#lowkeyanakin

A violent tug in the Force rips Anakin from the restless sleep he succumbed to while trying to put together a mission report from Obi-Wan’s impossibly complex note-taking system. As soon as he opens his eyes, his senses firing up all at once and his perception extending to check for any incoming danger, his attention is drawn by a strange noise coming from his side, accompanied by a surge of grief and dread.

It takes him a half-second to realize that all three are coming from Obi-Wan, who’s spent the last ten hours sleeping off a viral fever after a cocktail of meds and the strongest sleeping suggestion Anakin felt safe to administer to him.

“Obi-Wan..?” he calls as he sits up and turns to him, but all Obi-Wan does in response is to repeat the same noise as earlier, which Anakin now recognizes as a strangled sob mixed with a rasping attempt to say his name.

His face is ashen except for a bright red flush tinting his cheeks, and his hair is soaked in sweat. Just below the stringy fringe stuck to his forehead, his eyes are wide open, but he’s staring straight at the ceiling without blinking, so still that Anakin is not sure he’s awake.

He reaches over to check his temperature while running a quick vitals scan with the Force. His skin, though clammy, feels much cooler than it was when he tucked him into bed, and inside everything seems fine, but the feelings of deep sorrow and fear don’t stop pouring out of him, roiling in the Force like storm clouds.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin calls again, inching closer to push his sweaty hair away from his forehead. When he touches him, however, Obi-Wan gasps loudly and one of his hands shoots up to grab Anakin’s wrist.

For a long moment, he just keeps gasping, his dread thickening, becoming denser and heavier, his eyes still unmoving and his lips still trying to wheeze out Anakin’s name.

Worried he might end up choking, Anakin tries to free his arm to help him up and maybe shake him awake from whatever nightmare he’s having, but his grasp is too strong and gets tighter with every attempt Anakin makes to liberate it.

“Obi-Wan, please. It’s just a dream, you just need to wake up,” he tries then, using his free hand to shake his other shoulder and try rather unsuccessfully to at least turn him on one side. “Please, love. Wake up.”

That seems to calm him down a bit, at least. He stops gasping as heavily as before and he manages to turn towards Anakin, though his eyes remain unfocused.

“Love?” he asks softly, his voice barely more than a rough whisper, almost a cough.

“Yes, my love. I’m here. Come back to me, please,” Anakin urges him, trying to send soothing suggestions through the leaden clouds of fear still crowding his mind.

“Love,” Obi-Wan repeats in a blubbery whimper.

Then, he blinks slowly, once, twice, and Anakin senses a subtle shift in the Force, signifying that Obi-Wan is recovering his consciousness and a certain control over his mind. As soon as his eyes find and focus on Anakin’s face, however, they immediately fill with tears. At the same time, his lips start to quiver, his mouth parts to let out a low wheeze and his hand moves from Anakin’s wrist to cup his cheek.

“Oh, Anakin,” he says in a shaky, breathless murmur.

His storm clouds, now an impenetrable curtain of anxiety, thunder loudly within his mind as a wet sob explodes from his lips, and then, after a beat of tense silence, Obi-Wan sighs and his anguish starts raining into tears.

As loud sobs shake his entire frame, he sits up just to fold into Anakin’s chest, and he can do nothing but hold him close and wait it out. Despite how shaken he is, Anakin tries his best to suppress his own fear to soothe Obi-Wan’s, while murmuring sweet, comforting nonsense into his ear, reminding him that he’s safe, that he’s not going to leave him alone, and that everything is going to be alright.

He's never seen Obi-Wan this upset. Rationally, he knows that fever-induced nightmares are normal, especially given the constant fear and stress of their daily lives, but still, seeing his stoic and perfectly poised Master in such distress makes Anakin’s heart clench uncomfortably, and he’s both curious and scared to know what kind of dream might have brought him to this.

