Chapter 1: Trigger/Content Warnings
Chapter Text
There is a significant number of warnings I felt warranted more than the tags. Please read thoroughly if you get triggered or have issues with these topics. There are pretty significant spoilers involved, so read at your own risk. But don’t say I didn’t warn you!
- Ben wears gowns, corsets, and makeup—this is not a kink, this is a cultural practice as an Omegan queen. However, Ben is effeminate in many ways, and this is part of his personality.
- Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics
- BDSM elements
- Mpreg
- Mention of miscarriage
- Sexual name calling (shutta “slut”, whore, etc.)
- Explicit sexual content. Like some explicit smut in here.
- Omegas have female anatomy. This means: Ben and Anakin have vaginas. They are graphically described, multiple times, with terminology like pussy, clit, cunt, etc. I swear to the sweet Lord, if you leave an ick comment about men having vaginas, I will hunt you down. This is your warning.
- Exhibitionism and voyeurism
- Mention of sexual assault (exact term used is “rape”, used to discuss minor characters’ actions in the past tense)
- Mentions of slavery
- Fucking machine/droid
- Unexpected Heat
- Fisting
- Emotional abuse (not between Anakin and Obi-wan)
- Graphic description of childbirth and body fluids (including vomiting)
- Postpartum depression which is not handled well by most characters
- Major character death (you won’t be too sad, don’t worry)
- Interesting and debatable parenting skills
- Obi-wan/others; Anakin/others (no cheating)
- Subdrop/Aftercare
Chapter 2: Part I
Notes:
Here we go! If you made it this far, I'm so happy to see you here! I hope you love this piece as much as I loved writing it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Present
Naboo
“Your majesty, the Duke of Coruscant is here,” came a polite, soft-spoken voice from the doorway, and the Queen of Naboo looked up from the littered display of paperwork strewn across his desk with a red-painted frown.
“Give me a minute before you send him in please,” Ben said, setting down his pen and leaning back in his seat. A soft murmur, a curtsy, and then the door clicked shut behind her, making Ben sigh as he perused the mess of his desk. His eyes were tired and weary, his back ached, and his head dully thumped with a worsening headache. When he glanced at the windows, he was rather surprised to see how high the moons had risen—the hour was later than he realized. By now, the children would be tucked away into their beds, and Hux would be nearly home from his diplomatic visit to Tatooine.
“Perhaps we’ve done enough for one night, your Majesty,” Poe murmured quietly from his small writing desk pressed adjoining Ben’s, his collar loosened and hair wild from restless fingers running through it.
“Yes, I’m inclined to agree,” Ben nodded. His corset was tight enough to hurt now after so many hours of wearing it, and he needed a warm bath and his soft bedding desperately. He’d been deep in contemplation over the newest batch of legal papers from the First Order representatives for most of the day, and they’d only made a small dent in the corrections that needed to be completed in the next two cycles…but alas, the duke waited.
“This should be a quick greeting, as the Duke is staying for a fortnight,” Poe said as he stood and adjusted his collar, reaching back for his jacket which hung over the edge of the chair. Ben scratched at his hairline and the heavy hairpiece resting there as he nodded tiredly. “A quick greeting should be more than enough.”
“I can think of more tiring people to have to greet this late in the evening,” Ben chuckled. “Thanks ever so much, Poe. Send him in, would you?”
“Of course, your Majesty,” Poe grinned with a wink, dipping his head in an informal bow before leaving, the door shutting behind him, his retreating footsteps firm and steady. Ben slumped back in his high-backed chair as best the corset would allow, reaching a long-fingered hand down to caress the warm swell of his belly. This would be their fourth living child, and Ben felt the Force strongest with this pregnancy-- it tangled and glowed brilliantly when he meditated, enough to distract him even, and he felt the baby move constantly. If not for Hux’s reassuring touch, Ben would hardly be able to sleep for how much movement they had.
The door creaked open, and the Duke of Coruscant entered, followed by two guards and his secretary. He beamed delightfully at Ben, stopping to dip in a formal bow, as Ben moved to stand with as much decorum as he could manage.
“My dear Lord Kenobi,” he smiled warmly at his namesake and one of his mother’s oldest and dearest friends. “We are delighted that you could join us for the seasonal festivities.”
“Your Majesty,” Kenobi responded, voice soft and Coruscant-crisp. He did not look much different from the last time Ben had seen him (the last Royal birth, no doubt), though perhaps a little greyer. There were no residual traces of auburn hair, and his beard looked white now, but he looked just as strong and dependable and sharp as ever before. Considering his advanced age, Ben could only marvel at the man’s spryness. “You look well.”
“I look pregnant,” Ben chuckled. “And very tired, I have no doubt. I hope you will excuse the lack of formality in our greeting.”
“Our ship was intercepted by First Order air enforcement, who conducted an exceptionally thorough investigation before allowing us to continue our journey, or we would have been here at a more respectable time,” Kenobi responded with a twisted smirk to his lips. His eyes seemed to twinkle, as they always did, and Ben was hit with memories of being a child, shouting and being swept up in hugs by ‘Uncle Ben’.
“I’ll have Hux send them a strongly worded reminder concerning how guests to this planet should be treated,” Ben frowned, his headache raging back to life. “I apologize.”
“Oh, it’s nothing we can’t handle,” Kenobi responded with an easy smile and relaxed tone. He watched as Ben sank back down into his seat and took the hand-waved offer to sit with a grateful nod. “How is General Hux?”
“He is well,” Ben murmured, a smile crossing his pretty face. “He should be returning shortly, though I fear you may not see him until tomorrow.” He leaned forward and sipped from his half-empty goblet of watered-down wine before remembering to offer the duke some. Kenobi refused with a gentle shake of his head. “He is eagerly awaiting any new updates about the moisture farm blueprints you discussed on your last visit.”
“Your husband has quite an eye for engineering,” Kenobi chuckled. “I did bring my modifications for him. His work improving the lives’ of the poor farming communities of Naboo are commendable.”
“He is quite the force to be reckoned with,” Ben laughed. He felt a harsh kick in his belly, and he only just resisted soothing the child with his hand and a soft wave of the Force. “We have set you up in the East wing of the Palace, in your old rooms, if that is agreeable.”
“How generous of you, your Majesty, I thank you,” Kenobi dipped his chin in thanks. “I must say…to see you where you sit brings back many memories of your grandmother sitting in that same seat,” he chuckled, and Ben grinned warmly.
“Your stories of her have always warmed my heart,” he said. “That I should never have met her was sad, but that my mother should never have talked about her is even more tragic to me.”
Amidala, like Ben, had been an Omega Royal, exceedingly rare and exceptionally precious to the people of Naboo. Unlike Alpha Royals, like Leia, who could fight in military battles, go to university, and make governing decisions independently with help from their counsel, Omegan Royals had different obligations—to look beautiful in fancy costume and makeup, to make pretty, sweet conversation to foreign diplomats, and to make babies, Alphas preferably. Ben had been compared to Amidala’s beauty many times, and though kindly meant, he’d never appreciated the comments. But to hear the words from Kenobi hit different.
“She was a wonderful queen,” Kenobi murmured, his eyes glazing a little as he disappeared in a memory Ben would never know. “Passionate about her people, fiercely intelligent, and…” He blinked back from his reverie and smiled kindly at Ben as he stood. “But alas, a conversation for another time. Good night, your Majesty.” He bowed.
“Good night, Lord Kenobi,” Ben stood, remaining standing until the room had cleared and he was alone at last.
Obi-wan “Ben” Kenobi was a living legend across the galaxy, and his status as war hero and diplomatic liaison to Naboo and Coruscant was the stuff of myth. In the decades before Leia had even been born, Kenobi had been a great Jedi, now little more than a bedtime story hero, and he’d been known as The Negotiator. His skills at smooth-talking and calming ruffled feathers had earned him first a spot on the Naboo Cabinet as General after the First Fall of the Empire but then Duke of Coruscant in the years leading up to the rise of the First Order.
But to the royal family, Kenobi had been dear friend and adopted grandfather to Ben, who had never known his own. Amidala and Anakin, the Queen and Consort, had died when Leia and Luke were just infants, right on the cusp of the Second Fall of the Empire. It had been Kenobi who had been a gentle hand on Leia’s shoulders as she was coronated Alpha Queen; he had guided her, as Poe guided Ben, with kindness and warmth, returning to Naboo as a diplomatic friend for years until Leia had felt confident enough to rule alone. For Ben, he’d simply always been there for him when he’d been a temperamental, willful Omegan child. Kenobi had been unfailingly patient with him, in a way Han and Leia had never been, teaching him ways to utilize the Force in good, healthy ways—where Leia had pushed her powers away and Luke had used them as mere party tricks, Kenobi fostered a love for the glowing warmth of the Force’s presence in Ben. When he’d left, a ten-year-old Ben had cried for days.
“My darling,” came a warm voice from the doorway, and Ben blinked back to the present to notice the tall, well-dressed figure in the doorway.
“Thank the Force, you’re back,” he breathed out, and Hux grinned. He looked delicious standing there, all broad shoulders and wind-swept red hair and dark hungry eyes on Ben, hands shoved down deep in his pockets. He’d come directly from his ship from the dusty state of his coat, and despite all the travel and difficult political conversations he’d no-doubt had over the last however many days, he looked remarkably well-rested.
“You look exhausted,” Hux said simply, voice crisp and clean, and Ben laughed, standing with some difficulty and moving around the desk towards his husband, who met him halfway.
“Just what I wanted to hear, thank you, dear,” he said, and then every other thought left his mind as he was swept into a hungry kiss. Hux gathered his thin, lithe frame tenderly into his arms and kissed him deeply, not seeming to care about his painted mouth, a texture and taste he didn’t normally relish.
“I missed you desperately,” Hux said when he pulled back, and Ben wrapped his arms around his shoulders as best he could, combing through his messy hair.
“Much better,” he murmured. “Come along, darling, take me to bed.”
“I’ll carry you,” Hux murmured, already beginning to stoop, but Ben stopped him with a chuckle.
“No darling, what would everyone think?” he laughed. “The Queen cannot be carried to his bedchambers like a common shutta! People will talk!”
“People will think that the Queen’s Consort wishes to fuck his Queen like a common shutta after weeks without seeing him,” Hux said simply, tone dry and bored. “I don’t see anything wrong with this picture.”
“Of course you don’t, darling,” Ben patted his cheek affectionately. “You’re an Alpha, why would you?” He waltzed past his now-glowering mate and headed for the door. “Come along, my love.”
As they walked down the hallway (or waddled, in Ben’s case), Hux slid his hand through Ben’s casually, both ignoring the sunset-colored ensemble of Queen’s Handmaidens who trailed behind them.
“How badly were our plans received?” Ben asked, and Hux sighed.
“Not as poorly as we might have dreaded,” he considered, voice hushed as they moved through dark shadowed hallways towards their private wing. “Though the Free People’s Republic of Tatooine continue to ignore warning signs of rising coups amongst their people, and it worries me greatly.”
“There is little we can truly do for them,” Ben said with a frown. “They do not want our help.”
“And yet, to leave them to destroy themselves in chaos and anger…” Hux shook his head. “I cannot simply watch.”
“Of course you cannot,” Ben murmured, leaning in to nuzzle his husband’s neck affectionately. “Because you are good and just.”
“Because I am an Alpha and I need to be in control, or so Phasma says,” Hux muttered, loosening his collar a little. A quiet snort from behind them had him pausing and turning to glare at Rey, the Queen’s favorite Handmaiden and dear friend…who was also Phasma’s favorite bed companion.
They paused outside the guarded double doors of the nursery, and Hux released Ben’s hand.
“Let me see them, just for a minute,” he murmured.
“They just went to sleep!” Ben protested with a soft whine, selfishly wanting all of his husband’s attention, and Hux clucked his tongue in gentle admonishment.
“I need to scent them,” he murmured. He eased the door open and slipped inside on stealthy feet, nodding good evening to the children’s nanny as he made his way over towards the little beds.
Leia was all of three years old, with hair as bright as her father’s and spirit as vibrant as her mother’s. She slept buried under a green blanket, though she didn’t stir when Hux eased the blanket back and pressed his nose to her head before scenting her sleep-soft cheek lovingly. He murmured something in her ear, words Ben couldn’t make out, and then let the blanket fall down. The next bed housed their two-year-old Cassian, who was as dark-haired as his mother, though he had his father’s soft temperament and kind heart. He lay with three massive stuffed toys wedged on either sides and even at two, Ben knew he would be an Omega. Hux scented him too, though it seemed to slightly rouse their son, who grumbled something under his breath and turned into Hux for a sleepy scent.
Ben grinned as he rested a sore hip on the doorframe, watching his husband gently tuck the blankets around Cass, before he moved to the cradle, where their eleven-month-old lay awake, dark eyes watching him silently. Finn was their perfect blend, dark knowing eyes and bright red hair, and when Hux whispered to him and lifted him for a kiss and a scent, he didn’t make a sound, curling pudgy hands around his father’s neck sleepily.
When the nursery doors were shut once more and the couple were back in the privacy of their suite, Ben pressed his body fully up to Hux’s, always glad they were nearly the same height, and he kissed him hungrily, not caring that the Handmaidens were present, busy preparing his dressing gown and bath.
“Mm, what was that for?” Hux asked as he stepped back, pouring himself a strong drink and lounging on the couch while he watched his lover sit at his dressing table and begin wiping off his makeup. Rey stood behind him, beginning the arduous task of removing his headwear and combing out his thick dark hair.
“Seeing you with our babies…it warms me, down to my toes,” Ben said simply. “Seeing an Alpha’s natural love for their children is the most beautiful thing in the world.”
“Seeing you is the most beautiful thing in my world,” Hux responded simply, sipping from his drink. The headpiece came off, and his husband’s natural coloring and pink-flushed cheeks appeared like magic in the reflection of the mirror with a few swipes of his cloth.
“Silly Alpha,” Ben murmured, standing and turning to let Rey unbutton his gown and then start on the strings of his corset. Even at half-length to accommodate the baby, it was uncomfortable, and he inhaled greedily once it was off. “Lord Kenobi arrived tonight for the season,” he added as he stripped down to his bare skin where he stood, stepping carefully out of the pool of fabric and tiptoeing on sore feet into the adjoining fresher, aware of Hux’s hungry gaze on him the entire time.
“I’m glad he could make it,” Hux said as he followed him into the fresher, shooing the Handmaidens out and taking their place to help Ben step into the tub, though he checked the temperature first, as he always did. “I know how much you care for him.”
“He is dear, isn’t he,” murmured Ben, moaning a little as he eased back against the tub. “Though he seemed…troubled…tonight.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing in his tone or face, but something in the Force,” Ben said. “He seemed different.” He reached for the soap halfheartedly, already knowing that Hux would beat him to it. He leaned forward so he could reach his back, and he moaned again at the feeling of strong hands kneading sore muscles down his back and up again. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow about it.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing you need to worry about tonight, or else he would have mentioned it immediately,” Hux pointed out, and Ben nodded, leaning back. He gazed at Hux’s face tiredly as he lifted each toned leg for washing. Then with a naughty smile, he spread his legs open under the water and waited, watching Hux’s gaze darken for a moment before he reached down between his spread thighs and touched his warm center.
“Are you asking for assistance from your Alpha?” Hux asked in a low voice, gaze focused on Ben’s open mouth, lips twisted in a smirk. “Are you feeling desperate for my touch, my Queen?”
“I need you to touch me so bad,” whispered Ben in a hushed voice, though their voices echoed through the extravagantly tiled fresher.
“I am touching you,” Hux responded with a low chuckle, and Ben shook his head.
“I need you inside me,” he whined, gripping Hux’s shirt with a wet hand, trembling under the feel of Hux’s fingers caressing his folds and his clit, gentle circles and strokes meant to drive him mad.
“Like this?” Hux asked, easing a finger inside him slowly, and Ben keened at the feeling. It was weeks of his own touch to ease the constant fire in his gut that always came during his pregnancies, and now Hux was teasing him? He flushed.
“Armitage Hux, if you do not fuck your mate the way the Makers intended, I will not speak to you again for a whole week,” he Omegan-yipped, flashing his teeth in horny frustration. Hux laughed at the display, leaning in and nipping at his mouth tenderly, before removing his finger.
“As my Queen commands,” he murmured, lifting Ben out of the water as if he weighed nothing. He toweled him off gently and then moved to leave the fresher with his precious cargo in-arm. “Though you would never last a whole day, let alone a week.”
“Don’t try me, Hux,” Ben tried for a growl unsuccessfully, too busy scenting Hux’s neck desperately to come across as intimidating in any way.
“How else would you beg for my knot all day?” Hux teased, easing his mate on the bed covers and moving back to unbutton his shirt and loosen his pants. “No, you’d never last that long."
"I am your Queen, and it is your duty to please me however I demand it,” Ben said with a snobby sniff, though the affect was ruined when he squealed as Hux gripped his ankle and yanked him towards the edge of the bed, spreading his legs wide.
“You are my mate, and it is my constant desire to please you whenever you want it,” Hux corrected him in the crisp, cool tones of his perfect accent before pressing his face to Ben’s pussy and licking.
“God, Hux,” whimpered Ben, reaching up above him to hold onto the bedding as Hux suckled on his clitoris and teased the little swollen bud mercilessly. “Yesss, Alpha,” he breathed out desperately, spreading his thighs open wider and gripping behind either knee to keep himself spread, hungry for more, more, more, always more with his mate. Hux growled against his skin, easing his tongue deep inside him, fingertips on his clit, on his rim, on his swollen belly to move up to sore, sensitive nipples just to flick them ruthlessly the way he knew Ben craved.
They were being loud, but the only people listening were the guards outside the doors, and they’d heard (and seen) plenty worse in their station, so Ben cried and writhed and begged until Hux had him arching his back and curling his toes into his orgasm.
“Please fuck me,” Ben begged when Hux finally pulled back enough to reach up for a hungry kiss, burying his fingers in Hux’s hair to keep him there for longer, tonguing into his mouth and swapping an absurd amount of spit just because they could.
“Mm, how do you want me?”
“Lay back,” Ben said, breathless with the decreased lung space from his belly, and no sooner had Hux splayed flat across the bed that Ben was crawling up into his lap and easing down onto his cock in a smooth, easy motion.
“Kriffing hell, my love,” Hux panted at the tight warmth that surrounded his cock, and Ben bent over as far as the growing bump would allow so he could kiss him, allowing himself a moment to accommodate the girth and width of his husband’s sizable cock. “You’re a vision.”
“Mm, you like to watch your knocked-up mate fuck himself on your huge dick?” Ben teased, and Hux chuckled, propping himself up on an elbow and gripping dark thick curls in his hand as he dragged Ben over for another kiss.
“Yes, that about sums it up,” he murmured. “God, the way your perfect tits bounce like that…” He cupped them in his hands, and Ben gasped aloud, speeding up the bounce of his thighs.
“I’m gonna cum again,” he shouted to the ceiling, and Hux chuckled.
“Of course you are,” he murmured. “Such a sensitive little cunt you have, don’t you darling?”
Ben sobbed as he came again, and Hux’s thumb found his clit, massaging it gently.
Ben leaned forward and rested his hands on Hux’s muscular chest as he rode out his orgasm, weakly pushing Hux’s hand away after a moment.
“Do you feel better?” Hux asked calmly after a few moments of silence, and Ben sniffed as he grew a little weepy.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to use your body like that for my own pleasure,” he said, and Hux chuckled, stroking up his back as high as he could get.
“Yes, you did,” he said factually. “And I love fucking you, so it was no difficult feat, darling.”
“You didn’t even cum yet,” Ben sniffed again, hips subconsciously twitching a little, and Hux hummed casually as he looked over his husband’s blush-blotchy frame.
“It can wait,” he murmured. “It’s been a long time since we held each other like this, we can take our time.”
“Knot me,” Ben slurred a little, and Hux sighed.
“You look ready to pass out, darling,” he murmured, and Ben shook his head, frowning, his scent souring.
“No, I want your knot,” he said. “Even if I fall asleep…I want you to cum inside me, I want you to knot me.”
“Kriff, you’re killing me,” muttered Hux. “Lay on your side, love. I’ll give you what you want.”
Hux moved in him gently, all leisure and gentle, filling and emptying Ben completely as he scented his mate’s neck lovingly. Ben clutched at him, soaked and moaning and hungry, even as his eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and just as he drifted off to sleep, he felt the warmth in the Force and in his belly as Hux came with a low groan of his name.
“I love you, desperately,” Hux murmured into his ear, moving down to suckle on his bond bite. “My sweet mate.”
Ben hummed, already fading into sweet sleep, limbs loose as he rested in his husband’s safe embrace.
“It seems odd to have all this fuss over fireworks considering the political cesspool we’re wading through,” Hux’s crisp voice echoed through Ben’s ears, and someone responded in a quiet murmur, words Ben’s tired, hazy brain could not make out. He stretched under the cool silk sheet, delightfully naked and sore, and Hux laughed now, the wonderful sound he used only with friends and family.
“Well, it seems pointless, that’s all…you know how I am…well, yes but…” The words came and faded, in and out, and Ben sat up slowly and stretched again as he woke completely. Hux was clearly out on their balcony, most likely eating his early-morning breakfast as he enjoyed doing; that he’d pulled the gauzy white curtains shut around the bed suggested that they had a visitor, but he hadn’t woken Ben, so it couldn’t have been very urgent.
He climbed towards the edge of the bed, pausing once at the twinge of overstretched muscle in his hip, and reached for his dressing gown as another murmured response trickled in through the cool breeze from the window. The words had Hux laughing again, which dramatically narrowed down the list of people who could be visiting at this time of the morning; if Hux was laughing, it couldn’t be many people.
His curiosity was answered when he padded on bare feet out onto the balcony and paused at the site of Phasma lounging in a seat at the table, helmet beside her in an uncharacteristic display of casualty. At the site of him, bedhead and pillow marks and massively pregnant wrapped in a thin pink dressing gown, Phasma stood with a warm smile.
“Good morning, your Majesty,” she said, bowing politely. Ben waved aside her formalities, brushing his hand along Hux’s broad shoulder as he moved to the table and poured himself a cup of tea.
“Phasma, when will you stop with that infernal bowing every time you see me,” he murmured. “I’m constantly reminding you it seems! In the privacy of our space, you don’t need to call me that, remember?”
“Force of habit,” Phasma drawled as she picked up her coffee mug and took a swig. Ben hummed, unimpressed, and moved to crawl into Hux’s lap, lifting his toes off the cool tiled balcony floor to tuck them into his alpha’s lap.
“Good morning darling, did you sleep well?” Hux asked, brushing hair back from Ben’s face and pressing a warm kiss to his cheek as Ben stole a bite of his buttered toast.
“Very, now that you’re back beside me,” Ben murmured with a shameless smile, moving to scent him. At Phasma’s dramatic sigh, resuming her seat with a displeased frown at the PDA, Ben stole the entire piece of toast as he turned back to her. “What were you discussing? I heard a mention about fireworks?”
“Hux here was moaning the fact that he has to wear formal attire all week because of the seasonal festivities,” Phasma rolled her eyes. “Try wearing a helmet all day every day, and then we’ll talk,” she winked to her oldest and dearest friend. Hux swallowed a sip of his morning tea with an easy smile, his free hand roaming up and down Ben’s smooth, warm thigh.
“The Festival of Glad Arrivals has been celebrated for hundreds of years, love, we can’t just not celebrate because of our current political climate,” Ben murmured, and Hux huffed.
“But isn’t it distasteful, showing extravagance and showering money on an event when across the universe, people are dying?” he asked. “It seems…wasteful. Ridiculous. We want to be taken seriously.”
“You and I spend nearly every moment of every day working to ensure that our people are safe, and that the First Order does not tread on the free civilizations of the galaxy,” Ben said gently, setting down his toast and turning in Hux’s lap, caressing his face gently. “But we cannot blot out every happiness and joy in the process. Festivals are times for celebration and joy and love. Our time to welcome spring and new life. If we take that away, what are we really telling the people of Naboo by our actions?”
“That we’re tightwads with massive sticks up our asses,” Phasma said conversationally, and Hux snorted.
“Exactly right,” Ben said primly, turning to nod to Phasma. He turned back to Hux and bent to kiss him. “And the only thing going up anyone’s ass is your cock in mine, right Alpha?”
“That’s my cue to leave,” Phasma said, standing with a grunt and draining her coffee cup.
“It’s a good thing you wear a helmet after all, isn’t it Phas?” Ben asked, lifting his face up from Hux’s smirking mouth. “Since Rey appeared vampiric last night, sucking that massive bruise on your neck and all?”
Phasma’s hand slapped over her neck, and she grimaced.
“I told her not to!”
“Good luck telling Rey not to do anything,” Ben snorted considering his favorite Handmaiden and old friend. The door shut behind Phasma as she left, and Ben turned back to his mate, bending down to kiss him hungrily again. “Mm, I want your cock again Alpha,” he murmured, moving to straddle Hux’s lap. It was hard to get close considering the bump between them, but he wasn’t too big yet, and he could just reach down for a kiss as he ground his hips into Hux’s sleeping pants and the hard bulge hidden beneath them.
“Mm, your Handmaidens are coming in,” Hux chuckled, glancing at the doorway, and Ben pouted.
“Like that’s ever stopped you before,” he whined, and Hux chuckled, hands sneaking under the dressing gown and squeezing the round globes of his ass hard for a moment before slapping a cheek affectionately.
“There is much to do today, darling,” he said. “Go get dressed, we have guests to entertain."
"Surely being a Queen entitles me to stay in bed if I so wish, just once," Ben whined, even as he stood. Hux snorted as he got up and moved towards the balcony doors, the wind tossing his hair about his face in a very fetching way.
“Poor darling Omega,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, my love, I’ll fuck you tonight as long as you want.” His words made Ben’s handmaidens giggle, and Ben sighed as he stomped inside and moved towards Rose, who was ready to begin painting his face.
By half-past nine, Ben was situated behind his desk with a fresh batch of paperwork, Poe at his side and Rey stationed at the open doorway to the gardens, when the sound of the children’s laughter hit his ears. He turned and smiled in delight at the sight of his sweet babies laughing and running through the garden with their father chasing close behind them, bending to tickle Leia under her arms and then sweep Cassian up into his arms for a wet kiss on his ticklish neck.
“I would have a thousand children for that man,” he murmured as he watched them, hand moving to his bump for a quick pat, and Poe snorted.
“Considering you and your husband’s virility? You probably will, your Majesty,” Poe teased with a wink. “This paperwork can wait a little, Ben…go play with your children.”
“I cannot,” Ben sighed, wanting nothing more than to listen to his chief advisor’s suggestion. Despite the paint on his face and the intricate hairpiece atop his head and the ruby red gown practically sewn onto his body, he wanted nothing more than to run out to his children, gather them into his arms, and kiss them lovingly. Leia had been a wonderful mother to him, but she had been distant, too busy being Queen to be a true mother; it was Ben’s worst fear that this too would be his fate as a parent.
“Surely a few minutes…”
“Lord Kenobi requested a meeting,” Ben shook his head. “A family business he wished to discuss.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Poe nodded. He paused, considering, but before he could speak further, there was a knock on the door, and in walked the man in question himself. He bowed, a warm smile on his face, and then took Ben’s hand for a squeeze and kiss when it was offered.
“Your Majesty,” Kenobi said, grinning warmly, and Ben chuckled.
“Please, I think we can set the formalities aside, can we not?” he laughed. “Sit, please. Coffee? Or tea, perhaps—you always preferred it as I recall.”
“Tea would be lovely, thank you,” Kenobi said, sitting. He smiled warmly at Poe in greeting.
“I suppose family business like this means my presence isn’t warranted,” Poe said with a warm smile, always well-equipped to read a room. “I’ll enjoy a walk on this fine morning. Excuse me,” he said, bowing first to Ben and then to Kenobi before leaving. When the door shut, Rey turned her back towards the room and resumed her guarding position with her face turned out to the sun. It was as private as the office could ever really be, and Kenobi seemed content with it.
