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Important Edit 11/18/2021: I couldn't source the poem from the end of the story because I wrote it on a piece of scrap paper a few months ago (from my handwriting, I was probably either tipsy or drunk tbh) and then immediately forgot where it came from (and there are literally hundreds of places I could have seen it) so I couldn't link to the original because I didn't know where the fuck I got it from but I just got a lovely comment from the original poster so please check out the original poem here (x)!
@Rsblmng sorry about that. I looked for the damn poem for like three hours and then thought I must have heard it from a non-Tumblr source (specifically my French friend who says forboding things in English when he sleep-talks at night. Hella creepy, sometimes I write it down).
Also, my Tumblr is here (X)!
“I’m addressing the Republic today, not as the Chancellor but as a fellow member of a galaxy that has been ravaged by war. The war has ended but its effects still linger and will linger for decades to come. I truly believe that as long as there are sentients old enough to remember the war, we will be dealing with the consequences of it.”
Bail Organa looked around at the senators that were in the chambers and then back to the holo recorder. He took a deep breath, giving Obi-Wan a pitying look before he opened his mouth and continued his speech.
“One thing that has been decided on and will be carried out, despite my misgivings about it, will be the retributions called for by the Galactic Republic is the execution of key Separatist leaders that were found guilty of dealings with the Sith. One of such is today.”
There was cheering in the crowd and Bail put his hand up to silence them, giving a harsh glare to the crowd.
“I don’t believe this is the right thing to do,” Bail told them sternly, “As I’ve said before, but the Senate has voted and it has been decided. Today we are gathered to witness the execution of key Separatist leader Darth Vadar.”
He heard a pained noise but kept his gaze facing forward. Looking at Obi-Wan right now would prove too painful. The devastation that had overcome his face when the vote had officially been decided had been hard enough to witness. He couldn’t watch as his friend lost the only thing he’d ever truly cared out.
“Please welcome Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Bail told the crowd, “There are some things he must say.”
Obi-Wan cleared his throat, desperately choking back the sob that threatened to escape it, and steeled his expression as he looked out, taking a step forward to address the crowd.
“It is not the Jedi way to seek revenge,” he began, “nor is it the Jedi way to kill an unarmed man.”
He swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying to release his emotions to the force.
But even the force was angry with him, throwing them back in his face so that he had to contend with them, so many swirling around in his chest that he was sure it would burst against the pressure that was building in it.
“But this is no ordinary man,” Obi-Wan told them, biting back a sob, “And this is not just Darth Vadar. This is Anakin Skywalker.”
He took a deep breath.
“The man who despite being responsible for millions of deaths around the galaxy, is the one who saved it,” he continued, “He was taken from his home and mother at a young age by Sideous and raised as a Sith. He rose in ranks and became the high general of the Confederacy of Independent System until he defected, revealed Sideous’ plot to take over, and saved over one hundred quadrillion sentients.”
His expression turned down into a frown as the situation really dawned on him. This was it. This was the end. How had it turned out like this?
“After being pardoned by the Jedi he was indited by the Senate and sentenced to death,” Obi-Wan told them, feeling like there was nothing left inside of him, “And his last request of us was to die by a Jedi’s hand like he would have if he’d not surrendered.”
“He requested me,” Obi-Wan continued, “And so here we are.”
He turned to Anakin, whose face had remained impartial up until that point. Now his expression was angry and hurt, tears slowly running down his face as he looked up at Obi-Wan, eyes a bright blue, like the midwinter sky at dusk, right before the world gave itself over to darkness.
It pained Obi-Wan to look into those eyes that he’d fallen so in love with, knowing that this would be the last time he ever saw them.
“I want to say that I wish I’d never met you,” Anakin told him through his tears and then closed his eyes for a second, opening them back up as fresh tears fell down, “But it would be a lie. Falling in love with you was the best thing that ever happened in a very sad life.”
“I want to go with you,” Obi-Wan told him softly, so no one could hear what he was saying, unable to hold back his own tears as they started to drip down his own face, “Please, can I go with you?”
