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Soulmate marks were a taboo topic amongst the slaves of Tatooine. Having a soul mark established hope, a rare chance at a life outside of the toiling suns, envisioning meeting your other half and running away with them in the night. It was an idea too painful to fantasize for those that never received their mark at all. Without a mark, there was no chance at that life, that hope; there was nothing but the work, and the harsh strikes of punishment if the work wasn’t done.
It was at the trading port where Anakin heard his first story of a soulmark. Amid the scuffling and handling of rusted parts tied together to be dragged back to Watto’s shop, the smugglers and scrapers spoke of the spectacle that stirred when a mark was shown. Some told him that marks were semi-sentient and moving, unable to be inked over, even if you wanted to hide it. Others told him horror stories, when soulmates were bound together and trapped in a relationship while in love with another.
When Anakin asked his mother about her soul mark, her eyes had been kind as she sat with him in the small alcove outside their hut. Shmi explained to him that her mark hadn’t come in the normal way, not appearing at the age of her majority, but instead appearing in the nine months where she had been carrying him. She let Anakin hold the hand where once a shining, nebulous star had rested in her palm, in what she described as swirling colors. The day he had been born, the mark had disappeared, giving her a son that she loved.
Anakin doesn’t understand it, not really. But he knows he loves his mother just as much as she loves him, and that can’t be so bad, even on the worst days of the dusty planet they reside on and call home. He was too busy with his projects and his duties to think about the possibility of soulmates or soulmarks. That was, until the Jedi came.
^^^
“Padawan,” Obi-Wan’s voice rang out in the sudden quiet of the enclosed space of their ship. Anakin looked up from where he had been carving his second japor snippet, carefully blowing the scraps of wood off with a soft breath.
The first one he had made for Padme, crafted in the hopes that she might remember the time she had spent with Anakin and helped to make him feel safe in such a cold galaxy. But this one, this one was for Obi-Wan, who had promised him that he would be a Jedi. He would get to stay, he would get to train and learn to hone the power inside him, how to control it to help people. People like his mother, people that needed his help.
Anakin meets Obi-Wan’s eyes with a smile, curving the wood further into his palm to keep the pattern hidden. It was supposed to be a surprise, after all. But Obi-Wan just looked at him for a long moment, clasped elbows supporting his chin as he leaned forward in the ship’s seat. They maintained silence, the air filled with expectation the longer they tried to outlast each other.
Obi-Wan stands suddenly, moving towards him while shucking off the outermost robe he was wearing, instead draping it over Anakin’s much smaller shoulders. Anakin squeaks at the sudden weight, but the warmth of it hits him quicker, and with it the scent of Obi-Wan’s soap and linen wash. That’s when he belatedly realizes that he had been shaking with cold, too focused on his task to notice it before.
Anakin gathers the robes closer without a second thought, chasing the body heat still present in the cloth. It feels comforting, the fabric dwarfing his small frame and making him feel safe, and above all, very warm. He still wasn’t used to the coldness of space, and usually complained as soon as they were in hyperspace, but he hadn’t noticed it with all of his attention put on trying to remember the symbol he had been carving into the wood.
The small sitting area dipped as Obi-Wan sat beside Anakin, feeling calm and at ease in their newly established training bond. “What has you so concentrated that even the chatter of your teeth wasn’t prominent to you, Padawan?” Obi-Wan’s gaze flicks from Anakin’s face to the short braid that swings slightly when Anakin shrugs his shoulders, a boyish grin back on his face as he whispers between them, “A secret, Master!”
Obi-Wan’s face softens, a twinkle that had been hard to find since Qui-Gon’s death reemerging. “Oh, a secret, is it? Aren’t I allowed in on it, since I’ve been watching you fiddle with that wood for the most part of our journey back to the temple?”
Anakin bites at his lip, shuffling under the gifted robe in hesitation. “Well, it’s not done yet, Master…but, I guess so-” Anakin hurriedly uncurls his fingers and brings his unfinished creation for Obi-Wan to peer at. There’s a very quick, almost unnoticeable gasp of breath from Obi-Wan, as the cluster of stars looks back at him from the wood. Anakin wouldn’t have been able to hear it unless he had been pressed shoulder to shoulder with him.
Anakin sets about explaining. “My mother always told me that her soulmark brought her good luck…so I wanted it to be something to bring you luck too. She said it represented me, so I guess I just wanted you to know…that I’m with you and you’re with me, no matter where we are in the galaxy.”
