Archive of Our Own ^beta

   With the dull windowless metal corridor of a Venator-class star destroyer stretching out in front of him, Anakin was buzzing. The Resolute had returned to Coruscant but, more importantly, he was returning to Obi-Wan. For the first time in months he walked with a slight bounce in his step, following along the red painted line on the floor to the hangar. He'd watched (and guided) the warships decent into Coruscant airspace from the bridge himself, his eyes trained on the tall white spires of his home the whole time. He was going to be on the first shuttle down to planet side, no stops, no delays, Rex could oversee things here. Perhaps, it was selfish of him but what did Rex have waiting for him on Coruscant? Certainly not the most beautiful man in the galaxy whom he'd not had the pleasure of seeing and touching and being in the presence of — OW! something large hit him in the back of the knees, they buckled. He awkwardly slid forward, gloved hand shooting out to catch himself on the wall.

   "What the fuck-" He turned to glower at whoever had rammed into him. He was not even halfway round before R2 started his rushed beeping, his metal head was apparently a very effective battering ram.

   "No, I know I said I'd take you to look at antenna at the shop." Anakin said in disbelief. beep boop be-beep beeeep, "No! We are not going straight away, I'll take you another day."

   R2 whirred mournfully, still (deliberately) getting underfoot as Anakin tried to progress to the hanger. He sighed, watching as R2 slowly and pitifully put up his crooked antenna, the mechanism getting stuck with a horrible mechanical grinding sound before coming to a crunching halt before it could reach it's full hight. Anakin cringed, he could have sworn that hadn't happened the last time he'd seen R2 put up the admittedly slightly askew antenna, it definitely hadn't make that painful noise either.

   There was a beat of silence.

   "Surely, you can manage another day buddy. It doesn't look that bad honestly." Anakin said.

   Enraged, R2 began rocking from leg to leg, clanging about and spewing insults in binary and beginning to recount the story of how his antenna had been damage with special emphasis on how he'd only engaged the buzz droid on Anakin's — yes, Anakin's — instruction.

   Red and blue gunfire illuminated the otherwise black void of space so much that R2 could pick up as far as the edge of the wing of their Jedi fighter and the other ships nearby on his visual sensors. They were deep in the firefight, a flock of vulture droids flying past close enough to brush the receptors on the top of his head as Anakin twirled the ship through their ranks. They scattered. Heavy's panicked voice came on through the coms circuit, cutting off the machine chatter to warn the General of buzz droids on the underside of their fighter. Anakin called back a response and the fighter began to violently lurch in an attempt to throw the vermin off of them. He saw one launched starboard, spidery legs flailing wildly, with no propulsion system, it would drift till it ran out of charge.

   "Buddy, I need you, I can't shake them!" Anakin yelled.

   R2 edged upwards out the astromech slot, holding his buzz saw, arc-welder and any other extremity he could think of above his head in a terrifying display, coming heroically face to face with the enemy droid that had scuttled up onto the top of the ship, it's three vertical red eyes fixed onto R2 in a murderous rage ready to turn him into salvage. It raised its pincer arms and charged at him, scraping and sawing the armament of the ship in its wake. The beast, nearly snapping his antenna clean off in it's attack, reared back to look at its work. It's red eyes glinted ruthlessly and then it began to maniacally laugh at the injury it had —

   "— The enemy droid did not laugh at you R2! That did not happen." Anakin said firmly, "And we are not making any stops on the way back."

* * *

   "How about this one?" Anakin asked through gritted teeth, pointing to the hundredth identical black antenna on the shop display. "It goes with your photo-receptors."

   One beep for no.

   Anakin scowled as R2 led him down the busy market street, stepping carefully around where vendors had their wares spread out on cloths on the ground. R2 hadn't liked any of the antenna at their usual shop, even after picking through each one and making Anakin hold them up above his head in front of the mirror to see what they would look like installed, so they were picking through the dingy electronics market to his increasing frustration. It was near impossible to even see what was being sold with all the people in the way; there was no way R2 would have been able to get close enough without Anakin's looming presence parting crowds for them. It wasn't that Anakin minded going shopping with his friend, there were some good quality parts you could get here if you knew what to look for, but he just really wanted to get back home.