“No,” Anakin shook his head, “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you Obi. Please, live the life that I won’t ever get to.”
Anakin looked up at him, expression breaking again, “I hate you for doing this to me. In another life, we could have been together but we only have this one. Goodbye.”
Obi-Wan lit his lightsaber, closing his eyes against the glow of it as he raised it above his head and brought it down.
A light was extinguished in the force, the presence such a supernova that its absence left a black hole in its place, the force screaming into the void, almost as if also knew that what had been done was the biggest atrocity of the war.
As a slave, Anakin had only ever wished for his mother and him to be free. It had been all he’d hoped for. He’d heard of legendary warriors, the Jedi, who were meant to come and bring justice to the galaxy.
He prayed that a Jedi would come for them and take them away from the life of slavery and misery that was the only thing he’d really ever known.
The man who had come for him did in fact have a glowing lasersword and mystical abilities that couldn’t be explained. Anakin had been thrilled. They were saved and when Palpatine had paid for them, freeing them from the dirtball planet he hoped to never see again, he’d promised to train under him for his help.
It wasn’t until it was too late that Anakin realized that there were beings in the universe with the same abilities as the Jedi but under a different name. By then, however, Anakin was already training under him, preparing to become something he’d never heard of before, a sith.
As a young boy, he hadn’t known the difference. They both were the same in their abilities and besides their inclination to fight each other it seemed they were mostly the same. But as he’d grown older he wasn’t blind to the cruelty that they spread, the way that they seemed to poison everything that they touched.
Sideous had ordered him to kill Dooku and take his place at the helm of the war and when he refused he’d seen the true colors of the Sith. He wondered, after Sideous had killed his mother when he was only sixteen years old, if the Jedi was as cruel to their apprentices as the Sith.
He prayed to the force that they weren’t.
Anakin did as Sideous asked the next time, and so Darth Vadar rose, the most feared being in all the galaxy.
Obi-Wan sighed, catching his breath behind a building as chaos reigned around them, blaster bolts ripping through the air as the sounds of explosives filled in the gaps. Obi-Wan’s ears were ringing like they often did after hours of scrimmages and he couldn’t find his wayward padawan anywhere.
“Ahsoka!” he yelled, ducking from debris and using the force to push more away from his men.
“Master!”
Obi-Wan turned to see Ahsoka running towards him, ducking behind a destroyed building before managing to get right in front of him, protected by the broken piece of building they were both crouched behind.
“Where have you been?” Obi-Wan asked her sternly, “I told you to stay by my side young one.”
“You have to come quick,” she said, rather than answer his question, “Darth Vadar has been spotted tearing through the ranks. If it keeps going like this we’ll be in some real trouble when he meets up with Loathsome. One is bad enough but two is going to be nearly impossible Master.”
Obi-Wan straightened, sucking in a breath before nodding his head and gesturing in front of them, “Start a retreat. If Vadar is here then we’ve already lost. I’ll head him off and serve as a distraction. Get everyone evacuated as soon as possible.”
“But Master!” Ahsoka started to say.
“Go now, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan commanded, “We’re running out of time.”
She nodded her head and activated her comm. Obi-Wan started in the direction she’d come from.
Anakin gone against many enemies, Jedi, and clones alike, but there was something different in the one who approached him on Lola Sayu. He looked just like any of the human Jedi, pale skin and auburn hair, dressed in the creams and taupes standard for them. He’d seen many Jedi before him, killed two of them in a fight to the death, but this one was different.
His force signature was bright, beaming light so close to white that it almost blinded Anakin, even behind his mask. When Anakin approached him the usual screaming in the force quieted, sounding more like a lullaby than a wail. It was the first time since he was a child that the force had worked with him, leading him as if he were a friend rather than a foe.
Anakin thought at that moment that if this man had been the one to find him, instead of his master, they could have worked together and he was sure that it would have been beautiful, the most beautiful thing ever observed in the force, even millennia after they’d gone.
“Vadar,” the man said, his Coruscanti accent evident in the way Anakin’s moniker fell from his lips, like he was cradling the words in his mouth instead of spitting them out the way Anakin had grown used to.