Obi-Wan’s fingers twitch, as though he’s stopping himself from reaching out to it. “I…thank you, Padawan, but I- that is…a very personal marking. Are you sure your mother would want me to have it?” Anakin nods his head, bumping their feet together playfully. “She wouldn’t mind. She would have loved to meet you, and would be just as grateful as I am that you chose to train me even after…” Anakin’s voice died off.
“Even after everything.” Obi-Wan finishes, catching the hand that’s holding the japor snippet and curling around it, his palm big and strong and comforting. “Thank you, Anakin. I couldn’t be more honored.”
Anakin doesn’t feel cold anymore, not after that.
^^^
Anakin is fourteen when he first glimpses Obi-Wan’s soulmark. They had just finished a mission based on the Outer Rim planet Baskarn, a jungle planet with a strange Force presence coming from the plant life and the trees that surrounded it. The tribe folk that lived there had at first tried to kill them for trespassing, with Anakin becoming…slightly more hostile than he needed to be.
They had been pointing a spear right at Obi-Wan’s throat, and the stress of it made Anakin overreact. He knew he had to remain calm, but whenever he saw his Master’s life at risk, he felt something deep in his core tighten in panic.
When Anakin acted out, one of the tribe folk had slashed their spear through Anakin’s robes to make a shallow cut on his arm, shallow enough only to be seen as a warning. But Obi-Wan had snarled harshly, pulling Anakin close to his chest and checking over him with their bond and putting his hand over the slightly stinging wound, rubbing it softly with his thumb, as if he could take away the throb of pain.
It made Anakin’s heart race, and he didn’t know why. Seeing his composed Master so worried, protective of him, like Anakin was of his Master.
Although their meeting had started off wrong, the tribe recognized them as Jedi and allowed them to mingle in their camp, settling a leadership dispute that Anakin hardly remembered. He had been too busy looking through the trees and plants that had been almost sentient, sparkling in the Force at him in amusement as he prodded at them.
Overall, a rather tame mission. They hadn’t needed to arrest anyone who was shooting at them, or slice through any dangerous creatures trying to kill them. However, the rain and the mud that it caused left both of them filthy, trudging back to their ship miserably in mud soaked robes.
Anakin groaned, letting himself sink down onto the wall as the door shut behind them. He feels his Master’s amusement and slight reproval in their bond, mud no doubt getting onto the ship, but no matter where he stepped he would get something dirty.
“Come along, Padawan, I’ll even let you use the fresher first.” That made Anakin pop up again, grinning as he sprinted past Obi-Wan to his small quarters to grab some new clothes, leaving his messy boots and outer robes on the floor to clean later. Only, it looked like he hadn’t packed an extra undershirt. In his defense, he hadn’t realized that he had needed to order any new ones, and thought that one would be enough for a quick negotiation mission.
He groaned as he trudged over to his Master’s much bigger and nicer quarters, peeking his head through the door. “Master, I need-”
His words die out in his throat, as he hadn’t realized his Master had started changing already. His back was turned to Anakin, which revealed something that he had never seen from Obi-Wan before.
His soulmark. It was a vast evening sky, spanning from shoulder to shoulder, and trailing down his back to the edges of his elbows. A whole span of stars blinked back at him, almost twinkling, and changed along with Obi-Wan’s muscle movements. The sky swirled with various colors and variations, sometimes red, sometimes blue, sometimes purple. It wasn’t like anything Anakin had ever seen before. It looked so… alive .
So this was why his Master never took his shirt off when they sparred, even when he was drenched in sweat.
Anakin was cut off from his astonishment as Obi-Wan turned quickly, frowning at him and quickly making it so that his back was out of view once again. “Padawan!”
Anakin winced, scrambling to explain, “I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to see, I just-” Anakin shut his mouth at Obi-Wan’s long, drawn out sigh. “Anakin, you have absolutely no sense of privacy, do you?”
Anakin would be more offended about the sarcasm if he wasn’t buzzing with questions. “But Master, you have…you have a soulmark. Why didn’t you say anything? I’ve always wanted to see one!” At Obi-Wan’s unamused glare Anakin winced at the phrasing.
“No, I just mean…well. I know soulmarks are personal.” Obi-Wan sat back heavily on the bunk against the wall, holding his head in his hands as he grunted out, “Yes, on account of the mark being a part of one’s own soul, they can be extremely personal, Padawan.”