“I’m…honestly not quite sure how to begin this conversation,” he said with a chuckle, playing with his teacup and saucer for a moment. “I’ve practiced it for years, but it was never the right time. And then it felt too late, so I stuffed it all up and tossed it in a cupboard for years.” He shook his head. “But I am old, dear one. Very old, and my time will soon be at an end. And this story needs to be told, to you, because it is your birthright. But I am afraid to tell you.”
In the entirety of Ben’s life, he had never seen Kenobi at such a loss for words, never seen him sit so straight, and certainly had never seen his teacup wobble as he held it.
“Why are you afraid?” he asked worriedly, and Kenobi sighed as he looked up with bright blue eyes.
“Because it will change everything,” he said. “And we love the contentment of stability, do we not? Change is never pleasant.”
“This is sounding dreadfully ominous,” Ben murmured and then tried not to laugh. For a moment there, he sounded like Hux. “Well, come along then, Kenobi, out with it. Rip it off like a bacta strip, that’s what they say,” he nodded, inhaling deeply to steady himself.
“It’s about your grandfather,” Kenobi said gently, and Ben waited. “You see…he wasn’t really your grandfather.”
“We’re talking about Anakin Skywalker? Amidala’s greatest love and dangerous Force-using Queen Consort?” Ben asked with a smirk. “Kenobi dear, I’m quite sure he was my grandfather…his use of the Force was not only legendary, it’s also the reason his descendant’s have the Force too…the reason Leia was so strong and I am so strong and my children are strong.”
“It is a long story,” Kenobi said hesitantly. Ben sat back poignantly in his seat and sipped his tea, his expression open and patient. “You see, Anakin wasn’t your grandfather. He was your grandmother.”
Past
Naboo
In the Months After the First Fall of the Empire
“General Kenobi,” a firm voice called across the courtyard, disturbing the quick, determined strides of the auburn-haired man. Obi-wan suppressed a heavy sigh as he turned to address his fellow-Cabinet member, Lord Windu, who was hurrying towards him.
“Mace, surely you aren’t here to scold me again,” he said tiredly, and Mace frowned as he assessed his old war comrade and dear friend. “I understand I was out of line, and I believe I even apologized if you recall.”
“I must admit, I’m puzzled as to why you so strongly belittled and intimidated Lord Dooku following his re-election appeal today,” Mace said with a frown, dark eyes assessing Obi-wan’s face for any hint of emotion. “While you may disagree on many political stances, I took the two of you to be friends.”
The Naboo summer heat was sweltering, and under Obi-wan’s neatly tailored uniform, he was sweating profusely. Not for the first time, he mourned the loss of his much-cooler Jedi robes, which afforded him lighter shades and better breathing room. When he had accepted the post as General on the Naboo Cabinet, he had not anticipated exactly how much he would grow to despise the position…but moments like this had become daily reminders of his struggle.
“Lord Dooku is a manipulative, small man with a morally grey past and a foggy sense of patriotism,” Obi-wan said wearily. “Despite countless examples of concerning behavior, the Cabinet—and the Queen—continue to trust him with greater and greater amounts of responsibility. Mace, we both watched and fought as the Empire fell. We both know what happens when the wrong people are trusted with too much power!”
“That feels harsh, even for you,” Mace frowned, and Obi-wan swallowed back the urge to scream and gnash his teeth in frustration.
“He is unable to account for large sums of voters’ money from his time in the Senate,” he said. “His past from the days of the Jedi were nefarious and shadowed with dark use of the Force. And that is not even mentioning his own scandalous past with a number of Tatooine pleasure slave traders around the Outer Rim, all of whom seem to know all about Dooku, his money, and his sexual preferences.” At Mace’s expression, Obi-wan sighed audibly and shrugged. “Naboo is peaceful and generous, with a young, impressionable Queen. They seek out the arts and education reform, build shelters for the poor, and opt for the safest political decisions every time. That even one Cabinet member should choose to turn a blind eye to these obvious red flags of Dooku…it is terrifying. It reeks of downfall and rebellion. Of disaster, Mace.”
“I know the war still haunts you,” Mace said slowly after a long pause, and Obi-wan scoffed, turning and stepping back a few paces, taking a moment to breathe, before turning back to his friend.
“Of course the war haunts me!” Obi-wan sighed. “Just as it haunts all of us old enough to smell the stench of trenches and gunfire and decay that clung to us like second skins.” He scratched his beard. “But that doesn’t make what I’m saying wrong, Mace.”
“Dooku provided adequate excuses for every rumor that’s been thrown at him,” Mace countered, voice softening as a small group of courtesans passed them. He nodded politely, but Obi-wan was far too angry and distracted for politeness.
“His own Omegan servants confess that he beats and rapes them whenever he wishes, threatening them with their own families’ safety to maintain his staff numbers,” Obi-wan said. “I do not think the idea of Dooku buying pleasure slaves is much of a stretch.”
“That is pure conjecture.”
“Not to the Omegas he beat and raped, it’s not,” Obi-wan frowned. “Surely the Queen’s Consort would have something to say if he discovered that a member of his wife’s Cabinet has been accused of buying pleasure slaves from his home planet. Perhaps we should discuss it with him.”
“It isn’t Anakin’s job to involve himself in the Queen’s Cabinet’s business, as you are well aware,” Mace frowned warningly. “His job is to mind the Queen…I worry that this anger towards Dooku stems from your mutual pasts fighting in the War.” He didn’t like the steely expression on Obi-wan’s face, so he sighed heavily. “As a Cabinet member on the Queen’s counsel, it is required of you to set all feelings of bias aside in order to look out for the best interest of the Crown, Obi-wan!”
“And you think because Dooku was part of the pre-Empire Senate, which decayed and corrupted itself until Jedi like me were required to destroy it, you think I’m biased?” came a dry, sarcastic response.
“Yes.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Padme is young,” Mace shrugged. “She needs strong guidance. Especially as an Omega.”
“You know as well as I do that my voice counts for very little in that room,” Obi-wan said, and Mace snorted.
“You are a General on the Queen’s Cabinet, a family friend, and comrade-in-arms to the Queen’s Consort!” Mace said incredulously. “Your voice may count most of that entire room!” He laughed in amazement. “Your connection to the Force, to the Jedi order—”
“Which is gone and is now long-dead history,” Obi-wan muttered, tearing his hands through his hair angrily. When would this conversation end?
“She trusts you,” Mace stated factually, staring at him hard enough that Obi-wan finally stilled and met his gaze. “So making biased remarks about Cabinet members which induce a three-hour argument and forcing of sides? Wasn’t well played.”
“I didn’t…” Obi-Wan trailed off, sighing heavily. He watched his own boot tap on the marble floors before he looked back up. “Okay, maybe I did.”
“Thank you,” Mace nodded purposefully. A figure caught his attention off behind Obi-wan’s shoulder, and any future words died in his mouth. Obi-wan turned out of curiosity and paused at the sight of a dark uniform and golden curls that caught the sunlight just right. He moved quickly, navigating the pillars of the courtyard with ease, and his head was turned down to avoid attracting unwanted attention, but with his tall, lithe figure and natural good looks, Anakin Skywalker always attracted attention.
“I should go,” Obi-wan muttered, and Mace hummed, unimpressed.
“Your Royal Highness!” Obi-wan called, dashing off to catch up with the Queen’s Consort. At the lack of response, he tried again. “General Skywalker.”
Anakin paused, a bitter frown on his handsome face, though it faded fast upon first glance of Obi-wan at his approach. Still, a certain wariness clung to his shoulders, a tightness around the eyes and mouth that made him look older than his twenty-two years.
“General Kenobi,” he said, and Obi-wan grinned at him in greeting, clasping his shoulders tightly. If they were in a more private setting, he might have hugged him; it had been some weeks since he’d last seen his old friend, who had been off planet on a diplomatic liaison to Coruscant. His smile faded as he caught sight of the dark shadows under Anakin’s eyes and slight tremble in his hands. Even his scent was wrong, bitter and worried and…spicy, like cinnamon.
“What’s wrong, dear one?” Obi-wan frowned. He had practically raised this boy from the time he was just sixteen years old and enlisted in the war effort, and he had never caught him looking quite so fatigued.
“It’s nothing,” Anakin shook his head, scrubbing at his face tiredly, and Obi-wan’s frown deepened at the blatant lie. Anakin was always open with him; whether it was their age difference or the fact that they had fought side-by-side in the war together, there had always been a connection between the two that no time or distance or political stand could change. If Anakin was lying to him now, something was dreadfully wrong.
“Ani,” he murmured, wishing they were alone. Wishing he could gather this wonderful Alpha into his arms and kiss him hungrily the way he dreamed he could. “Talk to me.”
“Some days, I feel like…like a strip of cloth that’s been torn from a hem,” Anakin said in a shaky voice, eyes hidden by thick dark lashes as he stared down at the ground. His voice was so quiet, Obi-wan had to lean forward to hear him. “Trodden on, again and again, stained and washed and re-stained until I am nothing more than a frayed and tattered old memory. And no matter how much hemming I use to fix myself, nothing will work.” He swallowed thickly. “And one day I shall simply be discarded and abandoned for a new and shinier cloth, Obi-wan. And there will be nothing to show for it.”
“Is this about Padme?” Obi-wan murmured, and Anakin finally looked up at him, blinking. “I cannot imagine being in your position, Anakin, but you are a valuable member of your family…of this Royal house. You are a necessity to your wife.”
He often marveled at the utter brittleness of the Queen and Consort’s marriage. When Obi-wan had first met a sixteen-year-old Anakin (who had lied and told recruiters he was the legal fighting age of eighteen), he had watched as a young man, eyes alight with determination and fearlessness, transformed in the brutal years of battle into a General capable of leading his own air force and fearlessly defeating his opponents. After the First Fall of the Empire, Anakin stepped into the limelight as a war hero and a highly-decorated General—most importantly, he was a fearless Alpha meant for any leadership thrown at him.
That he’d meet the lovely Padme Amidala, queen-to-be of Naboo and conveniently needing an Alpha consort for her appointment as Omegan queen, was a stroke of luck. That they seemed to have a passionate, albeit temperamental, marriage seemed to be fate.
(That Obi-wan should intentionally stick around to watch them, a man who had scandalously and yet passionately loved Anakin from the moment he’d met the man, despite their fifteen-year age difference, was rather unfortunate and luckily known to absolutely no one but the retired Jedi himself.)
“Anakin,” Obi-wan prompted when Anakin did nothing but blink at him for long minutes of silence.
“Yes?” Anakin asked, his voice sounding wet with tears that shone in his warm gaze.
“You smell…you smell of heat,” Obi-wan said gently. “Your wife is in heat, Anakin,” he winced, trying to be delicate. He watched as Anakin stiffened and then relaxed again.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that’s true.”
“Go be with your mate,” Obi-wan said gently. “Tell her you love her.” I love you, I love you, I love you desperately. He forced a smile. “All will be well, dear one.”
“Good day, General Kenobi,” Anakin dipped his chin in thanks, turning and striding away towards the Palace, leaving Obi-wan behind to swallow back the words he didn’t dare say aloud.
“Oh Ani,” sighed Padme as she stepped into the fresher, catching sight of her husband curled up in the cool water of the porcelain tub. She stepped over and knelt beside the cold porcelain rim, running her hands through Anakin’s sweat-damp hair. “I felt sure we’d have another few days this time.”
“It’s becoming less predictable,” Anakin muttered, pressing his flushed cheek to her cold hand. “It hit me in the middle of a meeting, Padme. A meeting with Yoda! Obi-wan stopped me on my walk back and could smell it on me—thank God, he thought it was a residual scent of you, but if I’d been even a half-hour later, he would have known it was me.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Padme chewed on her bottom lip, stroking Anakin’s cheek. “Would he say something if I showed up at dinner without you?”
“He would be puzzled to say the least,” Anakin said. “Though he is no gossip.” He whined as a cramp hit him, his face crunching up in pain. Padme reached down into the cold water and massaged his lower back as he breathed through it. She understood the pain of Heat cramps well.
“Our cycles aren’t aligning anymore,” she whispered, and Anakin met her worried gaze with his own. “Maybe we need to consider suppressants.”
“For you or for me?” Anakin muttered. “Because if I go on suppressants but you don’t, your Heats will trigger mine.”
“And I can’t go on suppressants because people expect me to smell like an Omega,” Padme sighed. She wanted to rub her face tiredly, but Rabé had just finished painting her face, so she could not. “Well, one problem at a time—you can’t go to dinner because you smell seconds away from Heat, and I cannot go to dinner because Obi-wan thinks I am in Heat. Which is a problem, because I need to go to dinner tonight.”
“The ambassadors from Coruscant will understand if you are indisposed.”
“I can’t look like that in front of them!” Padme frowned, and Anakin stood from the tub and climbed out, wrapping his lithe, golden body in a fluffy towel and moving towards their bedroom.
“Like what? An Omega, experiencing a natural body cycle we have no control over?” he asked, rolling his eyes. Padme was his dearest friend, but sometimes, he wanted to slap her.
“Your Majesty, we need to finish your hair if you are still going to dinner,” Sabé said gently to Padme as she trailed out behind Anakin. Anakin huffed as he ditched his towel and crawled naked onto the bed, not particularly caring who saw him. The handmaidens had been personally picked when Padme and Anakin had married (and pretended to mate), and they’d been sworn to absolute secrecy about the events and whispered secrets behind their closed doors. The startling truths about the Royal Marriage Bed would shock the planet and instigate a scandalous rebellion: not only were there two separate bed chambers in the suit, but there was no Alpha in sight.
Padme had been a young Omegan princess awaiting her Naboo throne when the war concluded. Despite her best efforts to find an Alpha mate in time for her crowning ceremony, she couldn’t find one suitable; but she had found Anakin, a dear friend and someone with a secret of his own. For when Anakin was young and desperate to enlist in the war efforts (and escape the Tatooine slavery he had been born into), he had discovered that Omegas couldn’t enlist, not without signed permission from their Alpha mates or parents. As Anakin had no Alpha mate and no living relative, he had no chance. So he lied. He bought black-market suppressants, he used scent-cancelling patches, and he took great care never to undress in front of his fellow servicemen.
And it worked. Anakin Skywalker became a famous Alpha General and war hero. And then he met and befriended Padme.
Their marriage seemed to be a match made in heaven—Padme got an ‘Alpha’ mate who didn’t meddle in her role or demand submission from her, and Anakin could continue to uphold the façade (and its accompany freedoms) that he was an alpha. It was a perfect solution.
“I don’t even know if I can go to dinner though!” Padme said, and Anakin groaned into a pillow, rolling onto his back.
“Pretend that you’re in preheat, and then you can just go into ‘Heat’ tomorrow,” he suggested, hands running up and down his own belly, unable to resist running down between his legs to his sensitive clit. He moaned as he touched himself, and Padme ignored him as per usual as she sat and let Rabé finish her hair.
“I don’t smell like preheat,” she said, and Anakin moaned as he eased a finger inside himself, wishing desperately it was someone else’s finger.
“Rub some of my slick on your scent glands, and you’ll be fine.”
“Exactly what I want on my neck all through dinner, thank you, Anakin,” she grumbled. “Couldn’t you wait a few minutes to do that?” she teased, eyes watching her husband masturbate in the reflection, and Anakin moaned as he lifted his legs up and eased a second finger in.
“No,” he whined. “I have to watch your Beta girlfriends fuck you like a shutta every three months during your Heats because there’s no fucking privacy in this place, so you have to deal with me and my lonely holes.”
“I’m the shutta?” teased Padme. “You’re the one writhing naked on the bed fingering yourself.”
“God, I want cock so badly,” whined Anakin.
“Should I send up a Heat droid?” Padme asked, standing when Rabé stepped backwards and then moving to the bed, stroking her husband’s hair lovingly. He sniffed and nodded, allowing her to press her painted lips to his forehead for a dry kiss.
“It’s better than nothing,” he said tearfully. Padme presented her neck, and he swiped either scent gland on her neck perfunctorily with his slick fingers.
“Good enough to fake it,” she murmured.
“Act like a horny bitch, and you’ll do great,” Anakin muttered, and Padme smacked his bare ass as she moved towards the door.
“Don’t make too much noise darling,” she teased. “I’ll make up a deliciously embarrassing excuse for you dear, shall I?”
“God, make it something good,” Anakin said. “Something to really get the juicy gossip flowing?” His voice was sarcastic and dry, and Padme laughed as she left.
Padme was lucky to have two Beta lovers for her Heats, Anakin later considered as he spread his legs for the Heat droid and watched a rubber cock rub against his sensitive folds for a moment. Metallic handlike projections clamped around either ankle to keep him spread open, and the droid had sprayed bottled Alphe pheromones on the bed to help trick his Omegan senses a little. He’d watched them pleasure her through Heats before a few times—watched how they tasted her and kissed her and used toys on her until she shook and sobbed with pleasure. She was married to Anakin, but she loved Sabé and Rabé. Her Heats were downright wonderful and tender, and she was cuddled and scented and adored the way she deserved to be.
Anakin shut his eyes as the rubber cock eased into his pussy, filling him for the first time in three months (since his last Heat). He whined at the stretch and squeezed his eyes shut, pretending it was a person and not an impersonal, inhuman machine fucking him in and out now. If it was his Alpha, he’d be tender and loving, thrusting deep and finding his g-spot every time, his big hands holding his legs open, gripping his hair, biting his neck. He’d feel a hot mouth suck on his nipples and coarse fingers, from lightsaber fighting, massage his clit. He moaned at the thought, reaching for his own clit and pretending it was rougher and coarser there.
“Yes, Alpha,” he whined, enjoying the way his Alpha increased the pace of his fucking. The wet slap of well-fucked pussy filled the space, the scent of his arousal cloying and sweet, but his Alpha would love it—would drink in the scent of his pleasure hungrily. He’d knot him up tight and breed his wet hole and then he’d lick his sensitive skin clean, his beard tickling his sore puffy center.
“Alpha,” he cried, back arching as he came, clenching up tight around the plastic cock relentlessly fucking his pussy. The fake knot ballooned in place, and his legs were released as he trembled and shook around the toy buried inside him.
The aftermath of Heat droids was always terrible. Because if an Alpha was here, he’d be scented and kissed. He’d get teased for being such a shutta for Alpha cock, but he’d be told to cum again and then again with just grinding of the knot, and he’d be so good for him and cum immediately.
Of course, in reality, the Heat droid was making careful calculations to determine how long to keep the knot in place for until Anakin’s next Heat wave rushed through his body. And downstairs, the Alpha Anakin had dreamed about and loved for what felt like his entire life was eating dinner and chatting and laughing with his colleagues and smelling his slick on Padme’s neck, thinking it wasn’t his. And it crushed him.
Anakin sniffed, rubbing his face as he let the tears fall. He’d loved him forever…strong, brave, ridiculously handsome Jedi that he was. Anakin had never known anybody so smart, so capable, and yet Obi-Wan constantly surprised him with new knowledge, new emotional depth, new kindness. He was remarkable. And here was Anakin, lusting after him and daydreaming about his knot. What a loser he was.
He rolled onto his belly and shakily got to his knees, crawling further up into his bed and reaching for a blanket. The droid stayed completely still and silent, no doubt assessing his vital signs and Heat symptoms. He shivered and trembled under the blanket, tears falling down his face faster and faster until he realized that he was sobbing.
Once, he’d been a naïve, stupid boy who thought marrying a beautiful Princess would solve all his problems. His days as a slave, desperately winning pod-races in an attempt to help his mother, had ended, and Anakin had stupidly thought that his life would be good. And now here he lay, mother dead, alone and abandoned on a bed, in love with a man who thought of him like a son and had no idea that Anakin wanted him, craved him, with every fiber of his being.
The droid chirped, and Anakin wiped his wet face and runny nose as he burrowed more under the blanket. He would come out from under the safety of it only when he was truly desperate enough. For now, he would lay here and wallow in his sorrows.
By the month’s end, two concerning situations arose which granted Anakin the worst headache he’d ever suffered in his life—first, representatives from Tatooine arrived via battered, literally-smoking ship to beg for financial aid and military presence from Naboo. Tatooine frequently appealed to Naboo following Anakin and Padme’s marriage, knowing that the alliance provided Tatooine with an unusual position…since the Queen’s Consort was a former slave, the Queen had sympathy for the freedom fighters. And when the Queen sympathized, things got done.
Tatooine’s slaving community had experienced something of a freedom revival in the last three years, as enslaved peoples rose up against their oppressors and fought to take back their freedom and their home. Local war lords deployed heavy arms in their defense, bringing in assassins and trained killers and local militia to plough through the untrained masses of freedom fighters.
Anakin immediately volunteered to appear on Tatooine, to “diplomatically” retaliate against the war lords. He had no qualms with taking a speeder armed with ammunition and demolishing their territories in the name of freedom, but Padme’s warning look and the Cabinet’s verbal warning informed him that a gentle hand and a sharp tongue would be the only actions acceptable to the Naboo government.
To keep him on track (considering his known short fuse and heavy hand from war), the Cabinet suggested one of their members accompany him…that it should be Obi-wan who would accompany him both terrified and delighted Anakin.
The second situation which deeply affected Anakin’s stress level was the arrival of Padme’s Heat.
“You shouldn’t even be in here,” Padme murmured tiredly from under the safety of her comforter, blinking sleepily up at Anakin. “You’ll smell like Heat, and suddenly everyone will be confused.”
“I’ll wash and change quickly,” Anakin said, stroking her hair tenderly. For all their snark and arguments, he loved her dearly, as his closest friend and confidante. “But we can’t tell anyone you’re in Heat, since it’s too close to my last Heat…that’s going to look odd.”
“So don’t tell anyone,” Padme yawned, and Anakin’s gaze caught Sabé’s over her shoulder. The Handmaiden was pretty, dark and pale as Padme, and she frowned at Anakin worriedly. The Beta was sharp-witted and had no wild hormones pumping through her system and dulling her senses—she at least understood the danger they were in.
“Perhaps we could say that the Queen took an unexpected trip off planet?” she suggested, stroking Padme’s hair. She was dressed in a less formal version of her usual dress, but from the state of the bedding, she’d dressed only for Anakin’s sake. Rabé was out of the room, though Anakin had no doubt she was hurrying to come back.
“There would be a lot of questions, but we could lie our way through it,” Anakin shrugged. “The alternative is unacceptable—no one can know that the Queen is here and unable to see anyone.”
“Simple,” came a calm voice from the doorway, and Rabé shut and locked the massive wooden door behind her gently. She approached the bed, already beginning to undress. “We will say the Queen has taken ill and is contagious.”
“Contagious?” Anakin parroted, subconsciously watching her as she uncovered dark caramel skin and braided her hair back. She nodded, unselfconscious, as she slipped naked under the bed sheets and twined her body around Padme’s, who was beginning to shake and whine as another Heat wave hit her. “Wouldn’t that induce panic?”
“Not at all. A simple bout of illness that resolves spontaneously in three or four days can easily be explained without mass outrage,” Rabé shook her head. She kissed Padme warmly, and Anakin caught a murmured hello my darling love. He ran a hand through his hair worriedly, and Sabé smiled warmly at him, sitting upright in bed.
“We will handle all of it, General,” she said quietly. “Go on your trip. Enjoy your moment of freedom,” she added in a gentle murmur. She knew well Anakin’s ever-present itch since taking his position of Consort, knew the way he felt contained and restrained. “We will take good care of her.”
“I know you will,” Anakin nodded. “I’ll see you when I return, Pads.”
Padme was too far gone to notice him leaving, and Anakin shook his head with a wry smile as he left them to their privacy.
He dressed and packed with haste, striding quickly to meet Obi-wan on the hanger by their ship. It was a small thing, meant for quick travel, and Anakin knew they would have to bunk up in the tight living quarter until they reached Tatooine. He was thankful that his scent patch was firmly in place and even more thankful that his Heat was already completed, so he wouldn’t need to worry.
“Are you ready, dear one?” Obi-wan said in greeting, taking Anakin’s bag for him. Without prying eyes, Obi-wan was always so relaxed—he spoke to Anakin as he did during the war, and he touched him and smiled at him with such ease. It made Anakin love him even more each time they interacted, which he never knew was possible until it happened, again and again.
“Yes, sorry for the delay. Padme has taken ill,” Anakin murmured, hating how he had to lie to his oldest friend.
“Ill? Surely you should stay here and care for her,” Obi-wan hesitated, looking at his friend with a frown. “I can take this trip alone, Anakin.”
“I know you can, but I wanted to go,” Anakin said with a firm shake of his head. “This is my home, my people. Padme understands; she would want me to go.”
“I understand your desire to help these poor enslaved peoples,” Obi-wan said in a careful voice as he moved into the ship, Anakin trailing behind him with the last of their belongings. “But I do worry that seeing these people enduring such hardships may be…challenging for you.”
“You agree with the Cabinet then,” Anakin said in a flat voice as he took a seat at the pilot’s chair and began to flick with the controls to prepare for takeoff. He wouldn’t meet Obi-wan’s bright blue gaze. “You think I am still a child unable to handle his own emotions.”
“Last month, you choked a drunk visitor for mentioning your wife’s breasts over port after dinner,” Obi-wan said dryly, and Anakin sniffed.
“First, he discussed the Naboo Queen’s body as one would discuss a common shutta, in the presence of multiple members of her Cabinet, and not one person stood up in her defense,” he said stiffly. “Second, it was in fact an accident.”
“You utilized the Force, which is strictly forbidden,” Obi-wan reminded Anakin, who sniffed.
“You are the Jedi of the two of us,” Anakin drawled. “They are your rules to follow, not mine.”
“You are a Force user, the strongest I have ever had the pleasure of knowing,” Obi-wan corrected with a frown, sitting next to Anakin once everything was secured and reaching for his buckle. “You need to hold yourself to higher standards. But we’re getting off-topic.”
“Are we?” Anakin scowled, flicking the engine switch and listening for the familiar rumble of the machines as they started up. “I would have thought you’d love scolding me as you always do.”
“Ani,” Obi-wan said tiredly, and Anakin paused, swallowing guiltily as he turned to glance at his Alpha friend.
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I don’t mean to fight. I’m feeling stressed.”
“I understand, and I shouldn’t have baited you,” Obi-wan said with a sigh, scrubbing a hand over his tired face. “I too am weary and anxious about this trip. Something feels off in the Force. No doubt it is subconsciously affecting your mood as well.”
“I will try to keep control of my temper, and the Force,” Anakin vowed seriously, and Obi-wan smiled at him warmly.
“I know you will, dear one,” he said. Anakin forced himself to turn away from Obi-wan’s smile, to resist the urge to sink down on his knees before Obi-wan’s seat and present his neck for biting. God, he’d do anything for this man’s attention, for his touch, for his love. He’d do anything.
The least he could do was behave himself and prevent Obi-wan developing a headache. Obi-wan had been known as the Negotiator during the war, always capable of calming heightened emotions during diplomatic missions and cooling tempers. Anakin had always admired him for it—no doubt, that was when he’d learned to love the older man as more than a comrade-in-arms.
For several hours, their flight was uneventful. Casual conversation died down to occasional murmured comments and easy silence. Anakin felt the heavy weight of his responsibilities as Queen Consort ease off his shoulders the more distance they put between Naboo and their ship.
By the fifth hour in the cockpit, Anakin began to feel a little odd. Lulled in the warm cocoon of the small ship, Obi-wan’s Alpha scent (crisp and cool as an autumnal day in the lake county of Naboo) settled over Anakin like a soothing blanket, but after time, it began to grow stifling. He adjusted in his seat as a sense of urgency overtook him--something was wrong. His stomach churned, and his skin felt damp under his clothing as he began to sweat.
“Are you alright?” Obi-wan murmured, awakening from his doze at the disturbance in the Force, witnessing how Anakin squirmed in his seat.
“I’m…I’m hot,” Anakin murmured, and Obi-wan frowned, standing and moving closer to Anakin’s seat. A cool hand pressed to Anakin’s forehead, and he abruptly moaned. The embarrassment of it had him gasping and jerking back in shock; he sounded like a wanton whore! “I’m sorry,” he tried to apologize, but Obi-wan looked and smelled concerned now.
