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tennessoui · 2 years

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Miss Kit updates from you never fail to cheer me up, and that was a tall order this week when I spent my birthday alone because of covid and had to cancel my party because I'm still testing positive, so thank you! If you're taking Prompts I'd love to see something where Anakin is ill or injured as misery loves company, maybe the bit in cheating au where he's hospitalised and Obi-Wan finds out/is in waiting room? No pressure though, just wanted to drop in and say your updates always make me happy

hey!!!! it's been uh. a month. maybe two months. so like. i hope you're no longer testing positive :D here is a 2k snippet set in the cheating au when obi-wan rushes to anakin's side after he loses an arm fighting. also when padmé may start thinking that there's something rotten in the state of stewjon.......

(2k) (cw: i wrote this on my laptop when the i key was sticking so who knows how many i's i've missed)

(also cw: cheating)

(this snippet is sorta mentioned, might be important to read for understanding of the verse)

Obi-Wan’s hands are shaking. They have been since the missive came in for Padmé and Obi-Wan had leaned over to read it when she’d gasped in horror.

Her husband had been wounded. There’d been an attack of some sorts, a robbery or a premeditated attack or something else all together, and Padmé’s husband had heard the noise from his gallery and gone to investigate. He’d decided to break up the fight with nothing more than his voice and his own hands, and he’d lost one in the process.

He’d lost a lot of blood as well, Padmé’s husband had. A lot of blood and an arm. Padmé had been right to be so horrified, so frantic in calling for a recess in the conference, just one long enough to gather her things from her Republic-funded room, brief the secondary senator from Naboo on the state of negotiations, and then hail a shuttle to the nearest space port. She was allowed to go with little fuss.

After all, it was her husband who had been hurt so drastically he had been airlifted to the best trauma center in Coruscant. She had children to comfort and hold and feed sweet words of reassurance to.

Obi-Wan logically knows that he must stay. He’d been told as much by Padmé herself—not outright, of course, she probably wouldn’t have thought to do so, but she’d squeezed his shoulder as she left the Hall and promised to comm him as soon as she could with updates on Anakin’s condition.

It was, after all, the duties of a wife.

But what of the duties of the lover? The affair? The man who knows for certain he has managed to slip his way into Anakin’s heart, wrap himself around it until its every piece belongs to him alone, nothing left over for the wife who has rushed to his side?

His hands ache with the need to hold, to feel at Anakin’s skin, his pulse.

He makes it ten more hours into the conference before he follows Padmé’s example. He does not stop to collect his things, nor does he brief the secondary senator of Naboo, parting with a “you best have been listening, mate, or our failure’s on your head”; he flew to this planet in his own ship, and he flies it now.

He utilizes every trick that Anakin has ever shown him about how to fly fast and how to fly well. Under the guise of Obi-Wan being the worst pilot in the history of Stewjon and Anakin being unable to be cordial with someone who signaled before they changed vertical lanes, they’d spent years sneaking out to the stars for activities that had nothing to do with flying.

But perhaps against his will or perhaps because his love for Anakin had to better him in some way in order to be endured, he had also learned how to pilot the way Anakin piloted.

His hands shake the entire time. It’s the one concession he will give himself to the roar of emotions that feel like they’re tearing his insides to shreds.

His comm buzzes and when he checks it, an hour out from Coruscant, it’s a message from Satine. He doesn’t read it. He has long since stopped caring what his wife has to say about any matter, and the matter of this affair in particular.

They had never particularly loved each other, though he thinks they both were convinced they did upon their marriage. But what he feels when he thinks of Anakin Skywalker dooms every other love he’s ever felt in his life to pale imitations.

They had never particularly loved each other, but it’s only been in the last year that Obi-Wan has felt resentment bubble up in his soul. His wife is one more thing that makes Anakin leave his bed early in the morning. Obi-Wan’s wife and, well.

