just you and me (and the rest of the world) || anakin & ahsoka

Chapter 1

hello there!! hello to everyone who i've been friends with on here for the past year through my snips and skyguy one shots, and hello to anyone who is new here (and welcome to the chaos)! i've been planning this fic out for a bit ever since posting a one shot in this au a few months ago, and i'm very excited to finally be writing it. grab a blanket and a snack, get cozy, and enjoy :)

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Her dad's apartment only has one bedroom.

It doesn't matter much, though, because she knows that he's more than willing to sleep on the floor or the couch with the torn cushions if it means that he can have her here.

The floorboards by the fresher will creak if you step on them in the wrong place, and you have to turn off the shower if you want to flush the toilet or else the water will go cold.

There's a dent in the wall next to the stove from an unfortunate, yet unforgettable, incident with a pan with a broken handle and the iron grip of her dad's prosthetic hand (he'd refused over and over again to tell her how he'd lost over half of his arm, his expression going dark each time that she'd brought it up. She'd stopped asking after awhile).

The lights in the poor excuse for a living room flicker out every once in awhile, but that's alright because they're on Coruscant, for Force sake, and there's always some source of light shining through the windows. Whether it be the billboards, advertising the latest speeder model, or the speeders themselves, engines running loudly as they zoom by, all throughout the night. Eventually, the noise had just faded into a pleasant buzz that Ahsoka had soon realized she's unable to sleep without.

Her mom's apartment is up in the higher levels, farther away from all the traffic. It's difficult to sleep without it, or maybe, it's just difficult for Ahsoka to sleep there because she doesn't think very highly, nor care much for her mother. Tonight, however, it doesn't really matter which one it is; tonight she's staying with her dad, and the thought of not being here is ruining the peaceful feeling that had been growing stronger and stronger in her chest for the past hour that they'd been lying up here, on the roof, looking through the smoky air at their limited view of the stars.

"Hey?" Anakin asks, nudging her shoulder with his own. "You okay? I think you zoned out on me for a second there."

"Oh." She pulls her blanket more tightly around herself, shivering in the bitter air. With a heating system that rarely works, Anakin's apartment is full of blankets. "Yeah, sorry. I just got lost in thought. Did you say something?"

"Yeah," he says, turning his focus back up to the sky, instead of her, "I was just asking what you wanted to do for your birthday. Big year," he huffs out a soft laugh, "going into high school."

She can't tell if he's proud of her or upset. His tone is bittersweet.

So she just nods along to his words.

"Yeah."

He runs a hand through his dark blond hair, puffing his cheeks and then letting out a long exhale.

"So—any ideas?" He sits up, tucking one of his knees up to his chest and letting the other stretch out in front of himself, tilting his foot from side to side, letting the soles of his boot tap against the metal roof.

She sits up too, crisscrossing her legs and scooting close enough to him that their sides are touching.

"Um... I haven't really thought about it yet. I just want to spend the day with you, but I'm sure Mom will want to see me too," she sighs, resting her head on his shoulder. "I don't really want to see her that day. It'll ruin it."

"Snips," Anakin says softly, looking down at her and shaking his head.

"I'm sorry," she replies, sounding anything but.

"You shouldn't talk about your mother that way."

"But it's going to be my birthday," she presses on, lifting her head off of him so she can look him in the eyes. "Shouldn't I get a say in what I do?"

She sees the slight furrow of his eyebrows and solemn tilt of his head, the togrutan part of her DNA able to catch the movements in the dark, before he looks away from her, letting out a quiet, yet exasperated, sigh.

"You have to remember that it's the day that she gave birth to you, Ahsoka. Can you at least give her a little bit of credit?"

She shrugs.

"It's not like she even wanted me in the first place."

"She was fifteen when she had you," he reminds her gently. "Anyone would have been terrified—I was terrified. But you see how much she loves you now, don't you?"

"No, I don't." She shudders again and Anakin wraps an arm around her shoulders, his fist curled into the end of his blanket, tucking her beneath its warmth, along with himself. "I see how much you care about me, not her," she snaps, jabbing her index finger into his chest.

He lets go of the blanket with his other hand, allowing it to slip from his shoulder as he wraps calloused and blistered fingers around her own, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her knuckles.

"I know you two have a difficult relationship, 'Soka," he says after a few moments of near-silence, save for the ever-present hum of speeder engines as they fly by. "And I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't be," she responds numbly. She hates fighting with him. "Can we go back inside?" she asks, wiping her nose, runny from the cold, on the blanket.

Anakin lets go of her hand so they can each tuck themselves into their respective blankets as they stand up. Anakin's knees pop when he does and he groans in annoyance. He's twenty-nine, for Force sake, his joints shouldn't be failing him already. Luckily, Ahsoka doesn't hear it and he's grateful for that—he doesn't need to endure the teasing of his daughter calling him 'old' when he literally had her at fifteen. 

They unlock the door on the roof with the keys that Anakin had borrowed from the front desk—and he really had borrowed them this time, not stolen, like he'd used to.

Anakin's hall isn't quiet at this time of night, like it should be. Ahsoka just assumes that there's a party going on or something else with a bunch of drunk people that her dad hadn't wanted her to have to deal with. Maybe that's why he'd brought her to go look at the stars.

She runs her hand along the familiar walls of chipped, beige paint, until they arrive in front of her dad's apartment. She waits behind him while he stands on the green welcome mat, pushing his whole body against the door to get it to open. It gets stuck like this sometimes.

The door squeaks loudly on its hinges when it finally opens, and Ahsoka smiles as she pads across the cracked tile, making her way to Anakin's bedroom while he re-locks the door.

"Are we good?" he asks her later, while he tucks her under his covers, his large pillow puffing up around her montrals. "You and me?"

She nods her head.

"I'm not mad at you," she repeats, hoping that he'll believe her since it's the second time that she's said it tonight. He crouches down into a squat so they're at eye level, and smiles. She's relieved.

"Good," he says, running a hand down the side of her lekku before leaning forward to kiss her forehead. Ahsoka closes her eyes. "I'll be on the couch if you need me."

"I know."

"Love you, Snips."

"Love you, Dad."

—

i'm not sure what my update schedule is going to be like for this (is anyone really surprised about that though) with school and keeping my other book updated, but i will try my best to get this written whenever i can. thank you so much for reading and have a good night 🥰