Anakin almost didn’t know what to say. But the man stared at him expectantly, raising an eyebrow and straightening slightly.
“I didn’t expect the man-made of cybernetics to have the capabilities to be stunned,” the man continued as if Anakin wasn’t gaping at him, and Anakin supposed to be fair he couldn’t tell what Anakin looked like behind his mask.
Then he bristled, “More cybernetic than man? That’s a little judgmental, don’t you think?”
He realized early on in the war that people thought because of his suit that he was like General Grevious, upgraded using cybernetics so as to be a ruthless fighting machine. He usually wouldn’t mind, as it benefited him for people to think that he was too hard to kill, and to not know where his weaknesses lie but in this case, with this beautiful man standing across from him, he wished more than anything to be merely human, with flesh and bone that could reach out to touch him, to cup his face.
“I’m merely repeating what I’ve been told,” the man told him, hands going up in surrender and Anakin felt like that wasn’t right. There was no reason for this man to ever surrender to anyone. If anything Anakin wished to surrender to him.
Anakin startled, shaking himself out of it. This was ridiculous. He’d known the man for a handful of seconds and Darth Vadar did not surrender to anyone, less likely a Jedi.
“I’m afraid your reputation doesn’t proceed you,” Anakin sneered at him, “Because I don’t know who I am dealing with. Would you be so kind as to tell me who I am about to kill?”
The man gave him a small smile, “Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master, at your service. I don’t suppose we must fight? Why don’t you just surrender and we can leave it at that?”
Anakin rushed forward, drawing his saber and taking the first swing, hoping to take the man by surprise but he was good and Obi-Wan- no Kenobi- drew his sword in one swift motion, blocking him with a slight flick of his wrist, gritting his teeth as Anakin pushed against him, Kenobi’s feed sliding across the marble ground.
What Anakin lacked in refinement, he made up for in raw power, something that had often given him the upper hand. With the training he’d gone through- twelve hours a day, every day, for the last ten years- he was nearly unstoppable, rivaled only by a few.
It almost saddened him to see that this man was not one of them. He hit Obi-Wan’s sword just right, and it flew from his hand. Anakin got in a well-placed kick and then the man fell with a cracking noise, his leg at an odd angle.
Anakin raised his sword, ready to strike the final blow when the force shrieked, the noise louder than anything Anakin had ever heard in his life, enough to startle him into stepping back and disengage his saber, letting it drop on his belt and putting his hands over the part of his mask where his ears would be, even though it didn’t help.
He looked up at the man, who looked just as confused as he felt, and started to back away. He couldn’t be here. Something was wrong in the force, rippling through it like the aftershocks of an earthquake and making his teeth rattle.
Whatever it was one thing was for sure. Obi-Wan Kenobi couldn’t die today.
Anakin retreated.
That wasn’t the last time Anakin faced off with Obi-Wan Kenobi, but he learned quickly that no matter how many times they came face to face, he would never be able to kill the man. The thought was so perverse that just the thought of it sent the force around him into a powerful storm, whipping painfully at his skin and screaming in his ear.
He needed to find Kenobi off of the battlefield and find out what drew him towards him so much. He sent word out to his contacts, separate from Sideous’ network, and waited for word to return to him.
Something was wrong with Vadar. As Obi-Wan gave the account of his newest mission to the council he tried to explain to them what he meant but found he didn’t have the words.
“You’re saying he bested you in combat?” Windu asked him, fingers crossed in front of him, “I don’t mean to be blunt but no one who has gone up against Vadar has come back to tell the story. What makes you so special?”
Obi-Wan knew he didn’t mean it in a bad way but it still rubbed him the wrong way.
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan told him honestly, “But it cannot be a coincidence that every time we face each other he disarms me and then retreats. There must be something that we are missing.”
“Something you’re not telling us, perhaps?” Yoda asked him, a knowing look on his face.
“Not at all master,” Obi-Wan told him smoothly.
The feeling he had every time that he was near the man had nothing to do with the situation. It didn’t matter that the force sang around them when they met, or that it always seemed to mourn the moment Vadar walked away.