Obi-Wan has been arguing with the health droids for ten minutes before Padmé appears from around the corner. She’s still wearing her Naboo regalia, though it looks much more worn. She must have arrived hours ago, yet she’s not left at all yet. This observation makes Obi-Wan’s heart seize up in fear. Has Anakin taken a turn so nonsensically towards the worst?

Padmé looks startled to see him. She looks relieved though, too.

If Obi-Wan were a better person, he’d let the guilt of it all eat him alive. As it is, he’s not a better person. He’s a politician, and he wants something.

“Padmé!” He says upon seeing her. “How is he? Please, tell DR-023 that I should be allowed to see him.”

Padmé blinks, as if she can’t understand the stimuli her brain is showing her. “Obi-Wan, you came.”

“Of course I came, Padmé,” Obi-Wan replies and knows he should say something else, but the words are tricky. He wants to say, because I love him. Because it’s Anakin. Because I know he would want me there. Because if it were me in that medical bed, I would want him beside me.

All of this is too incriminating. Padmé, though she still does not know about her husband’s infidelity, is not an unintelligent woman.

So he says, “I view you all as my family.”

This is uttered with a pointed look at the medical droid, barring Obi-Wan’s passage to the rooms of the hospital. Though heavy-handed, it seems to shake Padmé into action, and she swoops forward to key in the Skywalker room code into the droid’s bank, allowing Obi-Wan passage.

“Thank you,” he tells Anakin’s wife, and then when he cannot wait a second longer, “how is he doing?”

Padmé guides him back to Anakin’s room, and Obi-Wan lets himself be guided. “He’s—he’s going to be alright,” she says. “They—they won’t fit him with a prosthetic, not while he is unconscious and cannot consent, but they’ve taken him out of bacta and done several blood transfusions. Mine took, thank the stars.”

Obi-Wan swallows and stares forward so as not to give into the monster inside of him that roars in jealousy at the idea that Anakin and Padmé’s bloodtype match. That once more, Obi-Wan is made an interloper.

“Quite,” he replies faintly, for they’ve entered the room. There on the bed, looking much too still and ashen, is the love of his life. It takes all of his training in politics and appearance to stop himself from running to his side, grasping at his one hand, and raising it to his lips. The japor snippet around his neck burns with his need to touch and feel and heal.

Padmé, unaware of his agony, walks to the other side of Anakin’s bed, ghosting her fingers over his missing forearm with a haunted sort of expression.

“I was just going to leave to relieve the nanny,” she confesses, brushing a piece of hair away from Anakin’s face. Obi-Wan stiffens and forces himself to relax. “The twins haven’t seen him yet. I thought about getting them when I arrived, but….”

The twins live a charmed life, five years old and untouched by every great unfairness in the galaxy. Obi-Wan would hesitate to retrieve them as well, not when it would mean they would have to—at least for a moment—confront the senseless violence of their world.

“They should see him,” he tells her gently. Anakin would want that. “Please, I—I can get them if you do not wish to leave him.”

“I’m perfectly capable of parenting my own children,” she snaps. When she looks up, her gaze is hard.

Interloper.

“Of course,” Obi-Wan gentles his tone, his mannerisms, and steps back from the bed though that distance kills him. “Whatever you want, Padmé, I am only trying to support you.”

Anakin’s wife stares at him for several seconds, before glancing down at her husband. “You’ll call me if he awakens?”

“In an instant,” Obi-Wan promises, and she nods once, slowly and then with a fast upward tilt of her head. She navigates around the bed, and Obi-Wan moves closer to the very bounds of what is allowed.

He doesn’t watch her leave. He cannot tear his gaze away from Anakin’s slack face. There will be scars on it, wounds so deep that the bacta could not heal them perfectly in time to save him from the blemish.

Obi-Wan already finds them beautiful, because it is Anakin and he finds Anakin beautiful always.

He doesn’t watch Anakin’s wife leave, so he is startled to hear her speak. Startled and deeply grateful he hadn’t given into the impulse to touch her husband’s cheekbone. Stewjoni are affectionate, but not that affectionate.

