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Sweat burned salt into his eyes. Chest heaving beneath the weight of his tunic, so much heavier when it was soaked through with exertion, Anakin pushed himself back to his feet and blinked the droplets away. It didn’t help, not really; the salle seemed almost to blur in his vision, as if it might just float away.
But that was okay. It was okay. He could feel the faint give of the mats beneath his supple boots, worn from use and war. He could sense the angles of the walls all around him, the observation balcony looming above, the high ceiling beyond even that.
And Obi-Wan. Most of all, he could feel Obi-Wan standing opposite him, just paces away—an infuriating, calm centre to the storm that raged around and within Anakin.
That was all he needed.
Gritting his teeth against the dull ache in his muscles, Anakin reset his stance and reignited his training saber. The faint pulse rang in his ears, settling into his bones. It wasn’t the same as his own familiar blade, the comforting blaze of the kyber that was his alone, but for now it would do.
“One more,” he said, as he’d already done twice that night, the words harsh and dry in his throat. He shoved away the voice telling him that it wouldn’t matter, that it wouldn’t be enough. When Obi-Wan had found him drilling katas alone in the training salle, the evening long faded already to night, Anakin had only meant for them to fight one bout.
Just one, he’d implored, desperate for Obi-Wan to distract him. Desperate for Obi-Wan to stay and not leave him to the grip of his thoughts. He’d felt like a Padawan again, begging for any ounce of Obi-Wan’s attention he could get.
But then, he supposed that hadn’t changed with something so simple as his Knighting.
Obi-Wan, looking so collected, so composed, likely just come from some Council meeting or other, had considered him for a long moment and then agreed. One bout, Anakin had told himself triumphantly, victory like a rush in his skull, and then the unforgiving restlessness would ease and maybe he could sleep. The doubts and worries that came more and more often in the dark would burn away, and the soul-eating fear that he wouldn’t be enough to protect everyone around him.
He wouldn’t think of Ahsoka, lifeless and broken on the field of battle. He wouldn’t see Obi-Wan, bloody and in chains. He wouldn’t see Rex and Echo and Fives, Aayla and Barriss and a million, million others.
As he’d watched Obi-Wan shrug off his cloak, shoulders rolling in a way that always made him a little too aware of his own limbs, Anakin had been so sure this was what he needed.
Obi-Wan could fix anything.
But now—
“Perhaps three is enough for one night, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said smoothly, his voice almost mild. He was breathing as hard as Anakin was, but still somehow he looked almost perfect—hair falling sweat-slick across his brow, tunic clinging to the strong expanse of his shoulders and chest, the tan of his trousers pulling against his thighs as he straightened and took a step back. The grip of his fingers on the hilt of his own training saber was exact by his side, meticulous even when at rest.
It was enough to have Anakin’s temper surging, hot as the air gasping in his lungs, as the hilt sticky in his hand, as the restlessness lurking deep in his blood. Obi-Wan was always perfect—the perfect general, the perfect Council member, the perfect Jedi. Anakin doubted he’d ever lain awake long into the night, unable to sleep for wondering what more he could possibly do to win a war that didn’t seem like it wanted to be won. He’d probably never stared at the ceiling dark above him, trying to breathe, strangling beneath the weight of the galaxy and his own mind.
He probably didn’t even feel it, didn’t let it bother him, didn’t—
Anakin forced his lungs to keep breathing. Somewhere, distantly, he knew the thoughts were ungenerous of him, and unfair, and beyond that they were untrue.
But none of that stopped the adrenaline pounding in his ears, or the biting need to make Obi-Wan come at him. Really come at him.
To make Obi-Wan push him, make Obi-Wan exhaust the clamour in his thoughts and in his limbs alike.
Come on, Obi-Wan, Anakin thought desperately. Come on. He knew he could return to doing katas on his own, that he could run through them all night long and into the morning, but something about the thought of Obi-Wan leaving made his stomach twist, the taste of bile rising swiftly in the back of his throat. It was always worse when he was alone, worst of all when Obi-Wan wasn’t near. He could already feel it creeping back in around the edges, the darkness and the ruinous fear. It was ready to swallow him just at the thought of Obi-Wan going.
Holding out his free hand, he felt the servos whir in his arm. Durasteel fingers curled around the hilt of the second training saber that flew into his grip from the stand by the far wall. It hummed to life almost as it settled into his grip.
“Come on, Obi-wan,” he said out loud, trying to make his voice taunting, fighting to keep his desperation from slipping through. He automatically tested the saber in each hand, the balance of them together, and his body adjusted its stance to accommodate. Are you saying you’re tired, old man?”