Anakin received word of a bar that Kenobi was known for frequenting during his time planetside and that he had such a retreat coming up soon. Anakin looked at his mask in the mirror and then took it off.
Under his armor, he was no longer Darth Vadar, but Anakin Skywalker, the small scared slave boy from a dirtball planet no one cared about on the outer rim. He sneered at his reflection. Anakin Skywalker was weak, he was unloved, he wasn’t important.
Darth Vadar was known and feared throughout the galaxy. He was a key piece in a plot to overthrow the Republic.
That didn’t explain how he ended up in a backwater bar on the lower levels of Coruscant, dressed in clothes that marked him as a mechanic. He wondered if that might not be how he would have looked without Sideous’ involvement and then he banished the thought. It didn’t matter anyway.
He didn’t have to wait long at all, watching as Kenobi slid onto a stool and raised his hand to signal for the bartender. Anakin swallowed, realizing that this was it. Either he walked out and pretended he’d never been here or he do what he’d come here to do.
“Hey there,” Anakin said, sliding into the seat next to him.
Kenobi looked up, giving him an appraising look up and down and then turning away from him, raising a hand and waving it in front of him, “You want to leave me alone.”
Anakin blinked at him, leaning against the bar with an indignant look, “Does that usually work?”
Obi-Wan blinked back at him, looking stunned, “That didn’t work.”
Anakin scoffed, “Of course it didn’t work and it was incredibly rude.”
He watched as Obi-Wan took him in again and then stroked his beard, seeming like he was lost in thought.
“You’re force sensitive,” he finally said, “I can feel your signature around you. It’s faint but it’s there. The corps maybe?”
Anakin wanted to argue with him. The only reason his force signature was faint was because he was hiding it behind his mental shields, not because he wasn’t strong. But then he realized Obi-Wan hadn’t said the thing he’d expected him to.
“That’s a surprise,” Anakin told him.
“That I can feel your force signature?” Obi-Wan asked, raising an eyebrow at him and waved the bartender over, “Hello dear, could you get him another one of what he was drinking?”
Anakin stifled the jealousy he felt at the pet name he’d given her and instead kept talking.
“It’s just many people say that it feels dark,” Anakin mumbled, looking down into his lap as a glass was set down in his periphery.
“Dark?” Obi-Wan seemed surprised and then put his glass down, holding out his palms, and then said in a gentle voice, “Why don’t you let me take a look for you? I’m from the Temple. Perhaps I can help.”
Anakin knew it was a bad idea. He could blow his whole cover, get himself caught, get himself killed. But he needed to know how Obi-Wan’s skin felt, needed to ground himself with the man’s touch as everything felt tilted.
He put his hands in Obi-Wan’s. His grip was surprisingly gentle, although Anakin could make out the callouses he had from holding his lightsaber. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and then Anakin could feel his presence expanding, pressing against the walls of Anakin’s shields and gently poking and prodding as he attempted to find a way in.
“You need to let me in,” Obi-Wan told him, “You’re more powerful than I’d thought. Just drop the first level of shields for me.”
Anakin did so without hesitance, only realizing that he’d reacted to Obi-Wan’s voice as if were a command after he’d already done so. He gasped, feeling Obi-Wan’s presence wind around his, warm and soft as he cradled his jagged signature.
“It’s not dark at all,” Obi-Wan told him, pulling back his presence, much to Anakin’s dismay and opened his eyes, “It’s- well I’m not quite sure there’s a way to explain it without insulting you, I’m afraid.”
“Please,” Anakin asked, “What does it feel like to you?”
Obi-Wan looked at him, gaze piercing through every part of him before he found whatever it was he needed.
“It feels a bit broken,” Obi-Wan admitted to him, “Like someone took a hammer to a piece of transparisteel.”
“I could feel you wrapping around it,” Anakin told him softly, “It felt like you softened all the edges. Is there any way I can do that for myself?”
“Not without a teacher,” Obi-Wan told him regretfully, “I am sorry to tell you bad news.”