“I am glad you’re here, Obi-Wan,” she tells him. Her tone is unreadable and when he turns around, her face is the same.

“Oh?” Obi-Wan asks when she does not immediately continue.

And then for a moment his heart freezes in his chest as he follows the descent of her eyes. Sometime between leaving the conference and arriving at the hospital, he’d taken his heavy, ceremonial Stewjoni cloaks off. His shirt is unlaced most of the way, his chest almost on display.

But she’s not looking at his skin.

The japor snippet lays lower than the shirt cuts, thank the gods, but there’s something in her eyes that looks like a denial. A rationalization. She’d seen the same leather cord around her husband’s neck for two years before he’d lost that pendant.

Before he’d given it in secret to its intended recipient and told his wife it must have fallen off in some restaurant on some planet.

He tries not to move, to hold his posture exactly as it is. Any sudden movements would read as guilt.

He has nothing to feel guilty about.

He has a whole galaxy’s worth of wrongdoings to feel guilty about.

“Why’s that?” he asks, prompts her towards speech in a voice that he prays is not shaking.

Her eyes snap up to his face. They’re unreadable. She is unreadable. She is the last thing that stands in the way of Obi-Wan being able to cradle Anakin’s head in public, kiss him in broad daylight, and if he loved Anakin less, he would tear off the necklace and throw it to the ground in front of her feet, dare her to rationalize that coincidence away, the same way she’s rationalized all the touches she’s seen, all the heavy looks, lovers’ feuds, piloting lessons.

But he loves Anakin.

And if a team of droids refuse to operate on him without his consent, he can’t just go and reveal their affair to his wife without the same.

“Why’s that?” he asks again, when she doesn’t say anything. He crosses his arms, higher than he usually would, in case the japor snippet is peaking out from the edge of his shirt collar.

“They said he was calling for someone,” Padmé Amidala-Skywalker says, soft as rain and bells and lace. “They thought it must have been his wife. When I told them I was his wife, they called me Mrs. Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan’s shoulders tense with the effort not to look at Anakin. He wants to see him suddenly so bad that it hurts, but he forces himself to hold eye contact. “How strange,” he murmurs instead of the myriad of things he wishes to say. “I’ve always thought the name Obi-Wan to be quite masculine.”

Padmé says nothing, but she does leave.

It feels less like a surrender, more like a retreat.

#asks #prompt fill #cheating au #when anakin wakes up obi-wan tells him he needs to choose #both because he cant stand not being the one informed of anakin's medical condition #and also because he thnks maybe padmé knows #and he needs anakin to choose before padmé confronts him or else he'll never be able to trust that anakin #honestly chose him #which he hopes he will but doesnt know for sure because this obi-wan is willing to have an affair and pulls one off for like 6yrs #but he's also an idiot #cw: infidelity #outtakes include obi-wan mentioning something offhanded about the conference #and padmé going omg!! you left the conference!!! what about the stewjoni agenda??#and obi-wan (flushed) is like 'i wasnt thinking about the stewjoni agenda'#and padmé is like '......yes #i wasn't thinking about the naboo agenda as well......'#heavily implying 'but im his wife'#to which obi-wan would reply honestly much the same lol #obikin #tbh only obikin i know padme is mentioned a lot as his wife but nah #thats a plot point love #this is like my guilty pleasure au #i lose followers literally every time i post a snippet from this au but like it's gross and codependent and destructive #and ADDICTIVE

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duck-in-a-spaceship · 5 months

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Easily my fav chapter, hope you all enjoy!

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+++

Chapter 3: Poetry Recommendations

Weights tugged on Todd’s eyelids, gravity pulling his head towards the welcoming wood of his desk. His arms sat in front of him, one folded on top of the other to resemble a truly tempting pillow. Maybe this would finally be the period he could nap without interruption, without a teacher kicking the leg of his desk, or rapping a ruler across his skull. Keating was nice, he would understand, he would-

“On your feet, boys!”