   They must have walked most the way down the street before, grinding to a halt, R2 whistled, looking down at a tall silver antenna carefully laid out in a display. The antenna looked like it had a pretty decent sensor array on it and it didn't look all that damaged for a second hand part; it looked like the curved strip at the top still rotated. It already looked like it had come from an R series so it shouldn't be hard to install… They could always do some modifying if the hardware turned out to be not up to the task, even strip his current antenna to upgrade this one. Anakin looked over at R2 and R2's dome rotated to look back.

   Sixty Republic credits down and back on the shuttle, he was more than ready to get to the temple. The traffic was worse than it would've been if they had just gone straight there but Anakin could at least be grateful that the pilot had agreed to make the extra stop and wait for them.

   R2 D2 wheeled off as soon as they landed, apparently he had 'urgent things to do' whatever that meant. He was lucky droids didn't have to actually talk to the on duty officer at the hangar before they could leave. Anakin smiled and shook his head as he finished up registering his return with the hangar worker. Not long now.

   It was out of the corner of his eye that Anakin saw something he really didn't want to see when he was already late and annoyed; he saw Quinlan Vos milling about the hangar, milling about in his direction, towards him. Master Vos's boots scuffed against the hard metal floor on his approach, Anakin hated when people walked like that. Vos had a sort of grimace on his face, perhaps it was meant to be a smile. Anakin's hackles where raised.

   "Ah, Anakin, you're back from The Altyr System," he said, "That was some important work you did."

   Anakin blinked, where they on first name basis now? Anakin tried to lower his hackles but Quinlan's voice just made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

   "Thank you… Quinlan." 

   Vos's eye twitched.

   "If there isn't something you needed then I really should…" Anakin said trying to slip past him and out of the hanger.

   "Listen, Master Kenobi was talking with me and Obi-Wan is my friend and you are… you are important to Obi-Wan." Anakin squared his shoulders, he didn't like how Obi-Wan's name sounded coming from Vos's mouth, like he thought he knew what was best for Obi-Wan and it wasn't Anakin. Who could be better for Obi-Wan that Anakin? Obi-Wan with anyone else would be ludicrous. He almost didn't hear him continuing to talk. "I know you have not always agreed with my decisions or respected them but since hearing you were coming back and I will never understand why but he has been noticeably happier—"

   "I'm sure he will be happier if you get out my way and let me see him." Quinlan always made him feel violent.

   Disappointment flickered across his face. "Don't fuck this up Skywalker."

   Anakin shoved past him and out of the hangar, mood foul. He didn't have to listen to this shit.

   Of course the corridor was busy, packed full of older Masters leaving the archives for an early tea and senior padwans let out of last class. It was a challenge to break through the crowd, his steps were rigid from the effort it took to not break out into a run; he was sure he was getting dirty looks as he pushed past young and old alike. Quinlan didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. He could get Obi-Wan to never talk to that nob again, he just had to ask. His master would always pick him.

   Something hit the ground with a metallic sounding thunk when he brushed up against the wall.

   Whatever, it was probably just some idiot dropping something, if Anakin had to stop again, he was going to punch someone. His gaze caught a pair of sunken yellow eyes belonging an older, presumably retired, Jedi Master; he was a pale green and reptilian — Anakin could have sworn they'd spoken before. The Jedi craned his his long neck forward, slowly lifting one of his shaky hands from his cane to point a bony finger towards the ground. Normally, he'd stop, his mother had taught him to help those who needed it but today he was busy, he didn't have time for whatever this old coot was pointing at. He almost felt like a weight had been physically lifted from him —interestingly, it felt like from his hip?— when making that decision, it was funny how emotions could do that. Obi-Wan was waiting and it was a long way to the masters wing.

   Anakin hurried off down the familiar architecture of the temple hallway, he weaved behind columns and arches to avoid congestion as he fought through the main hallway. This was the shortest route, straight through the centre of the temple, but this corridor was always busy. Whoever designed the floor plan for this place needed to be fired, it wasn't equipped at all for the volume of people the temple now housed. The stupid delay with R2 and then Quinlan had left him travelling at the exact time it was the busiest. He could always take the route that ran all the way around the perimeter of the temple but that was such a long way. There was no way to just go through the middle without going down this corridor unless you went through the spire. Wait… there wouldn't be a meeting on, would there? He could cut through the spire! Anakin veered off from the main corridor, slipping down a side passage to the spire. 

