and followed his Master’s command, exposing himself to him in the most obscene way possible.

Obi-Wan’s mouth watered at the sight of him – the furl of pink, glistening flesh as he’d clearly already prepared himself, his hole visibly looser than it should have been had he not been used regularly, he was a sight to behold. Both unable and unwilling to contain himself, the Jedi Master reached down and squeezed his own growing hardness though his pants.

“Good. Turn around, Padawan. Come here.”

The younger man again obeyed without a word, approaching until he stood between Obi-Wan’s spread knees.

“Kneel.”

Anakin folded himself to his knees with surprising grace and ease, considering his condition. His hands ran over Obi-Wan’s thighs, his touch light and teasing, and he looked up at his Master, his expression loose and relaxed, the pupils of his eyes still blown wide, only a thin strip of blue remaining around the black. A small smile played on his full lips as he leaned and placed a wet, open-mouthed kiss on Obi-Wan’s crotch over his clothes.

Obi-Wan suddenly reached and grabbed a fistful of silky curls, keeping him in place. Anakin went limp in his grip, looking up at him again, waiting for instructions.

“Undress me,” Obi-Wan ordered.

Anakin, again, obeyed. He started with his boots, bending low to pull each of them off Obi-Wan’s feet, then placed them aside. The odd pale hands then deftly undid his belt, then fly, then gripped the waist of his pants together with his underwear and pulled the garments down. Obi-Wan lifted his hips to aid Anakin and his cock sprang free, half-hard already, heavy between his muscled thighs.

“Fold them and place them on the couch,” Obi-Wan instructed hoarsely.

Anakin blinked owlishly at him, clearly surprised that his attempts at seduction were interrupted by his Master’s neat nature, but then he just nodded and obeyed the order, folding the clothes far more neatly than Obi-Wan remembered him folding his own.

It gave him a little thrill, Obi-Wan admitted to himself, to see him so agreeable. If only he had been this way back then.

Once he was done, Anakin returned and kneeled back between Obi-Wan’s legs. The older man reached and caressed his cheek again, this time pressing his thumb into that full mouth that had so tempted him twelve years ago. That same mouth had snarled at him when the treasonous boy now kneeling between his knees tried murder them all. He had been pretty even doing that, Obi-Wan thought wildly, and then most coherent thought disappeared because Anakin parted his lips and obediently sucked on his thumb, his heavy eyelids and long lashes hiding his eyes.

Obi-Wan sighed and let him suck for a little while, petting his hair with his other hand, playing with the soft curls, then his hand settled on the back of Anakin’s neck and gripped it firmly.

“I deleted it, you know,” the Jedi Master suddenly spoke in a soft, quiet voice. It took Anakin a long moment to register that the older man had spoken, his mind, even shielded as it was, feeling sluggish and empty. Anakin looked up then, still suckling on Obi-Wan’s finger, a question in his eyes. The grip Obi-Wan had on the back of his neck tightened menacingly. He saw Anakin in his mind’s eye, as he had been when himself and Yoda had arrived, cloaked in body and spirit, in Palpatine’s office, before the Sith and his treasonous Padawan noticed their presence. The monster who had plunged them into years of bloody war had been speaking, giving orders, and Anakin, no, Vader, was following at his heels like a loyal dog, still dressed in his Jedi robes, hands folded demurely in his sleeves, making a mockery of the uniform.

“…First, I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate. Show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough with the Dark Side to save Padme…”

Obi-Wan pulled his finger out of Anakin’s mouth and cupped that pretty, if now weathered face, meeting his eyes head on.

“I deleted it,” he repeated. “The security footage from Sidious’ office, you agreeing to go to the Temple and kill us all. I did it before Master Yoda came back.”

He saw the understanding in Anakin’s eyes – the magnitude of what Obi-Wan had done, despite his own betrayal, to protect him. The magnitude of Obi-Wan’s betrayal of the Republic to protect him, even if he had disowned him after. He felt Anakin’s previously loose body stiffen, then begin to shake. They stared at each other, like a bird mesmerized by a snake, and Obi-Wan didn’t know which one of them was the bird, and which one – the snake.

“Kit’s head was still on his desk when I did it.”

“…Master…” Anakin finally tried, voice on the verge of breaking, pretty blue eyes welling up, his Padawan overwhelmed by emotion once again, despite whatever he had done to numb himself before.

“I don’t want to hear you speak,” he whispered harshly at the younger man. “I saved you from the firing squad, Anakin. But I cannot bear to even look at you.”

He drew Anakin closer, pressed his own forehead to his.

“You’re the worst thing that ever happened to me, Padawan,” he felt himself babble as he lifted his mouth to his brow, his temples. Anakin’s prosthetic hands gripped Obi-Wan’s wrists but he made no attempt to dislodge him and remained completely limp in his grip. Obi-Wan’s lips finally found that lying mouth and he pressed a harsh kiss into it. Anakin whimpered but did not resist and Obi-Wan used the opportunity to press his tongue further in, licking lasciviously into him, nipping his full lips, still tightly gripping his Padawan’s face. When he broke the kiss, he kept talking. It was like a dam finally breaking, all that had been bottling up in him finally taking shape, coming forth, pouring out, all the accumulated pain and filth from the past twelve years .