“Could you wrap around it again?” Anakin asked, “Everything is always so loud in my head. You make everything quiet.”
“I’m not sure-,” Obi-Wan started to say but stopped at the look of pleading Anakin gave him.
“Fine I can,” Obi-Wan relented, “But- not here. It’s a very intimate thing to be doing with so many people around. Do you have somewhere we can go?”
“Yes of course,” Anakin told him and he felt the force sing around him, rejoicing in a way it had never before, “Let’s just finish up here and I’ll take you there.”
Obi-Wan hadn’t been joking when he said it would be intimate. The second he’d fully wrapped his signature around Anakin’s he’d hardly been able to breathe and then there was a familiar ache in his gut. Obi-Wan was pressed up against him on the bed of the hotel, eyes closed in concentration. Anakin squirmed underneath his grip.
“Are you alright?” Obi-Wan asked quietly, breath tickling the back of his neck and making Anakin writhe in his grip even more.
“I-I- I can’t,” Anakin said, starting to pant as heat shot down his spine, his whole body aching for more, more, more-.
“It’s okay,” Obi-Wan whispered to him, “It’s normal for you to get aroused when this is going on. This is why I thought it best that we do it in private. It- it’s something that only lovers do. Usually, it requires quite a bit of trust, but you seemed to have no trouble letting me in.”
“I-I need more,” Anakin said. He was throbbing between his legs and Obi-Wan was wrapped around him physically and mentally and he needed more. He gripped the hand that was resting lightly on his hip and dragged it so that Obi-Wan was gripping the inside of his thigh, “Please.”
“I’m not sure that’s a gre-,” Obi-Wan started to say but Anakin let out a noise close to a sob and rocked back, grinding his ass back into Obi-Wan’s cock and letting his head drop to stretch his neck to the warm breath on it.
“Are you sure?” Obi-Wan asked him quietly, voice serious, “Because if you don’t want this…”
“I want it,” Anakin promised, moaning as Obi-Wan cupped his cock and he arched into the feeling, “Please.”
Obi-Wan was gentle in a way no one had ever been gentle with him. He laid him down and divested the both of them of their clothes before taking Anakin into his mouth, seemingly unbothered by the embarrassing noises coming out of his mouth.
“It feels so good,” Anakin whimpered, “Kark it feels so good, please don’t stop.”
He only got a hum in reply and then there was a finger, pressing against his entrance, wet from whatever had been in the tube Obi-Wan had pulled out from his robe. As it pressed in, it was as if every nerve Anakin had gone haywire. Obi-Wan worked him open slowly and gently until Anakin was a writhing, panting mess begging for him.
“Please kriff me, please,” Anakin begged shamelessly. He felt like he was about to burst but it wasn’t enough and he knew it would feel so good when they were finally able to-.
Obi-Wan pressed into him and his head swam, the force brightening around them until all he could feel was-
Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan continued to thrust in and out of him, reaching down to smoother the noises coming out of Anakin’s mouth with his own. Anakin was nearly bent in half but it didn’t hurt and it felt so good as Obi-Wan continued to kriff him. He could have stayed in that moment forever, with the older man completing something in him that he didn’t even know what half-finished.
When he came, shortly before Obi-Wan himself did, everything in the room levitated a few inches off the ground and he accidentally burnt out the lightbulbs of the lamps on the side tables. The building jolted and as Obi-Wan came in him he looked down at him in wonder.
“Did you just do that?” he asked once he’d caught his breath.
“I didn’t mean to,” Anakin replied sleepily, “I couldn’t control it when you were inside of me. It had to come out.”
“It’s fine darling,” Obi-Wan assured him and Anakin smiled at the pet name, “You just surprised me is all.”
“Will you stay the night?” Anakin asked him softly, afraid of the answer.
“I really shouldn’t,” Obi-Wan admitted to him, and Anakin’s heart dropped, “But I suppose one night wouldn’t hurt. After all, it’s not as if this will happen more than once.”
Except once turned into twice.
Twice turned into four times.
Four times turned into monthly.
And then monthly turned into weekly.
