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There was always an aura of aloofness about Obi-Wan, even when he turned to face his hearer and smiled gently, when he talked to them about matters of importance or simply wished them a good day. He was always there, but at the same time he seemed so distant, so ephemeral, so heavenly. As if he were about to disappear if you took eyes off him for a moment.
Anakin didn't understand why his Master was so different from other people. The holonet suggested that sometimes it was the way the hormones produced by falling in love worked in the human body, but the scientific side of the matter didn't really interest Anakin. Falling in love couldn't make your body float above the ground, full of a sense of mightiness, but the Force could.
And yet the holonet was right. The Force didn't turn people into angels, didn't make foolish teenagers lose their heads in jealousy and greedily inhale the faint scent of another man's body on the bedclothes, didn't make the wet dreams that Anakin, tired after training, sometimes had instead of meditating, and didn't make them crave the touch as much as if a moment of separation could end someone's life.
Sometimes Anakin regretted being born a beta. Being a beta meant living without a secondary gender, being the most ordinary human possible, as ordinary as a Chosen One could be, recognised by the Great Force and with more midi-chlorians in his cells than the most powerful Jedi of the Order in the last thousand years. Opposite, Obi-Wan, his Master, was unique in some way: omega men were born so rarely that in many cultures they were considered blessed with good fortune, also a kind of Chosen One.
If Anakin had been a little more shameless, he would have called this coincidence a sign from above, an indication of the unbreakable bond between him and Obi-Wan, of the Path they were destined to walk hand in hand as a true couple, of which there were many legends in the Jedi archives without any official confirmation in the current age. But Anakin was the beta, and Obi-Wan was an example of a rare genetic mutation, an exception that only proved the rule, and no tales of true couples and Force dyads could change the essence of their awkward relationship: not-so-perfect Padawan was in love with his not-so-perfect Master.
Anakin knew about marks and pheromones, about the nuances of alpha and omega biology, even about heat and rut, having secretly calculated Obi-Wan's cycle to the day, and if his diligence in learning such embarrassing things had been channeled into lessons at the Jedi Temple or meditations in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, Anakin would have received far fewer disapproving looks from Master Windu or Master Yoda every time he and Obi-Wan had to report to the Council on a mission. But all this accumulated knowledge about secondary genders, the evolutionary process of the human race, and the differences between normal and distorted humans,—which some modern researchers believe nature herself disavows,— only frustrated Anakin more, causing him to sink deeper into the melancholy and jealousy over the fact that Obi-Wan definitely had someone.
Someone beloved, someone dear to Obi-Wan's heart, someone capable—despite the damned evolution and all the postulates of the Jedi Order—of marking him with scent and perhaps even seed, marking him so deeply that the bond would remain for years to come, keeping Obi-Wan from forgetting and preventing the thin thread of sadness from disappearing completely, melting away in the Force.
Obi-Wan had the alpha, and Anakin hated the very thought of this, hated it with every part of his soul. Anakin didn't know who the alpha was or how long he and Obi-Wan had been bonded, but who, if not true love, a true couple destined by the Force, could cause Obi-Wan Kenobi to have a sad, understanding smile and a look directed into the void, as if there, in the depths of space, hid the person who could make him truly happy. Anakin hated the treacherous thought that he would never be closer to Obi-Wan than one alpha, this long-ago missing son of bitch who had chosen to avoid responsibility for his relationship with a Jedi, running off somewhere outside the Outer Rim or maybe—long dead. Hadn't all those shrewd and wise Masters noticed how much Obi-Wan was in love with a man whom Anakin had probably never met in his life, but hated so much that he could have been torn apart upon meeting?
Sometimes Anakin regretted being born the beta. Putting the Master's pillow or his old robe in need of cleaning against face and breathing in the delicate smell of skin, the bitterness of stale sweat and the tart notes of something unknown turning in his imagination into specific pheromones, Anakin thought about how his teeth were sinking into the sensitive spot just below Obi-Wan's neck and leaving the alpha's mark on the thin skin. How would it feel? Would it hurt Obi-Wan, or would it feel good? Would the passionless and sober Master whimper beneath Anakin, wriggling his body in the heat, or would it be Anakin going mad with fever as he entered the first rut? What would the Master's scent be like if Anakin could truly smell it, as only the alpha could, recognising among the omegas the only one with whom he wanted to bond and spend the rest of life as a married couple? Would Obi-Wan still smell as sweet and stupefying as he did now, when Anakin's dick hardening almost painfully at the mere thought of fingers gently stroking Obi-Wan's warm, soft belly and slowly moving down to the waistband of pants and tight underwear?
