anakin gives his trust carefully, frugally, after he leaves tatooine. you have to earn it, and once you've lost it, it's gone. the council loses it the first time he meets them, and they can never truly get it back.
anakin grows to trust the master he never expected to have, the person who agreed to train him & fought for that. the man who guides him in this strange new world he doesn't understand at all. he left behind his most important connection, his mother, but something new nestles in his heart for his young jedi master.
obi-wan never wanted a padawan so young. he hadn't even prepared for his trials before qui-gon's death, despite his advanced age as a padawan. but suddenly he's a knight, with no transition or chance to adjust through the weeks the trials take. he's a knight and he's made a great and heavy promise. to train a very non-traditional padawan. one who wasn't raised in the temple, who he doesn't understand & who doesn't understand him. he's not ready, but if he doesn't train anakin, nobody else will. he has to carry the burden, and look strong enough to do it so the council don't take the child away.
anakin quickly grows from being a heavy responsibility to a driving motivation. a north star. a sun which the rest of obi-wan's life revolves around. a delight and a struggle and wonderful and infinitely frustrating. he makes obi-wan laugh, makes him smile, in those terrible first six months where it feels like obi-wan has nothing to smile about at all.
anakin grows restless during senior padawanhood. he's far ahead of even his most advanced peers, and he knows it. he outstripped them in lightsaber practice years ago, despite starting later. he's more powerful than any several of them combined, and they all resent him for it. he has hardly any friends to speak of, and that isolation just makes him more motivated to reach knighthood, to prove himself. and his friend, the chancellor, keeps reminding him of all the amazing feats he has performed on missions. he deserves to be knighted. he does.
he loves obi-wan with a devotion that none other matches. obi-wan is his rock. his constant. that which he measures all against. that which he can always trust will be there to rely on. but he holds anakin back. cries patience when anakin knows he is ready to rise a knight. scolds him with increasing levels of acid in his voice, the harder anakin tries and fails to live up to his standards. he loves obi-wan, but his master only sees a disappointment. or a student he should be jealous of, for outpacing him after only a decade of training, to obi-wan's three. his master always withholds affection, keeps himself cold, separated. a festering resentment sits heavy behind anakin's ribs now, at how long he has ached for obi-wan to just give him a hug and tell him he loves him. just once.
obi-wan is so proud of anakin his ribs ache with it, sometimes. and others anger brims in his throat like raging fire. his apprentice is forthright, but can be cruel. anakin is brave and confident but he's also arrogant. he's incredibly skilled, but he's ignorant. he's charming, but sees no shades of grey. anakin is quick, but impatient.
anakin is a contradiction obi-wan doesn't know how to solve. one day soon he will be knighted, but now more than ever obi-wan fears he's failed to live up to qui-gon's wish. that he's a poor master who has failed to teach anakin what he must learn. anakin is his great pride, in many respects. the skill he has honed in just a decade of training, without the foundation of growing up and learning in the temple, is astounding. but he is too prideful. and a hundred lectures, a thousand, can't curb it. he asks for affection too freely, of a kind obi-wan cannot give as a jedi. he hasn't stopped asking in an entire decade, and obi-wan is at a loss for what to do.
changes anakin. he is growing into himself. his confidence can be backed up by a greater success record than any other general in the gar can boast. but whatever second, half formed thought he left for diplomacy before has been completely forgotten now. war has honed him into a deadly weapon of near perfect precision. there is no talking, no coming to a compromise, no half measures. there is only winning, and what it costs to do so.
the tension between him and obi-wan's authority from the end of his apprenticeship has blown away like smoke on the wind. they work like a well oiled machine. two parts purpose built to slot together and move in sync. there is an ease, to the way they fight when standing shoulder to shoulder. and most times anakin thinks, he knows that obi-wan is proud of him. he knows obi-wan cares for him. the way his master slams him to the ground in a desperate shove to avoid a killing shot, or drags his wounded body from the battlefield with an expression that could kill any who dare challenge him, they prove it. he is safe to rely on his old master. but he does not go to him for love, not anymore. he has moved on to another for that, someone who gives her love happily and readily. sometimes anakin thinks obi-wan could love him, if he let himself. other times anakin spitefully thinks he'd never be good enough for his old master's standards.
changes obi-wan. in increments. it robs him of the stability he knows, the means of maintaining his serenity and certainty in the force and it's will. day by day more jedi fall, more civilians, more planets. the cycle of bloodshed is endless. at some point he gets numb to reading the reports detailing the deaths of jedi generals in the field under the third systems army.
his only reliable, trusted constant is anakin. obi-wan's bedrock should not be a person, but it is. the force, he falters in it, in brief flashes. the order, he still believes in, but watches compromise further and further each day from his council chair. twisting and twisting until the code might strangle itself. but anakin doesn't change, or disappear. obi-wan can rely on him to be there, by his side. but every day they grow to be a brighter, more breathtaking team... they also drift apart. the heart of his padawan has never felt further from his own.
feels near. and anakin can no longer bridge the gulf between him and obi-wan. no longer cares to try. is it not his master's job? if he really cares, to do it? anakin has thought obi-wan returned his sentiment in the past, and he was a fool for it. obi-wan doesn't love him. isn't capable of loving the way he does. the code always comes first, no matter how inhumane.
anakin knows he will always love his old master, there is no denying it, no cutting him out without bleeding out himself. but he is a gaping, unhealing wound. whatever he needs, obi-wan doesn't give. whenever he reaches, obi-wan steps further back. when anakin steps back, obi-wan doesn't follow. with every breath he breathes bitterness into his lungs, and pumps it through his veins. with every second, a little more of him hates his master.
obi-wan tries to reach out to anakin, over and over again. he doesn't know what words to say. people call him the negotiator, but what good is his silver tongue if it fails him when it matters most? if he cannot soothe and comfort those who matter most? anakin is drifting away, and obi-wan can't reach him.
he doesn't know what he'll be, once anakin leaves entirely. who is jedi master obi-wan kenobi without the man who has grown him into that? who has taught him more than he ever taught his padawan, during their years together? he's increasingly desperate, but it seems like every attempt only pushes anakin away.
he doesn't need obi-wan, he never did. the man has only ever handed out half measures and insufficient ideals. he is a compromise wrapped in flesh and blood. he cannot offer anakin anything. he deserves this anger anakin has buried and caged for so very long. he deserves it all. anakin hates him. he hates him.
obi-wan has failed. he's failed to save anakin. to reach him. he's run out of time to find the words, and it's too late. the cost is so much greater than he ever could have imagined. he wonders, in the final moment, if the words had always been there waiting. if they were so simple. if they were just... i love you, without qualifiers or excuses. he never said them. he never said them.
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