The idle chatter in the classroom came to a stop as the bell rang and Keating, standing by the door, loudly announced his presence. Heads turned to him as some of the students rose to their feet, one by one, in a sort of hesitant ripple. Todd stayed in his seat, silently hoping that if enough people stood up in front of him, he might just be able to avoid detection all the way on the other side of the classroom.

“Come on!” Keating urged them. “I’m not just over here for the theatrics of it all. Everyone grab your notebooks, you can leave Mr. J. Evans Pritchard behind. We’ll be spending the day outside today.” With that, he disappeared out the door.

The boys rose to their feet with the clattering and pencils and pens, notebooks being gathered from bags and chairs pushed away from desks. Todd rose much more slowly. Lazy, clumsy fingers gathered his things, and by the time he was ready to go, nearly everyone else was already out of the classroom. Only the poets hovered by the door, messing around with each other with playful shoves and laughter.

“You coming, Todd?” Meeks asked, his pen tapping against the doorframe impatiently.

“Yeah, come on Toddy, Keating’s already out the door by now, could be halfway to China for all we know!” Charlie added, gesturing with his notebook down the hallway. Neil grinned, and gave him a playful thwack with his own book.

“Cut it out, Char, give him a second. I don’t think Keating is going to abandon us.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Todd apologized, heading over towards them. “I, uh, I didn’t mean to make you wait.”

Neil slapped him on the shoulder good-naturedly. “Oh don’t worry about it, we’ll catch up,” he assured Todd, flashing one of those winning smiles that made Todd have to look away, just to avoid being blinded.

“Come on, dead poets!” Charlie called, leading the way down the hall, earning him an urgent shush from Cameron. They all trailed after him with varying levels of amusement, but Todd found himself surprised when Neil hung behind to walk with him, letting his feet trail against the old, tarnished floors.

He watched Neil bite his lip, thoughtfully chewing on the skin. “Hey, are you alright?” he asked suddenly.

Todd looked up at him, not bothering to hide his surprise. “I mean, uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well you just… you seemed a little out of it all day. Already got you yelled at by Mr. Raulkin. I wouldn’t want someone else getting on your case if you aren’t okay, yeah?”

“Oh, well I’m fine. Just… just tired after last night, I guess.”

Neil smiled, leaning in towards Todd conspiratorially, so their foreheads nearly touched. A bit of Neil’s hair flipped over and brushed against Todd’s face as he tried, for some goddamn reason, to hold his breath. “Well,” Neil whispered. “Two nights a week of Dead Poets meetings will do that to you.” He pulled away from Todd with a lopsided smile on his face, and if Todd finished walking down the hallway on wobbly legs, well, he decided he could just blame that on the lack of sleep.

+++

It was cool outside, the autumn air that was slowly meandering towards winter leaving a chilled touch on Todd’s face. A little colder might have woken him up a little more; a slap of winter to the face could have made up for a couple hours of lost sleep. Instead, all Todd did was shove his hands deep in his pockets, and wait for the warmth of the sun to make it to his bones.

The others were already waiting for them when they arrived, standing just on the edge of the forest, surrounded by the golden glow of fall-coated leaves. Keating beckoned them over as they approached, waving an arm towards them. “Come on now boys, there’ll be plenty of time for enjoying the scenery in a bit,” he called.

“We’re coming Keating, we were just catching up with old Cam here, couldn’t find his pencil!” Charlie shouted, which earned him a shove from the ever-prepared Cameron as he broke out into a jog. The rest of the poets sped up as well, even Neil going into sort of a half-jog to catch up to his friends. Only Todd lingered behind, not interrupting his slow meandering pace.

Keating waited for Todd, for some reason, which made his face heat up with embarrassment as soon as he realized. Fuck, had they all just been watching him? Todd felt the chilled fall air turn against him, rushing with warmth as a flush traveled up his neck. He came to a stop next to Neil and wondered if he could effectively hide behind him. Unfortunately a quick moment of eye contact with Keating revealed the faults in that plan.