   Once there, he was left frantically pressing the button for the turbo lift. It would only be a matter of time before someone nosy came and asked him what he was doing here. The other Jedi would never understand the rush he was in.

   He audibly sighed when the lift dinged and the doors slid open. He pushed though before they could open all the way and jabbed at the panel inside the turbo lift. The door didn't seem to want to close back up behind him, it was opening and closing oddly.

* * *

   Anakin stood in sombre regard, holding the shredded corner of his cloak. He supposed he should have noticed when the door wouldn't close or when the lift's ascent had begun achingly slowly for something that was called a turbo lift. It had not been his most dignified moment crouched on the floor of the lift trying to wrench his cloak free from the bottom of the door. He had lost a large section of the fabric in the struggle; it was in tatters, like his spirit.

   He poked his head out the lift, relieved in seeing the quiet and empty room. Finally, something was going right.

   He crept forward into the circle of empty chairs, illuminated by the Coruscanti sunset, single sun bleeding into the horizon, through the tall windows. You could see the city from up here, there was no end to it. Buildings grew in the dark in the levels below, here they touched sky but none reached the height and majesty of the temple. Even the grids of air-traffic were far below, an uncountable number of people stuck in traffic trying to get home that Anakin could only see as little dots.

   He nearly jumped out of his skin when a little blond head popped up from behind Master Yoda's chair.

   "Master Skywalker, there's too many of them! What are we going to do?" A little boy Anakin recognized from the cresh asked, bottom lip wobbling. His tan robes were a few years too big for him and his trousers had clearly been tucked into his boots to stop him from tripping on them.

   Anakin stopped in his tracks. "Erm… what-?"

   "We can't get back to our rooms…" Another child chimed in, wiping her nose on her sleeve and loudly sniffing back snot. "And the corridors are too crowded." There was a third youngling and then a fourth until a small group had swarmed around Anakin, having crawled out from behind the furniture and the shadows, all looking at him with wide eyed.

   "Why are you all in here? You shouldn't be in here." 

    The children looked between each other with guilty expressions. "….We wanted to see Master Jocasta… she's been away." The blond boy started to speak again, "Her quarters are that way but you can't get to them without cutting through here. But, we're scared we will be seen if we get the turbo lift back down."

   "And you think I'm irresponsible enough that I won't take you back to the cresh?" The children blinked at him —"What happened to your cloak, Master Skywalker?"— Anakin was going to ignore that question "Look I won't say anything to the cresh masters but you really need to get back."

   "You won't take us to see Master Jocasta? We won't be stopped if you're supervising us."

   "I really don't have time. You shouldn't be up here, no ones allowed here without a council summons."

   He heard a small hiccup, he'd made one of the youngling cry. Brilliant. 

   "But you're not meant to be in here either Master Skywalker. We could tell on you!"

   "I bet he's come through here to see Master Kenobi!" the snotty nosed girl lit up, her comment starting excited murmurings about the open circle and 'The Team'. "Can we come with you!—"

   "No! no, you can't." He rushed. Anakin had plans for when he got home, immediate plans that weren't compatible with spectating children.

   "But wouldn't it be on the way to the cresh?"

   Anakin's response was quick:"Jocasta isn't that way, I'll take you to see Jocasta."

* * *

   The turbo lift down had been awkward (trying to fit seven younglings and himself into the lift had been a challenge) but they were past that now. Temple foot traffic seemed to naturally part before him as Anakin stormed down the corridor, black cloak billowing behind him and shadow cast over his face. A senior padawan had dared to stand in his way but the boy quickly crumpled under his smouldering glare and retreated to the side in submission. The gaggle of younglings struggled to keep up with Anakin's long gait but they nonetheless marched along behind him, spread out to encompass the whole width of the corridor with small but determined faces.

* * *

   Jocasta had been well, surprised to see Anakin turning up with a gaggle of younglings but well. He felt a twinge of guilt for leaving them with her so soon after she had returned from her conference off world. He had run away while she was distracted before he could be asked to ferry them all back to the cresh. But now he was finally, finally, back on course to see his master.