Anakin bit his lip, cautiously sitting down next to him and keeping his eyes at his own lap. “I’m sorry, Master. I didn’t mean to see it before you were comfortable.” He hesitated to ask, but needed to know. “Were you ever going to show me?”
Obi-Wan’s eyes were unreadable, and he was shielding in their Force bond. He seemed conflicted, and turned to Anakin with a chagrined smile. “Eventually, maybe. I’ve only shown it to one other…but I don’t mind you seeing it, Anakin.” Obi-Wan’s hand on Anakin’s shoulder made him realize that he had been fidgeting, worrying he had caused pain to his Master.
He hadn’t thought of his perfectly unattached Master having a soulmark. It was something that changed Anakin’s entire perspective. He wondered how it felt for Obi-Wan, going to so many different worlds and planets for their missions, wondering if he would run into his fated other half.
“I…” Anakin licked his lips, feeling parched, terrified. “Can I see it again?”
Obi-Wan didn’t look surprised at the question, squeezing Anakin’s shoulder once before moving so that Anakin could get a clearer look.
Anakin took it in for the gift that it was. It was even more impressive up close; swirls of blue and purple, the size and shape of the stars that constantly flickered in and out of existence, changing at the blink of an eye…
Anakin didn’t realize his hand was reaching out until he had accidentally made contact with one of the stars at Obi-Wan’s spine. They both flinched harshly, and Obi-Wan hissed as if he’d been burned. Anakin took his hand away quickly, stammering and apologizing as Obi-Wan tugged on his new clean tunics, effectively hiding the mark again.
He strided out of the quarters, heading for the pilot's chair with an indifferent demeanor as he instructed Anakin to take a sonic.
Anakin didn’t know if what he had done was taboo…if someone other than your soulmate touched your soulmark, did it cause pain?
Anakin could only hope that he didn’t cause a rift between them because of his kriffing curiosity.
^^^
Anakin is eighteen. Well, he will be, tomorrow. Today is the last day he will be in his youth. Tomorrow will be the day he gets his soulmark.
He’s convinced he will have one. Everyone’s been whispering about it, debating what the Chosen One’s soulmark will be, how grand it will look.
Anakin hopes, and he hopes, and he is let down.
He stays awake through the night, and with his Master out on a solo mission, he has no one there to see him sob when nothing ever comes.
He goes to Healer Che, hoping that she might have an explanation, something that Anakin might have missed as he searched and searched, but the tests bore no results.
She put a hand on his arm, smiling at him calmly. “Not all of us get our soulmarks when we come of age, young one. Yours may still come and surprise you one day.”
When Obi-Wan comes back from his mission, neither of them bring up the topic of soulmarks again.
^^^
It all starts out like any other day, like any other moment, until it all falls apart.
Obi-Wan is shot down, and Anakin keeps going, knowing Ahsoka has him and can get him to medical.
That’s when he begins to feel a harsh burning in the center of his chest, and a snapping of the bond that they’d always shared, suddenly gone quiet.
He stops in his tracks and almost cries out at the pain of it, breathing harshly around the panic, the realization-
Obi-Wan isn’t moving.
Why isn’t he moving?
Anakin falls to his knees in front of his Padawan and his Master. His unmoving Master.
“Obi-Wan…OBI-WAN!”
He isn’t breathing.
The pain spreads like a fire, splintering out from his chest and taking over his veins, weaving into his spine, curving around his heart. He doesn’t realize he’s screaming, flesh and mechno hand clenching at his chest as the physical manifestation of a grief he can’t describe descends into his soul.
He can’t see anything, he can’t hear, he can’t understand anything about a world where Obi-Wan isn’t with him. The ground under him begins to crack, everything is tilted, wrong, rotten, distorted.
Ahsoka’s calling someone on her comm, frantic, and that’s when Anakin sees the blood that’s dripping from his own tunics.
He tries to do something, something, but all he can do is scream. There’s people grabbing him, and the thought of Obi-Wan being taken to a place Anakin cannot follow has him snarling and lunging away, but a quick jab of a sedative makes him slump over.
Someone is taking Obi-Wan, his body, kark, Obi-Wan’s dead body, they’re taking it away. The pain is mounting, spreading, itching, burning like coals are being pressed into every part of his body, silent tears and whimpers of agony escaping his lips as it glows brighter the farther away Obi-Wan gets.
He hears himself as if in a fog, calling out, begging, pleading. He wants it to stop. He needs everything to stop, to make sense again, for Obi-Wan to cradle his face and tell him it’ll be okay, he needs his Master to make the pain stop.