“You’re burning up,” he said. “I think whatever illness has affected Padme has now jumped to you.” He straightened and turned to the comms. “We should notify the Cabinet and our awaiting guests in Tatooine. We should quarantine until the illness fades.”
“But…” Anakin sat upright and shook his head, cursing himself instantly when the room spun. It’s impossible, he wanted to say, barely remembering to bite his own tongue to keep the words back. Because Padme was in Heat, she wasn’t contagious. He couldn’t be sick…it simply wasn’t possible.
“Why don’t you go lie down on the cot and try to rest?” Obi-wan murmured, running his fingers through Anakin’s hair in an entirely instinctual move as he typed into the commlink to establish a connection. Anakin knew he hadn’t even been aware that he’d done it, but the possessiveness of the gesture, the easiness of it, hit his gut and sent him alight with a hot, steamy sensation. He stood with mounting fear, trembling in his boots as he realized—he was in Heat. He was in Heat, in a small ship in the middle of the empty galaxy, and there was no way to hide it from Obi-wan. In seconds, the Alpha would know what was wrong, and Anakin’s hopes and dreams would be ruined. His entire life would be ruined because of a biological impossibility.
He didn’t realize he was hyperventilating until crisp cool blue eyes filled his vision and he realized that warm, calloused hands gently cradled his face. A warm, soothing voice battered past the waves of white-noise fear crashing against him, cutting it and calming him until he had the presence of mind to realize he was clinging to Obi-wan’s strong frame shakily, heaving in gasping breaths of air.
“Anakin, you’re alright,” Obi-wan murmured, clearly a repeated statement, and he gently helped Anakin lie on the cot. “Here, get under the covers,” he murmured, and Anakin shivered and trembled as he obeyed. He already could tell that he was getting wet, and soon a wave of Heat would crash over him, but he didn’t know what to do until then.
“Obi-wan,” he croaked out, and Obi-wan shushed him gently, stroking his hair again as he knelt beside the cot, tucking him in.
“I know you must feel terrible, dear heart,” Obi-wan said gently. “Try to sleep.”
“I can’t,” Anakin whined, rubbing his face against Obi-wan’s hand and palm, scenting it accidentally.
“But…why can’t you…Anakin,” Obi-wan’s voice faded more and more as realization suddenly hit him. As the scent of sweet, spicy cinnamon sugar filled the ship. As the sight of a flushed, desperate Anakin hit his view at last and he recognized that the supposed Alpha on the cot was frantically scenting his hand in a way Alphas most assuredly did not do to other Alphas.
“Ani,” his voice came out low and clear and loud, and Anakin cringed back into the cot, refusing to look at Obi-wan. “Anakin, I think you have some things you need to tell me.”
Present
Naboo
“I thought we were meeting an hour ago,” Phasma pouted as she watched the young handmaiden approach, a gauzy, sensual display of sunset oranges and pinks. Rey laughed as she moved close enough for them to touch. With a lunge, Phasma gripped her thin frame in her larger hands and yanked her forward, bending down for a hungry kiss. She’d only just removed her helmet, and her blonde hair was wild around her face, but Rey didn’t much care, leaning up to the far taller woman and frantically kissing her back.
“Mm, the Queen had…a meeting…some old tosser started…this whole story,” Rey tried to get out between soul-sucking kisses, moaning as Phasma’s tongue tangled with hers for gentle, loving strokes. Finally, she pulled back, lips a little plumped, panting. “I had to stand watch at the door until Rose replaced me,” she got out before Phasma was licking over her lips and delving back inside, hands easing Rey’s hood down off her dark, thick hair to bury deep into the curls.
“How long until you have to go back?”
“The man is not even halfway through his story,” Rey laughed. She watched as Phasma’s calloused hands, broad palms and long thin fingers, slid down the front of her dress to grip her breasts. “At least another hour or two.”
“Good,” Phasma murmured, tugging at the long row of buttons down the back of the dress. “So I can fuck you.”
“You can always fuck me,” whined Rey, rubbing her nose against Phasma’s neck as she bent over her to work on the closure along the length of her spine. “But…here?”
They were standing in one of the alcoves of the West wing’s hallway—not frequently used unless the Palace was teeming with guests and partially shaded by the thick heavy curtains over the windows. The chance of someone passing was slim but possible.
“Right here,” Phasma flashing a hungry smile as she bent to suck a mark on Rey’s exposed collarbone. “Where everyone can see you get fucked the way you need, see how much you can be a good girl for me.”
“Kriffing hell, Phas,” whined the Omega under her touch, writhing. The buttons were done in moments, and the fabric eased off her slim, muscular frame and pooled onto the floor, leaving her naked in the small space. The excitement of getting caught had her panting, but the hungry gaze in her Beta lover’s face had her soaked in seconds. “Phas, please fuck me,” she whined, leaning back against the wall, arms crossing up above her head the way Phasma liked her to be.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a time when I didn’t want to fuck you,” Phasma said conversationally as she knelt down on the floor and eased one of Rey’s legs up onto her shoulder. She leaned in and pressed her nose to Rey’s folds, inhaling the sweet scent of her arousal. “Fuck, baby, you smell…so good.”
“Oh my god,” Rey exhaled shakily as Phasma licked at her gently, clearly relishing the taste of her. Phasma grinned as she sucked at her gently, soothing strokes over her clit and then down further along her slit until she could fuck her tongue into her tight wet hole, again and again. Her hands reached up and gripped her soft breasts in her palms easily, pinching the nipples between her fingertips the way she knew Rey loved.
The first time they’d fucked, Phasma had been mean to her—she wouldn’t take her helmet off, she belittled and mocked the young Omega while the woman writhed on her fingers until she came. It had been the single hottest experience of the older Trooper’s life. But the way Rey had gazed up at her with warm, loving eyes had been terrifying; Phasma relied on a rigorous, strict lifestyle—she dominated and fucked local O’s on the rare planet-side missions she accompanied Hux to and then she disappeared. But as their time on Naboo extended longer and longer, leading to the eventual marriage of Hux and Ben, Rey wormed her way deeper and deeper into Phasma’s life until the older woman could say without any trace of hesitation that she loved this Omega and would do literally anything for her.
But she hadn’t said it yet. She couldn’t quite get the words to come out in a way that made sense. She’d tried, a dozen times at least, but it never seemed to be the right time.
“Phasma, I’m gonna cum,” whined Rey, writhing her hips against Phasma’s mouth. Phasma blinked, realizing that lost as she was in her daydream, she’d taken to sucking harshly on Rey’s little swollen clitoris while she eased three fingers deep inside her, rubbing her G-spot just the way Rey liked it.
She hummed, feigning boredom, and Rey suddenly stiffened and gasped, jerking in an attempt to step backwards. A hand came down from her submissive hold and pushed at Phasma, which was strictly not allowed and would certainly require a punishment later, but Phasma jerked back anyway with a scowl and a wet face to scold when she caught the frantic embarrassment on Rey’s face. She clutched an arm over her breasts as she flushed down to her nipple line, looking off behind the curtains at—the shadowed figure clearly standing there, watching them.
Phasma snorted and caught a whiff of surprised, delighted Beta.
“Seriously, Rex?” she chuckled. “You standing there to watch a free show or you standing there cause you need something?”
“While I love a good show, especially as top-rated as this one, Hux is requesting you at your earliest convenience,” Rex said dryly, stepping further into the light. He was handsome and funny, and easily the best guard to the Queen’s Consort that Phasma worked with. They were friends, and Phasma knew that he was also Rey’s type.
“I’m clearly busy right now,” she drawled lazily, turning back to Rey. On two separate occasions, she’d played with Rey during the more…intimate Naboo spring festivals…for an audience, and both times, Rey had professed that she enjoyed the watching. “Give me a few minutes, this won’t take long,” she added with a little wink to Rex, who leaned back against the wall and…got comfortable, crossing his arms over his chest and obviously began staring at Rey from under his helmet.
“Tonight, I will take great pleasure in filling you up with toys and making you cry as punishment for breaking your hold,” she informed Rey as she gripped her thigh and replaced it on her shoulder. “For now, you either color and I’ll help you dress, or you put your hands back up above your head and let me finish eating your pussy, little Omega.”
Rey was shivering, cheeks awash, but she smelled aroused as hell, and Phasma already knew which choice she would pick well before she lifted her arms up again and showed off her pert little breasts to the voyeur behind them.
“God, she’s pretty,” Rex said lazily, and Phasma leaned back in and resumed her play over Rey’s clit.
“Of course she is, she’s an Omega,” she pulled back to say before biting down on her clitoris gently, just enough to make Rey cry out and arch her back, body shaking as she fought her orgasm. "She was made for this--to be admired and complimented and fucked, weren’t you darling?” she teased her Omega a little cruelly, easing three fingers back inside.
It took just minutes before Rey cried out again, louder and more frantic, as she came, tightening up perfectly around Phasma’s long fingers, slick soaking her hand and down to her wrist. Phasma rode her through it for a few moments, just enough to make Rey squirm and moan at the extra stimulation, before she pulled back with one last sweet kiss to her clitoris.
“Mm, if I had time, I’d eat this little hole out too,” she murmured, fingertips brushing over her tightly furled rim, standing and then leaning down to kiss Rey hungrily. She loved the feel of Rey’s naked body against her guard uniform, loved the power play there, the way the Omega (who had a natural strength in the Force and with lightsaber play, who was smart and beautiful and kind, who was perfect in every possible way) clung desperately to her body and kissed her with a franticness Phasma echoed through her own touch.
“But you didn’t…” Rey pouted, reaching for Phasma’s trousers, when Phasma pulled back and bent to gather up her dress, easing it up her hips.
“Later, my love,” Phasma said distractedly, slipping the straps over Rey’s shoulders gently. She glanced back at Rex, who was still watching them. “Show’s over, Rex, get lost,” she said dryly, and Rex laughed as he left.
“Thanks for the entertainment!” he called. Phasma snorted as she began on the buttons, pausing once or twice to kiss Rey sweetly.
“You okay?” she asked, already knowing from her soft, sweet scent that she had enjoyed herself immensely.
“I want to return the favor,” Rey pouted, and Phasma laughed.
“You are the one desperate to have people watch you,” she pointed out with a naughty wink. “I take my pleasure privately, which I will happily do to you later.”
“Promise?” Rey asked, and Phasma growled as she licked deep into her mouth again, separating only when her lungs began to burn.
“It’s practically a guarantee,” she said when she pulled back. “You’re getting spanked though, surely you know that.”
“Do I get to cum?”
“Not during your spanking you don’t,” Phasma shook her head, fixing Rey’s hair with an ease that came from repeated practice. Then the hood came up. “But afterwards, you can, yes. As many times as you’d like.”
“Okay,” Rey agreed after a moment of consideration. She paused as Phasma reached down for her helmet and then eased into Phasma’s arms again for a warm hug, rubbing her cheek on Phasma’s chest for a moment. “I love you, you know that right?”
The breath seemed to escape the room, and Phasma blinked dumbly at her for long enough that Rey actually pulled back to check she was in fact still alive. But she didn’t look panicked, rather a little amused.
“I know you know that,” she corrected herself with a warm smile. “I have for years. I thought it might make you uncomfortable for me to say it to you, but these last few weeks…you’ve been different with me.”
“Different?” Phasma choked out, and Rey shrugged.
“We play, and you’re still just as mean to me as always—which I love—” she rushed to add at Phasma’s pursed lip expression, “—but afterwards, when you hold me and kiss me. It feels better than it ever did before. That’s when I began to suspect you might finally love me back.”
“I’m only a Beta,” Phasma said quietly after a gentle pause. “I can never mate you or…give you children or…”
“I don’t want children,” Rey shook her head with a gentle smile. “I want you. In my life. Always.”
“I love you,” Phasma croaked out, and Rey smiled peacefully up at her.
“I know,” she murmured, standing on her tiptoes to wind her hands around Phasma’s neck and kiss her once, sweet and close-mouthed. “Now go deal with Hux. And I’ll daydream about the way you’re going to stuff my holes with toys and spank me until I’m crying tonight,” she added factually, making Phasma laugh as they kissed one more time. Then Rey eased out from behind the curtain and moved to return to her post down the hall.
Past
Just outside the Tatooine Atmosphere
“I don’t know what to say,” Anakin murmured in the quiet silence that followed Obi-wan’s realization. Obi-wan knelt, still as a stone, as he considered his friend.
“You are in Heat,” Obi-wan said in a still sort of voice, devoid of emotions or opinions. Even his face, usually crinkling at the edges of his eyes in smile and gentle, always open and nonjudgemental when he looked at Anakin, was entirely blank.
“Obi-wan,” whispered Anakin shakily, and Obi-wan sat back on his heels, shaking his head as he laughed abruptly.
“You are in Heat, Anakin,” he repeated. “I…I do not…” he swallowed and looked off to the side for a long time. Then he stood. “I am going to stop the ship’s flight path, let us drift until we can come up with a good plan. And I need to send those messages out so people do not worry when we do not reach Tatooine.”
“Obi-wan,” Anakin tried to reach for his wrist, but the Alpha was too far away, turning on his heels and walking the short distance away, towards the controls. Emotions crashed over Anakin, doubt and regret and fear and so much kriffing shame. He buried himself under the blanket, his shoulders shaking with sobs that he tried to muffle. He tried to keep silent as he heard Obi-wan’s calm voice over his message recordings. Anakin has fallen ill. We cannot land on Tatooine and potentially infect others. We will stay outside the atmosphere until he recovers, then shall return home. All is well.
“Here, drink something,” murmured a voice some minutes later, and Anakin pushed the blankets away from his sweaty face to see Obi-wan bent over him, holding a cup. He took the water greedily, his throat parched from his tears, and then leaned back against the pillows, trying to make eye contact with the Alpha, which was impossible because the man seemed insistent on staring at anything except Anakin.
“Please say something,” Anakin whispered after a long, uncomfortable silence.
“I am trying to come to terms with the realization that after so many years, I do not know you,” Obi-wan said in a solemn voice, eyes fixated on the floor. “That I have been so foolish as to miss this most…integral part of who you are. I feel stupid.”
“Why?” Anakin choked out. “I am the liar here, Obi-wan. No one knows the truth, not one, except Padme and our closest servants, who are sworn to secrecy.”
“I was so sure that I knew you,” Obi-wan muttered, more to himself than to Anakin, and the Omega sat up with a soft sob, ignoring the cramping in his belly, trying to touch the Alpha, though he would not allow it.
“You do know me!” Anakin said. “I hid my status from you, yes, but everything else is true, Obi-wan! You know me better than anyone, the things that really matter!”
“How can you say that?” Obi-wan frowned. He glanced at Anakin and then turned away, swallowing heavily. “We should spend no more time discussing it,” he said simply, standing. “You will stay here and I will sleep on the flight deck. There are emergency suppressant shots in the first aid kit, I’ll get you one. It may help diminish the time frame of your…heat.”
“We do need to talk about it,” Anakin said, wiping hot, bitter tears from his cheeks furiously, and Obi-wan’s expression made the tears fall more. “We do, because I cannot have you hating me. I cannot, Obi-wan.”
“I do not hate you,” Obi-wan said, a level of exasperation clear in his tone. “I am confused right now and a little conflicted, but I could never hate you, Anakin.”
“Then let me explain,” Anakin said, hands shaking as he finally caught a fistful of Obi-wan’s cloak, reeling him closer. “Please.”
“There is nothing to explain—”
“There is, so stop and…and listen to me, as you might have done were I an Alpha,” Anakin said shakily, and Obi-wan froze before stiffly kneeling back down.
“Very well.”
“Omegas could not enlist,” Anakin said. “It took weeks for me to save up enough money for suppressants, but I did what I needed to do because I needed to fight. At first, there was no time frame. I was going to fight, and if I lived, I’d go back to another planet a free Omega and find someone to mate. Being an Omegan Tatooine slave was…unbearable. I wanted to fight, but I wanted freedom more. If I had stayed, I would be little more than a pleasure slave, a useless sexual object to be used and tossed aside when my prime had passed.” He swallowed, and a warm, calloused hand wrapping around his wrist, squeezing gently.
“And then I met Padme. And she understood my reasoning. She saw through the suppressants as no one else ever had, and she offered me a solution. I could keep playing Alpha and enjoy the freedoms and privileges that went with that. I just had a small price to pay—it seemed so trivial at the time, I rushed to agree,” Anakin continued shakily. “I just had to be her Consort…live in a Palace, have food and water whenever I wanted it, continue being the General I had learned to be during the war. It didn’t seem like a tough choice.”
“I understand all that,” Obi-wan said slowly, and when Anakin looked up at him, he saw the hurt in his bright blue gaze. “But…I thought we were friends, Anakin. I trust you with my life; how could you not trust me with this?
“Because I am ashamed? Because I like who I am when you look at me and see a fearless Alpha general? Because I could not stand to see you belittle me or think me inferior or weak because of my status?”
“You think so little of me?” Obi-wan whispered, face darkening. “You actually think I give a flying Kriff whether you are man or woman, Alpha or Omega? You are my Anakin! You are my friend!”
The silence was tense now, and Anakin swallowed heavily. Hesitantly, he reached back out and grazed his knuckles against Obi-wan’s hand, a gentle nudge.
“I am still your Anakin,” he said quietly, and Obi-wan huffed.
“You do not trust me,” he said.
“If anyone knew Padme was an unmated Omega, they would go for her crown—”
“You did not trust me,” Obi-wan said. “I understand your argument, I understand you hiding it from the world. But we have fought and bled and cried together. I have kept no secrets from you, while you lied and hid from me. I am allowed to be upset.”
“You are,” Anakin murmured. “But it was not only my secret to tell.”
The silence was stifling, long enough that Anakin squirmed on the cot. Obi-wan clearly noticed and scrubbed at his beard in consideration.
“When you were assigned to my unit, I was worried that you were a complete knothead with too much hormone and not enough brain function,” Obi-wan said quietly, and Anakin’s jaw dropped. “You were brash, unkempt, and utterly disobedient. Fiercely independent yet unfailingly loyal to those you served with. And as you grew and matured, those qualities smoothed from rough edges into a polished, gleaming surface. And one day, I realized that those qualities were what I loved best about you.”
“Alpha features,” Anakin said glumly, and Obi-wan laughed bitterly.
“No, Anakin, they’re not,” he said. “They’re just you.”
“What are you saying?” Anakin asked quietly, and Obi-wan sighed.
“I’m saying that for many, many years, I have deeply, utterly adored you,” he said. Anakin stared at him with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. “I loved you when I thought you an Alpha. And I love you now. So do not make silly statements that I hate you or such drivel because I know the truth. I am upset that you lied. I understand it, but I am upset, and that’s something I will work to get over myself.”
“You…you love me?”
“I do,” Obi-wan said solemnly. “So let’s end these dramatics and think no more of it.” He stood up. “You rest here, and I’ll get the suppressant shot. You should sleep while you can, this will not be a pleasant time for either of us while we wait it out.”
“Wait, Obi-wan, just…just wait,” Anakin said with a breathless laugh. “Surely you don’t mean to tell me this and then simply walk away?” He stared dumbfounded at Obi-wan’s solemn face. “You meant that love in a familial way, surely? Like a dear friend or…or an older brother?”
“No, Anakin, I did not,” Obi-wan said firmly. “I meant it as a lover would. As an Alpha loves another, with fierceness and protection and possessiveness. I have for a very long time.”
“Then why do you walk away from me?” Anakin asked shakily, and Obi-wan shrugged.
“Because there is nothing else to say,” he said factually. “That was the only thing I needed to say to you.”
“But…” Anakin trailed off in confusion as Obi-wan disappeared in the front of the ship for the first aid kit, returning momentarily with the suppressant shot. He stared at it and then back at Obi-wan as he prepared the injection site. The sting in his arm barely registered. “Do you think things will just go back to normal now?”
“No, I’m quite certain things will not,” Obi-wan said dryly. “I will take responsibility for my words and actions. I will leave the Cabinet and remove myself from Naboo once we’ve landed, Anakin. There will be no need for explanation or dismissal.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Anakin didn’t realize he’d growled until he caught the surprised widening of Obi-wan’s eyes. “You just confessed that you love me after years of wanting you, of imagining and wishing and praying fervently that you’d love me back. There will be no dismissals.”
“Anakin,” whispered Obi-wan, clearly stunned. “You are a married man.”
“Yes. But not a mated one,” Anakin said, crawling towards Obi-wan and batting the suppressant shot out of his hands. “I have watched Padme glide through Heats with her lovers, and it all seemed so fucking pleasant. And now that you are here, that we know how the other feels? No, Obi-wan, you’re not going anywhere.”
“You wish for a Heat mate,” Obi-wan said in an almost flat tone, and Anakin crawled fully into his lap, flushed and soaking wet and trembling.
“I wish for a heart mate,” he said. “Because you love me, and I love you. That I also ask you to fuck me through my Heats and your ruts is an additional discussion. But I want my Alpha. I’ve waited a very long time to have you.”
“Ani,” whispered Obi-wan, placing shaky hands atop Anakin’s back and bringing him in closer, tighter. “You are so young.”
“Yes, so young,” Anakin responded, moaning at the closeness and the hormonal rush it created, running his nose along Obi-wan’s bearded jawline. “So young and desperate to be fucked by something other than a pleasure droid’s plastic cock. Please fuck me, Alpha,” he whined, and Obi-wan groaned, moving his head to capture Anakin’s mouth in a steaming kiss.
There was something delicious about that first taste, the way their mouths connected and slid together pleasantly. Something sensual and yet sweet about the way Anakin’s mouth parted for Obi-wan’s tongue at the very first drag along his bottom lip. Something delicious about the needy little whimper Anakin made at the back of his throat when Obi-wan carefully catalogued every part of his mouth, lapping at his taste and devouring his mouth the way he’d dreamed and fantasized about doing for too many years to count. Obi-wan’s big hands gripped Anakin’s muscular thighs as they draped over his hips, grinding Anakin’s soaked trouser pants down onto his rapidly hardening cock.
“You want me?” he gasped out breathlessly after finally finding the willpower to disentangle his tongue from young Omega’s.
“I have since the moment I knew you,” Anakin panted, strong fingertips raking through luscious auburn hair, messing it up as he yanked Obi-wan back in for a kiss. “If I could have your bite on my neck, I would demand it right now.”
“Take your clothing off,” Obi-wan groaned, gripping Anakin’s neck with his hand and squeezing, just gentle enough to exact that delicious pressure. Anakin’s eyes seemed to darken, and he moaned like a holofilm sex star as he nodded against Obi-wan’s grip.
“And you’ll fuck me?”
“Yes darling, I’ll fuck you just the way you need,” Obi-wan murmured sweetly, leaning in and pressing a sweet, gentle peck to his red mouth. “I want to play a little first…will you let me?”
“You can do whatever you want to me,” Anakin murmured desperately as he stood on shaky legs and began to shed his clothing, baring all to expose the natural glow of his golden skin. He was muscular and strong as an Alpha would be, though his litheness was more befitting a Beta, and the slight softness over his belly whispered on an Omega’s natural ability to carry children. He moved to climb back onto Obi-wan’s lap, but broad palms circled his hips and kept him stationary there, swaying a little unsteadily before his sitting Alpha.
“You’ve always wanted me?” Obi-wan asked, fingertips gliding along the smooth skin on Anakin’s belly, where baby soft blonde hair glistened off the shadowed lighting of the ship. He followed the trail to his belly button and then back up to his pectorals, kneading the softly padded tissue there.
“Always,” Anakin breathed.
“So I could have kissed you during the war, during all those cold nights spent huddled in our tents against the rain?”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“And when you courted Padme and came back blushing and laughing, that was all a lie?”
“She was my friend. Only ever a friend, Alpha,” whispered Anakin, and Obi-wan pressed his bearded mouth to his belly now for a gently ticklish kiss.
“Am I dreaming?”
“If you are, I hope that you and I never wake up,” Anakin murmured, voice a little damp as he fought his emotions. Obi-wan pressed his forehead to Anakin’s belly before the scent of heat assaulted his senses once more. He pulled back and inhaled the sweet scent hungrily. It smelled like everything he wanted, everything he’d craved for years.
“What do you like?” he asked, pulling back, and Anakin looked confused. “How do you like to be touched during your Heats?”
“The pleasure droid fucks my pussy until my Heat pheromones fade,” Anakin shrugged. “That’s it.”
“You mean the only time you’ve had sex was with a droid? A machine?”
“Well…yeah, I guess,” Anakin laughed. “Padme was already in a committed relationship with her two handmaiden lovers by the time we married, so we never slept together. And I could never ask anyone else, in fear that it would get out that the Consort was being unfaithful, heaven forbid.”
“Have you imagined it at least?” Obi-wan asked after a thoughtful silence, his palm sliding up the back of Anakin’s legs, up to the soft skin where thigh met cheek, and then up further over a smooth cheek to the place where his back dimples lay.
“Of course, every time, I’d dream of you,” Anakin said, suddenly shy. Obi-wan hid his pleased smile by skimming his mouth along the smooth thigh in front of him, gently sinking his teeth into the muscle there in a slow bite.
“And what did you dream of? What made you shake and cry out for me?”
“I would imagine your knot inside me,” Anakin stammered out, cheeks flushed. Obi-wan’s gaze on him was dark and possessive, and Anakin had never felt so wanted in all his life. “Filling me with your cum, making me take it over and over again.”
“It sounds perfect,” Obi-wan chuckled. “And where would I knot you?”
“Well…my pussy? Where else would you?” Anakin chuckled, and then he gasped at the thought. “And maybe…my mouth? Would you knot my mouth?”
“Mm, of course, my love,” Obi-wan chuckled, licking over the bite mark. “I would love to fill your pretty mouth with my cock, get you down on your knees in front of me, choke you on my cock until you cry for it.” He growled and reached up to grip Anakin’s neck, tugging him down for a hungry kiss. “You’re mine now, Omega. I’ll fill all your hungry holes for you,” he promised, licking deeply into Anakin’s desperate mouth.
“Alpha,” whimpered Anakin, desperate. Slick was dripping down his inner thighs now, he could feel it, and the Heat was simmering under his skin. The suppressant shot would help keep it at bay, shorten the intensity and duration, but it was still there, and he was still so hungry. “Please, Alpha…”
“First, I want a taste,” Obi-wan pulled back abruptly to say. He lay back on the bed and wiggled a finger at Anakin in a come-hither move. “Come sit on my face for a little.”
“You want me—Alpha, I—” Anakin gulped and climbed hesitantly up onto the bed. Obi-wan was still perfectly dressed, and Anakin felt embarrassed of his own nudity. “Won’t I suffocate you?”
“God I hope so,” Obi-wan muttered, helping Anakin climb up overtop him. “That’s it, darling, like that,” he murmured, leaning up and licking a broad stripe over Anakin’s slit, a slow and leisurely movement from his rim up to his clit. Then he began a maddening play of licking and suctioning on Anakin’s clitoris, encouraging the Omega to allow his hips to dip down, to grind onto his mouth.
“Oh my god,” moaned Anakin, gripping onto the wall with sweaty hands for some sort of support, his belly on fire at the feeling. Nothing had ever felt so good.
“You taste so good,” groaned Obi-wan, and Anakin cried out louder at the scrape of teeth on his clit before Obi-wan resumed his gentle licking, hands running up and down his back and over his ass, gripping a cheek in either hand and squeezing hard. “Ride my face, darling, come on,” he groaned against Anakin’s center, making the Omega cry out at the vibrations and subconsciously obey. He didn’t know people could play like this, that an Alpha could lay and selflessly pleasure an Omega so beautifully and thoroughly. His thighs quaked as he ground down on Obi-wan’s face again, and the feeling of coarse beard against his soft, bare folds had him crying out again.
“Alpha,” he panted, feeling Obi-wan’s tongue glide through his folds again, just as rough fingertips ran down along the crease of his ass. He had to be suffocating him, surely? But when he tried to lift his hips up, the Alpha growled and yanked him back down again, tongue darting right inside his hungry hole. “Fuck!” he shouted at the pleasure of Obi-wan tongue fucking him. Obi-wan’s hands were fully spreading his ass apart now, fingertips grazing the sensitive skin there that he rarely even touched himself, and as Obi-wan eased his tongue out and then back inside his pussy again, Anakin’s belly lit ablaze, and he smashed his palms flat against the wall as he came, shouting Obi-wan’s name desperately as his hole clenched around Obi-wan’s tongue.