He won’t ask, of course. For now, he’ll just focus on getting him to stop crying and maybe sleep some more. He’s not quite sure of what to do, he has no way to know what Obi-Wan needs in this situation, so he opts for how Obi-Wan usually soothes him in similar crises and just hopes for the best.

As soon as the violence of Obi-Wan’s sobs subsides just enough that he can sit upright without folding back onto himself, Anakin gently pushes him away from his own chest to take his head into his hands.

Tensing up, exposed from his safe hiding place into Anakin’s sleep shirt, Obi-Wan tries to take a few deep breaths to recover some self-control and avoid openly weeping in front of Anakin’s direct gaze, but he doesn’t succeed for long. After a few moments of apparent stability, Anakin watches him sniff a couple of times and then his lips start trembling again and soon, tears resume flowing freely down his reddened cheeks as he manages a series of wet, unsteady sighs.

He squirms in Anakin’s grasp, diving for his chest again, but Anakin doesn’t let him hide this time. He keeps his hold steady, though still gentle enough that Obi-Wan will manage to move away easily if he tries with just a bit more conviction, and carefully inches closer to his face to leave a butterfly kiss on his lips, catching him mid-sob.

Obi-Wan makes a little pained sound but he doesn’t flinch, so Anakin feels emboldened to go on. Slowly, he starts moving upwards, kissing his way through Obi-Wan’s beard until he reaches the spot on his cheek where tears sink into the tangle of thick copper hair.

There, he lingers, pressing his closed lips against the wetness on Obi-Wan’s skin, all the while infusing all the warmth he can gather into their Force bond, sending in love and reassurance and acceptance and some more love, for good measure.

When he senses Obi-Wan’s breath slow down ever so slightly, he moves down again, stopping at his lips to kiss both corners in quick succession, making Obi-Wan jump but also eliciting a quiet burst of wet laughter, to then repeat the same thing on the other side of his face.

As he kisses Obi-Wan’s tears for a second time, he moves his hand to brush his hair back and, at the same time, lightly run his nails down Obi-Wan’s scalp. He knows that the shiver he feels shaking him at that has nothing to do with his crying, and he can’t help feeling a little satisfied.

Seeing that the strategy is working, he keeps at it, trailing more kisses across Obi-Wan’s cheekbones and brow and beard, continuing to send out waves of reassurance, and gradually, with each press of lips and each little nudge, Obi-Wan’s dread dissipates, replaced by a tentative contentedness mixed with deep exhaustion.

Although he’s already stopped crying, Anakin only stops when Obi-Wan yawns. When he moves away, he’s relieved to see that Obi-Wan’s eyes are clear, though sunken and red-rimmed. More than that, they’ve recovered some of their regular sparkle, different from the glossiness given by the fever, and most importantly, they’re shining with the most tender affection and appreciation.

After a moment, Anakin senses a surge of gratitude roil within Obi-Wan, so when he sees him open his mouth to speak, he moves in to silence him with one last kiss, which he infuses with a light sleep suggestion.

When he breaks away, he understands from the little scowl creasing Obi-Wan’s brow that he’s lucid enough to recognize what Anakin is doing but too tired to fight it. In any case, any attempt at protesting is interrupted by another yawn, to which Anakin just laughs.

He helps Obi-Wan lie down again, careful to make him stay on his side. Then, he starts to move away to go lie on his side of the bed and maybe try again with the report, but with the last of his conscious strength, Obi-Wan grabs the front of his sleep shirt and tugs him closer.

“Stay,” he mumbles, a pleading look in his drowsy eyes, to which Anakin can do nothing but comply.

Careful not to jostle him too much, Anakin wraps Obi-Wan in his arms and lets him curl into his space, leaning his forehead against his chest, engulfing both his body and mind with what he hopes is a comforting warmth.

Obi-Wan hums contentedly as he nuzzles Anakin’s chest, and with a last flare of gratitude through their bond, he’s fast asleep again.