Two Halfs of One Warrior • Obikin/Vaderwan One-Shots

Because It Brings Me Back To You

• Summary: Obi-Wan stumbles back to the Temple drunk and tired, but the padawan asleep in his bed is too tempting to leave alone.

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Dinner has long gone cold. After hours of sitting out on the table, it will have to be tossed. It’s not the end of the world to waste food, but it gnaws away at Anakin’s insides worse than hunger. He can afford to waste food. That’s not the issue. As a Jedi padawan, there’s no chance of going hungry when there’s plenty to go around, but what he can’t afford is to take a few days off from training if he gets sick from food poisoning from trying to eat the cold meal that’s been sitting out for hours with no one to eat it.

It's not about the food anyway. At least, not really. While the meal he took the time to carefully prepare had sat there abandoned, so had Anakin, rapping his fingers on the table and waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for someone who wasn’t coming. He keeps telling himself that Obi-Wan will walk through the door to their quarters any second now. He’s been telling himself that for long enough now that the numbers on the chronometer are starting to blur.

Obi-Wan isn’t coming back. Anakin should have realized that after an hour of waiting patiently and pitifully in silence with the lights turned on low, but it’s hard to be objective when you’re blinded by love.

It’s so stupid to let himself be hurt over and over again and expect a different result each time. Someone wiser might have learned their lesson after the first couple times they’d had to throw away the food they cooked with their own two hands, too nauseated from bitter defeat to stomach eating alone, but not Anakin. He keeps waiting and hoping that this time will be different. Obi-Wan will show up with a smile, and he’ll thank Anakin for being so thoughtful and patient.

But he never does.

They don’t eat together most of the time. Anakin sleeps in too late to share breakfast. Their schedules have them running circles around each other during the day and Anakin’s growing body needs food on a more frequent basis than Obi-Wan’s does. By the time dinner rolls around, Anakin is usually about ready to drop dead from hunger, while Obi-Wan is perfectly fine to push his meal until later. It’s not practical to try to share their meals, but Anakin always keeps his eyes pealed for his master when he heads off to the nearest refectory, longing to hear him ask for a warm, casual dinner alone in their quarters.

And since Obi-Wan won’t ask, Anakin has taken the initiative himself. He even learned a new recipe just for him this time. Obi-Wan mentioned it offhand on their last mission, probably never expecting Anakin to commit the name to memory, to go searching through the Temple Archives for an authentic Austeri rhodit steak and curry dish, and then spend hours over the course of a week searching high and low through various markets in and around the distract to find the exact ingredients and spices to make it just right.

Anakin had toiled over a hot stove for the better part of the afternoon to get the meat nice and tender and the sauce to the right consistency, but it’s worth the sore back and burnt tongue if it means he gets to see the surprise shining in Obi-Wan’s eyes and the delighted curve of his smile when he walks in and sees what Anakin has done for him.

Obi-Wan is nowhere in sight. His eyes and his smile are just a figment of Anakin’s lovelorn imagination. The food he worked so hard on will go to waste. It doesn’t matter that it tastes perfect, or that Anakin had waited for him. Obi-Wan isn’t here with him. He’s somewhere else.

Anakin sighs and buries his face in his hands. As a Jedi, he is meant to let go of his emotions, but the disappointment is too big inside his chest to just let go. It weighs upon him like it were a real thing, tangible enough to touch but not to push away so he can breathe. It’s not the first time he’s been left alone, and it certainly won’t be the last, but just because he saw it coming, doesn’t make it hurt any less.