But as usual during a heat, a mere orgasm did little more than fan the flames of Anakin’s lust, and he scrambled down the bed enough so he could bend down and kiss Obi-wan’s soaked face.
“Please fuck me,” he cried, as he licked deep into Obi-wan’s mouth. He’d shared so few kisses in his life, but now that he was here in this man’s arms, he couldn’t shake the feeling of rightness. “Please, Alpha, please knot me.”
“I can’t knot you darling,” Obi-wan murmured, and Anakin didn’t even waste a second before wailing.
“I need it,” he sobbed, writhing in Obi-wan’s grasp. “I need your knot in my pussy so bad,” he gasped, biting Obi-wan’s ear a little harder than he meant to. “I’ll die.”
“So dramatic, my darling,” Obi-wan chuckled, calm and cool as always. His hands ran down Anakin’s hot, flushed skin tenderly. “But I have no way to ensure that we avoid pregnancy, darling. No emergency pills for you to take. So we must make do in other ways.”
“Maybe it won’t take,” Anakin tried, still crying and whining and rubbing his face on Obi-wan’s neck frantically, and the Alpha gripped his chin tenderly, forcing him to stop and make eye contact.
“We will not take unnecessary risks about this, Anakin,” Obi-wan said in the same patient, no-nonsense voice he had used all through Anakin’s training and their joint military missions. “This was an unexpected Heat for you. The risk of pregnancy is very high. So I will not be breeding you, no. And you will not throw temper tantrums when I refuse you things like a child, dear one.”
There was just enough Alpha in his voice, just enough dominant confidence there, that Anakin could do little else but lay limp in Obi-wan’s arms, press his wet face to his neck again, and keen childishly.
“I will still make you feel good, Anakin,” Obi-wan said with his unending patience. “Turn, darling, spread your legs for me like—yes, darling, very good.”
The praise did something to Anakin, his hormones thickening sweetly, his breath coming out in hungry pants as he moved on numb legs and rested his head back on the pillow in the cot, spreading his legs wide and holding them open with his own shaky hands as Obi-wan directed. The movement was similar to how he lay when the pleasure droids were necessary, but he didn’t feel the anxiety or dull mortification that he had felt in the past, not with the dark, hungry eyes raking over his body and latching to the space between his legs.
“Your cunt is a masterpiece,” Obi-wan murmured, and Anakin flushed, breathless. “It tastes so sweet, darling…have you tasted your own slick?”
“It tastes weird,” muttered Anakin, mortified again, and Obi-wan chuckled as he removed his robes and crawled back on the bed with his trousers still intact.
“No darling, you taste like ripe melon and sweet honey,” he murmured. “Like summer treats on a hot day. I could lay between your legs and taste you all day, all Heat, until you could do nothing but spread your legs and cry my name aloud.”
“Obi-wan,” Anakin whispered shakily, and Obi-wan’s three fingers slid down his slit to gather slick and then rub it in a tight circle around his clit.
“I’m going to fist you,” he said with such cheerful casualty that the words barely registered in Anakin’s ears.
“F—fist me?”
“Yes, darling,” Obi-wan nodded. “I take it you’ve never heard or seen this before?”
“No sir,” Anakin said mindlessly, eyes fixated on the fingers idly stroking laps up and down his pussy. When the hand stopped momentarily, his words hit him, and he looked up at Obi-wan and blushed. “I’m sorr—”
“Oh darling, we’re going to play with that much more later,” Obi-wan said breathlessly. “Your submission is beautiful and very gratefully appreciated darling. But for now, I’m going to slowly stretch your cunt with my fingers until you can take my fist. It’s very similar to knotting, and it’s frequently used as a way to get Omegas through Heat when an Alpha or a knotting toy isn’t available.”
“But…”
“Either yes or no, Anakin, but arguing with me about knotting your cunt without protective measures will not be tolerated,” Obi-wan’s voice deepened, hardening a little, and Anakin sniffled.
“Okay, Alpha,” he said, lying back. “I’ll take your fist please.”
“What a good boy you are,” Obi-wan murmured, kneeling and leaning over him for a warm kiss. So busy focusing on the tongue dancing in his mouth, Anakin barely recognized the two fingers easing in and out of his soaked pussy until they were nudging up against his g-spot. He panted against Obi-wan’s mouth, tilting his legs wider in an unspoken request for more. His wish was granted, and a third finger eased inside him, stretching him open a little more.
“You get so wet,” Obi-wan murmured, kissing his way across Anakin’s face to nuzzle his neck.
“Is that bad?” Anakin asked shakily, and Obi-wan groaned, turning his head so he could look down and watch his fingers ease in and out. He rubbed his thumbpad over Anakin’s clit, just to feel his hole tighten up prettily around his fingers, and then he resumed thrusting the three fingers.
“It’s delicious,” he murmured. The sound of his fingers playing in wet pussy filled the silent ship, the heady scent of his arousal clinging to the air, and Obi-wan wished he could bottle the moment up and keep it forever. “Are you ready for a fourth, darling?”
“Yes, yes, please!” Anakin shouted, desperate, and Obi-wan obeyed, enjoying the way his bratty little lover begged so prettily for him. Later, another time outside of Heat, he’d tie him up and play with him, edge him until Anakin could do little more but drool and beg for relief.
But here and now, Anakin’s body needed a knot, and Obi-wan had played long enough. Gently, he tucked in his thumb and eased his hand into the widest part, watching Anakin’s pink folds spread wide around him. He had to pause momentarily when Anakin came, back arching and toes curling from the force, and Obi-wan relished the delightful cries of his Omega as he crested his peak.
“Good boy,” he murmured, kissing Anakin’s sweat-soaked hairline lovingly, moving down to lick his open, crying mouth. “What a good boy you are, letting me fill your greedy hole.”
“Alpha,” whispered Anakin, fingers moving to clutch Obi-wan’s arm. “I need your knot,” he begged, desperate.
“And you shall have it, darling,” Obi-wan murmured, easing in all the way. He eased inside until he could feel the soft entrance to Anakin’s womb, overly sensitive with Heat and tender to the touch. Gently, he closed his hand into a fist in the wet warm silk of Anakin’s grasp and then brushed his knuckles over the cervical opening, massaging it gently.
The noises that erupted from Anakin’s throat were animalistic, fierce and loud and frantic, and he clenched so tightly around Obi-wan that Obi-wan feared tearing him should he try to ease out in the moment. So instead, he continued gently massaging his knuckles, murmuring reassurances to the Omega splayed wide across the cot, his eyes fixated on the way a good portion of his forearm disappeared inside Anakin’s pussy.
It may have been too much, or simply the perfect amount of just enough, because Anakin’s limbs turned to jelly, and he slumped to the bed as he fainted from the pleasure. Obi-wan adjusted himself in his trousers with a grimace, his erection painful, though he remained fisted inside the warm embrace of his Omega as he waited for him to wake back up.
He’d eased five other Omegas through their Heats before, most as a young man negotiating for the Jedi, and he’d fucked plenty more outside their Heats too. He had always enjoyed the subtle tenderness that all Omegas seemed to have, even in bed. He could dominate and punish and even playfully humiliate, but at the end of their time, it was about the Omega’s pleasure. Seeing an O fucked out on his cock or his hand or his tongue was…riveting. A high unlike anything he’d experienced. And seeing Anakin, the man he’d loved far longer and far deeper than he’d ever loved anyone else, strung out over his touch, lost in his pleasure like this…how could Obi-wan ever get enough?
For twenty-five minutes, he knelt and pretended to knot Anakin with his fist. Just as the boy began to rouse, Obi-wan gently eased his hand out, knowing it would be less painful if he wasn’t quite aware of it. Dark blue eyes watched him under hooded lids as he gently slipped his hand free, and then trembling fingers eased around his neck and tugged him down for a hungry kiss. Not caring about his slick-soaked hand, he ran his fingers through Anakin’s wild tumble of curls and kissed him back.
“I’ve never felt anything like that,” whispered Anakin shakily.
“Better than a rubber pleasure droid dildo?” he teased with a warm smile, and Anakin huffed as he rubbed his face against Obi-wan’s in a loving scent. Whether he knew the intimacy of his action or he simply didn’t care, Obi-wan didn’t think too hard about it and returned the gesture back.
“How many times do you think I’ll need a knot? After that suppressant shot?” he asked quietly, and Obi-wan lay down beside him on the cot, massaging his thighs and over his ass up his back tenderly.
“It’s hard to tell. This was an unexpected Heat, you said, so we aren’t working with a normal cycle. Maybe two or three more times?”
“Will we just stay here until it’s over?” Anakin asked, throat dry and scratchy, and Obi-wan sat up, reaching for the water glass and helping him drink it, catching how floppy and shaky his hands still were.
“I think that would be best,” he said with a nod “And then we can return to Naboo. Though how we’ll air out this ship, Maker knows.”
“Air out the ship? Why?”
“Because it smells of your ripe, fertile cunt, darling,” Obi-wan said conversationally as he set the water glass back down. He received two armfuls of bashful Omega, and he chuckled as he kissed the top of his head. “Oh, my love. Do you feel okay? What do you need?”
“Your cock,” came Anakin’s muffled response, and Obi-wan sighed.
“We talked about this, dear one.”
“Yes, you said you can’t knot my pussy, and I understand that,” Anakin said with a pout. “But I have two other holes, Obi-wan! I need your cum somewhere, for kriff’s sake.”
“Resourceful little Omega,” murmured Obi-wan. “You should sleep, we don’t know when the next wave will come.”
“You are now intimately aware of my…intimates,” Anakin rolled back to glare at Obi-wan. “I want to see your cock, Alpha.”
“And which hole needs my cum most?” Obi-wan murmured after a long silence, rolling overtop Anakin and kissing him hungrily again.
“My mouth,” Anakin immediately responded. “It needs it so bad.”
“How bad?” Obi-wan asked, standing and beginning to loosen his trousers.
“I feel all shaky in my belly just thinking about it,” Anakin whispered, sitting up and moving to the edge of the cot. “I’ve dreamed about your cock for years…since I was sixteen years old.”
“Kriff, Anakin,” Obi-wan growled, easing the waistline down his hips to pool on the floor, and Anakin stared at him for a long moment of silence with wide eyes and parted lips. His mouth obviously filled with saliva, because he swallowed heavily and finally looked back up at Obi-wan.
“I didn’t know they got that big,” he stammered, and Obi-wan chuckled.
“My darling love,” he murmured, and Anakin scooted closer to the edge. “You exaggerate.”
“I most certainly do not,” Anakin protested, wrapping his hand around his girth with some difficulty and stroking up and down. “You forget I shared a war camp with many, many Alphas, who all loved comparing the size and girth of their cocks, Obi-wan. I know what a dick looks like…this fits inside Omegas?”
“Historically, yes,” Obi-wan murmured.
“I didn’t know pussies stretched that much,” Anakin responded, and Obi-wan snorted, stroking his face tenderly.
“You took my entire fist and nearly half of my forearm,” he murmured. “You will be just fine, darling.”
Anakin licked the wet, drooling tip of his cock hungrily, and his eyes flashed with need at the taste that erupted on his tongue. He moaned and then wrapped his mouth around his crown, dropping his jaw as best he could.
“You are a treasure,” Obi-wan muttered as he watched his cock sink inside Anakin’s wet, hungry mouth. He stroked his face again, letting Anakin pace them. There were two or three inches left when he hit Anakin’s throat, and he watched as the Omega choked and gagged on it. Easing out, he gave him a breath, and dark blue eyes met his in a breath.
“Make me take it,” Anakin said breathlessly, and Obi-wan frowned.
“Darling…”
“Choke me on your cock, please,” Anakin begged. “Use me like the hungry hole I am, just here for your pleasure, for your cum,” he added, pumping up and down on Obi-wan’s cock again, and the Alpha groaned.
“You’re like every Alpha’s wet dream,” he groaned as he sank back inside Anakin’s mouth. “Tap my leg if it’s too much, darling.”
It was easy to let loose in the tight confines of Anakin’s mouth…easy to get a fistful of golden curls and fuck Anakin’s mouth the way his darkest fantasies spurred him to…easy to listen to the way Anakin’s throat sounded wet and messy as he gagged him. For never sucking cock, the boy knew how to stay loose and open for Obi-wan, and he moaned prettily when Obi-wan buried deep in his throat and gagged him just long to make his eyes roll back in his head before easing back to let him breathe. Hands limply held in his lap, he never tapped, so Obi-wan played just long enough to see his boy shiver and squeeze his thighs together as he tried to get stimulation to his core.
All too soon, Obi-wan felt the tightening in his gut, and he eased out, resting his cockhead just inside Anakin’s mouth so he could watch as he painted it white, fisting his cock through his orgasm. The Omega gasped at the initial feel of his mouth filling, but he gulped it down hungrily and then licked Obi-wan’s slit clean.
“What a good boy you are,” Obi-wan murmured, kneeling down beside the bed. Like this, he was a little shorter than Anakin, just as when they were standing, and he tugged the boy down for a kiss.
“It was good for you?”
“Darling, we can lay fully clothed in the dark and do nothing but kiss, and it would still be good for me, because it’s you,” Obi-wan laughed breathlessly. “But yes, darling…it was so good for me.”
“Lay with me,” Anakin asked, and Obi-wan obeyed, stepping out of his trousers and easing the Omega up into his arms.
Anakin didn’t necessarily want to tell Padme about the newest development in their complicated lie, so the first weeks back on Naboo were filled with secret rendezvous and furtive kisses in the shadows of empty hallways. And it was so good, always. Sometimes, Obi-wan would meet him in the gardens after dark, when royal guests were drunk or engaged in parlor games and dances, and they’d kiss hungrily under the dancing reed limbs of the trees. Obi-wan would fuck him against the trees or on the soft grasses or behind the thick curtains of the patio veranda, and Anakin would have to press a shaky palm to his mouth to muffle his cries with each perfect thrust.
Sometimes, Anakin would sneak into Obi-wan’s chambers at night, where he could undress and bathe with him, clamber into his big bed and roll around in the cool sheets for hours, letting the Alpha use him until his lips were swollen and his holes drenched in cum. Other times, Obi-wan would find some reason to enter Anakin’s office as Queen Consort, and he’d spread him out across his desk like a buffet and eat his pussy until the Omega was crying for relief. One time, Obi-wan spanked him after a particularly tense senate dinner, and Anakin came so hard that he passed out. So another avenue of play opened, one where Obi-wan walked a fine line between pleasure and pain, and Anakin could do little else but beg for mercy around the hand squeezing his throat.
It was so good, so perfect, that Anakin frequently felt he was walking through one of his daydreams rather than real life. He felt dazed and hazy sometimes, which Obi-wan explained was subspace, and he had never loved something more in his life.
One month became two, and two months became three, and Anakin had gotten so good at making excuses to Padme why he wasn’t sleeping in his bed in their suite that he could practically be a professional liar. And then something odd happened—Padme had her Heat.
Of course, Padme having a Heat wasn’t that odd or unusual at all, but as Anakin watched Rabé ease Padme’s limp body into a cool water bath, he had a sudden thought. He hadn’t had his Heat. Which was odd, because Padme’s Heat always came after his, from a few days to a week. But so busy with his responsibilities as Consort and his responsibilities as Obi-wan’s personal cockslut, he’d missed his body calendar. So no Heat and certainly no pre-Heat warning signs…and wasn’t that odd.
He pushed the thought from his mind, especially when he could spend even more time with Obi-wan when Padme was busy with her mates.
“You smell like…Heat?” Obi-wan asked that night as Anakin crawled up into his bed, naked and hungry for his Alpha’s kiss.
“Yes, Padme fell into Heat early this morning,” Anakin murmured. “I’ll need to camp out here for a few days so people don’t notice that I’m not with her.”
“But what will you do during your Heat, when you need to stay away?” Obi-wan asked curiously, his hands gliding around Anakin’s waist as he tugged the Omega closer, kissing his mouth sweetly in greeting.
“Well, we keep having to make up excuses,” Anakin said tiredly. “It’s a real concern actually…we used to have synchronized heats, but now that we don’t, it’s becoming tricky.”
“And these synchronized heats, what were they like?” Obi-wan asked, and Anakin sighed.
“Awkward as Kriff,” he grumbled, throwing a leg over Obi-wan’s body to get as close as humanly possible. “I’d use a pleasure droid and across the room, Padme got pleasured every which way by two attentive Betas,” he rolled his eyes. “You can’t even imagine the jealousy.”
“You never all played together?”
“Rabé hates me,” Anakin murmured tiredly. “Sabé would do it in a heartbeat, but Rabé is possessive as shit, and she runs the show amongst the three of them.”
“And no Beta lovers ever tempted you?” Obi-wan asked, running his hands through Anakin’s hair gently.
“Not really, not when I always loved you,” Anakin responded tiredly, eyes half-closed as he lay against Obi-wan’s chest. Obi-wan tried not to let the words go to his head and ego, though it was very challenging. “And besides, Padme has always been weird about me having lovers. She doesn’t think I’m discreet.”
“That doesn’t feel very fair,” Obi-wan frowned, and Anakin huffed.
“Well, she’s the Queen, so what she says goes,” he muttered. Obi-wan frowned again, but Anakin was already asleep.
“I think we should tell Padme about us,” he told Anakin the next morning over breakfast and tea, watching the Omega walk out onto their private balcony naked. The sun gleamed beautifully on his golden body, lithe and long and muscular perfection.
“It scares me a little,” Anakin admitted. He crawled into Obi-wan’s lap shamelessly, straddling him. Then he played with Obi-wan’s hair at the nape of his neck, scratching his fingernails lightly through his beard, tugged on the hem of his shirt, anything to keep him distracted. “She won’t approve.”
“How could she not? We love each other.”
“She’ll see it as a betrayal,” Anakin said, unable to make eye contact. “I promised her I would keep her secret, and she’ll consider this a broken promise.”
“I would never tell anyone,” Obi-wan said seriously, and Anakin nodded.
“Yes, I know that you won’t, but Padme has lived in fear of discovery of this for her whole life,” he said with a shrug. “She’ll lose her throne and become a gossip story if it gets out that she’s an unmated Omega wearing the Crown. I get it.”
“But this isn’t about Padme,” Obi-wan said quietly. “This is about you and me, Anakin. We’re not saying we’re going to run away together and abandon Padme to her lies. We’re just going to tell her that we’re together. That we love each other. When we bond, I’ll bite you somewhere more inconspicuous than your neck…plenty of mates bond bite over their groin or down on their clavicle even. No one would know but you and I…and Padme, I guess.”
“What about our scents?” Anakin asked, and Obi-wan chuckled.
“We could take suppressants, both of us,” he said. “Patches and pills are plenty sufficient, just like when we were in the war. And because you’ll be mated, Padme’s Heats won’t trigger yours. Besides, you won’t live in her room anymore, you’ll live with me.”
“But people would talk,” whispered Anakin, and Obi-wan snorted.
“Name a Royal couple who don’t have mistresses and sex partners,” he said dryly. “I don’t mind the public thinking I’m your lover. Padme can be more open about her Beta lovers too then.”
“It sounds too good to be true,” Anakin murmured, kissing Obi-wan, who smiled warmly.
“It’ll be okay,” he murmured. “We’ll find a happy compromise for us all. We just need to start the process and tell her the truth first.”
“Okay,” Anakin chuckled, before his grin turned naughty. Reaching down, he untied Obi-wan’s sleeping pants and reached inside gingerly. “But I need a little something to motivate me, ya know?”
“And only my cock will do?” Obi-wan teased dryly, watching breathlessly as Anakin positioned his cockhead against the soaked folds of his pussy and eased down, gliding and stretching around him until he’d settled in fully.
“I always need your cock,” Anakin groaned, taking a moment to get used to the stretch before he began to bounce a little. He leaned his elbows back on the table to help him ride a little easier, and Obi-wan grunted at the sight of his cock disappearing in and out of that sweet hole.
“Because you’re just a slut, desperate for my cock?” he asked with as much casualness as he could manage, his hands moving to grip Anakin’s hips, though he let the Omega pace his bouncing.
“Yes, I need your cock all the time,” Anakin gasped, throwing his head back and showing off the long perfect line of his neck. “Need your cock in my greedy pussy.”
“Makes sense, since a hole this hungry must need cock all the time just to survive, huh,” Obi-wan murmured, rubbing at his swollen clit with his thumb. “Always so hungry for my knot.”
“I need it so bad,” Anakin keened, louder than he meant, and Obi-wan laughed and forced him to stop.
“Go, lay down on our bed and present like the little shutta you are,” he murmured, smacking his bare ass once tenderly.
“And you’ll knot me?”
“Baby, I’ll cum in you so much you’ll drip my seed all day,” Obi-wan murmured. Anakin hurried to obey.
Anakin put off telling Padme for almost an entire month afterwards, and though Obi-wan’s eyes frequently looked hurt and his mouth tightened in annoyance, he didn’t say anything. The truth was, Anakin was afraid…afraid how his life was about to change, how the comfortable little bubble of lies he’d blown up to shield him would pop once word of their relationship got out. And Padme had done so much for him…the idea of causing her stress and anxiety killed him.
But there were more pressing issues to deal with by month’s end. Anakin had gone nearly four months with no Heat. So, something was now wrong.
So he went to a medical droid, and when the test results were clearly impossible, he went to the medical ward to get checked again.
“There’s no denying it,” the ward healer said with an odd twist to their two mouths. Four big glassy eyes stared back at Anakin. “You are pregnant, General Skywalker.”
Thank God for provider-patient confidentiality.
He told Padme that very evening after the longest, most torturous dinner he’d ever had to suffer through. He’d avoided Obi-wan’s concerned glances all night and done little more than sip sparkling water and push food around his plate. And then, back in their suite, he unloaded every dirty secret he’d kept for four long months to his oldest and dearest friend, choking on tears and nausea the entire time.
Padme stared at him for a very long time in complete silence. And then she let Rabé and Sabé help her get dressed for bed, and she continued to say nothing at all, eyes wide and dazed. Sabé threw Anakin sympathetic glances in the mirror’s reflection, and Rabé glared, which she usually did. And Anakin sat and waited for the final verdict.
“How far along?” Padme asked, and Anakin fisted his trembling hands in the comforter that he lay on.
“Seven weeks,” he said. “I wasn’t even in Heat…it was an accident.”
“Okay,” Padme nodded. “We can work with that.” She seemed to hold a silent meeting with her reflection, lips moving but not verbalizing anything, and then she nodded and turned to him. Face free of paint, dark curls free around her face, she looked like his friend again, and the thick ball of nerves high in Anakin’s throat dropped down into his belly at her next words. “I’ll start the suppressant shots tonight, and we’ll just have to say the baby comes early. People don’t normally watch my Heats that closely, so being off by three weeks should be okay.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll have to find an excuse for you to be off planet until the baby comes,” Padme nodded thoughtfully, considering. “And we’ll have to change my wardrobe around considerably. There must be someone who designs pregnancy stomach molds, maybe a holofilm company? Sabé, look into that dear.”
“I don’t understand,” Anakin stammered, and Padme stared at him, chewing her bottom lip.
“I will take suppressants to stop my Heats,” she said. “We will say that I am pregnant at last, and I will disguise myself until the baby comes. We can meet privately somewhere so I can ‘birth’ the baby, which you obviously will be doing instead. And then you will return, a proud Alpha father, and we have an heir to the throne at last.”
Anakin blinked.
“But…what about Obi-wan?”
“We will need to get him off Naboo, certainly,” Padme sighed. “I am very upset, Anakin, I hope you realize this. I am not yelling because there is no point. It’s done. You messed up, and we’re here now, so there’s no point in yelling about it. But at least with an heir to the throne, we can both go on suppressants and be done with this Heat nonsense once and for all.”
“Get him off Naboo?” Anakin stammered, brain a little foggy. He stiffened. “You want me to break it off?”
“Anakin, what did you expect would happen?” Padme asked with a harsh laugh. “You are my Alpha husband. You cannot suddenly become pregnant with another Alpha’s runt, now can you? That is literally impossible.”
“But we had a plan,” Anakin whispered shakily, and he tried to stammer it out, but it got all jangled up in his mouth, worsened by Padme’s disbelieving eyebrows and Rabé’s eyerolls, and he gave up halfway through. Because the plan wouldn’t work now, would it? Having a lover outside wedlock would work, but not if he was pregnant. Because the façade needed to remain that Anakin was an Alpha—and pregnant Alphas were an impossibility.
“What do I say to him?” he asked shakily, and Padme swallowed heavily. She glanced up at Rabé. Sabé busied herself with clearing away Padme’s clothing for the day.
“You should not tell him about the baby,” Rabé said calmly. “He will get emotional and cause issues.”
“But it’s his baby,” Anakin whispered, and Padme sighed, rubbing at her forehead.
“Anakin. This is our life!” she yelled. Padme never yelled. Anakin felt sick. “And you are going to destroy it over a childish crush that is unattainable! What did you think was going to happen? The two of you would run away into the sunset together? You will destroy our marriage and destroy the entire Naboo Royal Crown with this shit!”
The silence afterwards was heavy, and Anakin swallowed thickly. He felt a little hallow as her words registered, and he nodded.
“I understand,” he whispered. “I’ll….I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“We’ll remove him from the Cabinet immediately, give him more of a reason,” Padme said with a nod. Her eyes still looked a little panicky, but she was beginning to calm.
“Coruscant,” Anakin said suddenly, blinking and looking over at her. “He loves Coruscant. Offer him a dukedom there, please.”
“He does not deserve—”
“He is a decorated war hero, a friend of your family, and my lover,” Anakin said shakily. “He deserves far more than that.”
More silence, thicker and more awkward this time. And then Padme nodded.
“Fine. He will be awarded a dukedom and property in Coruscant, and the position will be opened most urgently so he leaves quicker,” she said. “We will set you up in the summer house in the Lake District, how does that sound?”
“I do not care,” Anakin said, voice empty and hallow. He crawled further into his bed and turned down the lamps. He could hear the three whispering as they entered their bedroom, but he didn’t bother to try listening. His mind was racing.
“This is about you and me, Anakin.” That’s what Obi-wan had said. “That we love each other…this isn’t about Padme.”
How wrong he had been.
“Dear heart, I wasn’t expecting you,” Obi-wan murmured quietly with a warm smile when he opened his office door to see Anakin standing there. “Mace and I are just finishing up a rather dry discussion of the current political situation in Alderaan, General Skywalker, do come in,” he added in a louder voice, stepping back and widening the door.
Anakin felt sick. Literally, because he’d spent most of the morning vomiting into the fresher at literally any distinct smell that passed his nose, and figuratively, because this conversation was going to be horrible. Rabé had given him a speech, written out for him to memorize. Padme had him recite it to the mirror fifty times at least, between runs to empty his already-empty stomach. He hadn’t missed the concerned, frightened expressions on their faces all morning. Padme’s future as Queen rode entirely on how well he could pull off this speech.
“General Skywalker, perhaps you’d find some of these statistics interesting,” Mace said after standing and bowing. He reached for the flimsi stretched across the desk, and Obi-wan sighed.
“Unfortunately, General Skywalker and I have a rather lengthy meeting ahead of our already packed day discussing the current situation in Tatooine,” he said with a frown. “Another time, Mace.”
“Of course,” Mace said with a nod. He bowed and moved to leave, but he paused and turned. “There was…whisper…of an…outcome, let’s say, from a Heat last month,” Mace said awkwardly, and Anakin blinked. “A…royal baby, perhaps?”
The silence was heavy, and Anakin tried to get his mouth open, trying to find the words. Obi-wan was frozen stiff.
“Where did you hear that?” Anakin finally managed to stammer out.
“There was talk amongst the servants,” Mace said. Rabé, this was Rabé’s doing. “And servants tell other servants…who tell their valets, who tell us.” He shrugged and grinned. “No need to say anything, General Skywalker. But congratulations.”