“Two roads-” Keating announced loudly, clapping his hands together loud enough that Todd jumped. “-diverged in a yellow wood.” A sweeping arm brought their attention to the forest behind them.

“Looks like more than two roads, Mr. Keating!” someone piped up, from somewhere Todd couldn’t see. It was one of the boys that had a talent for making stupid comments, tossed them at teachers like flies so they could watch them swat them off and laugh at the funny flailing. Todd found those types of boys annoying, and a little intimidating, but Keating was much better at catching flies than he was.

“Well of course!” Mr. Keating exclaimed. “Gosh, halfway through the year and I haven’t taught you not to always take poetry so literally? I didn’t realize I had failed you all so.” He delivered the lines with a smile, and was rewarded with scattered laughter. “No, Hopkins, Robert Frost did not literally mean that there are only two paths cutting through every wood, nor did he mean to imply there are only two roads to travel in life. In truth, there are many ways your lives will take you- a litany of paths that you only have to be bold enough to walk down.”

He clapped his hands together, and Todd silently applauded his complete lack of a reaction. “Now! Today you will be choosing your own paths. I want you to find something around you and write about it, simple at that. I must implore you not to wander too far, but other than that, the world is your oyster. Channel your inner John Keats, your William Wordsworth and, yes, your Robert Frost. When you get back, we’ll be comparing your works with some of the biggies. Go on now! Choose your roads!”

The class took off in a flurry of movement, a flock of birds in the woods exploding into flight at the sudden approach of a deer. Todd was surrounded by squawking beaks and fluttering feathers in a array so dizzying to his tired mind that he could hardly keep up with it. Charlie was pulling Neil away and then Meeks was tapping his shoulder and telling him to follow and Cameron was trailing behind them and making sure Todd knew he shouldn’t feel he had to come, but they’d be pleased to have him, of course.

And then they were mostly gone.

Todd sat down in the grass.

It was springy underneath him, a woven bed of little hands reaching towards each other, linking together to make a plush seat. Little stalks reached out and brushed against his ankles, tickling the hairs on his legs. Todd watched as his classmates wandered off into other parts of the forest, stopping to peel the bark off of the trees or pick up beetles that wandered through the leaves.

He thought he heard the poets talking about finding a stream to visit, and he imagined Meeks and Pitts scooping up minnows from the water, or Charlie pretending he was going to shove Knox in the mud, or Neil collecting shiny rocks to show to Cameron, who would find a spot to perch and write. Todd probably would have joined him, but he felt it was probably too late to get up now.

The sun was bright, and just warm enough to keep him comfortable. The grass was soft, and just green enough to catch his eye. The scene was quiet enough, even with-

“Mr. Anderson.”

Ah shit.

Todd looked up hesitantly, trying to not make eye contact, while trying not to avoid it either. It was a tricky balance.

Keating sat crouched in the grass beside him, slightly squinting in the sunlight, and the moment Todd saw him, his brain took off running with excuses like a startled cat. He was just about to open his notebook, he was making whatever bullshit statement Charlie was during the walking exercise, he was just fucking tired, he needed a break, he didn’t want to-

“Mind if I join you?”

Todd nodded, sort of a small, faintly there thing, and then again with a bit more vigor, so he could be sure Keating recognized the gesture. Keating nodded in return, before settling down next to him, cross-legged on the ground. Todd swallowed thickly, and tried to ignore the growing unease buried in its chest. His heart pecked at his ribcage like a trapped bird, and god did he want to let it out.

“You know-” Keating finally started after the seconds of silence had stretched on too long. “-I figured you’d want to join the rest of your crew. I heard some very exciting talk about a visit to a stream.”

Todd pulled a handful of grass up from the roots, stalks splitting and tearing between his fingers. “Oh, uh, yeah, I heard that too… I thought I’d just stay back.”