Obi-Wan watched him with easy calm, eyes assessing even though his breathing hadn’t quite slowed. The azure of his gaze was even brighter than it normally was, brighter than any kyber, and Anakin fought back a scowl. As always, his former Master had held that calm through each and every bout. It used to drive him mad as a Padawan. He’d spent countless hours wondering if anything could break through that calm.
It still drove him mad even now, frustration swelling gritty and hot in his veins.
“Alright, Anakin,” Obi-Wan finally said, adopting his familiar Soresu stance, so familiar to Anakin it almost ached. His shoulders ached, as well, and his legs, and he was certain that Obi-Wan’s must too. But Obi-Wan just watched him with those calm eyes. “One more. And then, perhaps, you’d care to tell me what this is about.”
“It’s about the fact that I’m going to win,” Anakin ground out, ignoring the relief in his chest at Obi-Wan’s agreement, and then there wasn’t really air left to say anything more, because he was spinning with fierce abandon before launching into the air, muscles protesting, Obi-Wan’s blade sweeping out to meet his double-wielded attack.
Distantly, Anakin knew he was pressing too hard, too fast. He felt a little wild with it, almost out of control, but he couldn’t seem to hold himself back. Their other three bouts had been stalemates, Obi-Wan trying to draw him on, wear him down, leading him across the mats and up the walls with Force powered jumps and precise, calculated blows. He wasn’t even sure Obi-Wan had ever been trying to win, and it made his temper flare higher, determined to provoke Obi-Wan out of his maddening calm.
Their blades connected, jarring. Anakin jumped away, pulling himself into a tight, ragged roll that he felt in every part of his body. Rising, he turned back, blades already swinging up to initiate a rapid flurry of attacks, and—
And in the end, he supposed he got his wish, in a manner of speaking. Obi-Wan didn’t break his calm, exactly, but he did apparently decide he’d had enough.
Almost in record time, almost before Anakin knew what was even happening, with just a few deft twists of Obi-Wan’s body, Anakin found himself disarmed and pinned face-first against the wall beside the empty overhang of the balcony.
Obi-Wan spoke just as Anakin’s training sabers came to a rolling stop across the salle.
“I believe we had a deal,” he said, his voice soft and exact, mouth very close to Anakin’s ear. One arm was firm across Anakin’s shoulders, holding him in place, and his warm face flamed against the coolness of the smooth wall.
Dazed, gasping air into stunned lungs, Anakin squirmed automatically against Obi-Wan’s hold, trying to gain the leverage to free himself. In the end, all it did was press him back tighter against the corded muscles of Obi-Wan’s arm, obvious even through multiple layers of sweat-damp fabric.
Anakin tried to collect his thoughts, but just like that last bout, they threatened to spin out of his grasp and out of control. All he knew was that he didn’t want to talk about it, and he couldn’t bear for Obi-Wan to leave.
“One more,” he panted against the wall, cheek still pressed to the surface, quickly warming beneath the heat of his skin and his breath. He’d meant to sound commanding, or at least persuasive, but somehow it came out as something closer to a plea. “Just one more.”
One more, the refrain repeated in his head. Surely Obi-Wan would give him that.
Obi-Wan always knew what he needed.
Squirming again, straining back against Obi-Wan’s arm, Anakin tried to ignore the shiver it sent through him—Obi-Wan so close, his breath soft against Anakin’s ear, the clean scent of his sweat all around. Anakin must have had a thousand fantasies over the years that began something like this, with Obi-Wan pressed up behind him.
Something fluttered messily in his chest, something hot and on the brink of longing.
To distract himself, he tried to wrench one arm from between his body and the wall. At the same time, he reached out for his training sabers in the Force and—
Obi-Wan’s other hand sank into the sweaty mess of his curls, closing tight but not painfully so. “Anakin,” he said, his voice sharp and commanding, and then, softer, so gentle that Anakin felt his own breath hitch in his lungs: “Padawan.” Against the gentleness of that word, his hold across Anakin’s shoulders and in the tangle of his hair didn’t give an inch, and—
And Anakin wasn’t a Padawan anymore. He hadn’t been for years.
But the sound of that word, in that voice, still made him freeze. Possibly, he thought distantly as everything seemed to slow to a stop around him, that was exactly what Obi-Wan had intended.
Control of the Force slipping out of his grasp, Anakin heard the sabers thud back to the mats with a dull sound. Everything in the galaxy seemed to narrow in on Obi-Wan’s weight against him—the arm pressing gentle but firm, the fingers tight and anchoring in his hair, the exhalations growing more steady against his ear as Obi-Wan regained his breathing.