And then he left, the door clicking shut quietly after him. Obi-wan waited maybe one entire second before he gathered Anakin into his arms and pressed a hungry kiss to his trembling mouth.
“Darling,” he groaned, kissing him warmly. His big hands clasped Anakin so tenderly, Anakin felt nauseated all over again, and he forced his angry stomach to relax. Obi-wan pulled back with a happy sigh. “What in the world was Mace talking about? Rumors of Royal babies?”
“Uh, Padme is pregnant,” Anakin spit out. It physically pained him to say that, and his stomach clenched up tight. For a moment, he considered bending over and losing control of his stomach right there on the floor of Obi-wan’s office, but he swallowed thickly and contained himself. Obi-wan’s confused expression certainly helped.
“But her lovers are Beta, are they not?”
“This past month, she invited an Alpha to lay with them,” Anakin said, repeating Rabé’s story. The sentence structure was different, but his lying skills had improved with all his sneaking around with Obi-wan. They had to be improved. “It was an accident, but this actually worked out well for her.”
“Excellent,” Obi-wan said, his smile easy and patient. He was always so patient with Anakin. “She’s happy?”
Padme’s stressed expression and fearful, wide eyes smacked Anakin in the face, and he swallowed heavily again.
“Uh-huh,” he said weakly. “I think so. Sick now, but happy, I think. We’ve been pressured to have…heirs…so this works out well.”
“I’m so happy for her,” Obi-wan said with a smile. “I’ll have to congratulate her later today when we have our Cabinet meeting.”
That Cabinet meeting was going to change their lives forever. Anakin wanted to lie down on the floor and die.
“Anyway, darling, we actually do need to discuss the Tatooine situation, but that can wait,” Obi-wan grinned. “You looked so upset last night, but you look a little better today.” He assessed his features, and his smile dimmed. “Actually, you look a little unwell today too. What’s wrong, dearest?”
Anakin took in the sweet warmth of Obi-wan’s face—the way the sun glistened on his auburn hair, the faintest bit of grey starting in his beard. His eyes had little crow’s feet at the corners, and they made his eyes seem bluer and more twinkly when he smiled. His smell was crisp and clean, and the way he held Anakin so tenderly made Anakin feel like there was no safer place to be than right here in this beautiful, wonderful man’s arms.
Tell him the truth, someone seemed to whisper in his ears. Was it the Force? The wind? His conscience? It didn’t matter…Anakin couldn’t obey it.
“This isn’t working,” he said. Obi-wan blinked at him, eyebrows bunching slowly in confusion. “This relationship,” he said.
“What isn’t working?” Obi-wan asked, confused, and Anakin stepped back from him; it was the single hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, stepping away from the only Alpha he’d ever loved.
“I was so sure that we could be together, but I can’t do it,” Anakin shook his head. “I don’t want to destroy my relationship with Padme. I don’t want to destroy my image as the Queen’s Consort. And while I’ve loved what we do together, it’s not enough for me to destroy the life I worked so hard to create.”
The silence was long. But Anakin had practiced enough, and the words came out without stammering or stuttering.
“You don’t want to be together,” Obi-wan repeated in a dull voice, stepping away and moving to lean against his desk. He suddenly wasn’t meeting Anakin’s gaze, and his tone had turned colder and deeper. He was speaking to a stranger now.
“As I said,” Anakin nodded, inhaling shakily. “I’ve had fun with you, Obi-wan, but I—”
“You’ve had fun with me?” Obi-wan interrupted, turning around and staring at Anakin with raised eyebrows. He was entirely still, not a tick or a tremble that could suggest his anger, but his scent was heady—he was fuming. “Anakin, I love you. We talked about mating and bond bites. And now, you’re telling me you were just having…what, a good romp? A little stress relief and fun?” He shook his head. “Bullshit.”
“I understand that you’re angry—”
“I want to know why you’re doing this.”
“—and I understand that this will affect our friendship in ways I did not want,” Anakin tried to finish the final blow of Rabé’s speech, but he couldn’t because Obi-wan laughed—a cold, disbelieving laugh.
“You’re afraid, that’s what this is,” Obi-wan said, trying to convince himself. “I understand that it’s scary, Anakin, I do. But I’m here with you—you aren’t alone, Ani.”
Anakin needed to throw up so badly. He swallowed and clenched his shaking hands into fists.
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” he said. “I thought I loved you, but it was infatuation. I realize that now. And it’s…cooled. I did not mean for this to ruin our working relationship or our friendship, and I hope you can forgive me. But outside of our official roles and duties, I do not want to see you anymore.”
The birds were chirping outside, and a group of Padme’s Handmaidens walked by, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. There was such intense silence and stillness in the room that Anakin could hear the exact moment Obi-wan’s respiratory rate changed, slowing from his initial panic and anger, becoming more rhythmic. He was doing a breathing exercise he no doubt learned from the Jedi, and as Anakin looked at the marble features on his former-lover’s face, he wasn’t even sure if the older man realized he was doing it.
“So, this is my dismissal then,” Obi-wan said slowly. His perfect blue eyes fixated on Anakin, and they held him captive right there where he stood. “I offered to leave before, remember? On the ship, after I told you how much I loved you. How much I’d loved you, since the moment I saw you. I said I would leave then, and you got angry with me—you begged me to stay.”
“My Heat hormones.”
“Bullshit, but I’ll let it slide,” Obi-wan said, calmly. His voice was monotone. His face remained cool and still. Another silence. “Very well, General Skywalker. As always, I am here to serve the Crown,” he said, straightening somehow. “I wish you and your Queen many happy returns for your child. May your life be all you wish it to be.”
He gestured to the door.
“If there was nothing else, I have correspondence to write,” he said, and Anakin couldn’t open his mouth, because he would cry out for his mate…he would collapse on the floor and confess the whole gristly plot and beg Obi-wan to hold him and shield him and run away with him.
Instead, he nodded stiffly, and he left. He made it down one long hallway and behind a closed door in a random study before he lost control of his stomach in a flowering pot of dirt, dropping to his knees from the force of his gut heaving. Again and again, until his vision speckled and turned black around the edges…until he realized that if he didn’t get ahold of himself, he was going to die right here by this pot, in this empty study, and all of this heartache would be in vain.
Because he was currently housing the next King or Queen of Naboo—and his emotions and heartaches? They simply didn’t matter.
Padme watched a complicated range of emotions fall over Obi-wan’s face where he sat in the guest chair of her private office. She’d invited him for tea before their Cabinet meeting, and she’d carefully planned out what to say. From the frozen expression and absent-minded responses he’d muttered upon greeting her, Anakin had done what he was supposed to do and called it all off.
“I’m sure you can deduce why I’ve called for you,” Padme said, smiling politely and tapping her fingertips on the table. “Anakin has told me about your…situation.”
“Did he?” Obi-wan asked, an almost bemused smile at his lip. He leaned back in his chair. “I hear congratulations are in order.”
“What?”
“Your pregnancy. Everyone in Court is whispering about it,” Obi-wan said, bright eyes roving Padme’s figure. “You look very well.”
“Thank you, Obi-wan,” Padme said, softening her face into a smile. She felt bad lying about this to an old friend, but needs will as needs must. “I am feeling well. I am very happy for the future of Naboo that this is coming to pass.”
“I’m sure,” Obi-wan murmured. He cleared his throat. “And yes, I can deduce what this is about.” He leaned forward and sipped from his teacup smartly, letting it rest back in the saucer with a small click. “I will announce to the Cabinet today that I am resigning immediately. And I will leave by week’s end.”
Padme’s relief tasted like strawberries in her mouth. She swallowed and then relaxed in her chair.
“I would like to offer you a parting gift,” she murmured.
“I don’t need one.”
“Alas, this I simply must do,” Padme responded evenly. “A dukedom in Coruscant, with the most beautiful manor to go with it. You’ll want for nothing, and it will give you a considerable political up step.”
“I don’t want it,” Obi-wan said calmly. “I wanted your husband.” The words were jarring, but softly spoken and full of love and heartache and devastation. Padme’s chest hurt a little, and she rubbed at it mindlessly. “I would have lived in a dirt hut in Tatooine to have him.” He stood then. “But he does not want me. So, I will leave, and we’ll be done with this whole mess by Friday evening.”
“You will accept this gift, Obi-wan,” Padme said in her queenly voice, her tone and pitch lowering as it did when she was in front of the Cabinet. “It is an honor from your Queen and a parting farewell. We need to maintain good appearances…even if you did fuck my husband.”
Obi-wan paused by the doorway and sighed deeply.
“There is no way I can persuade you to let me leave in silence?”
“None,” Padme said. “You are a family friend, Obi-wan.” She smiled too sweetly at him. “You will one day thank me for this.”
Obi-wan tapped his fingers on the doorknob and then turned, bowing stiffly to her.
“Goodbye, your Majesty,” Obi-wan said formally.
On Friday evening, Anakin saw Obi-wan’s muscular frame and wide shoulders at dinner. He heard his belly laugh as he verbally sparred with Yoda and Mace, and he caught a whiff of his alluring Alpha scent as he was seated. He caught his gaze exactly one time, entirely accidental on both parties’ end, and the two stared at each other for a moment before turning away and refusing to look back again.
And on Saturday morning, Obi-wan was gone. Anakin knew in two ways—first, the Force seemed to rip in two within his soul as he awoke before dawn, sending him gasping and stumbling on bare feet outside in the cool pre-dawn air to inhale greedy gasps of air. Second, he caught the red lights of Obi-wan’s ship as it took off, leaving Anakin.
Padme and Rabé’s plan worked wonderfully, though Anakin seemed to take it all in through a foggy, smeared pair of glasses that warped and twisted when he looked too long. The Royal Pregnancy was announced, and Padme’s wardrobe began to subtly change. A faux stomach was created to resemble a pregnancy, discreetly sent for from Coruscant, and Rabé and Sabé took turns poking it weirdly when Padme opened the package and tried it on for later in the pregnancy.
Anakin’s excuses for withdrawal from the public eye were varied but consistent. First, he was ‘touring his home planet Tatooine’ and working closely with local public officials to resolve the political shitshow going on there. In actuality, a body double and spy from Rabé’s past was sent instead. Then, he was ill, highly contagious and bordering on death. Then he was off conducting military training in Dagobah for several months.
In actuality, Anakin resided in their summer home in Naboo’s Lake District, down in the gardener’s cottage where a well-paid housekeeper checked in on him daily and a medical droid monitored his pregnancy. He spent his days in a sort of daze, drifting from one activity to another with no real sense of emotion. As his belly grew, his melancholy deepened until just getting out of bed took most of his energy.
Twins, the medical droid announced one day. Anakin knew he was supposed to show some reaction to the news, but how could he? He’d cut off his love, his mate, and he was all alone. What was there to celebrate? He didn’t want these children.
The housekeeper’s anxious glances and worried peptalks grew increasingly common, and Anakin knew she would whisper her concerns to Padme if he wasn’t careful. So, he kept heaving his massive belly out of bed each morning. He kept walking along the waterfront and sunning himself in the golden fields where he and Padme used to lay after the war. He kept eating the food the housekeeper set in front of him and keeping up with his official Consort duties as he was supposed to. Because he was carrying Naboo’s future. Giving up wasn’t an option.
Notes:
I love comments and kudos. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Part II will be updated next week.
<3, Honey
Chapter 3: Part II
Notes:
This story may just be my least popular, but ya know what, it's my favorite. I absolutely loved writing this, and I'm so happy to share it with the few of you who are interested! <3 Thanks always for the support. Enjoy xx
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Present
Naboo
“Cassian fell and scraped his knee!” Leia announced loudly to Hux, her bright red braids swinging around her soft, rounded cheeks. At three, she acted much like Hux did—she commanded a room with her dominance and her voice, and she was so damn bossy sometimes. Hux turned from where he held Finn in his arms and sighed at the sight of Cassian. The toddler looked almost shocked by his position on hands and knees, blinking up at his Alpha father with wide dark eyes before they filled with tears. Hux was already hurrying over as the loudest of wails began to echo through the courtyard.
“My darling,” he murmured, crouching beside the child and lifting him up onto his legs with one easy movement of his free arm. “It startled you, my love, didn’t it? No pain, right? Just scary,” he murmured, and Cassian buried a sweaty, tear-soaked face into his father’s body as his whole body seemed to heave in and out with every angry sob. He was tired, clearly, and Hux almost felt bad for keeping them up past their naptime. But he’d missed them while he was away, desperately, and having grown up without a caring family, he wanted something different for his children.
It was one of the few areas where he and Ben really fought. Ben often accused Hux of spoiling the children, and while technically correct, Hux couldn’t work out why this bothered Ben so much. Neither had grown up with doting, devoted parents; what harm was it in wanting to be around their offspring? They’d worked so hard, prayed and cried and begged, just to have them, with Ben’s difficult pregnancies. Every little part of them fascinated Hux—he wanted to know every worry, watch every little development progress, witness every change in their scent and their personality as they grew.
“I heard wailing and thought I’d check and make sure all is well,” came Phasma’s dry voice as she approached. Her helmet was firmly on, so her voice was modulated, but Hux caught the teasing tone all the same.
“As you can see, all is well,” he said calmly where he squatted, one arm cradling Finn as the infant curiously gazed at his wailing brother. Leia stayed close, one hand on her father’s jacket as she chewed on the edge of her braid. At the appearance of Phasma, she ran over and lifted her arms for the tall woman to lift her. Phasma removed her helmet, never wanting to scare her best friend’s children, and swung her up.
“Cassian fell and now he’s being very loud,” Leia complained to Phasma, hands in her short, blonde hair instantly. Leia loved Phasma, enough that she got jealous when Rey sat too close to her on family dinner nights.
“Poor Cassian,” Phasma responded. “Say, Leia, let’s look at these slug beetles over here,” she murmured, carrying the darling treasure in her arms away from the scene.
“You missed two meetings, and a luncheon with Han,” Poe said as he approached. A few members of the Court trickled through the courtyard, eyeing the Royal family curiously as Cassian’s wails began to die down. The suns’ light was very bright, and Poe squinted a little in its glare. “I’ve made the necessary apologies, though Han also missed the lunch, so I didn’t bother to investigate that further.”
“Probably off planet somewhere,” Hux murmured with a fond shake of his head as he considered his father-in-law. He had worked hard to gain Han’s favor, despite their many differences. “I needed the day off.”
“Yet another reason you should have your own social secretary, who can rearrange your appointment times for you,” Poe said with a no-nonsense expression. “Instead of me managing both yours and your mate’s.”
“But you manage so well,” Hux responded, and Poe snorted, bending down and gathering his late-husband’s namesake in his arms. They assessed each other with dark, solemn eyes before he pressed his nose to the baby’s head and inhaled gently. Poe’s late husband, Finn, had been killed in the Great Rebellion, a terrible tragedy that had killed thousands of Rebellion fighters and First Order supporters too. Finn had been carrying a child; the loss had been deep for Poe, who had never truly recovered. Upon Finn’s birth, Hux and Ben had asked Poe for permission to use his name; while he’d readily agreed, Poe still sometimes looked at Finn as though he didn’t quite know what to do with him.
Now with both hands to hold his crying son, Hux eased the toddler into his arms and picked him up, assessing the scrape on his knee.
“Look, darling, we’ll kiss it better,” he murmured sweetly, pressing his lips to the bumpy skin on the otherwise perfectly smooth little knee. “See? All better.”
“Mummy kiss it better?” Cassian asked between his sobs, and Hux glanced in the direction of Ben’s office. Normally, the patio doors were open wide to let in the sun and breeze, but they’d been shut today, which wasn’t common.
“He’s been in there with the Duke of Coruscant for hours,” Poe murmured quietly, and Hux grunted, eyebrows bunched in concern.
“They must have a lot to catch up on,” he murmured. He turned back to Cassian. “Come along, darling, let’s go get something delicious to eat, okay? And then Daddy needs a nap! Would you like one too? We can nap together.”
Past
Lake District, Naboo
Padme joined the summer palace two days before Anakin was technically due. She arrived with summer and full staff, dressed in that ridiculous baby belly. She greeted Anakin and paused mid-step at the sight of him.
“Ani, you’re huge!” she announced with a laugh. As soon as the doors of their bedchambers were closed, she slid out of the silly costume and approached him for a hug, tenderly rubbing the bump. “Are they moving?”
“Constantly,” murmured Anakin. He rested on a lounge chair, swollen ankles elevated for some pressure relief. “The droid says anytime now.”
“Then it’s a good thing we got here,” Padme murmured.
“She can wait outside,” Anakin said when Rabé entered the room after Sabé, both carrying Padme’s luggage.
“What do you mean, Ani?” Padme asked, confused. Anakin stared at Rabé with a firm frown on his pouty lips.
“I mean that I am tired of rolled eyes and angry scowls and murmured comments, and I will not tolerate it anymore in my bedchamber,” Anakin said, keeping his gaze fixed on Rabé. “I will have these children, and I have done my part. And she is not welcome in my room.”
“She is my mate, and this is nonnegotiable,” Padme sniffed. “You will have to get used to it, Anakin. It was never a problem before.”
“You misunderstand me, Padme,” Anakin said, standing up. “I am nine months pregnant with twin children that I did not ask for. I am sore and tired, my breasts and back ache, and my heart hurts because I was forced to reject my mate for your plan. I have wallowed and wept and sat around like a lump waiting for these children for nine kriffing months, and I have done so without one word of complaint. When I say Rabé is not welcome in my room, I am entirely serious. If you have some problem with that, you may of course go find another room to sleep in. I honestly don’t kriffing care, Padme.”
The silence was tense, and Padme swallowed thickly.
“We can find another room.”
“Good. Shut the door on your way out,” Anakin said. Their first proper exchange in months, and it had been bitter and heated. And Anakin didn’t care.
Within two hours, his labor hit. And it was brutal. For hours, he paced with a healer, up and down the length of the bedroom. Only two staff members knew the truth about exactly who was in labor, and Padme entered the room at hour five to keep appearances as unsuspecting as possible. Anakin ignored her and her scent of anger as he paced and swayed, crying out with every contraction. He was soaked through with sweat, his dressing gown saturated, and he wanted Padme to leave because he wanted to strip naked and crawl on the bed, but he couldn’t, so he didn’t.
“You’re doing well, General,” murmured the healer as she pushed on his lower back. She looked at Padme and frowned. “This may be a long night, your Majesty.”
“I cannot leave until they are born,” Padme sighed, leaning back. “Wake me if something happens.”
Anakin swallowed back his cries and shouts at hour ten. There was no progress, and he was fatigued.
“Take a little water, General. That’s it,” murmured the healer, helping him sip.
“I can’t do this,” he cried, leaning his sweat-soaked head on the bed post and hanging from it with tired arms.
“You have fought in battle and braved such hardships,” murmured the healer tenderly, wiping his forehead. “This too shall pass. You are strong enough for it.”
At hour twelve, Anakin didn’t give two kriff’s who was in the room, he was stripping down naked. He climbed on all fours on the bed and wailed as he clutched the headboard, kneeling atop the blankets the healer had set there.
“That’s good, keep pushing,” the healer said encouragingly. She turned to Padme, who sat disgruntled and stewing in her own anger. She hadn’t been able to sleep through the noise. “Your Majesty, the children’s Alpha father…this may be what Anakin needs.”
“And yet he cannot have it,” Padme snapped. “It is impossible.”
The healer turned back to Anakin, wiping his red, sweaty face with a damp towel.
“You are doing so well,” the healer murmured.
Another hour, and the squawking cry of a newborn filled the room. Anakin sagged, relaxing forward against the pillows as the healer assessed the child. She moved to place the baby on his chest, and Anakin stared at the little ugly face looking up at him. His arms shook so much, he could not hold her by himself.
“How perfect she is,” the healer gushed, and Anakin sniffed his stuffy nose as he stared at her. He turned to look at Padme, who waited. Her anger and disappointment were gone, replaced with a wonderous awe at the sight.
“She is beautiful,” Padme cooed, and Anakin sniffed again, struggling to hand the naked baby to her. His breasts hurt, and he knew the infant should technically latch to help with his contractions, but he felt empty inside.
“You can name her,” he said, and Padme swallowed heavily.
“Leia,” she said with a firm nod, and the healer beamed. She tenderly wrapped the infant and moved to the doorway, passing the child through to Yoda, who would announce the Royal arrival to the waiting Cabinet members downstairs.
An hour passed, and the blood between Anakin’s thighs wasn’t stopping. He rocked with each contraction, weaker and weaker, and sometimes, his vision turned grey halfway through a labor pain.
“I am going to die,” he told Padme in a quiet voice by hour sixteen. She reached for his hand and squeezed it tenderly.
“You will not,” she said, and Anakin shook his head.
“This baby is not coming,” he said. “I cannot do it. I can tell.”
“You are not going to die,” Padme said fiercely. “We are going to raise these beautiful babies and have a wonderful family, Anakin. And if Rabé has hurt you, then Rabé will go. Okay? You are going to deliver this baby, and all will be well.”
The healer’s concerned gaze met Padme’s over Anakin’s shoulder, and Anakin’s retort was lost in a wail as he felt the force of another contraction. The truth remained unspoken. If Anakin died in labor, there was no way to hide it, and the truth would come out. Padme’s fear was brilliant and bitter on her tongue as she watched the Omega sob through another useless contraction.
“We may need to cut the baby out,” whispered the healer to Padme after another hour of nothing. “I fear for the child’s safety if we continue this much longer.”
Anakin had grown limp and pale as the once white sheets on the bed, staring with glassy eyes out the window. Padme moved to the bed and climbed atop it, not caring about the fluids that soaked through the covers. She gripped Anakin’s soaked hair and combed it out of his face.
“You have given up,” she told him firmly, and he blinked up at her. “You have given up on your child, and you cannot. You sacrificed everything for these children, Anakin. This is Obi-wan’s child in your womb. You need to fight for them.”
“I cannot,” Anakin croaked, and Padme shook her head.
“There is no other option,” she said fiercely, wiping away her tears. “This is the physical proof of your love. You must protect it, Anakin. You must fight it.”
Anakin resumed his earlier position on the next contraction, and his muscles clenched as he pushed. He screamed in pain, again and again and Padme cried harder in fear of a situation she had no control over. And then a cry filled the air, softer and sweeter than Anakin’s, and Padme waited with bated breath.
And then the sound hit again. And again. The healer wiped a tiny, ugly face clean of fluid and pressed the squirming, bloody body to Anakin’s bare breast. He was shaking again, worse than before, and the healer was literally holding him upright on his knees again. He stared at the child and swallowed heavily.
“It’s a boy,” he murmured, staring at the baby as it squinted angrily up at him. “His eyes…they look like his,” he sobbed, unable to look away from the little naked thing still tied to him. “He has his eyes and his scent.”
“What name, your Majesty?” the healer asked, glancing at Padme.
“Luke,” she said. “What do you think, Anakin?”
“As you like,” Anakin responded listlessly, letting the healer take the child. His belly had deflated a little, and he felt sudden relief of pain in his lower back, though he had never been so exhausted and overwhelmed in his life. He was shaking wildly, and he didn’t know what to do.
“You should nurse them or at least cradle them,” murmured the healer after Yoda had paraded the baby boy out to the Cabinet and returned both infants.
“They will have a wet nurse,” Anakin responded, watching frank red blood soak the pad beneath his hips. He felt so faint, and he could barely even register the world moving from under rapidly heavy eyelids. “I’ve done my part, Padme,” he slurred the words, and the world went black.
The trouble with the arrangement, Anakin found, was that his life had been permanently, startlingly, changed forever, in every way by the twins’ arrival; and Padme’s life had changed in only one small way—while Padme could press sweet kisses to her adopted children’s face and coo over them and act like she’d worked so very hard to make them, she’d had no sacrifice.
Meanwhile, Anakin had sacrificed everything. Every single thing in his entire life, he’d sacrificed for the making of the two noisy, squishy children in front of him. His pussy barely resembled one anymore, torn and ripped as it was, and his belly was soft and scarred with deep lines. His breasts were fuller and more sensitive than ever before, even after he’d successfully convinced his body to stop producing milk. And after heavy post-labor bleeding, it took him weeks to even climb a set of stairs. He had no mate, no love, no one to truly care for him. All he had to show for it were two babies he hadn’t asked for that smelled and looked just enough like Obi-wan to make him break down every time he saw them.
“You need to get over this slump,” Padme said quietly after another day of the nanny bringing the babies in to see Anakin, who stared at them silently and refused to hold or acknowledge them.
“Why?”
“Because I need my husband and Consort back,” Padme said in a brittle voice. She rubbed her forehead tiredly. She’d had a crushing headache all day and Anakin’s sulking wasn’t helping things. “I need General Skywalker back, not this…shell that you’ve become.”
“I’m tired,” Anakin said wearily, and Padme scoffed.
“How could you be? You’ve lain in this bed and done nothing for weeks!” she said. “You’ve done nothing, for weeks, Anakin! Get up! Move! Do something, for pity’s sake.”
She stopped when she felt a burst of pain in her head, and Anakin frowned as he watched her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she muttered, and Anakin sat up.
“It didn’t look like nothing,” he murmured, and Padme shook her head.
“Ani,” she said tiredly. “I know this has been hard for you,” she murmured. “It will get better in time.”
“Will it?” Anakin asked. “How do you know? Were you forced to give up your mate and give birth to his children alone without telling him about their existence? Were you forced to destroy every good thing in your life because you build up the lies too high to let them fall down? Tell me, Padme, how do you know?”
“I have made many sacrifices to get where I am,” Padme said in a shaky voice. “Do not talk to me about sacrifices, Anakin!”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Anakin murmured tiredly. “Padme, I can’t. I can’t live in this mess of a life I’ve created for myself.” He straightened in his seat, wiping at the hot, angry tears that streaked down his face. “I am a shell of who I once was, and it’s all my fault. I…I will die if I cannot break free from it, Padme!”
“You will not abandon me in this mess that you’ve created,” Padme said, pointing a finger at Anakin, and he sobbed.
“What?”
“You were the one who agreed to the hoax of a wedding, you were the one who fucked Obi-wan, you were the one who let him breed you and put us in this mess in the first place!” Padme screamed, and Anakin wanted to lie down on the floor in a tight ball.
“Yes, I did,” he sobbed, pressing his shaking hands to his face. “I did, and I can’t escape this mess, Padme. I am being suffocated by it,” he sobbed.
There was a heavy silence, and Padme sniffed, inhaling shakily.
“You will pull yourself together like the strong Omega you are,” she said in a firm voice. “You will dress and come down to dinner tonight. I am the one who supposedly delivered these babies and I show up at dinner. I am tired of making excuses for you. You will be present in our children’s lives. You will be a good Alpha father for them. And you will stop with this talk of Obi-wan. He is gone. It is done.”
Anakin sobbed and nodded into his hands. And then the door opened and shut. And he was alone.
At dinner, two people remarked how well he looked, and Anakin knew they were lying. He was getting rid of pregnancy fat in his cheeks, he hadn’t slept a full night in nine months, and he’d had to wrap his swollen chest to make his breasts less noticeable, which had been excruciating. He looked like utter shite. But he nodded his thanks, forced a small smile, and ate one bite of everything on his plate. He couldn’t stomach anymore.
Padme was clearly unwell as well, though Anakin couldn’t understand why. He was angry at her, truly angry, for perhaps the first time in the entire time he’d known her, and when he made eye contact with her, she barely seemed to recognize him. Her face was pale even under the face paint, and she moved sluggishly.
“General Skywalker, perhaps you should take your wife out to the parlor,” murmured Mace as he watched Padme sway in her seat, weakly clutching her spoon. “She seems unwell.”
Anakin could barely get up from the chair without feeling nauseated and shivery, but he was game to try when Padme made a choking noise and fell sideways right out of her seat. Anakin rushed on shaky legs to where she lay, turning her over and checking her pulse and breathing, and the screaming and shouting of their dinner guests was making him feel very unwell. He looked up at Mace.
“She’s dead,” he said, and the world exploded around him.