“You didn’t deserve any of it, you know? We all gave you so much, I gave you so much, but you were an impostor all along. A changeling. We thought you were our saviour, our Chosen One, but you were theirs, and you almost doomed us all,” he hissed, then chuckled bitterly and kept going. “We all trusted in you. I trusted in you. My Master gave his life for you. I protected you, even after your betrayal, and I paid for it, because they knew, they all knew what I had done, and you still called me, still wanted more!”

Anakin whimpered again at those words, then mumbled something and Obi-Wan pulled back to look at him and the sight of him distracted the Jedi Master all over again, from the withered beauty of his flushed face to his swollen mouth and dilated eyes. Anaki, however continued speaking, and Obi-Wan finally forced himself to focus on his words.

“…have me now, Master. Isn’t that what you want? You can do as you please now…” he was babbling too, his hands letting go of Obi-Wan’s wrists to reach for his thighs again, caressing the bare skin. The surface of Anakin’s prosthetics was silky smooth almost as warm as skin. His touch should have felt alien enough to be disconcerting, but after so long without even the basic companionship he’d learned to enjoy among the Jedi in his youth, he yearned so much for touch that it lit a fire in Obi-Wan’s flesh. The Jedi Master kept holding him close, his forehead pressed to Anakin’s as his former Padawan caressed and kneaded the muscle of his thighs, then sucked in his breath when those oddly smooth hands started fondling his already hardening cock.

“That’s it, Padawan. Keep going,” he instructed and felt Anakin nod as much as he could in his grip, one of his hands caressing and rubbing the shaft while the other slid lower to roll his balls between his fingers. Despite his previous awkwardness, now that he was doing this, his touch had gotten far more confident, his thumb flicking over the sensitive tip on every upstroke. Obi-Wan gasped in quiet pleasure, chuckled and once again lost control of his tongue.

“You really know how to jerk another man’s dick, don’t you? You must have been doing this for a while. Maybe Qui-Gon should have left you where you were, Anakin. You would have made your old Master a fortune eventually.”

It was a cruel thing, unworthy thing to say and Obi-Wan knew it, feeling Anakin stiffening at his words momentarily, seeing his lips trembling and the pretty eyes looking away once more. Obi-Wan half expected the grip on his cock to tighten to the point of pain, but Anakin took a soft, shuddery breath, relaxed and kept going without word.

How fascinating. The Anakin he had known over a decade ago would have been enraged at such goading, but the man kneeling before Obi-Wan today just took it in a stride and kept going. It was like all fight had gone out of him. He kissed Anakin again, rocking into his touch and his Padawan obediently opened his mouth to let his tongue in, sucked on it and only whimpered softly when Obi-Wan bit his lower lip.

The sounds Anakin made, the taste of him, the way he was pliant in his Master’s grip while he worked his cock, in only served to enflame him further. If only Anakin had always been this submissive, this agreeable back then, wouldn’t it have been easier, Obi-Wan wondered again.

The Jedi Master pulled back to look at him. His boy was even more flushed than before, his mouth wet and reddened, the full lower lip bleeding where Obi-Wan had bit him. His curls, shorter now, but still so silky in Obi-Wan’s fingers, were a mussed mess around his face.

“You’re good with your hands, but let’s try your mouth next, shall we?” Obi-Wan grinned at him and pulled him close again. Anakin went without resisting, that smartass mouth finally silent, none of the previous lies or rage spewing from his lips. The Jedi Master pressed the pretty face against his crotch and felt Anakin’s lips parting to mouth him. He was already hard and only felt himself growing harder, thicker as Anakin licked his engorged tip.

“It is fitting that you became a whore in the end,” Obi-Wan spoke down at him, his hand still fisted in Anakin’s hair. “It suits you. After all, what else is a traitor, but a whore?”

Chapter Text

The sound Anakin made at those words reminded Obi-Wan of a hurt little animal and a full-body shiver ran through his thin frame, but the younger man did not resist, nor did he try to bite his Master. One of his doll-like hands, which until now had been clutching Obi-Wan’s thigh, grabbed his hip instead, the other reached between them and gripped the base of his Master’s cock to keep him steady as he sank on it. The warm, wet heat engulfed his hard length until Anakin’s nose was pressed against the wiry graying hairs on his groin.

Obi-Wan threw his head back and groaned, his fist in Anakin’s hair tightening further, keeping the man where he was and rocking up into his throat until he felt him finally gag on it. His toes curled in pleasure.

It really began sinking in, that he could do whatever he pleased tonight and Anakin was there to just take it. Who was Anakin to judge him, after what he had already done? After what he had been planning on doing?

