clone wars one shots

─ is it too much to ask for a sweet dream? (need to step back from my feelings)

―

Solitude has no limits.

Harsh, critical, heavy, littered with sugar. Domestic misery, grief. Self-blame. Heavy. It always comes back to heaviness. A sinking in one's chest, a hand drifting over the hip, a lifted shrug for a smile. Regret, words playing on a permanently choked throat. He can't cry. Drifting through life, wading through yonder, brooding, melting into a chocolate cloak, wishing the scent was real enough to turn back time; grasping a burnt-sienna wrist, gazing upon binary suns. Wishing for the Force. Heavy. A heavy chest seldom makes a good man, and he walks a living painting, facial features a jabbed paintbrush rhetoric, monologue-free, imprinted only with last words, the smile of an abandoned babe.

Dust-storms, sandy bays without water; a deprived pirate roaming lands like a shepherd. A roughened beard only shaven to betray, auburn as the musky lighting of his home. Movement in a trance, whiplash, a bandaged heart and scorned legs, arms, lungs . . . Kenobi settles atop a mountain, whether he a Jedi or a lighthouse is a mystery. His face calms, he starts projecting safety. Starts finding tender peace. Turmoil is his constant – waves that won't settle, crashing and assaulting each other, evermore the fight for light and dark; he can almost hear his voice, "C'mon, Master, why're you brooding? I know you're on the council and everything, but I didn't think you were as old as Yoda!"

And the retort, achingly familiar, brings a rasp to his throat. "It's Master Yoda, Anakin. How many times do we need to discuss this?" His name is sweet like honey, simmering on a stove, hokey-pokey in a forest's gentle shivering. Kenobi knows who his brother was better than he knows himself – a triumphant victor, a shining boy who feels too much, with a kindness unrivalled. The Jedi failed him.

"Clearly a few more, old man, if you're still meditating. It'll be fine. You'll go to Utapau, defeat General Grievous, and then the war will be over." He'd give a cheeky smile, then look at him in the eyes, mischievous, his posture sound. "Maybe then Yoda might have enough grey hairs to retire."

He blinks. The desert spins, vertigo-induced, swarmed with a finality. Joy is a pastime, a stalling-technique for the infinite sadness, Kenobi always knows. The Force is the only constant, a lantern singing in the coldest nights, fatigued with an orange glow, a gentle lullaby to lull him to sleep.

Kenobi collapses into its love. A mystical breath falls upon weakening muscles, blessing strength and guidance, cusped with an answering voice, an uplifted eyebrow. His heaviness disappears. In it's place is light, balance, addicting happiness, self-esteem. Italicised infinity, a time without minutes; in fragments, he is woven again, with a lingering sense of purpose.

His humble abode. Sandstone, infiltrated with a driven sense of guilt; he is right there, pale, withering, his breathing hitched; and yet he is so far, exiled from his thoughts. The walk treacherous, the house worse. He stares at the rug and imagines his Padawan sniggering at its archaic stripes, the silly way it smells; he stares at the couch and thinks about his family snuggled upon it, watching a holo-movie during a storm.

And he stares at his own calloused hands, and wonders where he went wrong.

When did his home become a minefield of dreams? His brother is a villain, a monster; and yet, kind-sapphire eyes and a smothering knowledge of one another is a becoming of his failures. Attached, rope-bound to a system; a flawed man alone in the desert, a hermit, a man who missed his chance. He cannot look at a hand-sewn rug and not imagine his other half there.

It's impossible. He's too integrated with Anakin Skywalker to not have him there, by his side, where he belongs. Kenobi would be called old a thousand times over, if only to hear his tired voice, to see his hand-on-shoulder demeanour, his boyish smile and thousand-storm eyes.

That night, he falls asleep clutching the rug, his hands pulling it closer to his face, letting its simple smell invade his dreams, wishing his brother was there to jest him for one last mission, make fun of the rug that warms him. A boyish smile never leaves him, the rug now a loose blanket every night. He wouldn't have it any other way.

"What an ugly rug, Obi-Wan. When'd it last get cleaned?"

―

a/n.
this is a repost from ao3, which i uploaded last month for a writing challenge :) 
the prompt was: a memento from someone gone

decided to publish it because wattpad's feeling so dead and all my notifs are announcements and i think i'm going crazy??? 

i publish shorter fics on ao3 like this one (and also d!smp stuff because ahahaha new fandom??) so if you wanna check it out, my username is charfromnz :)  usually my stuff there is less detailed n more messy; it's where i don't bother putting detail into stuff so if that interests you that's cool <3