The food was thoroughly checked, the guests and servants interviewed extensively. Nothing was poisoned, nobody had maliciously plotted against the Naboo Queen…a blood clot to the brain, the medical droid finally determined. A headache for several hours had been her only warning sign. And suddenly Padme Amidala, beloved Omegan Queen of Naboo, was dead. And the Royal next in line to the throne was approximately six weeks old and lying in a wet diaper.
“I know this isn’t what you want to think about right now,” Mace murmured quietly to Anakin in the early hours of the morning. Rabé and Sabé were still wailing as they lay by the cold body of their mistress and secret lover. Anakin sat in his bedchamber in the dark, the fireplace his only warmth and light source, with a full tumbler of liquor in his hand. Mace exchanged a glance with Yoda and Vos, who were there for moral support. “But there is currently no ruler on the Naboo throne. So, we will need to address this publicly in a few hours at most.”
“Leia is the ruler,” Anakin said dumbly, and Mace didn’t tease, not when he saw the obvious shock and fatigue on Anakin’s face.
“Leia will need someone to rule until she is of age,” Mace said gently. “You are Padme’s Alpha Consort—this is your right, General.”
“I don’t want it,” Anakin whispered, and Mace swallowed heavily.
“Anakin,” Mace responded, reaching out and squeezing Anakin’s hand. “We can give you as long as you need to recover from this. Two new children and now…the Cabinet will handle everything for the next weeks as you recover and grieve. And in a few months’ time, when you are ready, you will take the throne until Leia is old enough to ascend.”
“No one else can…?”
“No one else can,” Mace shook his head.
“I have to rule Naboo until Leia…how long?” Anakin asked, straightening in his seat. Mace and Vos exchanged another glance.
“Leia will need to be sixteen to take the throne. If she presents as an Omega, we will need to arrange a marriage to an Alpha, which may take additional time.”
“Oh my god,” whispered Anakin shakily. “Lord Windu…I…”
“Rest, General Skywalker needs,” Yoda murmured. The Duke of Dagobah had sat in a small bundle of cloaks and blankets close to the fire, being old and frail and sensitive to the cold, but his dark eyes were sharp as ever and focused on Anakin. “Resume this chat tomorrow, we shall, yes?”
“Of course, Lord Yoda,” murmured Mace with a nod. He reached out and squeezed Anakin’s hands in an unexpected gesture of affection. “Rest, Anakin. Tomorrow, we’ll announce everything. And then, you can grieve with your family.”
Over the next three days, Anakin’s life changed again. Suddenly, his social secretary was being replaced with Padme’s former secretary, and his agenda was filled with Cabinet meetings and war room council meetings he had never before been privy to. His day started early and ran until well after dark and everywhere, people bowed and called him Your Majesty, which was absurd. He was a slave boy from Tatooine—he was not a regent of Naboo! He couldn’t possibly be.
On the day of Padme’s burial, Anakin stood in his dressing room staring at the official Naboo clothes he was expected to wear as a sign of mourning—the dark blues and purples of his wardrobe reflected his internal headspace well, he thought. Sabé and Rabé had taken clothes from Padme’s closet just that morning to dress her in preparation for her final public appearance. It was strange, the idea that an entire city would be gathering in the streets to throw flowers and sing songs of mourning for a queen they had deeply loved. That Padme was gone rattled something deep in Anakin’s chest, and he didn’t know how to process it.
“This fabric would look lovely on Leia today,” murmured Rabé as she gathered a silk scarf of dark purple in her hands. Her tone was quiet, meant for Sabé’s ears only but this was Anakin’s room and he felt clearer than he’d been in weeks…in months.
“Leia will not be going to the ceremony,” he said in a clear voice, fiddling with the belt around his waist. It helped hide the soft apron of fat over his abdomen that would no doubt take months to recover from childbirth.
When he looked up, he saw the flash of anger and bitterness in Rabé’s eyes.
“She should see her mother be buried,” Rabé snapped, and Anakin scoffed angrily, his bitterness towards Rabé only deepening at the words and the inappropriate display from the handmaiden.
“Leia is a mere eight weeks old,” he said with a sneer. “She remembers nothing of this time. She will not even remember Padme…who, I might add, was not her mother. I am Leia’s mother.”
“How dare you!” shrieked Rabé, moving forward, and she was stopped by Sabé’s arm.
“Calm yourself,” Sabé murmured, voice trembling at the blatant anger and hatred that filled the air.
“Your service to Padme has ended today,” Anakin murmured. “With respect to Padme, I will keep you on as staff, though your poisonous mind and words will never reach my children. You are dismissed from service to the Royal family from this day, Rabé,” he said.
“I too will leave then,” Sabé said quietly after a glance from Rabé, and Anakin laughed and shrugged, turning back to the mirror.
“I do not care,” he said calmly. “Take what you wish of Padme’s things for memories. And be gone from my sight.”
“I want to say goodbye to the children,” Rabé said, scowling, and Anakin looked back at her.
“No,” he said coldly. “That, you will not do. They are not your children. And they were not Padme’s. They will grow up with no memory of you, Rabé. And thank the Maker for that.”
The door slamming shut was his only response. He met his reflection—pale and drawn tight and so gaunt, he looked ill—and he smirked at his reflection. Finally, something for himself.
Padme’s ceremony ended, and Anakin watched servants pack his bags while he spoke with Mace and his secretary privately.
“We believe a month away to be a sufficient time to grieve privately,” Mace said quietly. “You are…limited in where you can go. I suggest at least a week at the summer house in Naboo, as it was Padme’s childhood home. Her family will be there, and there can be an official meeting for the children. After that, maybe Alderaan? Bail Organa and his Alpha mate would happily welcome you, and they are some of our fiercest allies.”
“This time to grieve is sounding rather political,” Anakin said dryly, and Mace winced.
“You are a Royal, your Majesty,” he said. “Human emotion is, unfortunately, beneath you.”
“But the rules and decorum that accompany such emotions are upheld to the strictest degree,” Anakin said dryly, gesturing to the mourning colors of blacks and purples being packed in his bag.
“When you return, we will have an official ceremony to crown you Regent,” Mace continued, his lips twitching with humor at Anakin’s response. “From there…life goes on.”
“Indeed,” Anakin said. The panic in his throat threatened to choke him, and he forced it down. “Lord Windu, I thank you for your guidance.”
“You are most welcome,” Mace murmured. He looked over Anakin’s face. “Take this time to rest and recover, your Majesty. You need it.”
Anakin waited until the servants had cleared and the moons were high in the sky before he rose, fully dressed, from his bed and grabbed the small satchel hidden under his bed. He’d planned this since he’d watched Padme’s cold, pale body be transported through the crowd of mourners, draped in rich fabrics, her hair covered prettily in white flowers. He’d felt the balloon surrounding his lies pop around him, and he’d known what to do.
Now, he snuck through the Palace hallways on soft feet, the way Obi-wan had taught him during the war. Using the Force in ways he hadn’t needed to for years, he avoided detection as he jumped from shadow to shadow through the corridors until he reached the nursery. Then inside, he ducked, tiptoeing around the snoring nanny stationed at the fire in her rocking chair.
Leia’s crib was first. He stared at the child for a moment before gently picking her up. He hadn’t held her since she was bloody and still attached to his body by a rubbery cord. She squirmed in her sleep but remained silent, and he looked at her and felt his heart thump in his chest.
“It would be so easy to love you,” he murmured quietly to her. She had dark hair on her head, and her nose had Obi-wan’s shape perfectly. “So easy and yet, I cannot,” he murmured. “You will grow up being told what a wonderful, powerful mother you had,” he whispered, and his smile was bitter and pained. “And Padme was a powerful woman.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “May you be a loving Alpha,” he wished fervently. “And may you always be there for your brother.”
He set her down in her crib and moved to Luke, glancing back to ensure the ancient nanny hadn’t stirred. Onwards she snored, so he lifted Luke and pressed his nose to his face tenderly for a whiff of his perfect scent.
“You smell just like him,” he whispered shakily. “And you will never know me,” he added, whispering the words aloud to see how they made him feel. It hurt somewhere, down deep in his chest, but he knew what needed to be done. “Look after your sister,” he whispered, kissing Luke’s forehead next.
As he dashed out to find an empty ship on the dock, satchel slung over his shoulder, Anakin considered that both children would grow up believing Padme to be their mother—Leia would no doubt be compared to Padme’s beauty, Luke to have her softness. They would grow up as powerful Royal Naboo children despite not having one drop of Naboo blood in their bodies. The ridiculousness of it almost made him laugh. Were he a better man, a better Omega, he would cringe and weep at the very idea of abandoning his children.
But he wasn’t abandoning them, not really. They would be loved and cared for, provided for all their lives…given the best education, trained in war and politics and foreign language. They would be adored by their subjects, and they would not have any of the worries and fears that Anakin himself had suffered with as a slave child on an Outer Rim planet. Yes, this would be hard. But if he didn’t leave now, Anakin may as well throw himself from his bedroom balcony, because his life would already be finished.
He climbed into the cockpit and began flicking the control switches to ready the engines. He felt a little anxious, but he pushed the feeling down deep in his chest. He hadn’t flown in months; he needed to focus.
Past
Coruscant
Naboo Ambassador’s Mansion
Obi-wan spent most of the first month after Anakin’s dismissal drunk. While they hadn’t taken the plunge and succumbed to the bond bite, they had begun the early stages of mating, and feeling the ripped, jagged end deep in his core where Anakin had once resided in his heart was shocking and painful. So he numbed it as best he could. When a month of drink did little more than fatten his face and dull his senses, he quit that and looked to other vices. Excessive amounts of smoking seemed to calm the jitters in his hands, diving deep into politically grueling work helped focus his mind, and finding many beautiful, sensual Omegas to fill his bed eased his broken heart a little. Obi-wan Kenobi, Duke of Coruscant and Ambassador to Naboo, became known across Coruscant as a shameless flirt, a skilled politician, and a very fine fuck.
News of Padme’s death reached Coruscant within a day of the actual event, and it reached Obi-wan’s ears by way of his trusted droid secretary, See-Threepio. Reclined in his large copper tub by the fire with the evening flimsi-news and a cigar, Obi-wan tuned out his secretary’s endless chatter until the words suddenly hit home, enough that he dropped his cigar right into the bath water.
“What?” he snapped, turning to look at his droid secretary.
“Oh yes, sir,” See-Threepio responded. “Naboo officials released the official statement this morning. Padme Amidala died unexpectedly of a blood clot to the brain, leaving her newborn children and husband behind! Most dreadful, of course. Now, her Alpha Consort will be Regent until the time of…”
“Padme Amidala is dead?” Obi-wan repeated, interrupting See-Threepio’s endless waves of chaotic blabber. Why he kept this silly droid around, he couldn’t tell. His tone had sharpened with his surprise (and the four or five glasses of liquor roaming through his body system), and it startled the two young Omega men curled up in his bed. They both sat up abruptly, blinking sleep from their eyes and running fingers through their messy hair. Obi-wan looked over at them and frowned; last night, they’d been so pretty, looking up at him under thick lashes and calling his sir and moaning so prettily, but now in light of day, they just looked like normal people. The erotic way they’d tasted and smelled and felt under him was gone.
“Get dressed,” he told them in a dull voice, tossing his cigar aside and motioning for See-Threepio to bring him a new one. “I have appointments soon.”
One of the boys smirked in a way that smacked Obi-wan with memories of another’s playful smirk and scraped over the ripped, shredded part of Obi-wan’s soul, and he shamelessly padded over to Obi-wan’s bath in full nudity, crouching down by the bed.
“One last little gift before we go, sir?” he murmured, running small, thin fingers down Obi-wan’s chest. Obi-wan watched it run lower and lower, down into the bathwater, and he groaned, reclining his head back against the tub. If he closed his eyes tight enough, he could pretend the Omega’s hand was bigger and that the curls atop his head were golden instead of brown.
“I guess I have to wear black to grieve,” Obi-wan murmured at supper, glancing up at Bail Organa, who was visiting him on official political business. Bail’s Alpha wife Breha had been an old friend from the war, and when she’d scandalously married a much younger, former-escort Bail, Obi-wan had been one of their first vocal supporters. In return for his kindness, Bail often graced Obi-wan with his friendship and companionship when their schedules aligned. This time, Breha had joined them.
“Since you’re an ambassador to Naboo? Seems like a good idea,” Breha mentioned with a subtle smirk.
“Even if she was a bitch,” Obi-wan mentioned as he downed his glass of wine. Bail chewed on his bite and washed it down with what looked like juice—clearly, he was hiding a pregnancy from the subtle filling of his cheeks and the refusal of wine, but Obi-wan feigned obliviousness about it for now.
“Will you have to go pay your respects?” asked Breha curiously, and Obi-wan motioned for his wine glass to be refilled.
“I will have to bear it soon enough,” he muttered. The couple sitting opposite him knew only the most basic information of what had gone down eleven months previously—that he and Anakin had been lovers, that Anakin had called it off, and Padme had sent him away with a last parting gift of dukedom. The specifics were his secret alone to bear, as he had promised Anakin back when they had been in love.
“Perhaps seeing him again will give you closure,” Bail said.
“If life could give me one blessing, it would be a life free of Anakin’s presence,” Obi-wan said, voice dark and angry as he downed his wine again. He missed the way Bail reached for Breha’s hand, their fingers latching sweetly in sympathy over the sight of their friend grieving the loss of his lover.
But the Force works in mysterious ways and not many days after his dinner with Bail and Breha, late at night after a rather wild party in one of the lower levels, the butler knocked on Obi-wan’s door curtly, interrupting the drunken giggling inside.
Obi-wan opened the door, barely holding onto his trousers. There was a love bite on his exposed pectoral and another two further down on his groin, and when the butler caught a glimpse further into the bedroom, a Beta woman was pressing her face down between the splayed legs of an Omega woman rather well known for her musical theatre presence.
“Pardon the interruption, sir,” the butler began, and Obi-wan sighed, running his hands through his hair.
“What is it, man?” he frowned.
“You have a visitor,” the butler murmured quietly, and Obi-wan scowled.
“At midnight? Who is it?” he demanded, and the butler chewed his bottom lip as he considered his response.
“Well, sir, he said his name was Lord Windu, sir,” he said, and then leaned forward a little. “But I must admit, my Lord, that he looks very much like the Naboo Regent, His Majesty Anakin Skywalker.”
Obi-wan’s world seemed to freeze at the words, and he swallowed thickly as he stared at his butler for a long pause. Then he nodded and scrubbed a hand over his beard.
“I see,” he said. “Put him up in my study and give him a glass of brandy or something, would you please? I’ll be down…momentarily.”
He shut the door in the butler’s face and turned to the pretty women in his bed.
“It seems our playtime must end,” he said, slapping a smirk on his face to appease the two women obviously having plenty of fun together by themselves. “Another time, yes? My manservant See-Threepio will be in momentarily, he’ll see you both out.”
He found his discarded shirt and rebuttoned his trousers while he tried to regain some control over his breathing. A Jedi meditation would be very beneficial at the moment, but he could scarcely even breathe at the realization that Anakin Skywalker was in his study at this very moment, sitting on a chair, unknowingly waiting for Obi-wan to escort out his current bed mates.
As sober as he’d ever be, he didn’t bother with robes, shoving his feet into his boots and striding down the steps of the immaculate residence down to his study. He paused for a breath at the doorway, wondering if the aroused scents on his skin would be too noticeable. But it was too late to care (and he shouldn’t care, because it was none of Anakin’s business, now, was it?). So he pushed open the door and stepped inside.
There was a space of maybe ten or eleven feet between them as he stood in the doorway, watching Anakin stand and turn to face him. And yet despite that distance, he could see that Anakin’s eyes had sunk into his face in a way they hadn’t even during the height of battle, and the dark stains under his eyes were almost black. His cheeks had a softness to them, though his cheekbones were obvious. His hair was a little longer, a little more wildly curled around his face, and his scent smelled like bitter almonds and mourning. He was pale, deathly pale, and he was more slender than he’d been as a sixteen-year-old new recruit, frail almost.
“Your Majesty,” Obi-wan remembered decorum at the last second after staring at him silently for far too long to be socially acceptable. He bowed.
“Obi-wan,” Anakin croaked out, and even his voice seemed different. Had it only been eleven months? But then, Padme was dead, and Anakin was grieving…and they had babies, which Anakin no doubt loved and devoted all his time to.
“I think we should keep to our roles, don’t you?” Obi-wan said, walking in and shutting the door. He moved around the room to his desk, picking up a cigar. He gave Anakin as much berth as physically possible in the cramped room. “Lord Kenobi, if you please.”
“You’ve heard the news, I’m sure,” Anakin said quietly, and Obi-wan lit the cigar and took a deep inhale, releasing the smoke fully before he responded.
“My deepest condolences, your Majesty,” he said monotonously. “Having known Padme since she was but a child, these are troubled times.” Lies, lies, he hated that bitch, and he always would. “No doubt you should be off grieving somewhere with your family, surely?” It was rude, and he knew it was, but he couldn’t seem to care. The wine from earlier still flowed through his veins, and he wanted Anakin to hurt, the way he’d hurt, for months. “Or ruling your planet, perhaps?”
“I…I wanted to see you,” Anakin croaked, and Obi-wan bunched up his eyebrows in confusion.
“Whatever for?” he laughed, brittle and humorless. “You flew all this way, alone, to see me?”
“Yes,” Anakin said, seeming to gather his courage. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“We do, and you know that’s true, Obi-wan,” Anakin continued, keeping his voice soft. The brattiness, the insolent little smiles and mischievous humor in his facial features, it was all gone. There was nothing but sadness and fear and trepidation in his features, and Obi-wan reveled in it. Good. Be afraid.
“Lord Kenobi,” Obi-wan corrected calmly. “I thought you were all talked out when we parted ways all that time ago. Nearly a year now, wasn’t it? But if you have more to say, Your Majesty, of course, speak your peace. You are after all, my Regent,” he sneered the words with a faux head bow, and he enjoyed the way Anakin’s face twisted in discomfort. He knew full well how much Anakin hated the pomp of royal life. He was going to hate being regent, and that brought Obi-wan some skewed sense of pleasure, even as his soul screamed at him to stop.
“I wanted to apologize,” whispered Anakin, and Obi-wan blinked. His jaw practically dropped at the words.
“You came all this way, in the middle of the night, to apologize?” he repeated. Then he laughed and stood. “I need to be drunk for that conversation, certainly.” He moved for a tumbler and then stopped, twirling around. “Stop kriffing around, Anakin. What do you want?”
“You,” whispered Anakin, and Obi-wan’s soul sang. Here was his mate, returned at last! At last!
He stomped it down, again and again, brutally, until it stopped singing. And he stared at Anakin while he did it, erecting mental barriers that could keep his useless waste of an Alpha contained where he belonged. He blinked.
“You want me?” he asked, confused. “What do you mean?” Then he laughed at the absurdity. “Wait, you want me to fuck you? Is that what you want?”
“Obi-wan,” flushed Anakin, and Obi-wan shook his head as he looked Anakin over crudely.
“You’re not as pretty as you used to be,” he said. “But sure, I’ll fuck you. Consider it my sympathy present over the death of your wife,” he added, moving over to Anakin, who stood trembling and flushed. This close, he could smell Anakin’s sweet scent—even that had changed somehow, deeper and fuller than it had been before. But still so sweet, so hungry for him. So even if Anakin had sent him away, he’d still missed him in some small way at least. “You missed my cock, eh?”
“Please, I—” Anakin stammered, and Obi-wan covered the last distance between them, bending down to kiss him hungrily. He licked deep in the Omega’s mouth, remembering his scent and his taste and the way his tongue always flicked so shyly against his at first before getting bolder as his arousal grew.
“I smell your slick,” Obi-wan pulled back to say laughingly. God, he smelled so fucking good. “You really must be desperate for cock to come all this way alone,” he added, leaning back in and licking over Anakin’s open mouth before diving back in for another taste. Eleven months and Anakin remained his favorite taste…one touch of their mouths and Obi-wan’s body reacted in a way he never did to anyone else, even the most talented of Omega pleasure mates.
He felt the exact moment Anakin gave up any pretenses, the way he sagged in his arms and began returning his kiss with passion. Obi-wan cleared a space at the edge of his desk easily and perched Anakin on the very edge of it, pushing his pants over his hips and down to his thighs so he could access that sweet-smelling nirvana between his legs.
Anakin fumbled with his shirt, and Obi-wan slapped his hands away impatiently. He loosened his own trousers just enough to let his straining cock free and checked Anakin’s hole for wetness with a swipe of his finger. Deeming his sufficient, he positioned and eased inside him in one smooth motion, bending to capture Anakin’s moaning mouth again.
He was tight, far tighter than Obi-wan expected, and so soaked that the wet slap of their skin meeting echoed through the room within two or three thrusts. Obi-wan clenched his eyes shut as he pursued his pleasure, enjoying the long, slender fingers that clenched the back of his shirt, the way Anakin cried out into his mouth so sweetly. It didn’t take long for him to feel a climax bubbling under his skin, and the tightness of Anakin’s pussy around him as he arched into orgasm was just the right amount of pressure to send him tumbling into his own. With a skill that came from repeated practice over the last year, he pulled out before his knot could balloon, spraying his cum down on the floor between their spread legs.
Anakin panted, surprised eyes locked on the sprays of white liquid now staining Obi-wan’s expensive carpet, and Obi-wan sighed heavily in disappointment as he backed up and refastened his trousers.
“My maid is going to complain about that,” he grumbled, moving away from Anakin to return to his desk for his cigar. He took a puff, just to hide the way his hands shook. He wanted to reach out to the Omega still perched half-undressed on his desk, gather him up in his arms, and make love to him all over again. But he resisted.
“You should get dressed,” he drawled lazily, taking another puff, and Anakin turned to look at him with wide eyes.
“What…you didn’t…” Anakin stammered, and Obi-wan waited with raised eyebrows and an impatient sigh. “You didn’t knot me, Alpha.”
“If I knotted every Omega slut who graced my door, I’d have quite a few unexpected surprises, wouldn’t I,” he laughed, something dark and ugly unfurling in his chest. In his entire life, he’d never spoken to anyone the way he just did to Anakin. Something crumbled and died in his chest, but at the same time, he relished it. Maybe this was that closure Breha had talked about. If he pushed Anakin away hard enough, he’d get a little peace at last.
“Alpha,” whispered Anakin, face pale and flushed as he stumbled up and eased his trousers up over his hips. Obi-wan would miss the sight of that pretty bare ass, but he forced his gaze to stay on Anakin’s face. “I don’t understand,” he croaked out, and then he paused. “Why won’t you let me explain—”
“You were so eager to reject me, Anakin, destroying our love with the flick of your fingertips,” Obi-wan interrupted him, leaning back in his chair and staring Anakin down. “And it worked, Anakin. You destroyed it. And I don’t want you anymore.”
Lies, lies, lies. He would want this reckless, silly Omega until the day he died. He would crave him like water in the Tatooine desert for eternity. But it wasn’t enough.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have two very lovely Omegas in my bed waiting for me,” he said with a smirk as he stood.
Anakin did not respond how he expected. He expected his temperamental, fiery Omega to snap, to argue and fight and bitch the way he always had since the day Obi-wan had met him. He expected whining and childish yet endearing temper tantrums, and a jealous Anakin saying that he’d go strangle those stupid Omegas because Obi-wan was his. He waited, paused behind his desk, for this reaction.
Instead, Anakin’s eyes seemed to gloss over, face paling and flush vanishing into a grey sort of whiteness. His perfect shoulders fell down and caved in a little, and the room got cold and silent. He suddenly looked old and tired and skeleton-like standing there with an off-skew cloak and messy hair. Even his perfect lips seemed white.
“I understand, Al—Lord Kenobi,” Anakin said, words coming out dull and lifeless. They almost sounded robotic. He swallowed, and it sounded dry. “I’ll go now, I promise.” He reached for his outer robes sluggishly, not looking at Obi-wan as he bowed. The thick stench of Omega angst filled the room, but he was turning and leaving on silent footfalls, the door shutting with a soft click behind him. And he left Obi-wan there, confused and a little startled and feeling like the worst fucking person in the galaxy.
Why hadn’t he fought back? Anakin always fought back. They snapped and bickered at each other, and it was always perfect. But Anakin hadn’t fought this time. Obi-wan rubbed his sore chest. Anakin had ripped his heart out when he’d made him leave. Accused him of infatuation that had cooled, dismissed him and belittled him verbally. Forced him to leave with no real discussion or explanation. This was Obi-wan’s moment to return the favor. So why did it feel like he’d just made the worst mistake in history.
For months after Anakin had told him to leave, Obi-wan would wake up from dreams of him in his bed…no matter how much alcohol or pleasant company he imbibed in, it was never enough to keep his memories of Anakin out of his head. And just now, he’d had him back, panting and slick and desperate for his touch. And he didn’t even know why. He’d just crushed Anakin instead, crushed his sweet perfectly imperfect Omega would-be mate with some harsh words because Obi-wan felt like it. Because he was a child himself, succumbing to a temper tantrum in an attempt to make himself feel better…before he went right back to missing Anakin.
Without quite realizing what he was doing, he was suddenly in the front hallway, moving towards the landing deck outside where Anakin was stumbling towards his ship, moving with an eerie sort of meandering.
“Ani, wait,” he called, a frantic fear tight in his throat, in his voice, as he sped to a jog after the Omega. “Stop, wait a minute,” he said, and Anakin glanced back at him as he slowed, as though he couldn’t even fight the command. His face glistened in the reflection of the ship lights—he was crying.
And Obi-wan realized with a start as he neared him that he loved this stupid Omega still, desperately. And it didn’t matter if Anakin had epically fucked up their relationship—he always would. Months of trying to forget him, and he loved him with the same ferocity he always had.
“Anakin, stop,” he said. “You’re in no condition to fly back to Naboo like this, not in the middle of the night. Come inside, we’ll get you a bath and some sleep.” His eyes roamed the absurd frailness of his former lover. “And some food.”
“I’ll be okay, Alpha,” Anakin murmured, eyes glossy and voice a low murmur, like he was lost in a daze. He’s spaced out somehow, like a subdrop; he’d retreated somewhere into his own head because Obi-wan had forced him to after harshly and brutally rejecting him, and that made the Alpha nauseated. It was his job to protect this ridiculous man, not hurt him.
“It wasn’t a suggestion, Anakin,” Obi-wan said, reaching out his hand for Anakin to take. “Be a good Omega, come with me,” he murmured, careful to keep his voice clear of Alpha command.
Anakin wavered for a moment before giving in, and he slid a sweaty hand into Obi-wan’s after a long hesitation.
“W—what about those two Omegas?” Anakin stumbled after him back inside, letting Obi-wan take his cloak. See-Threepio was watching in an absurd display of silence as Obi-wan tossed his cloak over a nearby chair as he led Anakin inside like he might a wounded elder. “They must be waiting for you.”
“Nobody is waiting for me tonight,” Obi-wan murmured, feeling sick all over again. Why did he have to be such an ass? “Come on, Omega, let me help you,” he murmured, keeping his voice quiet and relaxed. Anakin was shaking. Easily, he eased the Omega up into his arms, carrying him bridal style up the stairs. “Order a bath and some food,” he told See-Threepio.
“Of course, sir,” See-Threepio responded hesitantly, turning to call for some maids.
Anakin was very still when Obi-wan eased him into a chair beside the large tub in the guest bedroom. As maids bustled around them filling it with hot water, he slid off Anakin’s boots and worked at the buttons of his shirt.
“Leave the food on the counter there,” he commanded the maid when she entered with a tray. “Then you all can go. I expect complete discretion about our visitor. He is grieving and in pain. If any word gets out that he is here, no one will have a job within the hour.”
“Yes, my Lord,” came the murmured response, and Obi-wan sighed heavily, turning back just as a naked Anakin slipped into the water.
“Oh Ani,” he murmured, moving to sit on a stool beside the bath. He reached for a cloth and began to lather soap into it. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that,” he said in a quiet voice, beginning to clean Anakin’s neck and throat. It was so slender and smooth—he fantasized about his bite there for just a moment before pushing the thought away. “I am so sorry, dear one. So terribly sorry.”
“No more than I deserve,” Anakin whispered, and Obi-wan stopped, turning Anakin’s head gently and stroking through his messy curls.
