Archive of Our Own ^beta

The apartment door hisses open with a pneumatic sigh, admitting the crisp Coruscanti twilight and Obi-Wan Kenobi in a single breath. Luke's socked feet pound across the polished durasteel floors before the door fully retracts, his ecstatic shriek of "Oben! Oben!" ricocheting off the walls like a pinball. Obi-Wan's worn leather satchel hits the floor with a thud just as four-year-old arms lock around his knees with the tenacity of a mynock.

"Hello there, little starfighter," Obi-Wan chuckles, scooping Luke up with one arm in a practiced motion that still makes the boy squeal with delight.

The scent of caramelized tubers and spiced protein wafts from the kitchen, underscored by Leia's imperious voice declaring, "No, Daddy, the blue knife! The blue one cuts prettier!"

Obi-Wan adjusts Luke's weight on his hip—he's grown nearly two centimeters since last month, the little womp rat—and steps into the warm glow of the cooking area. Anakin stands barefoot at the counter, flour dusting the rolled sleeves of his tunic, guiding Leia's tiny hands as she saws at a jogan fruit with a vibro-knife set to its lowest setting. The domesticity of it all still steals Obi-Wan's breath sometimes: Anakin's grown-out curls tied back with a scrap of wire, the way Leia's forehead creases in the same concentrated frown her father wore dismantling droid parts at nine years old.

"Good afternoon, Ani," Obi-Wan says, leaning in automatically for their daily ritual—Anakin's flour-dusted lips brushing his temple, the fleeting pressure of calloused fingers against his waist. "You'll never guess what Quinlan said to me today."

Luke immediately wriggles to be set beside his sister, tiny hands darting for the nearest vegetable. The carrot becomes a lightsaber in his grip, complete with high-pitched "vwoom" sounds as he duels imaginary foes.

Anakin doesn't look up from adjusting Leia's grip on the knife. "If he's going on about you greying again—"

"No," Obi-Wan huffs, rolling his shoulders to work out the tension from today's Council meeting. "He said, 'Best wishes to your husband.' Can you believe that? He thinks we're married! We're not even dating!"

The laugh dies in his throat when Anakin's head snaps up like a startled tooka, blue eyes blown wide. With a flick of his fingers, Anakin sends the twins floating gently toward the playroom—Leia protesting loudly about unfinished culinary artistry—before dusting flour from his hands. The silence between them crackles like static discharge as Anakin braces against the kitchen column, shoulders taut beneath his tunic.

"We're not?" Anakin's voice is dangerously calm, the way it gets before he dismantles faulty hyperdrive systems. "Well, that's news to me."

Obi-Wan's mouth opens, then closes. "What are you talking about, Anakin?" He rubs at his suddenly warm face. "I think I'd know if I were dating my former Padawan."

Anakin pushes off the column with deliberate slowness. "Obi," he says—just Obi, the way he hasn't used since he was ten and first learning the syllables of Obi-Wan's name—"we shorten our names for each other." Each step forward lands like a hammer strike. "We live together. We spend every waking moment together." His flour-dusted fingers catch Obi-Wan's belt loops, tugging him forward until their boots knock together. "We're raising twins together."

Obi-Wan's flush spreads down his neck like spilled caf. That damned Quinlan Vos must be laughing himself sick in some Temple corridor right now. Anakin's mouth quirks as his thumb brushes the hollow of Obi-Wan's hip, right where his robes always ride up.

"We share a bed," he murmurs, breath warm against Obi-Wan's cheek. "We hold hands at Senate functions. We kiss in the damned Jedi Archives." His fingers ghost up Obi-Wan's sides, tracing familiar paths beneath tunics memorized long ago. "What did you think we were doing?"

Obi-Wan's knees nearly buckle. "I really hadn't thought about it," he confesses, voice embarrassingly breathless.

Anakin noses at his temple, lips brushing the sensitive skin there. "Do you want us to stop?"

"Of course not," Obi-Wan gasps, clutching at Anakin's forearms.

"Good."

The kiss is slow—infuriatingly measured—as Anakin maps the contours of Obi-Wan's mouth with the same reverence he once reserved for disassembling ancient starship engines. Obi-Wan grips his shoulders, fingers sinking into the familiar topography of muscle and scar tissue earned across too many battlefields.

When they part, Anakin's eyes are darker than the Coruscant night sky. "Obi-Wan Kenobi," he murmurs, pressing their foreheads together, "will you be my boyfriend?"

Obi-Wan laughs—soft, startled, wonderfully alive—as Leia's victorious shriek echoes from the playroom where she's clearly bested Luke in some toddler skirmish. "Yes, of course, dear one."

Anakin grins—that fantastic, reckless grin that still makes Obi-Wan's pulse stutter—before catching his mouth again in a kiss that tastes like home.