He as so preoccupied by that thought that it took him a long moment to notice that Anakin was writhing in his grip, his face still ruthlessly pressed to Obi-Wan’s crotch, his cock down the man’s throat. Writhing, Obi-Wan noted in his arousal, but not struggling, taking the treatment like a good little whore. He kept him there just a little longer, enjoying the way his throat spasmed around his cock, the way it tightened and squeezed him before it relaxed again as Anakin managed to overcome even his gag reflex in his attempts to breathe.

Eventually, he pulled his Padawan off his cock, still gripping his hair, and watched him take big, shaky gulps of air, his eyes closed. His long, pretty lashes were wet and glistening, but his cheeks were still dry.

I need to correct this by the end of tonight, hissed the now familiar ugly voice in Obi-Wan’s head that had guided him before. After all, did I not shed so many tears because of this little snake? He needs to shed a few because of me.

His hand tightened in Anakin’s hair again and pushed him down on his cock once more, his Padawan obediently taking him in without resistance, still kneeling on between Obi-Wan’s spread legs.

The Jedi Master leaned back, propping himself up on his free hand for leverage, then he began rocking his hips into that warm, suckling mouth, harshly thrusting into Anakin’s throat. The man gagged again, writhed in his grip, but did not attempt to pull away, so Obi-Wan just sped up his thrusting.

What if I’d done that back then?, he wondered again. Would he have just taken it like this? Is this what he did for Palpatine?

That last thought filled him with the kind of indignation that made it hard to think, hard to stay rational. For all of Anakin’s claims during the trial that he had been loyal to the Jedi up until that fateful night in Palpatine’s office, part of Obi-Wan had long wondered when Anakin had stopped being faithful to him, his own Master, and had chosen another.

He could feel the younger man trying to breathe in between his thrusts, his pretty face reddening from the effort and the lack of air, but his cheeks remained stubbornly dry.

“This comes so naturally to you, Padawan,” Obi-Wan said breathlessly, voice gone hoarse from arousal and heart-break. “Perhaps if I had done this back then, you wouldn’t have debased yourself before a Sith.”

Anakin’s tears finally spilled down his flushed cheeks, crystal clear and glittering in the pale light. The mean little voice in Obi-Wan crowed in triumph. He looked good like this, on his knees, that pretty cocksucker mouth stretched wide around his erection, tears running down his flushed face, the Jedi Master thought in the haze of arousal, idly wondering how long he could drag this out. He had paid out the nose, and had the next few hours to himself. He might as well make the best of the time he had.

Coming here he hadn’t quite come up with a plan about what he wanted to do, exactly, preoccupied as he had been with his inability to find the inner balance that was required of a proper Jedi. He had always had a taste for rough play, being on both the giving and receiving end, but he had also strived to respect his partners’ boundaries. But those partners hadn’t been Anakin. They hadn’t been his treasonous Padawan. What should have been a rather simple if detached act had suddenly become so much more personal, and he found himself not caring what Anakin’s boundaries were. With the way the Hutt had described him, he doubted he had many to begin with.

With Anakin’s mouth still on him, obediently taking his cock, Obi-Wan leaned forward, and hissed.

“Open your eyes. Look at me!”

Anakin’s eyes remained stubbornly closed, even as the tears began to flow even more freely. Defiant, even now.

It got under Obi-Wan’s skin. All this pain, all this misery caused by one boy’s defiant, greedy nature. He should have broken those habits out of him at the very beginning. Nipped them in the bud. Instead, he enabled him right into almost killing the lot of them.

Well, better late than never, Obi-Wan viciously decided.

He stopped thrusting and roughly pulled the younger man off his cock, then threw him face up on the bed withh a flick of his wrist and a quick Force push. Anakin landed with a gasp and bounced as he landed. He lay there for a moment, taking several loud, shuddery gulps of air, clearly disoriented, then awkwardly tried to sit up, only to be pushed down again, pressed against the bed like a bug under a glass with another casual flick of his Master’s wrist.

“Master…what are you…” Anakin croaked, his throat already sore, but Obi-Wan had no desire to listen to his whining in that moment and simply clenched his fist. The Force grip tightened around that elegant throat and silenced him. Anakin’s pretty blue eyes, still glittery with yet to be shed tears, widened in alarm.

The Jedi Master distinctly remembered the moment when Anakin’s then leather-covered mechno-hand had tightened around his own throat during their duel on top of the highrise. The way it had hurt, cutting off all air, his world rapidly narrowing and darkening around the edges as the boy he’d raised tried to sniff him out, looking down at him with an expression oddly torn between indifference and obvious blood-lust. He remembered at that relentless, cruel grip, struggling for his life, and for the lives of his brethren.

Now the same boy squirmed like a worm on a hook, held down by Obi-Wan’s power, his pale doll-like hands clawing at his neck in a pathetically familiar attempt to free himself.