“We have both hurt each other most terribly,” he said. “And that will stop tonight. We will talk like two adults and resolve our issues, okay? All will be well, dear one, fear not. All will be well.”
“I missed you,” Anakin croaked, and Obi-wan smiled sweetly down at him, swallowing down emotion in his throat.
“Did you?” he asked. “Truly?”
“From the second I walked out of your office that horrible day,” Anakin stammered, trying to scent Obi-wan’s wrist where he held the soapy cloth. When Obi-wan resumed washing his neck and arms, he tried to discreetly inhale a lungful of Obi-wan’s scent from the fabric of his rolled-up shirt; Obi-wan didn’t comment on it. His eyes were already looking a little less glossy, and his words were clearer. The touching helped.
“Why did you push me away?” Obi-wan asked, working his way down Anakin’s chest to his belly. He froze momentarily when he caught a glimpse of his abdomen—his nipples were broader with the softest cup of adipose tissue over his breasts, and he had silvery and red lines over his abdomen. Anakin had been pregnant.
He pushed the thought away for later and resumed washing Anakin carefully, moving down his legs and to his feet. He kept his face carefully blank. He’d said they would talk, so they would. And he’d be a fucking adult about it this time.
“Padme said it was necessary,” Anakin said quietly. “She said that everyone would find out the truth if you and I were publicly together. That Alphas couldn’t be together like that, we wouldn’t be accepted.” He swallowed heavily and some emotion crossed his face that pained Obi-wan. He didn’t push, and Anakin continued as Obi-wan began to wash his curls carefully.
“She wrote down what I was supposed to say with Rabé.”
“That was her Beta lover, right?”
“Yeah. She hates me, and I hated her back after that,” Anakin said, voice trembling. “They made me practice it, so we got it right. I was so confused, I barely even knew what was going on. I’m so sorry I didn’t fight for us,” he added, tears streaming down his face and Obi-wan shushed him, wiping his tears away tenderly.
“Hey, none of that,” he whispered. “We apologize afterwards. Story first. Come on, keep telling me what happened. You were confused, but you listened to Padme and Rabé because they said we couldn’t be together. So everything you said that day, that was them?”
“Yes,” Anakin croaked out, pausing so Obi-wan could help him rinse suds from his hair. “I did love you, and I did want to be your mate.”
“I knew you loved me,” Obi-wan said factually, rinsing his neck and chest carefully. “I was confused and terribly hurt by what was going on, but I knew you weren’t lying when we lay together. I knew that you had to love me a little.”
“After you left, I…well, I’d done my part of their plan. Once the—the babies were born, I was starting to think about running away to find you, and then Padme died unexpectedly. And I could barely breathe, but I knew if I just found you, it would all be okay,” whispered Anakin.
Obi-wan sighed. Something wasn’t right about the story still, but he tabled it for later. He could be patient and calm. He helped Anakin out of the bath and dried him gently. Then he wrapped him in a dressing gown and sat him at the table, filling a glass with water and sitting to watch him eat a few bites of food. He clearly had no appetite, which worried Obi-wan considering his appearance, but he knew not to push tonight.
“When I left Naboo and came here, I fell into some very bad habits,” Obi-wan said quietly, and he wanted to cringe under the intensity of Anakin’s gaze on him. “I behaved quite badly actually. I feel I must be honest with you, Anakin. When I mentioned those Omegas, I meant to hurt you but—I was also being truthful. I have filled my bed with many people in an attempt to move on from our relationship. It was unhealthy and not ideal, but it is the truth, and I want you to hear it before someone makes a snide comment about it to you somewhere.”
“I understand,” Anakin said, voice trembling. “We weren’t together, you don’t have to explain.”
“I treated you like a whore in my study just now, and that, I must apologize for,” Obi-wan said. “But I…I want to hear the whole story, Anakin.”
Anakin’s hand trembled when he set down the water glass, and he wouldn’t meet Obi-wan’s eyes now.
“You see, I know that you were pregnant, Anakin,” Obi-wan said quietly. Anakin’s whole body stiffened. “You have stretch marks on your belly, and you’ve clearly just weaned. What is that about, Anakin?”
Anakin stuttered for a long time, pale and trembling again, and Obi-wan reached out to squeeze his hand for support. And the words tumbled free from the Omega’s lips in a rush.
“I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I was about seven weeks. And then I was so sick, and I’d missed a Heat, which never happened. And I don’t know how it happened, because knotting outside Heat almost never causes pregnancy for male Omegas and I took my birth control shots religiously. But the Force willed it, and so I got pregnant,” he said.
“Who is the father, Anakin? Why is he not here with you?” Obi-wan murmured, concern flashing through his mind. Had he been assaulted? What Alpha abandoned their pregnant Omega?
“Padme was terrified at first, but then she figured out a solution, like usual,” Anakin continued as though he hadn’t heard Obi-wan. “So I hid away during the pregnancy, and she pretended she was pregnant, and then I delivered the babies, and we called them hers.”
“Babies? As in, multiple babies?”
“Twins, a boy and girl,” Anakin murmured. “Luke and Leia.” He spoke the words through numb lips, and his tone and facial expression were off. Obi-wan frowned a little as he considered the Omega seated before him. He didn’t want these children.
“Who is the father, Ani?” he asked calmly.
“I almost died delivering them,” Anakin whispered, blatantly ignoring Obi-wan now. “For nine months, they caused me pain and sleepless nights. And then I had to deliver them, while just outside the room, everyone was thinking it was Padme screaming and sobbing in pain. And I thought I would die…I almost did.”
“Ani,” whispered Obi-wan, reaching out to stroke Anakin’s damp curls, but Anakin shied away from his touch now, focusing his gaze on the floor, his fingers twitching.
“And then I held them to chest, and they were so ugly and bloody and wailing,” Anakin began to cry again. “And when they opened their eyes, it was like I couldn’t breathe. Because they smelled just like you.”
The silence landed heavy and flat and stinking of Alpha and Omega emotions. Obi-wan felt like his chest was so heavy, he couldn’t breathe. He had to remind himself to blink. All he could do was stare at Anakin, who was now rocking himself back and forth in the chair, still twiddling nervously with his fingers. And he wasn’t looking at Obi-wan. Because he knew what those words meant.
“No, Anakin, no,” Obi-wan breathed out at last. His heart hurt so bad. “No, tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you didn’t…”
“I was so excited when I found out,” Anakin sobbed out frantically, not able to look at the Alpha he was destroying right in front of his eyes. The warm safe space Obi-wan had just made for him in the room was turning cold again, arctic, so fast. “And I told Padme first. And she lost it. Suddenly, your plan wouldn’t work because two Alphas can’t get pregnant! I destroyed her life!”
“Anakin, you kept my children from me!” Obi-wan shouted, standing up. He was trying to find those reins of self-control he’d gripped so tightly just earlier, just minutes ago, but they were gone, and he could feel himself spiraling. “All this time, you’ve kept this from me! I deserved to know, Anakin!”
“I know,” Anakin wailed, and Obi-wan turned and strode a few steps away, desperately raking his hands through his hair.
“What do you mean, destroyed her life? She has nothing to do with this!” Obi-wan turned back, flinging his arms angrily. “They are my children, Anakin! You and me, that’s who should have made the plans!”
“I know,” Anakin moaned, bending down to hide his face in his lap where he sat.
“How could you let her…let her do this to us?” Obi-wan cried, vision blurred by tears. “How could you be so—so weak-minded—to let her decide our future like that?”
“It was about the Crown,” Anakin tried to explain, and Obi-wan shook his head.
“No, Ani, it wasn’t,” he said. He wiped tears away frantically. “It was about our lives. You kept my children from me, Ani. You pushed me away and lied to me about our babies.”
Anakin stood and reached for Obi-wan, but Obi-wan took two stumbling steps backwards to keep the distance clear.
“Where are they?” he asked after a long silence, clearing his throat clear of tears. “Where are they, Ani? Where are our children?” His voice was stronger, clearer now.
“They’re in Naboo,” whispered Anakin, and Obi-wan balked.
“You…you left them?” he whispered, and Anakin swallowed thickly.
“I wanted to come to you and explain,” he said. “I wanted you, Obi-wan.”
“You abandoned our children to strangers a galaxy away, to come here to tell me that you lied about our children and kept me from them this whole time,” Obi-wan said, voice trembling but clear as he stared at Anakin. “You actually left our children.”
“I don’t want children all alone in that stupid Palace,” Anakin shouted. “I want you!”
“And you could have had both, Anakin!” Obi-wan shouted. There was such heartbreak in his voice, and Anakin froze. “If you had come to me, when you just found out, you could have had both. I would have helped us come up with a plan that benefitted everybody, not just Padme’s ridiculous agenda. I would have helped you. I would have been there for every sleepless night and every back pain. I would have coached you through your labor and helped you see that our babies aren’t ugly, they are beautiful because they’re ours.
“This whole time, you have made choices without considering me when I should have been considered. Even now, look at you! You are pale and thin and look as though you haven’t seen the sun in a lifetime, Anakin. You are depressed. It’s common after birth, when a bond has been severed or a mate killed. Did you know that?” His voice was clear now, and Anakin pressed his palm to his mouth to smother his cries.
“Anakin…you continue to behave like this, and I…I don’t know how we could possibly be together now.”
Anakin’s legs crumbled and gave out beneath him, and he fell to the carpet. He trembled and gasped for breath, but he said nothing. Obi-wan watched him, feeling numb. Anakin had betrayed him. The reckless, thankless, ridiculous audacity of his actions only fanned the flames of his anger.
“Did you really think I would react differently? How foolish do you think I am? You lied to me and hurt me in pursuit of…nothing…and now you abandoned your own children. And tried to force my hand. What did you think would come of this?”
Anakin’s strangled sobbing echoed in the room.
“Worst of all, you have lost any trust I could ever have in you. You have lied to me repeatedly. You deceived me, again and again.”
Anakin looked small and thin there on the carpet, trembling and sobbing. Obi-wan had a second to consider that he needed to step away and calm down before he made things worse. But the second was gone.
Anakin rocked back and forth on the ground, fingers scrambling against the fibers of the carpet as he gasped for breath. He said nothing to defend himself, to apologize, to beg for forgiveness or explain. He said nothing at all.
“I need to think. You are welcome to stay the night here. Sleep and eat breakfast in the morning,” Obi-wan said. “We will talk in the morning. I…I need to think.”
He turned on his heels and walked out of the room. And Anakin didn’t say a word to stop him.
Obi-wan spent the entire night tossing and turning in his bed, uselessly replaying the conversation over and over. When sleep would not come, he sat at his desk and wrote lists with possible plans. What if Anakin took the children and left? What if Obi-wan returned to Naboo? By dawn, he’d come up with ten feasible plans of attack, and he drank nearly three pots of tea in the process. He stood on sore legs and strode down the hallway towards the guest bedroom with the plans fisted in his hand.
He knocked on the door three times to no answer before a sudden thought popped into his head. But no, surely…it was so early still, and he’d said, stay for breakfast. He’d told him, Anakin should sleep and eat before departing. They had time.
But he already knew when he opened the door and entered an empty room with an untouched bed that Anakin was gone.
He dashed back out again, taking the steps three at a time to see if the ship was still docked on the landing pad. It was gone, as he expected. He turned when he heard See-Threepio approaching, dashing for a cloak.
“Cancel my morning meetings,” he said. “He must not have left too long ago; I’ll intercept him when he lands in Naboo.”
“Sir,” See-Threepio’s hushed voice interrupted Obi-wan, and he stopped. The tone of his secretary’s voice was off.
“What?” he asked, impatient. He needed to go. He had a plan at last, a good one even.
“There was an attack, sir. Rebellion ships targeted three diplomatic cruisers leaving Coruscant, causing a mass explosion,” See-Threepio stated, and Obi-wan groaned. Great, more political chaos he’d need to navigate.
“Rebellion ships? What are rebellion ships doing…” he trailed off when See-Threepio’s words registered. “Which three cruisers?” he said, and the words were flat and empty. He already knew the answer.
“His Majesty, Anakin Skywalker’s cruiser exploded after a direct hit, sir,” See-Threepio said in a quiet voice. “There are no survivors from any of the three attacks.”
Present
Naboo
The Queen’s Royal Office
The children were squealing out in the courtyard, and it startled Ben from his mindless staring across the desk. Kenobi took a long sip from his tea, and the silence was…heavy. Heavy with emotion and regret and shock. But it was still comfortable.
“I was always told my grandfa—that is, Anakin—was killed by rebellion starfighters off the atmosphere here in Naboo,” Ben murmured.
“We worked very hard in the days after his death to create a plausible story,” Kenobi said, setting his teacup down with a clink. “Nobody knew Anakin had run away, you see, so we needed to create a story that wouldn’t be scandalous. Naboo was already in an uproar because of Padme’s passing. Those were trying times, you know…the very early days leading up to the second fall of the Empire.”
“My mother fought in those wars,” Ben murmured, and Kenobi nodded.
“Some of the longest wars in known history,” he said. “Nearly eighteen years.”
“Millions of lives lost, for nothing,” murmured Ben. He glanced back at Kenobi. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Uncle Ben, it’s just…”
“There are few alive who remember those times,” Kenobi said calmly. “Very few. Most of us died in the war. Those who didn’t have mostly passed on with old age.”
“You obviously came back to Naboo after his death,” Ben murmured.
“Yes, I certainly did,” Kenobi chuckled. “Almost immediately after.” He scratched at his beard as he reminisced, blue eyes bright as he gazed out the window. “They were the darkest days of my life, but I needed to see my children. I needed to know them, even if I were to simply be an advisor to them.”
“My mother often told me how grateful she was to have you in her life,” Ben murmured quietly, watching Kenobi’s face for tics. “She said you taught her more about battle and how to rule a planet than any other person in her life.”
“She exaggerated, I’m sure,” Obi-wan murmured, and Ben shook his head.
“You knew Leia. She never exaggerated,” he said with a soft smile. He paused. “Did she know?”
“That I was her Alpha father? I considered telling her many times, but it always felt like a selfish confession,” Kenobi admitted. “She was just a teenager, with the heavy burden on her shoulders to rule Naboo. She didn’t need that emotional drama. No, I knew my daughter and son and loved them as best I could.”
“And they loved you, very dearly,” Ben murmured.
“I know they did,” Kenobi smiled warmly. “Watching Leia become a fierce Alpha Queen was one of the greatest joys I could ever witness. Luke, though…he was so much like Anakin. It was very hard to watch him grow up—the same spunk and sass as Anakin, truly. When he…” he swallowed heavily. “When he died, it nearly killed me.”
Ben nodded, remembering the dark days in his teenage years when Luke had been killed in an explosion just as he re-entered the Naboo atmosphere. Ben had been young, but the horror and grief he’d witnessed his parents facing over Luke’s death had been traumatic.
“I must confess, my dear boy, that my story…is not complete,” Kenobi said with a wince, and Ben laughed, dapping at his teary eyes with a handkerchief.
“This tale, it wreaks of sadness and death!” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “I must confess, Uncle Ben, that I hope to see a happy ending.”
“You may just yet,” murmured Kenobi with one of his perfect smiles.
Past
Naboo
Royal Palace
Leia had looked truly powerful sitting on the throne. Despite being an Alpha Queen, she chose to wear the same eye and lip makeup of an Omegan Queen, though her face was otherwise free of paint. Her hair was dark and braided as her predecessor’s might have been, and her dark eyes (no match to Anakin or Obi-wan) were bright. She wasn’t afraid as she took the Crown atop her perfect head, and Obi-wan had never been prouder. He watched from the side as she was crowned Queen of Naboo, watched her take her seat upon the throne and gaze proudly out at a courtyard teeming with thousands of Naboo natives who had visited from across the entire planet to pay their respects to their new Queen.
In that moment, Obi-wan smiled broadly and lovingly as he watched his daughter handle herself with the poise and beauty, he’d always known her capable of. He’d known from the moment he’d held her as an infant that Leia and he would clash but ultimately love each other dearly. And tonight, at their private friends-and-family dinner, he would wrap his arms around her and tell her how very proud he was of her.
Later, in the privacy of his chambers, he took a moment to grieve, as he always did during major events. He lay on his couch and watched the suns set and considered that if Anakin were here, they would have stood there together, proudly watching Leia take the reins at last. He rubbed his chest at the pain that blossomed there. Grief, most told him, faded with time, but he knew them to be wrong. He mourned Anakin’s death on a near-daily basis, missing his presence like a phantom limb.
“You’d be proud of her,” he murmured in the silence. He hoped somehow Ani could hear him. “She has your prideful smirk too, and she showed it to the world today. But she’ll do so well on the throne, you know that dear heart. She will do wonderful things.”
But there was nothing but silence in response. As there always was.
He’d tried moving on after the second year. Tried a few casual flings with pretty little Beta women that flirted shamelessly with him at Court, and none of them captured his attention. When Leia was fourteen, she started to see that her Uncle “Ben”, as she’d called him since toddlerhood, was getting older and staying alone—it had made her sad, so she’d tried to push him at every eligible person in Court near his age. But Obi-wan couldn’t. When he drifted to sleep, when he woke each morning, his thoughts stayed on Anakin and the memories they’d made together…the good and bad. Every year on the anniversary of Anakin’s death, he took a little time to himself, to grieve the way he’d banished Anakin from his life. If only he’d stepped back and taken a breath…if only he’d stopped and cooled down, tried to settle his anger before yelling at Anakin as he had. If only Anakin had stayed, just a few hours longer.
“Uncle Ben?” came a quiet voice from the open doorway of Obi-wan’s balcony, and he turned his head to see Luke standing there. Sixteen years old, gangly and toe-headed with Obi-wan’s same blue eyes…how nobody suspected them to be related continued to surprise Obi-wan. Even their scents were the same.
“Come in, dear,” Obi-wan murmured, and Luke stepped onto the balcony, twiddling his thumbs awkwardly. “Something’s on your mind.”
“Leia said that she tried to talk you out of leaving tomorrow, but you refused,” Luke said shyly, not meeting his gaze. “I suppose I thought I’d try too.”
“Luke, look at me,” Obi-wan said gently, and Luke blinked, obeying him without question. As sweet and soft an Omega as his father was. “I must return to Coruscant for my duties. I have neglected my position there for many years, because of the war and because I was needed here. But now I must go back. But that does not mean I am leaving forever. I will come back, young one, I promise.”
“You’re all we have left,” Luke whispered softly, swallowing thickly. “Leia will never say it, because she’s too proud to, but you’re our family, Uncle Ben. We’ve only got you.”
Obi-wan wanted nothing more than to snuggle the boy and scent him affectionately. He’d done it a few times when the children were young, but he’d stopped when they were teens…it felt wrong to be so affectionate with them without admitting the truth to them. But he could never. He would always be their Uncle Ben. And it had to be enough.
“I love you both dearly,” he said. “I would never abandon you. I promise, Luke. I’ll be back.”
“Okay,” Luke said in a watery voice, stepping forward and hugging Obi-wan fiercely. He smelled like Anakin sometimes, just the softest of resemblances that hit the back of Obi-wan’s throat when he least expected it. Obi-wan rested his chin atop Luke’s soft head and hugged him fiercely back.
“I love you,” Luke said quietly, and Obi-wan’s grip tightened.
“I love you too, very much,” he said quietly.
Obi-wan left early the next morning with a last kiss pressed to both twin’s head. Leia was technically his queen, but she threw her arms around his waist and hugged him for a long, silent moment before he boarded his ship and left.
He’d felt off all morning, in a way he hadn’t since his days fighting in the first war. Something different in the Force, a shift. It could be either good or bad, which made Obi-wan uneasy.
As he neared Tatooine, he felt a wrenching in his gut, and several alarms went off on his ship. Cursing his luck, he assessed the flight panel alarms, trying to determine what needed fixing.
“Sir, there appears to be something wrong with the stabilizers,” See-Threepio reported in a worried tone as he entered the cockpit.
“Yes, See-Threepio, I can see that,” Obi-wan remarked dryly, continuing to flick switches and press buttons. For the trillionth time, he wished Anakin was there, though this time for more selfish reasons…Anakin already would have fixed the problem by now.
“It also appears the sublight drives are down,” See-Threepio remarked, tapping at the data pad of flight schematics in front of him.
“For Kriff’s sake,” muttered Obi-wan. He couldn’t keep flying like this, or they’d be sucked into the nearest planet’s gravitational pull!
He eyed Tatooine dirtily from the front window, the feeling of wrongness in the Force tightening in his chest. Outwardly, the planet was as beige and dull as it was from the ground. He remembered the way Anakin spoke of it with such loathing—the horrific stories a young slave boy carried with him of what he’d seen living there.
“We’ve no choice,” he muttered, directing the flight path towards the planet. “We’ll land and fix this as quickly as possible.”
“The war between the slavers and the local war lords is still rather active, is it not?” Obi-wan asked his manservant in a somber voice as they approached the atmosphere.
“They call themselves the Free People’s Republic of Tatooine,” See-Threepio said calmly. “They have even enlisted a spokesperson on their behalf, sir. It is quite remarkable.”
“The last report I read made it seem like these are bloody times for Tatooine natives.
“Yes sir.”
“All the more reason to work quietly and quickly, so we might leave all the quicker without drawing attention to ourselves,” Obi-wan said quietly.
“I think that very wise indeed, sir,” See-Threepio remarked. “I shall go into town, sir, and find us a respectable mechanic?”
“I think not,” Obi-wan said calmly. See-Threepio was an excellent help to him, but he lacked the subtly needed for quietly navigating a planet drenched in war. “I will go.”
It may have been his training during war times that helped Obi-wan navigate the dirty, sandy streets of Tatooine unseen, but it was some simple Jedi Force-play that convinced the bartender to name a reasonable mechanic and a place to lay low for the night without the bar occupants recognizing the face beneath the brown cloak hood. Within the hour, Obi-wan was striding down an alley street per the directions of a local whore towards the mechanic’s shop.
There was a sign above the door written in basic Huttese that Obi-wan could barely make out with his rusty dialect, and he entered the door to the cheery jangle of a bell overhead. There was the sound of clanging in the back, metal hitting baked clay floor, and muttered swearing.
“I’ll be right with you!” came the voice, straining with effort, and Obi-wan waited patiently, keeping his hood up. The whore had made it seem like this mechanic may be more than he seemed—her smile had turned mysterious and distant. Obi-wan knew how wartime went…spies and secret agents everywhere. He wanted parts, not secret messages, and this mechanic need not see his face to help him.
And then all thoughts, all logic, all emotions entirely, simply disappeared from Obi-wan’s head as the mechanic stepped out into the small room, wiping grease from his hands and pushing back messy blonde curls.
“Can I help you?” the man asked. He was older now, slight wrinkles around his eyes, and he looked tanner than he’d been before. The frailty that had been there when last Obi-wan saw him, the lifeless, emotionless mask of nothing that had saturated Anakin’s very being…that wasn’t there anymore. Here stood the Omega Anakin might have been if he hadn’t been saturated in a political lifestyle he hadn’t ever truly wanted.
Obi-wan was silent for too long, and he’d clearly made Anakin uneasy.
“Did Kitster send you?” Anakin asked wearily, trying to see under the hood. The room was just dark enough to make that challenging. “That bastard always likes to send the sketchy ones my way,” he muttered. “I don’t have information!” he said louder, holding out his hands. “Kit is the troublemaker, not me! He sent you to the wrong place.”
“I…” Obi-wan tried to speak, but he couldn’t. So he reached up and tugged his cloak’s hood down instead. He didn’t know what else to do.
Anakin froze, and the two simply stared at each other for a very long time.
“Yo, Vader, do you plan on finishing with this droid anytime soon?” came a voice from back in the shop, and a young Togruta woman appeared, looking messier than Anakin somehow. She barely glanced at Obi-wan, scowling at Anakin. “This place looks like fucking shit! I wanted to get laid tonight, and you’re out here kriffing around instead of cleaning up shop? Not cool, man.”
“Ahsoka, fuck off,” Anakin said shakily, not looking away from Obi-wan, and Ahsoka finally registered the strange atmosphere in the room. She looked at Obi-wan and frowned.
“Hey, is this bearded fellow bothering you?” she asked, swaggering into the room. She didn’t even meet Obi-wan’s shoulders, but the scent of her Alpha presence filled the room aggressively, the way uncivilized Alphas liked to do to establish dominance. “Fuck off, old man!” she started to say, clearly posturing.
Anakin’s hand shot out and touched Ahsoka’s shoulder.
“Stop,” he said gently. “He’s not bothering me.”
“He’s not?”
“No, he…Ahsoka, seriously, fuck off. Get out of here. I’ll close up shop, I promise,” Anakin finally tore his gaze away from Obi-wan, smiling painfully at the Alpha. “Go see your girl.”
“Okay,” Ahsoka said, tossing Obi-wan one last dirty glare before disappearing, taking the stench of her Alpha status with her.
“You go by Vader now?” Obi-wan asked after a very long silence, long after the door slammed shut after the Togruta woman.
“My name was too well known, even here,” Anakin said. “Vader came to me accidentally, but it stuck.”
“Have you been here all along?” Obi-wan asked, feeling a numb prickling begin to return to his motionless, emotionless body.
“Pretty much,” Anakin said, swallowing heavily. “I programmed my ship to leave without me and return to Naboo when I…when I left that night. I hadn’t even anticipated that someone would try to attack me, but the Force willed me to live, so it all worked out. I took a cheap public flight to Tatooine, and I’ve been here since.”
“You didn’t mean for us to all think you dead?”
“No, I,” Anakin rushed and then stopped, taking a deep breath. “No, I didn’t plan it that way, no. But once it had happened, I saw the opportunity. I didn’t want to play Naboo regent for sixteen years. So I took the opportunity the Force gave me, and I slipped away quietly.”
“I thought you were dead for sixteen years,” Obi-wan said, quietly. He couldn’t even be angry, because he’d have to have emotion for that, and he couldn’t even tell the floor from the sky at the moment. The world was spinning around him. “I mourned you, every day, for sixteen years.”
“Did you?” Anakin asked, voice trembling. “I thought for sure after I left that you must have hated me.”
“I wanted to, very badly,” Obi-wan said. “After…after everything we went through, I thought I could hate you. But I couldn’t.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Anakin said, his chin trembling a little. He scratched his eyebrow and looked down for a minute, swallowing heavily before he looked back up at him. “I was so terrible to you, and it’s my biggest regret. I’m so sorry, Obi-wan. I wished I could apologize so many times to you, for how I treated you.”
“It’s in the past,” Obi-wan shook his head. “Don’t let’s rehash it all again. It’s done and buried now.”
“Yes, I…yes, that’s true,” Anakin nodded, pressing his lips together tightly. He played with the dirty rag in his hands. “I read that you unofficially acted as Regent?”
“The Cabinet ran the throne, and I was asked to return to the Cabinet, so that’s partially true,” Obi-wan said. The bizarreness of this interaction was just too much to handle, and he realized his hands were shaking. “Up until this past week, with the coronation.” He wouldn’t say their names, her name…he didn’t know how Anakin would react.
He didn’t have to wonder long.
“How are they?” Anakin asked calmly. “What are they like?”
“They’re wonderful,” Obi-wan said, and he didn’t realize he was smiling until Anakin shyly mirrored it. “Leia is a fierce, kind Alpha Queen, and she’s so protective of Luke…and Luke is soft and playful and kind down to his very core. They were beautiful children, and they have become wonderful people.”
“I’m glad,” Anakin said shakily, his voice a little watery. “I’m…I’m glad.”
“They wish they knew you,” Obi-wan said, and Anakin blinked, clearly shocked. “They believe their Alpha father was killed in a diplomatic murder, but the memory of you is still there for them. Leia even mentioned remembering your scent once when she was younger, though she attributed it to Padme instead.”
“But they’re happy?” Anakin pressed, and Obi-wan swallowed.
“Yes,” he said truthfully. “They are very happy.”
“And you got to be in their lives after all,” Anakin said with a nod. His smile was becoming forced, fake and plastic a little. “I’m happy for you.”
The tragedy of the situation was clear to them both, but hashing out old stories and digging into old wounds would do neither of them any good.
