For This Moment

Title: For This Moment
Genre: Slash, AU
Characters: Obi-Wan, Anakin
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and if I did I would have them locked up in MY bedroom. I make no money off this, merely cheap thrills.


For This Moment


“I’m so sorry, Anakin.” My voice is barely more than a whisper, but he flinches at the sound.

His quarters are dark, but even in the shadows, I can see his haunted expression and I feel my heart break within me as I realize that I am looking at a man shattered beyond repair. His voice sounds raspy when he replies, as if he has not used it in days. But I had heard his cries of despair earlier today, and I am amazed he has any voice left at all. His eyes look like bruises on his handsome face, and those tempting lips twist is a cruel facsimile of a smile.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Obi-Wan.” Then he sighs and buries his head in his hands. I wait for his sobs to begin anew, but there is only this strange, disquieting silence. At last, I recognize that he’s beyond tears now, his despair has taken him to a place so deep and dark that mere tears cannot provide relief.

I sit down beside him on the bed, clenching my own hands in my lap. I literally itch to touch him, to comfort him…to love him. I thrust this traitorous thought away with great effort. Suddenly, he looks up and grasps my hand tightly in his mechanical one. “The babies? They’re still all right, aren’t they?”

Immediately, I smile to reassure him. “They’re fine, a little small, the Healer says. But they have their father’s stubborn streak.” I remember them in the warmers, Anakin and Padmé brought to life again. A cold anger blooms inside of me. How could she have hurt him so? I realize that is unfair. She loved and was loved in return. It is not her fault that death has cut the string of life, leaving the man I have always loved alone and in the grip of utter desolation.

He blinks as if dazed and releases my hand. I am bereft at the loss of that simple contact. “Good…” he murmured. “I’ll go see them later.”

/Later – after I have made funeral arrangements for their mother, my wife./

His thoughts leak through his shields and pass to me along our bond. Hesitantly, I put my hand on his shoulder. Those broad shoulders tremble and he turns to me, throwing himself at me and I don’t have any time to think – there is only time enough to wrap my arms and heart around him.

Then he is weeping silently against my chest, his tears warm on my tunics and flesh. He is always so warm, literally blazing with life. Anakin fairly pulses with restrained power right now, but I sense the shadows lurking at the edge, waiting for him to call upon them. “She’s gone, Obi-Wan.” He holds his breath for a moment and then sighs deeply. “She was going to leave me, walk away forever. But now she’s gone to a place even I can never find her.”

I make a soothing noise in the back of my throat and stroke his hair and back. He is thick with muscles I helped to build and I close my eyes against the longing to feel those muscles rippling under my hands as he moves inside me. I hear a low groan escape me and he grows utterly still. Anakin pulls away slightly, the evidence of his grief still visible on his face and I feel a rush of fierce shame that even now I cannot completely bury my desire for him. He has haunted my dreams for too long. I have loved him too completely in the farthest reaches of my heart.

“Obi-Wan?” There is disbelief in his voice, but no disgust. Against my will, hope raises its sluggish head. But I ruthlessly quash it, too afraid of what will happen to me if Anakin is the one who must banish it.

“Never mind, Padawan,” I whisper. “This is my problem, not yours.”

His flesh hand comes up and cradles my face, and I instinctively nuzzle into it before I can stop myself. I hear him give a quiet gasp. “You…You *love* me,” he says in a low voice.

I smile sadly, and then close my eyes and inhale deeply of the clean, unique scent that is Anakin. “That is my burden to bear. I will not add it to that which already weighs on you.”

He gets gracelessly to his feet and retreats to the far corner, where all I can see is the shine of his eyes. We are silent for a long time, each locked away in our own prison, overwhelmed by our own pain. When at last he speaks, I am already so sure of what he will say, /Please leave/, that I don’t comprehend his words for a moment. “Are you so sure it would be a burden?”

My mouth falls open when I realize what he has said and I have to concentrate very hard on closing it again. “What do you mean?”

For a moment, I think he will refuse to answer me, but then suddenly he is stalking toward me like a predator, his eyes blazing with some emotion I cannot – will not – identify. “I’ve always loved you, too, Obi-Wan.” He says as he gets closer. He comes to a halt directly in front of me, so close that I can feel the intoxicating warmth of his breath on my face.

“I know,” I reply softly, wondering what he would do if I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. That is all, just touch his mouth with my own. “You love me as a Master, a friend, maybe even a brother.” Even as I say the words, I want to cry out that I could be so much more to him if only he would let me.

His finger brushes along my beard and his thumb gently caresses my lower lip. I am pathetically grateful for the touch, though I know it will end in an instant and I shall never feel his hand on me again, not when he comprehends the feelings I have been harboring for so long. “Is it so wrong to seek comfort in the arms of someone I’ve always loved?” he asks, his voice puzzled and unsure. Mutely, I shake my head. Anakin leans forward and puts his lips to my ear. “I truly loved her,” he says softly. “But I’ve always wondered…”

“Wondered what?” I am appalled at how shaky my voice sounds.

He moves forward, closing the tiny gap between us and the length of his lean body presses lightly against mine. I feel the trembling start in my knees and move upward along my spine. “I’ve wondered what it would be like to kiss you.” His lips brush against mine. “To taste you.” His tongue slides along my lips, not aggressively, merely curious and seeking. “To hear you cry out my name as you come for me.” His hand trails down my chest and comes to a halt low on my belly, tantalizingly close to where I want his hand to be the most.

“Anakin, please…” Even I do not know what I am pleading for him to do. Leave me while I still have a shred of pride and dignity left? Take me in his hand and stroke me to paradise? Kill me so that I never have to face him again? All three?