Obi-Wan scooted closer, leaned over him and watched him with cool, growing fascination, noticing that despite the rough treatment, that perverse Padawan of his was still half-hard, his pretty cock laying on his scrawny belly, delightfully fat with arousal, a bead of glistening wetness gathered on the shiny tip.

Still maintaining the grip on Anakin’s throat as the younger man struggled to breathe, he curiously reached with his other than and smeared the wetness over hot, silky, spongy flesh. Anakin’s whole body twitched. Obi-Wan could swear he felt his pulse, his heart fluttering through the delicate flesh of his cock, the tip growing fatter and wetter under his touch. Obi-Wan bared his teeth down at him.

“Whore. Was it Palpatine who trained you so? I know I certainly didn’t,” he muttered, torn between disgust, fascination and ravenous hunger.

He then climbed on the bed and pushed Anakin’s legs apart with his hands, then forcefully settled between them, grinding his cock against the younger man’s bare ass. Anakin jerked under him, still clawing at his neck, more tears spilling from panicked blue eyes as he focused on Obi-Wan while he struggled. The Jedi Master pressed his palm against the young man’s chest and pushed him to lie down, aided by the Force again, then reached with his other hand to clear the sweaty curls off Anakin’s damp forehead.

The tears slid down flushed cheeks as his Padawan tried to breathe, shuddering and writhing under his Master. Obi-Wan’s other hand slid between their bodies and found Anakin’s entrance, slick and loose already, and he shoved three fingers inside with surprising ease. Force, he was so warm inside. So wet.

One of Anakin’s doll-like hands grabbed at Obi-Wan’s bicep and held onto him, the man’s pretty blue eyes huge on his equally pretty face as his Master fingered him roughly. He slowly turned redder and redder as he struggled to breathe, but he made no attempt to push Obi-Wan off. His cock, laying on his sweaty belly, pointed straight up and and started dribbling clear liquid below his navel, his hole clenching helplessly under the Jedi Master’s fingers.

Obi-Wan relaxed his Force grip on Anakin’s throat only when he felt the younger man going lax under him and around his fingers and accepting his fate, his face going from red to purple, his eyes obviously losing focus.

Once he released him, Anakin took a long moment before his whole body jerked again and then he took large, hungry gulps of air again. His naked form shivered as he let out soft, helpless little noises, his flushed cock, still so very hard, making a mess on his belly.

The Jedi Master watched him impassively as the younger man began to regain his bearings, the ruddiness fading from his cheeks, instinctively holding his throat with both doll-like hands, as if that could stop a trained Force-sensitive from repeating the same trick.

Obi-Wan decided to demonstrate.

He clenched his fist again, pulling on his connection with the Force.

Anakin flopped back onto the bed, convulsed, let out a pitiful little moan, more tears spilled down his reddening cheeks. He struggled harder this time, clawing at Obi-Wan’s thighs, at his own throat, the little nail-shaped ends of his doll hands leaving pale, then reddish marks as his struggles intensified. Obi-Wan ignored him and shoved a fourth finger into his entrance, forcefully pushing it past the resistance of the muscle that began trying to clench anew.

The struggling was useless. Cut off from the Force as he was, with prosthetics that were clearly build for aesthetics rather than fighting, Anakin had little chance against a Jedi Master, even one who had not gone on a proper mission since their last fight some thirteen years ago.

Obi-Wan waited for his struggles to subside, then let him go again and let him breathe, fingers relentlessly pumping into him.

The lovely cock twitched then, his full, hairless balls drew up, and Obi-Wan scoffed.

“Oh, no you won’t. This isn’t about you,” he scolded, reaching with his other hand, and delighting in cruelly squeezing the base of the younger man’s cock to stop his orgasm.

Anakin let out another animalistic gurgle, incapable of louder sound after the way his throat was already bruised, then sobbed hoarsely as he gulped for air next, again and again, his eyes huge and wet as he looked at Obi-Wan.

His hair was a mess, tears and snot staining the otherwise pretty face. His pretty mouth shook when he finally spoke, barely above a whisper.

“…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…Master…” he croaked, voice barely recognizable from the abuse his throat had endured.

Obi-Wan realized he was so hard he could pound nails. He had been so focused on Anakin’s struggles, on the way his hole felt around his fingers – hot and loose and wet - on the way the younger man squirmed and clawed at his neck, the noises he made, the expression on his pretty face, twisted in the effort to breathe as it has been, so very reminiscent of his expression as he had pleaded with Obi-Wan for mercy on a freezing rooftop, that he had not even realized how aroused he was.

“What are you sorry for, Padawan?” he snarled.

Anakin sobbed and Obi-Wan jammed his fingers against the spongy flesh of his prostate, making him arch and squeal, wail and whine under him. To his credit, he did not struggle.

“What are you sorry for!” Obi-Wan demanded, leaning over him again.

Anakin looked up at Obi-Wan, pretty blue eyes unfocused and sad, his expression anguished. His emotions, previously so very muddled, were coalescing in profound despair and shame.