“And you are a mechanic now…what was that before, about this Kit?” Obi-wan asked, and Anakin huffed out a laugh, relaxing a little.
“I am a mechanic, yes, but I…I help the Free People, quietly,” he said, his voice softening, as though the walls may have ears.
“You’re a freedom fighter?”
“Yes, I suppose you could call me that,” Anakin said. “Having been a slave, I always wanted to help these people but could not, being so limited by…politics. Now, I can help all I want. Though this war is more shadows and secrets than war cries and blasters.”
“You have a purpose,” Obi-wan nodded, smiling again. “I am happy for you.”
“Thank you,” murmured Anakin.
More silence, longer and a little uncomfortable now.
“I was returning to Coruscant to take up my duties as Duke again, but my ship has been damaged somehow,” Obi-wan said quietly. “I was wondering if you would have some parts available for me to repair it.” He held out a paper list, and Anakin took it delicately, careful not to let their fingers touch.
“Some of these parts require significant skill to replace correctly without damaging surrounding pieces,” Anakin said after eyeing the list for a minute. He looked up at Obi-wan. “Unless your skills with a wrench have improved…”
“I will pay you for your services handsomely,” Obi-wan promised. “I would ask that my presence here be kept silent to others. Friends of royal families are not welcome here.”
“I’m aware,” murmured Anakin quietly. “You will be safe here, fear not. I can start work on it at first light. You should be flying back to your home and those close to you by tomorrow night.”
Obi-wan didn’t know how to respond to that.
“Thank you,” he said simply, nodding his head. “I shall return in the morning?” He turned to leave, one hand on the doorknob, and Anakin’s voice made him pause.
“Are you—are you happy?” Anakin asked, and Obi-wan looked back at him. He didn’t really know how to answer.
“I am content,” he said truthfully. “I got to raise our children, even if I could not be entirely truthful with them about everything. I enjoy my work. I am healthy. I cannot truly ask for more.”
“You are not mated?” Anakin asked, confused. “I would have thought surely you would have found someone by now. You were always such a catch.”
“I couldn’t connect with anyone,” Obi-wan found himself confessing with an honesty he and Anakin had not shared since before Anakin’s pregnancy, all those years ago. Somehow, the time and distance had stripped them down to their very bones, and all that was left was their true selves. He could not lie, not now. Not to him.
“I tried several times, usually when the twins got it in their heads that I should mate, but I never found one I could truly love,” he said with a wry smile. He looked back at Anakin. “You?”
“No,” Anakin shook his head, chewing his bottom lip. “No, I…I realized a few months after having the twins, I wasn’t going into Heat. Turns out I’d damaged my womb badly during delivery. I cannot Heat anymore, nor have children.” He swallowed. “It never bothered me much, but Alphas want babies.”
“Ah,” Obi-wan said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Anakin shook his head. “I never wanted to be a mere breeding machine anyway.”
“You deserved a better life than that,” Obi-wan agreed quietly. He blinked. “Are you? Happy, I mean?”
“In my own way, yes,” Anakin said quietly. He didn’t smile now. “My life has never truly been a happy one, with rare exception. But I am content, as you said. Yes, I am content. I enjoy my work.”
“Good,” murmured Obi-wan, smiling calmly. “I’ll bid you goodnight, Anak—well, Vader, now. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, stop by at dawn, and we’ll set your ship straight in no time,” Anakin said with a small smile. And Obi-wan left.
All morning, Obi-wan watched and attempted to help Anakin fix his ship. See-Threepio obviously recognized Anakin at first glance but refreshingly said nothing and kept to himself deeper in the ship’s bowels while the two men worked. It was mostly silent work, though hot and sticky with sweat, and by high noon, Obi-wan stopped the Omega and convinced him to sit in the cool and drink something while they ate food.
“You know, I talked to you all the time when I thought you dead,” Obi-wan found himself admitting in the calm silence, watching the wind ruffle Anakin’s curls. “All my worries and concerns, my brainstorming, my lonely moments—I spoke to you. Now, I shall have no one to speak to,” he laughed, and Anakin swallowed.
“In many ways, Anakin is dead,” he said quietly. “That weak, naïve Omega is long gone now.” He sounded a little bitter, and Obi-wan reached out without thinking to hold his hand. Anakin allowed it.
“Don’t say that,” he begged, and Anakin tried for a smile and failed, turning to look out at the long strip of sandy dunes before them. They were far out from town, away from prying eyes.
“When I think of the way I treated you and our relationship back then,” he said, shaking his head and huffing. “The way I allowed others to dictate my life for me…I cannot even fathom how you must have felt. You were harsh with me, but were I in your shoes, I would have been far more barbaric.”
“I treated you terribly that night in my home,” Obi-wan said, and Anakin looked at him from where he sat.
“I’m going to say something,” Anakin said quietly. “And I’m doing it for that scared, stupid Omega I was back then—but I have never stopped loving you, Obi-wan. Even now, sitting here, I love you just as fiercely as I did when I first met you. More so, even.”
“Do you?” Obi-wan asked quietly, reaching out for Anakin’s hand again. The Omega nodded, threading their fingers together.
“I’ve done many ridiculous things in my life,” he said. “Most of them were because I felt pressured to. Some, because I was selfish and young and unable to see the big picture. But the times I was truly happy, in my entire life, were those months that you loved me, back in Naboo. Those wonderful days spent in your arms. I dream of them, almost every night. Dream of who we might have become, what we might have accomplished together, if I’d only held onto you tighter.”
“It wasn’t all on you,” Obi-wan said stiffly, and Anakin nodded.
“Not entirely,” he agreed. He exhaled and sat up straighter, letting their hands disconnect. “Anyway. I wanted you to know that.” He downed his glass and wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand. “Thanks for the lunch…I should get back to work.”
“Wait a minute,” laughed Obi-wan, reaching for him. “Don’t run from me now, not after that.”
“I’m not running,” Anakin smiled kindly at him, easing back down into his seat. “I’m right here.”
“Well, this presents something of a dilemma,” Obi-wan said quietly. “Because I love you too, desperately. Same as you. Because we are mates, whether we tried to rip ourselves to shreds to avoid it or not. Even the Force willed us to be together, despite our best intentions to keep ourselves apart. How else would I just happen to land here, on Tatooine, with you? How else would you just happen to get pregnant outside of Heat, a statistical abnormality and near miracle? We were meant for each other, Ani. Don’t you think?”
“That’s so romantic,” murmured Anakin with a cheeky grin. “But a little silly, don’t you think?”
“Why would it be silly?” Obi-wan asked, fingers moving to stroke errant curls around Anakin’s perfect, tanned face.
“Because I am a spy hiding from my real identity on a slaving planet, and you are the Duke of Coruscant. And our children, whom I abandoned with selfish intent, are the rulers of Naboo. There is no future for us, Obi-wan,” Anakin said tiredly, even as he smiled kindly at his former lover. “You are my Alpha, and I will always love you. And I am your Omega, and you will always love me. That is enough.”
“No, it’s really not,” Obi-wan said, shaking his head thoughtfully. “Because I am a greedy old man, and I want it all.”
“What do you mean?” Anakin laughed, watching Obi-wan roll a little closer so their shoulders almost touched as they lounged there on the sand-scattered blanket.
“I want to be Duke of Coruscant, because I love our children desperately and need to be in their lives,” Obi-wan said. “And I want you because you are mine and I am yours. And now that I know you are still breathing in the same universe that I breathe in, I need you with me. In my life. In my bed. In my arms. Don’t you want that too?”
“Well, yes, but how am I…?”
“Why don’t we think about it?” Obi-wan asked gently. “This time around, we won’t rush to make any hasty decisions based entirely on our emotional state. We’ll formulate a solid plan that suits us both. What do you think?”
“I think you sound like the cool-headed General Obi-wan Kenobi a silly sixteen-year-old Omega fell in love with many, many years ago,” Anakin chuckled, moving closer still. He rubbed his nose delicately along Obi-wan’s cheekbone, through the greying hair of his beard. “I love you so much.”
“May I kiss you?”
“Of course you may,” Anakin smiled, threading his fingers through the greying auburn hair by Obi-wan’s neck, leaning in and kissing him tenderly.
Obi-wan felt some piece of him spring to life, down deep in his very core, at the touch of Anakin to his mouth. It was easy to sink into him, press their mouths together tenderly, again and again in a gentle lulling motion until Anakin licked along his bottom lip and then eased inside his mouth in a smooth, well-practiced move he’d done to Obi-wan so many years ago. The heat in Obi-wan’s groin intensified as their tongues tangled, as Anakin pressed his lithe, muscular body up to Obi-wan’s and kissed him with more ferocity, moaning hungrily into his mouth.
They eased apart after far too long, and Obi-wan stroked over Anakin’s face tenderly. He paused momentarily.
“You know, I’m an old man now,” he said, and Anakin laughed abruptly. “Truly.”
“You make it sound like you’re eighty years old,” Anakin huffed. “Some grey hair and more wrinkles don’t bother me.”
“Aging has more to do than just that,” Obi-wan huffed. “I can be very grumpy nowadays, you know. I have it on good authority from Luke.”
“You always got grumpy, especially when you were tired.”
“And I may not have quite the, uh, stamina I once had.”
“Somehow, I doubt that very much,” Anakin said dryly, rolling their hips together to prove his point.
“You’re still young…”
“Not really,” Anakin laughed. “You aged, and so did I, Obi-wan.” He reached up and stroked Obi-wan’s face. “I’m going to finish your ship tonight, because it’s true that it’s not safe for you here. And then I’m going to let you leave me tomorrow, because you have responsibilities, and you can’t just go missing.”
Obi-wan opened his mouth to argue, and Anakin shook his head, stopping him with a gentle press of his finger to Obi-wan’s mouth.
“And then in one cycle, I will fly and meet you discreetly in Coruscant,” he said. “It gives us both plenty of time to think of a good plan moving forward. And gives us a little distance, because we both have experienced a big emotional release since last night.”
Obi-wan frowned. “That’s a good plan,” he begrudgingly admitted.
“I know it is,” Anakin leaned in to kiss him warmly. “But tonight, if you would like, I want you to fuck me.”
“If I would like?” Obi-wan teased, scenting Anakin’s grinning face happily. “Yes, Anakin, I would like very much.”
“I thought you might,” Anakin said happily, the scent of happy Omega filling the air around them. “I would like that too.”
Since reinventing himself as Vader, a mechanic and silent spy for the Free People’s Republic, Anakin had let just three Alphas enter his bed—Ahsoka first, after too much alcohol and far too much grieving a year after arriving in Tatooine. That was a disaster. Then shortly after that, two nameless, faceless Alphas, both who left Anakin feeling empty and broken and rather dirty. After three failed experiments, Anakin had simply sworn off sex, and spent nearly fourteen years with his fingers and his right hand.
But then, none of those Alphas touched Anakin the way Obi-wan did—gently and reverently. None of them undressed him in the soft light of his little room above the garage, kissing their way down his chest, paying homage to his nipples and down along the scars from carrying their children. None of them pressed a bearded mouth to his pussy and drank his slick like it was their last meal, pleasuring him until Anakin could scarcely stand on his own, all the while moaning like a shutta for his neighbors to here.
After his third earth-shattering orgasm, Obi-wan finally undressed and sank onto his rickety little bed beside him, kissing him hungrily as they rolled and caressed each other tenderly.
“You’re so handsome,” Anakin murmured, admiring the pale, muscular frame of his Alpha. Even older as he was, he had retained his muscular status, though a small apron of fat now rested over his abdomen. Anakin loved it, and he kissed the skin there lovingly on his way down to worship Obi-wan’s cock. “Fuck my mouth,” he murmured, and Obi-wan shook his head.
“Not tonight,” he murmured, tugging Anakin back up. “Another day, we’ll play. I feel too fragile.”
“I love you,” Anakin whispered into his mouth as they kissed lovingly, and Obi-wan groaned as he wrapped his arms around the tall Omega, helped him straddle his lap. “Shall I ride you? Show you how good you make me feel?”
“Yes,” whispered Obi-wan shakily, watching Anakin position his throbbing cock to his soaked folds and ease down onto him, moaning at his girth.
“It’s been so long,” Anakin half-sobbed shakily, leaning down to kiss Obi-wan, loving the way Obi-wan’s hands gripped his neck and his face desperately as they kissed and scented, acclimating to this new intimacy they hadn’t shared in far too long. “Alpha,” he moaned, and Obi-wan’s kiss was brutal.
“I love you,” Obi-wan said fiercely, eyes shining with unshed tears, hands moving to stroke Anakin’s strong, tanned thighs as the Omega sat up straighter and began to move his hips. “You are the Light in my life, Ani.”
“You are mine,” Anakin sobbed out, overwhelmed. The sound of their lovemaking was loud in the sound, combined with the slam of the headboard and their moaning and heavy breathing—if Anakin was in his right mind, he might have blushed at the symphony they were making for his neighbors. But how could he think about anything but the way Obi-wan’s cock felt deep inside him? The way his massive palms branded his hips where he clutched at him? The way those perfect blue eyes gazed up at him lovingly?
“I need to cum,” he choked out, reaching down to rub his clit, and Obi-wan’s hand was already there, thumb stroking him gently.
“Then cum, dear heart ,” he said. “Show me.”
Afterwards, knotted and drowning in Obi-wan’s Alpha scent and still somehow so hungry for him, Anakin pulled his face back from Obi-wan’s bearded neck just enough to sleepily ask, “I’ll never be able to give you my Heat. Does that bother you?”
“Yesterday morning, I woke up in my cold bed believing you were gone,” Obi-wan said after a long silence. “And just like every morning before that, for sixteen years, I rolled over and stared at the empty side of the bed and wished that there was some way that I’d roll over and see you there sleeping. Anakin, just being able to hold your hand again would have been enough for me. That I can hold you and love you is the greatest blessing I could ever have.”
Anakin was smiling through his tears as he lay there listening, and he tucked his face back into its spot against Obi-wan’s neck.
“Once we have a good plan, I want you to mate me,” he said gently, trying to keep the emotions out of his trembling voice. “I want your bite.”
“I would be honored,” Obi-wan. “So long as you bite me back.”
“Of course,” whispered Anakin, content to drift off in his lover’s arms.
Anakin visited Coruscant in secret for many months. Formulating a good plan of attack to reintegrate into each other’s lives was more challenging than either of them realized, as Anakin was hesitant to leave his work in Tatooine until the war was over. So they met in secret, and they’d never really been happier.
“My lord,” See-Threepio entered Obi-wan’s bed chamber at dawn one morning and froze at the sight of Obi-wan sitting against the headboard, both arms hanging overhead, clearly cuffed into place. “Sir!” he shouted, approaching the bed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Obi-wan said calmly, though his hair was wild around his face and his cheeks were rosy and flushed. “All is well.”
“You have been restrained to the bed, sir!” See-Threepio stammered, and the covers around Obi-wan rippled before a bedhead-ruffled Anakin with bright eyes and puffy red lips appeared.
“Lord Obi-wan is occupied right now,” he said with a cheeky grin. “You’ll have to bother him with boring diplomatic nonsense later, See-Threepio.”
“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Your Majesty!” See-Threepio practically tripped to leave the room, forgetting that Anakin was no longer the Regent to Naboo and therefore no longer requiring such decorum.
“Shut the door, would you?” Anakin asked around his laughter as he turned back, kissing Obi-wan’s bashful mouth perfunctorily before moving back under the covers again.
Poor See-Threepio thought that incident was bad…he was unprepared for the numerous other times he walked in on his master and his lover in various states of undress. On one occasion, he entered Obi-wan’s office to see the Omega spread out on the desk like a buffet with Obi-wan’s face between his splayed legs. Another instance had See-Threepio casually wondering why there were fingerprints all over Lord Kenobi’s office windows overlooking the city before he stopped mid-sentence at Obi-wan’s flush and realized exactly what had happened before he’d entered the room.
As uncomfortable as the personal secretary and manservant might have been in those situations, even prudish, stiff See-Threepio could admit that he’d never seen his master so happy before. He smelled of happy, loving, beloved Alpha now, and he smiled and laughed more than he had in the entire seventeen years See-Threepio had known him.
“Dear heart, come here,” he overheard the duke murmur in a tender voice, and See-Threepio paused mid-step as he approached the front lobby entrance, carrying a pile of documents for the duke to sign before supper. The manner in which Kenobi was speaking indicated that Anakin had arrived back from his flight to Tatooine, and he paused in the shadow of the doorway as he watched the tall Omega collide with the Alpha, wrapping his arms and legs around the man as he thoroughly kissed him.
“They’re entering into negotiations,” Anakin pulled back with a gleeful grin, looking flushed and a little sweaty, like he may have run all the way from Tatooine.
Obi-wan’s face looked as puzzled as See-Threepio felt at the odd statement, and then realization flooded over him, relief crisp and clear from his softening facial features.
“You mean the war is over?” he asked, and Anakin practically squealed as he buried his face in Obi-wan’s shoulder.
“Representatives from the Hutt family and the Free People’s Republic met this morning,” he said. “A peace treaty was signed. Tatooine is a free planet. And the war is fucking over.”
“Does this mean…?”
“Do you still want me?” Anakin pulled back abruptly to look at Obi-wan carefully. He looked a little silly, wrapped like a heavy cloak around Obi-wan’s fame, but the endearing way Obi-wan smiled at Anakin was telling enough.
“Ani, dear heart,” he murmured, and See-Threepio stepped back into the shadows, returning the way he’d come. There was no reason the papers couldn’t wait until tomorrow to be signed.
Present
Naboo
The Queen’s Royal Office
Ben knew that his makeup must be smeared terribly. The occasionally sweaty day or teary exchange wouldn’t affect his face paint usually, but he’d been quietly crying for an hour now, and there was simply no way he was presentable enough for a Cabinet meeting later. Kenobi sat opposite him, also teary, but now looking almost ashamed.
“This means that I am not a true Naboo royal,” he suddenly realized, sniffing loudly. The thought made him stiffen in his chair. “I am not the rightful heir to the throne if Amidala was not my grandmother!”
“It was for that reason that Anakin never allowed me to tell Luke and Leia,” Kenobi sighed. “He knew Leia, in her earnest desire for truthfulness in all ways, would abdicate, and he knew how much she was needed in Naboo—how much good she would accomplish.” He sighed. “This secret is one I have carried for many, many years, my dear boy. None know the true story, and no one ever shall. It is a story for me to tell you. No one else needs to know.”
“I am not as honest as my Alpha parent,” Ben laughed sheepishly, looking for a new handkerchief. “For I must confess, I have no desire to abdicate over this.”
“And you shouldn’t!” Kenobi shook his head. “You are a wonderful Queen. There is no reason…no, there is no reason, dear Ben.”
“So Anakin never told my mother? Or Uncle Luke?”
“No, he insisted we would never tell them,” Kenobi said calmly. “He thought it was an unnecessary stress. And I have come to believe that he was right—he was not maternal, and the topic of their right to the throne would be at stake. Anakin was happy to let them live their lives separately from his, though he never once questioned my decision to stick close so I might know and love my children as I needed to.”
“What of the time after the war?” Ben asked hesitantly. “Is he…is he still alive?”
“Oh yes,” Kenobi beamed, eyes alight with his smile. “He lives with me, in Coruscant, as he has done since the Tatooine negotiations ended. We have been very happy.” He paused, and it allowed Ben a moment to consider. There had been rumors, of course, of an unnamed Omega lover Kenobi cared for, away from the public eye and the political lights…Ben had never thought to ask Kenobi about him, as such rumors rarely led to truths. But to know that Kenobi had not been alone all these years brought some modicum of comfort to him.
“I am so happy for you,” Ben whispered. “I…” he huffed. “You’ll think me silly, Uncle Ben, but…I want to meet him.” He laughed abruptly. “But you aren’t my Uncle Ben at all, are you? You’re my grandfather!”
“I am,” Kenobi’s smile widened. “Though I will always be your Uncle Ben truly. And as for meeting Anakin…I suspected you might say that. I was able to convince him to join me for this trip.”
“He’s here?” Ben asked, and the tears started up again. “Wait, he’s truly here?”
Just then, the doors of the office opened, and Hux walked inside with a frown. At the sight of his crying husband and the stench of Omega sadness in the room, he straightened and aggressively stomped to his mate’s side.
“What is the meaning of this?” he snapped, snarling at Kenobi without thought. “Why are you upsetting him?” he asked, crouching down beside Ben’s seat, and gathering his husband’s hands in his own.
“It’s alright,” Ben shook his head. “It’s the pregnancy, making me cry,” he said. “I’m alright, really, darling,” he said, smiling weakly at his husband. “Uncle Ben and I were rehashing old stories of my mother and Uncle Luke, and I got emotional thinking about her. I’m alright, really, Alpha.”
Hux scented his neck anyway before begrudgingly stepping back.
“You’ve been trapped in this stuffy office for too many hours,” he grumbled, tugging Ben up. Poe was in the doorway holding a pile of papers for him to sign. “Perhaps we should cancel the Cabinet meeting today?”
“Don’t even think about it!” Ben laughed, a watery sound, burying his messy face in Hux’s chest. “That meeting is very important.”
“You are the only important thing in my life,” Hux grumbled, but suddenly the words didn’t sound right to Ben. He frowned a little, but he couldn’t discuss it now, so he stepped back and pasted a smile on his face.
“Uncle Ben has brought a guest from Coruscant with him,” he glanced at Poe, smiling sweetly. “An old acquaintance of the late Omega Queen Amidala, in fact. We’ll have a private family dinner tonight, as I’d like him to meet the children.”
“You want the children at dinner?” Poe asked, surprised. It was rare that they ate outside the nursery.
“Yes, it’s very important to me that they are all there tonight,” Ben nodded, eyes locking in on Kenobi with a small smile. “Poe, no politics tonight. Just family.”
“Understood, your Majesty,” Poe smiled and bowed, stepping from the room.
Ben met his Omegan grandmother at eight o’clock sharp, dressed down as casually as he could get away with—hair down in curly locks, face free of paint, dress a simple black silk that clung to his belly rather fetchingly. Hux had stopped and stared in the doorway of their bedroom as Rey had helped curl Ben’s hair, and they’d almost been late for supper, but as he approached the tall, lithe man across the room, he’d known, down deep in his chest, that this was his family.
Anakin Skywalker, introduced as Lord Vader, stared at Ben with a warm smile and tears in his eyes. He was an old man now, but Ben could see how a young version of him must have captivated Obi-wan’s attention—even now, grey and wrinkled with sunspots on his hands, he was handsome and his light Omegan floral scent was rather refreshing.
“I cannot describe how wonderful it is to meet you,” Ben said in a shaky voice as he took Anakin’s hands. “Already, I feel I have known you for my entire life.”
Hux was clearly very confused, but he chose not to comment as he watched Obi-wan and this Lord Vader gaze at Ben with tearful, grinning expressions. The children came in, and Anakin’s face looked shocked as he took in all the little faces.
“Three children?” he asked Ben with a lack of honorifics that Hux didn’t mind but found odd. No mere acquaintances spoke to Ben with such casualness without comment, but his husband didn’t seem concerned at all.
“Three living children, and this will be our fourth,” Ben briefly touched his belly. “Five pregnancies in total.”
“My dear boy,” murmured the older Omega, bending down to introduce himself to Leia, who was very curious and Cassian, who was very hangry. Finn cried for his mother and then settled his sweaty head on Ben’s shoulder as soon as he was nestled there.
“Come and sit with our family,” Ben murmured to their two guests. “And tell me all about yourself.”
“That was, by far, the strangest dinner I have ever attended in my life,” Hux said calmly as he followed his mate into their bedroom. “Who was that Lord Vader, and why did you stare at him in awe all night?”
“He was a member of the Naboo Cabinet when my grandmother ruled,” Ben said carefully, undoing the buttons that lined the side of his dress and letting it fall off his frame and sink into a pile on the floor. He’d excused his Handmaidens for the night, so he left the dress there and moved to sit at his dressing table to brush out his own hair, not caring about his own nakedness. “You heard the stories tonight, darling. He’s a decorated war hero, and he was a freedom fighter in Tatooine! What a remarkable Omega.” He made eye contact with Hux in the mirror, pausing mid brushstroke. “He’s also the love of Uncle Ben’s life.”
“I gathered,” Hux said dryly. “The way they looked at each other was almost too inappropriate for the table.”
“Don’t be silly,” Ben laughed as he set down the brush and turned to watch his husband shuck off his uniform jacket and begin unbuttoning his shirt. “That’s the same way you look at me.”
“Exactly,” Hux said emphatically. “Like I want to lay you out on the table and fuck you like a barbarian for all to see and know that you’re mine.”
“Kriffs, you’ll make me wet talking like that,” Ben said breathlessly, and Hux laughed, shrugging out of the shirt.
“I did promise I’d fuck you all night, didn’t I?” he teased, and Ben thought back to this morning on the terrace, eating breakfast and teasing Phasma. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Hux,” he murmured, standing, and moving closer to Hux, sliding right into his arms, and rubbing his face lovingly against Hux’s shoulder. Being the same height, it was easy to nose along his cheekbone in a loving scent. “What you said this afternoon, about how I’m the only important thing in your life—”
“Well, you and the children of course,” Hux corrected absentmindedly as he carded his fingers through Ben’s hair. He felt how Ben’s shoulder muscles seemed to relax entirely at his words, and he pulled back a little with a frown. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Ben said, laughing tiredly. “I’m being silly, of course…I just—I can’t imagine ever leaving you, but if I were to—”
“Why the devil would you leave me?” Hux asked sharply, pulling back completely so he could look at Ben’s face. “Are you unhappy with me? Have I done something?”
“No, darling, no,” Ben breathed out, stroking Hux’s face tenderly. There were some wrinkles there around his eyes, and Ben loved him all the more for it. “I would never abandon you, no. I meant, were I to die—”
“Hush,” Hux snapped, gripping Ben tightly and tugging him into his chest. “What a ridiculous thing to even say. No, no more talk of it.”
“Hux, I need to say this,” Ben said shakily, tears blurring his vision again, and Hux stiffened and then sighed.
“Okay, say it,” he sighed.
“If I die, I want you to promise me that you’ll always be there for our children,” Ben said shakily. “That you’ll love them as wonderfully as you do now, and that you won’t abandon them by being…emotionally unavailable, in grief.”
“I don’t even know why we’re discussing this,” Hux said, fingers digging into Ben’s bare skin, and Ben sniffed.
“Please, promise me,” he said.
Hux moved to press his face against Ben’s, kissing him deeply. His palm moved to caress the warm bump between them, feeling so much life and movement even now under his fingertips.
“You are my sun, and I gravitate towards you always,” Hux said tenderly. “Were you to die before me, a part of me would die too, because you are my mate, and therefore, you are a part of me. And I love you, desperately. I would forever grieve you.”
Ben waited, wiping away a stray tear as he watched his husband consider his words carefully.
“But our children are my stars,” Hux added. “A constellation of our life’s work and my guiding force that brings me home. Our children are us. I would never abandon our children were you to leave us. I love our children desperately. My universe is complete with you all here. Take one away, and nothing is quite right. But we still have to continue living for those who are still with us.”
“I love you,” Ben whispered shakily, and Hux kissed him.
“Come along, darling,” he murmured. “Lay down and I’ll rub your feet. You’ve had a very emotional day.”
“Can I have your cock too please?” Ben asked tearfully as he lay down, triggering some dominant piece in Hux’s soul, and the Alpha tried not to immediately pounce on his mate.
“Yes, darling, afterwards,” he said tenderly. “You can have every piece of me that you want.”
“Good,” Ben murmured tiredly, presenting one lean, smooth leg for his mate to massage. “Because I want it all.”
Finis
Notes:
I love comments and kudos. Thanks for making it through this wild journey with me!
<3, Honey
WhitRewritesCanon on Chapter 2 Tue 30 Apr 2024 05:36PM UTC
Last Edited Tue 30 Apr 2024 06:25PM UTC
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hey_honey on Chapter 2 Wed 01 May 2024 03:50PM UTC
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hey_honey on Chapter 2 Sat 11 May 2024 01:28PM UTC
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