Anakin held his palm to the mouth, trying to stifle his thick, wet breaths, and groaned in frustration, overwhelmed with desire and thirst for the love he couldn't get. No inhibitions could stop Anakin, no doors remained locked in front of him, no eyes could look with impunity at what he wanted. But the one thing that ironically opposed Anakin the most was his own nature. No matter how many nights Anakin dreamed of his gorgeous, unattainable Master, no matter how many times he said Obi-Wan's name at the height of climax, clutching the sensitive glans of dick and rubbing his face against Obi-Wan's pillow, no matter how many books Anakin read in an attempt to find a solution, the pictures from his imagination could not become reality. Obi-Wan still smelled like the other man, smelled like the unknown to Anakin alpha, and remembered him at least a few times a month, and the closer the days of heat came, the more desolate Obi-Wan's gaze became and the worse Anakin felt.
Anakin was the beta, the perfect example of centuries of evolution, the most biologically ordinary human being and yet the Chosen One, the child of the Great Force. But no amount of midi-chlorians in his blood, no amount of love Anakin's heart was capable of, could change the fact that Obi-Wan's heart was forever given to another.
“Master,” Anakin whispered, looking at Obi-Wan, his body relaxed in sleep. “If you only knew, Master…”
Putting the crumpled pillow back on the bed and making sure there was nothing too suspicious on the pillowcase or the pyjamas, Anakin climbed under the blanket with Obi-Wan and snuggled closer, wanting to steal at least a little bit of the cozy warmth that was not meant for him, the beta.
Anakin knew that Obi-Wan loved him too, loved in his own way, tenderly and piercingly, with kisses on the top of head in the morning, soft smiles in training, thoughtful guidance during their meditations together, and slightly judgmental glances after another conversation with the esteemed Masters from the Council, but Anakin lacked those—pitiful, he thought—crumbs of love. He wanted Obi-Wan to belong to him completely, he wanted every inch of Obi-Wan's skin to be covered with his scent, he wanted his own fire to burn, his seed to ripen inside Obi-Wan. Anakin wanted Obi-Wan only for himself and could accept nothing less, even if Obi-Wan whispered back to him every night, “I am yours, Anakin. Yours forever.”
Anakin wanted to believe him, really wanted to, but the treacherous thought wouldn't go away. What if Anakin had been a true alpha? Would Obi-Wan's gaze that he used to throw at Anakin in the mornings, chuckling at teenage boner, have changed? Would Obi-Wan's lips have kissed his face in a different way, moving from parental love to something deeper? How would Obi-Wan have hugged him then, trying to comfort after another obscure nightmare?
Anakin squeezed his eyes, nuzzled his face against Obi-Wan's warm back, and sighed faintly. Obi-Wan's scent enveloped him, sweet and at the same time with an obvious hint of bitterness, as if poisoning jealousy had blossomed into a field of pure radiant love, and Anakin slid his nose slowly along Obi-Wan's spine under the tight fabric of the night robe, blindly trying to find the spot where the Master's scent changed into someone else's. Anakin needed to get rid of this bitterness, to cut the thread leading back to the past, to make Obi-Wan his own-own-own. He wanted it, needed it so badly and desperately that he could barely breathe.
Obi-Wan shuddered through the sleep at the ticklish touch and rolled over to face Anakin. The bitter scent vanished immediately, displaced by the scents of hair shampoo, soap, and laundry detergent, and Obi-Wan's sweet scent only grew stronger. Maybe it was Anakin's imagination, or maybe there really was something on Obi-Wan's skin, something odd that had been embedded in him through the hands and lips of the unknown to Anakin alpha ten years ago, and even an ordinary person could sense how closely the two souls were bonded.
Anakin looked at Obi-Wan, catching the slight flutter of his lashes and the movement of his chest heaving in measured breath, this fading in the dark, timid image of a man who had been wounded by betrayal once before, and vowed that no one would dare take Obi-Wan from him again.
No one and never.