“All of it,” he slurred. “I’m sorry, Master. I’m sorry.”

Something in Obi-Wan shattered into a thousand glittering pieces.

Anakin was apologizing now, after all this time. After the sullen silence and arrogant outbursts during the trial, after calling a year later to demand more of Obi-Wan, he had the nerve to apologize now, as if it made any difference.

Anakin was still looking up at him, his cheeks wet with tears, his blue eyes glittering in the low, pale light streaming from the fixture by the bed, his full lips trembling as he searched his Master’s face.

What for?, Obi-Wan wondered. Forgiveness? Mercy? Affection? Even he himself was not sure he had any of those left to give. He was not sure whether Anakin was ever worth any of them to begin with, not after what he had done, and what he had been planning.

He was tired. And it was far too late to change either of their paths, not after the choices they had both made. All he wanted from tonight was to stop thinking and stop hurting. He couldn’t do that with Anakin looking at him like that – like he was a little boy who was waiting for his Master to somehow make it all better. They were way past that point.

Obi-Wan pulled away and pulled his fingers out of Anakin with a wet, squelching sound.

“Turn around,” he growled.

Anakin hesitated and Obi-Wan slapped his thigh, right above the reddened line of flesh where the prosthetic started, pretending to ignore the wince that followed.

“I said, turn around, Padawan,” he ordered.

Finally, Anakin nodded, awkwardly rolling over, clearly still disoriented from the asphyxiation earlier. His emotions, previously coalesced so clearly, became murky again as he let go of whatever focus he had struggled for in order to speak.

“On your hands and knees, Padawan,” Obi-Wan barked and Anakin obeyed, assuming the position his Master expected of him – ass up, thighs slightly spread, his balls and cock hanging heavily between them, shoulders lowered down to the mattress, head resting on his folded arms, back arched beautifully as he presented himself to Obi-Wan.

The Jedi Master ran his fingers up the smooth material of Anakin’s calf, then over the silky flesh of his thigh. The prosthetics, it occurred to Obi-Wan, almost made it look like he wore thigh-high stockings, something that would have looked beautiful on his Padawan’s once long and shapely legs.

He ran his fingers carefully over the reddened seam connecting flesh and artificial material, feeling Anakin shiver again.

“Do you have clients who ask that you remove the prosthetics?” Obi-Wan could not help but ask.

There was a long pause, then Anakin slowly nodded.

Obi-Wan spread his cheeks again and stared at the pretty hole in front of him. Wet, glistening and puffy, obviously looser than before, the sight made his mouth water and his cock twitch.

“How much do you charge them for it?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Twice what you paid me,” Anakin responded hoarsely.

A snarl pressed against Obi-Wan’s teeth and he didn’t even struggle to contain it. Grabbing Anakin’s curls, he pressed his face down against the mattress and covered his body with his own, grinding against his ass before using his knee to push Anakin’s thighs further apart.

“That’s refreshing honesty coming from you, Padawan. Although I am surprised you started charging at all, considering the Sith got you for free.”

Then he simply thrust in, not even bothering to ask for lube to slick himself up. His Padawan keened under him, high and reedy, but Obi-Wan paid him no heed, snapping his hips up and forward again and again, not holding back at all, without thought or consideration for the comfort of the body under his, rough and forceful enough for the headboard of the bed to start thumping against the wall in time with his rocking. Anakin grunted and took it, doll-like hands curling in the sheets as Obi-Wan took his pleasure, the blond head bowed low in silent submission. He had stopped crying.

And pleasure he did find – Anakin was warm and slick and tight enough despite repeated previous use to feel good around him, a perfect receptacle for his cock. Obi-Wan sat up on his heels and grabbed Anakin’s hips for better leverage.

“Killing your family cost less than…” he began, glancing down at his Padawan’s back and stuttered, in both voice and movement.

He hadn’t seen it before, what it looked like. By that time, he had already cut all contact Anakin, and he had refused to be present for the procedure, unlike the rest of the Councill. The scar ran down the length of his spine, starting from the back of his head and continued down to his tailbone – straight and still so vivid after all these years. The Jedi medics had cut through flesh and then bone into the young man’s already maimed body to graft the Force suppressant device to his spinal column and hindbrain, forever depriving him of his birthright. Any attempt to remove it, unless the medic performing the procedure was Force sensitive themselves and specifically trained in the Temple, would result in death or, at the very least, severe disability, a measure insisted on by the Council and quietly approved by the then Chancellor Organa before Anakin had been shipped off to military prison.