In the Force, Obi-Wan’s presence was a steady, familiar flame.
Slowly, inch by inch, Anakin felt his body go limp between Obi-Wan and the wall, his own breathing gradually beginning to come back into his control. Or perhaps into Obi-Wan’s control; Anakin supposed it didn’t matter which. Somehow, for the first time since he’d entered the salle hours ago, he felt like it would be okay if he stayed still for just a moment.
Like the night wouldn’t swallow him whole if he did. Like it couldn’t reach him, not boxed in as he was by Obi-Wan’s frame.
After what felt like an eternity, the rise and fall of his chest still stuttering just a little from exhaustion, he heard Obi-Wan speak again.
“Is that any better?” he asked, and Anakin nodded, his cheek rubbing against the wall. The relentless drive to push himself wasn’t entirely gone, the furious energy that wouldn’t let him rest, but it was a little quieter, now, not quite so pounding in his blood.
A little calmer, held somewhat at bay by the press of Obi-Wan’s arm and the curl of his fingers.
Obi-Wan made a soft, satisfied noise. Slowly, his arms dropped to his sides, leaving a band across Anakin’s back that felt too cold. Bereft. His head felt almost dizzy at the tingling release of his hair. Anakin swallowed painfully around the loss, and then again when Obi-Wan took a half step back, and then—
He gave a small sigh of relief. Perhaps Obi-Wan had felt some of it in the Force, leaking past Anakin’s shattered barriers, because a hand had come up to rest lightly on one of his shoulders, fingers curling in around the slope of it.
“Anakin—”
Anakin didn’t let him finish. He wasn’t sure he could bear to hear the question, not in that careful voice.
“I just—couldn’t sleep,” he said swiftly, tightly, trying to head it off. “That’s all. It’s nothing.” His head dropped forward a little, and he didn’t turn. Obi-Wan’s hand felt warm and heavy on his shoulder, a welcome anchor, and Anakin dreaded the moment when that too would fall away.
There was silence for a moment before Obi-Wan made a sound of consideration. “Will this have helped at all?”
Anakin wasn’t sure if Obi-Wan meant the exertion, his limbs almost trembling with it, or whatever had just happened between them.
“I—I don’t know,” he said, because in the end it was true of both. Then, afraid that Obi-Wan would suggest he try, panic beginning to return to his lungs at the thought of Obi-Wan leaving him to sleep: “I can’t go back to my quarters. I can’t lie there and stare at the ceiling. Don’t—don’t ask me to.”
Obi-Wan’s fingers tightened for a moment around Anakin’s shoulder, a steady, grounding weight. “Then perhaps a change of scenery, just to be on the safe side,” he suggested quietly. “You are welcome to sleep in my quarters instead, Anakin.”
He could see them in his mind—Obi-Wan’s quarters, more familiar than the quarters Anakin had been afforded as a Knight. He’d hardly had time to settle into those, despite the fact that they’ve been his for nearly two years now. He was so rarely on Coruscant to use them.
But Obi-Wan’s quarters—he’d spent countless hours there as a Padawan, doing homework at the table in the sitting area and listening to Obi-Wan talk. And a memory flashed through his mind—of sneaking into Obi-Wan’s quarters as a child to curl up on the floor by his bed, so convinced that Obi-Wan would disappear if he didn’t, just like Qui-Gon had. Just like his mother had as Anakin walked away from her towards the desert horizon.
This felt different, an offer and not some desperate stealing away, and Anakin wanted to grasp it with both hands.
But—
“I don’t think it matters whose bed I sleep in,” he admitted, and then felt himself flush a little. He was glad he still stood with his back to Obi-Wan, though he feared Obi-Wan might be able to see the edges of it anyway, spreading on the heights of his cheekbones and down the line of his neck. “I mean, it’s the same off planet, sometimes. On the Resolute, or in camp.”
“Then perhaps it will help if you don’t sleep alone,” Obi-Wan said quietly, and the offer came so easily, so readily, that it took a moment for Anakin to fully comprehend it.
Anakin felt his breath catch at the thought of it, eyes fluttering closed at the image it brought forth—Obi-Wan’s mattress beneath his back, Obi-Wan’s arm weighted across his stomach, Obi-Wan’s familiar presence all around.
Longing opened in his heart, like something yawning in his bones.
It felt like something forbidden.
It felt like safety.
“Maybe,” he whispered, almost too afraid to speak, as if the darkness would somehow steal it away. As if the restlessness would somehow crush it beneath its tread.
But with that hand on his shoulder, Obi-Wan simply guided him towards the door.
“Then come, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “Let’s go.”