Until he found out. Ironically, in the one place that he never should have been able to.
Maul had locked him up, promising to make up for where Vadar had failed. Obi-Wan’s body was still shaking from the stun rods that they’d used to bring him down and he had a deep cut on his leg from where Maul had gotten the upper hand.
It had been two-on-one and despite Savage’s lack of formal training, Obi-Wan had been exhausted after fighting for two days straight. He’d succumbed quickly and now he was on his way to die.
They were hours from Separatist space when there was a large jolt and the ship’s lights went out, only emergency lighting turning back on. In the momentary lack of power, Obi-Wan had been able to slide the door open and began to run, limping towards the escape shuttles that he knew had to be on board.
It was slow-moving but Obi-Wan thought he would make it, until he had them in sight and then felt a warning. He moved just in time to avoid being run through by Maul’s blade and then he was growling.
“You won’t get away this time Kenobi,” he told him, “I’ll make sure of it.”
They clashed, Obi-Wan fighting the best he could with his injuries but it was futile. Maul had the upper hand and Obi-Wan had no saber.
“Prepare to die,” he snarled at him and Obi-Wan accepted his fate.
“Don’t you dare!” he heard yelling and waited but there nothing struck him when the sound of clashing rang through the small space. He opened his eyes to see a black cape and mask and realized that Vadar stood in front of him.
“Are you really protecting him? Maul sneered at him, “Just wait until Sideous hears about your insubordination. I’m sure he’d love to know his favorite toy has jumped sides.”
“Get to the escape pod! I’ve activated the self-destruct on the ship! You need to go!” Vadar yelled, handing him his saber and Obi-Wan turned to run, knowing that it was possible he didn’t have much time.
He turned to Vadar once more and felt a tug from the force. He cursed himself, setting the pod to auto-eject and running back the best he could. He gripped Vadar and started to drag him back, clumsily managing to throw them both in the pod just in time for it to close, leaving Maul on the other side of it.
They were just out of the ship’s range when it blew, taking out an asteroid that had been passing and throwing debris everywhere.
“Why would you do that?” Vadar asked him finally, after too many moments of silence.
“Why did you save me?” Obi-Wan countered.
Vadar sighed and then looked up and Obi-Wan eyes widened as he began to tug at his helmet.
“Don’t get yourself killed after I’ve just saved you!” Obi-Wan told him, “You need your cybernetics to breathe!”
“I don’t have any cybernetics,” the low robotic-sounding voice said and then the helmet was off and Obi-Wan realized in horror that he knew that voice, “It’s just a story the Sideous told everyone to explain the suit. And I saved you because I love you.”
Obi-Wan looked at Anakin Skywalker like he was made of cybernetics.
“No,” he said in horror, “No it can’t be. Anakin please, you can’t be-.”
“Darth Vadar?” Anakin asked, voice cracking, “Why not? You- you told me- the last time we were together you told me you loved me.”
“I love Anakin Skywalker,” Obi-Wan told him tightly and Anakin let out a pained noise.
“I am Anakin Skywalker,” he told him, “Please just because I’m also Darth Vadar doesn’t make me any less Anakin Skywalker.”
“It does to me,” Obi-Wan told him, voice breaking, “You’ve killed millions of people. You- you lied to me! We’ve- oh force- we’ve had sex Vadar! You made me think you were someone I loved!”
“I could be!” Anakin told him desperately, leaning forward and then shrinking back as Obi-Wan’s hand came up in a fist, “I’m Anakin Skywalker. Please you told me that I could be Anakin Skywalker.”
He started to cry, tears falling down his face for the first time since his mother had died, “I want to be Anakin Skywalker. Please I want you to love me. You said you loved me.”
“You’ve orchestrated a war that’s killed tens of millions of people,” Obi-Wan told him emotionlessly, “I can’t love someone who continues to hurt people around him.”
When Anakin managed to get away from him, Obi-Wan felt like his heart was breaking but it was probably for the best. He wouldn’t have been able to lead Anakin to his execution as he should have.
The whole Trade Federation was dead.