It looked fresh, even after all these years, so vivid that it was almost angry-looking, like the reddened flesh along the seams of Anakin’s prosthetics, undoubtedly because of the profoundly unnatural effect of the device underneath his flesh. Even worse - the surgery scar wasn’t even the only mark that marred Anakin’s pale skin. He was covered in scars of different size and shape and severity, some clearly quite old, a few still quite raw and recent and many more in between. They covered him from shoulders – silvery lines left by a blade, imprints left by teeth, burns, even a few uneven marks left by claws – down to his thighs. The front side of his body had been marked too, Obi-Wan remembered, but the severity of the damage paled in comparison to what was on his back. Other people had marked his Padawan, cruelly, thoughtlessly, and then they had moved on. Much like Obi-Wan had himself, twelve long years ago.

He had fantasized sometimes, when visiting Drexx’s other boys, that he had pulled Anakin up and ran with him. Kept him to himself. Healed him. Disciplined him. Fixed him. He could have done a selfish thing, and perhaps they both would have been happier for it. But Obi-Wan was a Jedi – selfishness was a taboo, and what little he engaged in was a secret, shameful thing. He was doing the same thing now, except it wasn’t just one of Drexx’s boys under him, but his own former Padawan, whom Obi-Wan had raised, and loved, and maimed, and then left behind for others to keep butchering him. He had been so preoccupied by his hurt, by his failure, by the sense of betrayal, that he had not even noticed when he had turned into a cruel, thoughtless, selfish man.

It was like a bucket of ice-cold water thrown over his ire, if not his ardor for Anakin. Obi-Wan slowed down, evened the cruel pace he had set, aimed his thrusts toward what he knew would be his sweet spot. When Anakin’s keens under him took on a sweeter, needier tone, he slid one hand up to the back of his boy’s neck, but instead of gripping him and pressing him down, he caressed the soft curls on the back of his neck, then he ran his hand down the scar over his spine while still firmly gripping Anakin’s hips with his other hand. Another man had already left cruel finger marks there, Obi-Wan noticed, knowing that he too had left a set of his own. They would darken tomorrow and in the coming days, he knew, from blue, to purple, blooming on Anakin’s smooth, pale skin. He had never been a pale as he was now, after a decade in prison and another two years largely residing in the lower levels, it seemed.

Consciously, Obi-Wan loosened his grip on his hip until he was sure he wasn’t hurting him, then wrapped his other arm around him and reached down to find the young man’s cock still so hard, despite the harsh treatment. Was he truly enjoying this? Or had it been part of the drug he’d taken in the bathroom after Obi-Wan had pushed him into this act? He was no idiot born yesterday, regardless of popular opinion, he knew exactly what a drugged consciousness felt like in the Force, even if he had refused to care it about less than an hour ago, blinded as he had been by his ire.

How did we get here, Obi-Wan thought bitterly as he kept rocking into the younger man’s body. How did I let it get to this point? How did I allow such ruin to fall upon us both?

He’d spent so long thinking about those same questions over and over again, blaming himself, blaming Anakin, blaming Palpatine. In the darkest parts of the night, he had blamed the Order itself. They all shared some of the blame, one way or the other, but the major part of his ire had always been aimed at Anakin, because deep down, he had found his betrayal unbearable.

And here they were now, twelve long years later, the boy he’d raised, a man now, whimpering softly as Obi-Wan rocked into him, finding his sweet spot, palming his cock as he cradled his thin body, head bowed low in total submission, hips still raised high enough to offer himself to Obi-Wan. The bed was creaking under them with every thrust, but the headboard was no longer slamming against the wall as it had been earlier. Sweat began to pour down Obi-Wan’s neck as he endeavored to actually take his time with his Padawan. He leaned forward further still and pressed his forehead against Anakin’s scarred shoulder, letting go of Anakin’s cock to reach up and grab the headboard for more leverage as he rocked slower but deeper into him.

Under him Anakin was making the neediest little sounds, clearly affected by the sudden and unexpected tenderness he was subjected to.

What if I had taken better care of you, before? What if I loved you the way you craved to be loved and you clearly still crave it, would it have been different? Would you have chosen me over him?

It was a thought he rarely entertained and never voiced, because the answer was too hard to bear and because he knew it would have made his brethren even more suspicious of him. But here, now, he could not help but circle back to it as he took the younger man. It was so obvious what Anakin had sought from Palpatine, things that Obi-Wan had been able but unwilling to provide – open affection, acceptance, tenderness, attachment.

Was it my mistake that I didn’t give them to him?

Still rocking into Anakin, his body covering the younger man’s, one arm wrapped around his middle to hold him up, the other still gripping the headboard for leverage, Obi-Wan turned his head and sought Anakin’s whimpering mouth, found it and captured it in a what he hoped was a sweet kiss. He felt his Padawan quieten into that kiss, plush mouth slack in surprise, and then he obediently opened his lips further and let Obi-Wan plunder it with his tongue, curling his own with Obi-Wan’s. It was surprisingly awkward, and it occurred to the Jedi Master Anakin clearly did not get kissed often doing this job.

Oh, how far they had both fallen, he thought bitterly as he pressed more kisses into his mouth as he took him and took him, wishing to prolong this moment, aiming his hips just so, making sure Anakin experienced pleasure from this act.