Keating raised an eyebrow, and Todd got the subtle sense that he had said something wrong. Not in the usual sense where he was going to get in trouble for it, but in the Keating sense where he was about to whip out a magnifying glass and shove Todd under the lens. He swallowed thickly, and ran his nails down the stalks of grass. Plant matter caked under his fingernails.

“Really? Any particular reason?”

“Uh, no, not- not really.” He rubbed his hand on his sweater, trying to wipe away the grass. It didn’t really work. “I think I’m just… tired.”

Keating hummed thoughtfully. “Just tired, then? Nothing else to get off your chest?”

Todd shook his head, and silently prayed he could get through the rest of this conversation without any more words. Maybe someone could interrupt, one of the poets could fall in the stream and suddenly need attention. That would be nice. It might even get rid of the warm prickling behind Todd’s eyes that had made an appearance without him really even knowing why.

“Well, if you ever need anything-”

“Do you have any poetry recommendations?” Todd blurted out.

A leaf crumpled in his hands.

Keating raised an eyebrow, successfully stopped in his tracks (which Todd supposed was what he’s been trying to do), and Todd suddenly felt the need to explain himself.

“Well, because- I mean…” He cut himself off, tore some more grass from the ground, and tried to regroup. “I was just looking for something new to read.”

Keating smiled, got that sort of twinkle in his eye as he picked up the book he had placed next to him. “Do you know what poem inspired our outing today?”

Todd blinked at him for a moment, processing the question along with his successful topic change. “Um, The Road Not Taken, right?”

“Indeed,” Keating confirmed with a nod, flipping through the thick book in front of him. “Robert Frost. ‘Two roads diverged in the wood and I / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference,’” he quoted as he found the right page and pushed the book towards Todd. “It’s very much in the spirit of carpe diem, wouldn’t you say? Choosing your path in life- even when it seems unpopular or wrong.”

Todd shrugged, silently hoping that this marked the conclusion to Keating’s lesson- a book delivered, a point proven. The words washed right over him anyway; they probably applied to just about everyone but him. “I don’t really choose a lot of paths.” Another fistful of grass was pulled up, blades knotting between Todd’s fingers. “Didn’t even go and join everyone else, just stayed here.” He tried for a laugh, which came out too soft to really have an effect. Todd cleared his throat.

“Oh, bullshit,” Keating said, and Todd was forced to look up at him in surprise. “You can’t avoid choice, Todd. Even if you stand still on that road, even if you set up camp and refuse to move, you have made a choice. Sure, you stayed behind while your classmates wandered about; that was your choice. But don’t think it wasn’t a unique one, and certainly don’t think it lacked value.”

Didn’t it? was all Todd could think. How much value could sitting in the grass while everyone else ran around and explored really have?

‘Mr. Anderson thinks everything inside him is worthless.’

But it wasn’t even that, Todd thought everything he did was worthless too. None of it mattered, none of it could matter, when there were so many people doing anything, everything he did, but so much better. Todd ran his thumb over the corner of the page. “It’s a good poem,” was all he could think to say.

Keating smiled. “It certainly is.” He flipped the corner of the page over into a dog-ear that Todd’s fingers immediately itched to fix, and closed the book over it. “Hopefully, that has just what you need.”

“Yeah. I, uh, I hope so,” he agreed haltingly. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, Mr. Anderson,” Keating said as he stood up. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, I believe you have an assignment to be working on.”

“Oh, right. Um, yes sir.”

With that, Keating walked away, likely to monitor the rest of his class. Todd silently tucked the poetry book under his own paper, carefully filling the page with words about the grass that sat caked underneath his fingernails.

#dead poets society #anderperry #neil perry #todd anderson #writing #fanfiction #duck writes #godddd im tired lol #they used this poem in the movie so it feels like cheating lol #but idc #i actually remember i started writing this #and THEN remembered that scene and it was kinda like #“oh well!”#anyway keating is lovely to write dialogue for #also i feel like he would curse in front of his students #you know?#we all had that teacher we thought was rlly cool in high school that would occasionally say “fuck” right?#that's him

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