   Going to Jocasta's had taken him all the way to the Master's wing. Anakin had had his own quarters since he became a knight but no one had said anything when his stuff had all moved back into his bedroom in his and Obi-Wan's quarters (well, most of it had never left); the independence of being a knight had been fun for only a short time really. He hadn't slept well there, he had slept better knowing Obi-Wan was in the next room. He slept even better now he was allowed to covet his beloved properly and share his bed. Their home was just down the hall, around one last corner. When he was little, he'd used to count the exact number of steps it took from each turn to the next while he held onto the sleeve of his masters robe just incase he ever went blind or something stupid but that had never happened. The exercise was wasted by now since he was so much taller and his legs would be longer.

   He turned the corner, there was the door!

   He had the strangest feeling he'd forgotten something important, he instinctively patted himself down. 'Your lightsaber is your life, Anakin.' Fuck, fuck fuck. It was gone. He whimpered, looking towards the front door. There was no way he could go inside without it, he'd have to go back and figure out where he'd dropped it but his hand still hovered over the keypad anyway. He could sense his master on the other side, probably flittering around the kitchen or watching out the window as ships docked. Obi-Wan could be just as unproductive as anyone when he thought nobody was watching. He wanted to rush in and rub up against him like a tooka while their force signatures intertwined. It was a terrible longing. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, a lost lightsaber was a big deal, you couldn't just ignore it if it got into the wrong hands…

   He barely noticed someone tapping on his shoulder and a wrinkled hand holding out his lightsaber to him. He turned to his saviour: the master from earlier, he was sure now that he'd met him before, he was kind. He must have come from the opposite direction than Anakin, for Anakin had noticed no one following him.

   "I thought you might come here; I believe you dropped this." 

   "Thank you, oh, thank you." Anakin babbled, his hand closing around the cold metal of his weapon. 'Don't! Lose it, Anakin.' He was never going to ignore anyone ever again or think less of the elderly or anything bad, ever.

   "Young Skywalker, always in such a rush. I remember when I was young, such passions and…" 

   The door in front of him opened on it's own before he could even get to the button to Obi-Wan standing on the other side of the door with his beautiful blue eyes that always softened for Anakin and he didn't hear another word that old coot was saying. He had his arms around his lover before the door could shut tight behind them.

   "Ah… Anakin—"

   "…Master…."

   His hand found it's way to the back of Obi-Wan's head to tangle in his hair while their faces slotted together into an indelicate kiss. It had been three months. He moaned into Obi-Wan's mouth as he was crowded against the back of the door, finally home. It was Obi-Wan who broke the kiss in the end but only so he could kiss down Anakin's neck and speak to him. His beard tickled.

   "I… thought I… sensed you outside, darling. My love," he pulled Anakin's collar to the side so he could bite down and mark just low enough it could be covered, he was such a gentleman. "My darling Anakin."

   Why did Obi-Wan have to make everything inside Anakin liquify? He couldn't put the words together he wanted to say how much he loved him, all that came out his parted lips were soft ahs as Obi-Wan's strong thigh came between his legs, pressing deliciously against his groin. He ground down against it eagerly, he'd been so neglected since he'd been away, nothing felt right without his master; not touching his cock or trying to work himself open with bacta or even grinding against the mattress with his clothes still on felt the same. Obi-Wan had had to talk him through it over the secure com channels that Anakin was pretty sure where for military use only, not phone sex but desperate times had called for desperate measures.

   "I thought you might come home today. I've been making you dinner, I thought I'd just freeze it if you didn't get here today." Obi-Wan said. He'd not wanted to get Obi-Wan's hopes up that it would be today and not tomorrow that he managed to get back to Coruscant. Obi-Wan bowed his head forward, resting it next to Anakin's.

   "I love you." Anakin said shyly.

   "I love you too," Obi-Wan replied. "Now, help me lay the table."

    "—but…" Anakin whined, he'd not had Obi-Wan in so long, he didn't want dinner.

   Obi-Wan just pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth, his hand moving all the way down to palm at where Anakin was getting hard through his trousers and grinned. "We can do that after dinner."

END.