Just this once, Obi-Wan thought, I can pretend he’s actually mine and I am taking care of him. Just this once.

Anakin sighed and let him, spreading his thighs further. He let his own Master, the man who’d raised him, whose hand he’d held seeking comfort as a youngling, take his pleasure in his body. He let the man, into whose bed snuck in after a nightmare to curl up at the foot of it and feel safe, cover his face with kisses and palm his cock as they strained together. He let the man who had been his only family in that big, cold, intimidating Temple, whose guidance he sought in every aspect of his life, whose approval meant to him more than life itself at one time, kriff him into the mattress because he paid him.

It felt better for the both of them now, Obi-Wan was convinced, with Anakin’s body used to the intrusion, his muscles fully relaxed and accepting, his skinny ass pressing back against Obi-Wan’s erection.

They were close, they both were, and Obi-Wan could sense it, could sense how Anakin’s pleasure and need – for intimacy, for completion, for forgiveness, for safety – climbed higher and higher in synch with his own. He could practically taste it. The irony of it, that they would achieve unity with such ease after all these years, after all that had transpired between them.

So Obi-Wan kept kriffing him, kept kissing him and holding him, and when Anakin finally came under him, he tumbled over the edge right after him, thrusting in as deep as he could and filling him with his seed, all but smothering him in his embrace, the pleasure of it whiting out his vision, pooling low in is belly and shooting up his spine, his toes curling with it, his arms tightening around Anakin to the point of pain.

Afterward, Obi-Wan found himself sprawled on his back on the bed, trying to catch his breath, one arm thrown over his head, feeling boneless with satiation, all tension and anxiety draining out of him. He stared at the cracked ceiling of the motel room, panting quietly for a while, sweat cooling on his naked skin, his flush draining from his flesh, then he turned to look at Anakin, seeking to draw him into his embrace, and froze once again.

His Padawan was laying on his side with his back to him, the barbaric scar of the surgery on full display down the entire length of his spine, accompanied by the marks left by the brutalities he had been subjected to after. He was curled up, knees were folded and drawn up to his chest, Obi-Wan’s seed, alarmingly tinged pink, leaking between his legs and making a mess of the mattress. He was panting quietly into his folded knees, head tucked toward them, one hand drawn up and covering it and as if to protect him from being struck while he was down. Bruises were already blooming on his sallow skin – on his hips, on his sides, on his shoulders and ribs. Obi-Wan had no doubt his throat would bruise too, a mottled mark that was extensive enough to make it hard to speak until it faded, formed by ghostly fingers commanded by another’s will.

Instinctively, Obi-Wan reached out for Anakin’s back, fingers trembling – whether to simply establish a connection or to attempt to comfort him, far too little, far too late, he was not even sure. His fingertips were a hair’s breadth away from the younger man when Anakin suddenly flinched, jerking away from Obi-Wan, his whole body still turned away from him, silent and closed off, and in that moment the distance between them might as well have been the whole galaxy.

Obi-Wan pulled his hand away as if burned and sat up, running his other hand over his sweaty face, trying to regain his balance.

He glanced at Anakin again, still curled up on his side of the bed, then looked down at his spent cock, still wet with cooling sweet, also tinged pink.

You’ve done an unforgivable thing tonight, the little voice told him. And there’s no taking it back.

Obi-Wan got off the bed and walked to the couch on wobbly feet, still coming down from his orgasm. All he wanted to do was sleep, but he could not stay here. He started putting his socks and underwear on.

“You still owe me the other half of the money,” Anakin suddenly slurred from the bed.

Yes. Of course. The money.

Digging a credit chip from the pocket of his pants, Obi-Wan walked to his side of the bed, and left it on the bedside table. Walking up to Anakin, looking at him in the face after what he had just done, was unbearable.

Obi-Wan returned to the couch and hurriedly pulled on the rest of his clothes with increasingly shaky fingers. He needed to leave here. He needed to leave now.

Grabbing his boots, he headed for the door, and once there he turned to look at Anakin’s curled up form one last time. The young man’s shoulders were shaking.

He almost tripped on the threshold when the front door opened to let him out, and he knew that the soft sob that he heard echoing from the inside would haunt him until the rest of his days.

Clothes damp with sweat, hair reeking of sex, his crotch increasingly sticky in his clothes, Obi-Wan hurried barefoot down the dilapidated corridor, and only pausing to put his boots on before he hurried into the stinking elevator. He barely managed to hit the button to bring him down to ground level and once he left the elevator, he all but ran out of the motel and into the dark street outside, then kept running, trying to put as much distance between himself and what he had just done.

What had he just done?! How could he have become so callous, so bitter, that he had done such a thing to his own Padawan, whatever the man’s sins?

Innocent blue eyes looking up at him from a small, doll-like face, full of trust and affection as the youngling climbed onto his bed, clutching the blanket he’d brought with himself to his chest.