Obi-Wan didn’t know how he felt about that. On the one hand, they were no longer a problem for the senate. But on the other, they died at the hands of Vadar, and it hurt Obi-Wan to think that he’d been so in love with the man who was out destroying the galaxy.
Then the Chancellor was assassinated and the galaxy was in chaos. The galaxy had to elect a new one while the Separatists scrambled to regroup. They received word that Grevious was dead and then Loathesome fell and the only Separatist leader left was Vadar.
It left Obi-Wan feeling empty inside, to know that soon Vadar would fall.
“Go to Mustafar, you must,” Yoda told him one day while they were in the council chambers, “Seen it, I have. Send anyone else, we cannot.”
“Of course Masters,” he told the council, “When shall I leave? And what will I be doing?”
It turned out that the force was still too clouded for them to know why he had to be there. But he went anyway, taking a ship there and landing on the planet in the most stable spot he could find, which wasn’t saying much.
He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. But to see Darth Vadar standing at the bottom of the ramp, wasn’t it.
“I see you’ve made it,” he told Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan noticed that he wasn’t wearing his normal suit. In fact, it looked like he was wearing something that you’d normally see on-.
He remembered that Vadar had told him he’d once been a slave and swallowed hard.
“Is this how it ends?” Obi-Wan asked, “With you killing me? Because let’s face it, Vadar, you’ve been trained as a machine and I can hardly keep up.”
“I’m not a machine,” Vadar told him tightly, looking down, “And my name isn’t Vadar. It’s Anakin Skywalker. Palpatine isn’t here anymore to tell me what my name is. That’s my decision now.”
“Palpa-?” Obi-Wan asked and then he felt dread running down his spine, “Palpatine was the Sith in the senate Dooku mentioned? You- you killed Sideous?”
Anakin nodded and drew something out of his robes, holding out to him, “This is the recording of him admitting to orchestrating the war. You’ll find that the files haven’t been altered in any way.”
“What kind of trick is this?” Obi-Wan asked him, “I no longer wish to play your games Vadar.”
“This isn’t a game,” Vadar told him and a tear fell down his face, “I’ve destroyed the Sith. Taken the organization from the inside and I’m prepared to surrender if you’d only give me two things.”
“And what is that?” Obi-Wan asked, ready to tell him no. There wasn’t any information he was willing to give Vadar, less he escape with a leg up.
“Call me Anakin,” Vadar begged, tears falling down his face, “and kiss me again. Please just one more time.”
Obi-Wan faltered, unsure of what to do.
“Please just one kiss and say my name,” Vadar was sobbing now, crouched in on himself, “And tell me you love me. Please I want you to tell me you love me again.”
“I-I,” Obi-Wan began to say and Vadar cut him off.
“Please,” he pleaded, “No one has said they loved me since my mother died. No one has said my name. I loved it when you said my name. It sounded so perfect coming from you.”
Obi-Wan bit back his own sob and stepped forward, taking Anakin’s face between his hands and gentling kissing him, allowing the younger man to cling to him and push into his space until he was shielded from the rest of the world.
“I love you, Anakin,” he said quietly, heart hurting as the boy began to sob even harder.
“I love you Obi-Wan,” he cried, “I love you more than I ever loved anything.”
Obi-Wan begs and pleads and throws around whatever weight he can. He gets the Jedi Council involved, desperate to do anything to stop it. Bail and Padme back him up and they argue for weeks, while Anakin waits in a cell.
The Senate debates for weeks, drawing it out as they argue and shout back and forth. They say he is the last Separatist leader left and that someone has to pay. Padme tries every appeal she can, working endlessly. He gets a petition to go around, kings and queens that he’s helped from hundreds of planets to back him up.
But on the primeday of the fifth month of the year, Anakin Skywalker is slated for execution in retribution for his crimes against the Galactic Republic. He asks for Obi-Wan Kenobi to be his executioner.
Obi-Wan doesn’t have it in him to deny the man the chance to see him one last time, even if will destroy him for the rest of his life.
I would go to
Meet you as my executioner
If
It meant I got to see
You
One last time.