“I am so raw that I feel as if I’m turned inside out,” he says in a pained voice. “I just want to forget all of it.” The hand on my belly travels to my hip and he slowly urges me even closer, though I don’t know how that is possible unless I crawl inside of him. That image makes me hard and I feel sweat beading up on my forehead. “Would you help me forget, Obi-Wan?”

Anakin’s lips are at the corner of my mouth as I give him my answer. A single syllable, all that I am capable of, escapes me as a low groan. “Yes.”

I am suddenly pulled against him and Anakin’s mouth descends on mine. His kiss is demanding, greedy, and his tongue sweeps in to mate frantically with mine. His hands clutch me to him and he grinds that glorious hardness against me. I wrap my arms around him and throw my head back so that he can work his magic on my throat.

He obeys my unspoken demand with alacrity and his lips and teeth soon have me quivering in my need for him. My fingers are twining in his hair and I pull his lips back to mine. I have to taste him again, feel the warm silk of his tongue on mine, feel his soft lips pressed to me, reassuring me that this is real, not one of the countless fantasies I have harbored for years. He gives a moan of surrender and our tunics begin to melt away as if by magic. We both hiss at the first contact of our bare chests against each other.

Somehow, we end up on the bed and my hands are working feverishly to remove his pants while his hands slide my own down my hips and legs where I kick them off. Our boots foil our attempts for a moment and then they, too disappear. And then our bodies are touching from head-to-toe and I know there has never been a more perfect sensation ever felt by any being any where in the galaxy. I savor the heat of him, the hard planes of his sculpted body, the erection jutting into my belly.

I can almost taste his need, his pain. I reach down and stroke him for the first time and he jerks in response, his hips grinding down into mine. He is hard and ready, fluid already gathering on the crown and I am overwhelmed by a desire to really taste him, to know everything about him. I flip him over on his back and begin to kiss my way down his broad chest and taut belly. I swirl my tongue in his navel and he groans, his hands fisting in my hair. I revel in that tiny pain for just a moment before moving down toward my goal.

Reverently, I touch him, marveling at him. Every part of him is beautiful, but to know that this twitching erection is for me, to know that he has grown hard at *my* touch, is incredibly erotic and arousing. I lap delicately at the pearl of fluid there and he cries out. “Obi-Wan!” I shudder at hearing my name come from his lips in passion and need. I could come from that sound alone, I decide.

When I close my mouth over him, I feel him shudder again. I feel him swell against my tongue, hear him hiss. He pushes his hips up so that I can swallow him and I do. I am almost choking, and that too, is perfect. He is inside of me, his body joined with mine, and I run my tongue along his length to taste every lovely centimeter of him. Tenderly, I cup the sac below and lightly squeeze and I am vaguely aware of the hands that now clutch in the sheets.

“Obi-Wan…” he whispers as I engulf him once more. “I can’t last.”

I lift my head. “It’s all right.”

He shakes his head. “No, I want to…” he pauses, unsure. “I want to be inside of you.” His eyes meet mine. “Please?”

I am only too willing to feel him moving inside of me, making his place within me, making me even more his own, so I nod and move back up toward him. I kiss him, letting him taste himself. He moans and opens his mouth further, letting my tongue slide in and explore. While I kiss him, I lower my hand to his erection and stroke lightly.

“Anakin, do you know what to do?” I ask, pleading with whatever gods might be listening that he will know. I don’t think I have the clear head to explain right now, my need is pushing out every coherent thought in my mind.

“Yes,” he answers with confidence, surprising me. I had no idea.

Then he turns and I am beneath him, gazing up into his blue eyes. They are dark with passion, passion for me. He runs his fingers along my length, and my hips jerk up at the touch. He gives a slight smile at my response and then his fingers are gathering the slickness there, and he rubs it lovingly between his fingers before touching himself.

Soon, his fingers are glistening and he is kissing me even as he encourages me to part my legs. That hand works between them and he is tenderly caressing my entrance. He soothes me with his touch and his words, whispering praise in my ear as my body opens up to him with startling ease. Why should it not? I have been waiting for this moment a lifetime.

Then he is moving over me and I move as if to turn over. “No,” he hisses. “I want to see your face.”

I groan my agreement and then I feel the blunt tip against me and I will my body to relax. He is careful and considerate, moving slowly but steadily until he is buried inside of me. We wait there, both trembling with the effort to be still, our sweat mingling, making our bodies slick. Then he moves slightly, and a fire blazes to life inside of me that I fear will never be quenched.

Every stroke is perfection, the feel of him is beyond my wildest imagination. He pushes my hands back behind my head and then his fingers entwine with mine. He is around me and inside of me, he is a part of me. Then he loosens one hand and uses it to stroke me in time with the movement of his hips. My eyes roll back in my head and I have just enough time to whisper, “I love you, Anakin.”

The words make him explode inside of me and there is a rush of heat between our bodies as I join him. He shudders above me, keeping his place inside of me, a drop of sweat falling from the tip of his nose to my chest. Then he collapses on top of me and I wrap my arms around him.

“Anakin,” I whisper, brushing back the sweaty hair. “My Anakin.”

He presses a soft kiss to my chest and his eyes fall shut. He is exhausted and I hold him as he falls asleep. Dawn begins to brighten the room as I embrace him, the sweat on our bodies slowly drying.

There is much left unsaid between us and I know that this may be the last time I ever hold this amazing, complex man in my arms. As I kiss his forehead, I realize that no matter what the future might hold, this moment will forever be emblazoned on my heart.

We sleep.