“Anakin. Did you have another bad dream?”

“Yes, Master. May I stay here tonight?”

“Anakin. We have spoken about the rules of the Order. You’re a Padawan now, you need to learn to be self-sufficient…”

The trusting little face crumpled in misery. He looked like a helpless, scared loth-kitten.

“Just this night, Master. Please.”

A sigh.

“Fine. Here. Have my pillow.”

“Thank you, Master!”

Anakin perked up immediately and took the pillow, then promptly curled up in the foot of Obi-Wan’s bed, so tiny still he fit almost entirely on the pillow alone, wrapping himself in a cocoon with the blanket he’d brought along.

Obi-Wan took the first turn he saw into a dark, narrow alley, and vomited against the rusted side of a shuttered industrial building, then kept on heaving until he could taste only bile.

What had he done?!

Wiping bile from his mouth with the back of his hand, he pulled out his comm and dialed Drexx with still shaking fingers. It rang for a long time before the line finally connected.

“Kenobi. Did you have fun?”

She sounded smug.

“Did you know?” Obi-Wan rasped into the comm.

“Hmm?”

“Don’t play coy, you overgrown slug! Did you know your boy was Anakin?” he snarled into the comm, barely recognizing his own voice.

The Hutt laughed, deep and mocking.

“Of course, I did. I know everything about my employees, Kenobi. And about my clients too. I mean, all the other boys you hired over the years looked like him. I’d have to be blind and stupid to somehow miss that, and thankfully, I am neither,” she said, chuckling to herself.

“So, did you have fun?”

Obi-Wan’s stomach was empty, but it roiled all over again.

“So you did it on purpose then,” he whispered.

“Well, yes, of course. I know your proclivities,” she explained, slow and deliberate, as if talking to a particularly dense child.

“I know what you want, Kenobi, even if you’re in denial about it. It’s my job to know. He was already selling what you were buying. You have been paying for substitutes for all these years, now that I had the real thing, I figured to do you a solid, you being an old customer and all, despite your previous poor behaviour, I might add! So I put you two in touch. For a significant fee, obviously, but you can’t blame a girl for making a living.”

She sounded smug and terribly pleased with herself, like she had done him a grand favour.

Obi-Wan leaned his forehead against the cool, rusty surface of the building he’d stained with his vomit.

“It was all a sick little game for you, wasn’t it?” he whispered.

Drexx huffed. Obi-Wan could picture her rolling her big, frog-like eyes.

“You whine too much for a man who just got his dick wet, Kenobi,” she huffed. “Especially after using a hole that good. And I know he was good, because all his other clients are pretty ecstatic about him. He lets them do whatever they want as long as they pay and they don’t damage him permanently. Custody lawsuits aren’t cheap, I have heard.”

He froze.

Of course. Of course, that was why he was doing it. Anakin’s family had always been the most important thing to him, and how else a convicted felon with nothing to his name would find money to sue someone of Padme’s rank and means, short of getting into serious crime and risk getting back in prison.

“…heard he learned his trade in prison,” Drexx was still babbling in the comm.

“…What?” Obi-Wan croaked.

“What? Are you surprised? Military prisons aren’t kind to pretty, crippled and treasonous things, Kenobi. It’s sink or swim in there, and that one learned to swim, alright. I hope you enjoyed his skills.”

The comm fell from Obi-Wan’s nerveless fingers.

“ Master, please…”Anakin’s voice whimpered in his ear, quiet and desperate, wet with tears

“Don’t you call me that again! Actually, do not ever call me again, at all !...”

He turned, and ran back toward the motel, blindly using the Force to enhance his speed.

He needed to get to Anakin. He needed to get him out of that place.

The droid at the reception refused to open the door leading to the elevator again, so Obi-Wan simply slashed it open with his lightsaber, then hurried down the dark corridor. He entered the elevator and pressed the button for Anakin’s floor, but it did not budge, even the oily little light in the cabin going out.

Snarling, Obi-Wan got out and sliced the service door next to the elevator open, got past the smoldering remains of it and ran the staircase behind it, taking two, three step at a time.

He was sweaty and panting by the time he reached the sixth floor, his knees and his lungs aching from the effort, having neglected his training for so long, but he paid this irrelevant physical discomfort no mind as he ran down the corridor until he found the familiar door, then started banging on it.

“Anakin! Anakin, please! Open up!” he cried.

Silence was his only answer. He banged on the door again, then stilled, focusing on the room beyond it, trying to sense the younger man’s presence, but all he found was more silence. With the Force suppressor device inside him, Anakin’s presence was all but undetectable, far more so than a natural Force-null person. Obi-Wan could not imagine the horror of the experience for Anakin himself.

He banged on the door again, and pleaded:

“Anakin, please let me in!”

Nothing.

Despairing, he ignited his saber again, the blue glow illuminating the corridor, and slashed the door to pieces, then ran into the room they had just used.

It was empty.

FIN