He doesn’t realize he’s in the Halls of Healing until Healer Che is hovering over him, parting his robes where the blood had started, and at her touch his entire body ignites with a stabbing pain, like lightning, like poison, like death. His mouth parts on a silent scream, his voice breaking, his vision dotting with spots as it becomes too much.
He feels a Force blanket of cold come over him, and he knows nothing else.
^^^
Anakin’s first moment of cognition as the blanket of cold lifts to welcome back in the sensations, is spent calling out for his Master.
“Obi-Wan? Master! OBI-WAN! Where is he, is he okay, is he-”
Healer Che is somber, coming to him as soon as he’s up and stirring.
“Anakin. You’ve been in a coma for two weeks, and in that time…Obi-Wan’s funeral was arranged and has passed.”
The windows of the Halls of Healing shatter. Anakin, unmoving from his bed, feels his entire body ache, his voice cutting out before he could utter a single sound.
There are shouts of panic from everyone at the violent mess, but Healer Che keeps looking straight at Anakin, voice never wavering. “When he died, your body went into shock, and your soulmark came before it was meant to out of a stress reaction. It causes a lot of imbalances that you need time to heal from, and your body hasn’t completely adjusted.”
Anakin, unseeing, unfeeling, looks down at the place where he feels aching and hurting and bleeding.
Healer Che gently comes forward to help him stand, Anakin tame as a duckling allowing her to manhandle him to one of the mirrors in the halls. She helps him part his tunic.
His soulmark. It’s a vast morning sky, spanning from collarbone to collarbone, and trailing down his chest to the edges of his ribs. A whole span of colors blinked back at him, the sky swirling with various colors and variations, sometimes red, sometimes orange, sometimes yellow. Some familiar stars twinkled at him, not quite disappearing from the morning sun that glimmers close to Anakin’s heart. It looked so… alive .
He, embarrassingly, passes out in Healer Che’s arms.
^^^
Anakin hasn’t been able to speak a word since he’d been told everything. How Obi-Wan was murdered, taken away from everyone too young, and Anakin’s body had been so distraught that it had broken. He hadn’t even been able to say goodbye.
He hadn’t gotten to tell his soulmate, the other half of him, the part of him that had always been there for him, that he loved him.
Anakin didn’t get to tell him any of the words in his heart.
And now he doesn’t speak any words at all.
Anakin wraps his mark up as much as he can, even the fabric of cloth causing it to burn and ache. He wonders if it’ll be a permanent feeling, now that Obi-Wan isn’t here to sooth it, to match it.
He gets released from the Halls of Healing after another week of observation. He doesn’t know what to do, when the council gives him their sympathies and instructs him to stay grounded at the temple for time to grieve.
Ahsoka is overjoyed that Anakin’s okay. She cries and hugs him, apologizing to him for not getting to Obi-Wan sooner, and Anakin can’t stop the way he wraps his arms around her and crushes her against him, even as his mark burns agonizingly.
She had been training under Master Plo Koon in his absence, and asks if she should keep doing so. He can only nod his head. He can’t explain to her why. Why he can’t speak, why he doesn’t have anything left to say. She seems to understand, even as she feels distraught at the idea of it becoming permanent.
Anakin doesn’t know if he can continue to be anyone, let alone a Master to his Padawan, without Obi-Wan.
He feels a week drag on with little care. He doesn’t leave his rooms. The faces of his fellow Jedi and their gentle words to him, all the little places he remembers his Master taking him, all the reminders. He can’t face them.
He doesn’t feel human, merely a shell, a ghost of a man that once was.
The Chancellor comms him, saying that he has information about Obi-Wan’s killer. Anakin throws the comm against the wall and smashes it to pieces.
He can hardly stand to shower, knowing that he would have to see the skin of his mark, making him live in the reality of being alone all over again.
He’s afraid to go into Obi-Wan’s rooms, too afraid to see the way dust has collected over everything. But when Anakin has another nightmare, reliving the pain over and over again, he can’t help but go to where he was always welcomed, always soothed of his fears.
He wraps himself around Obi-Wan’s robes, sobbing at the familiar smell, silently crying into them and feeling more of himself slipping away the same way the scents start to dissipate when Anakin wakes the next morning.
He finds little things strewn about the room, things that make Anakin desolate. His old padawan braid, side by side with the braid Obi-Wan cut off his own head at Qui-Gon’s death. The japor snippet tucked into a pouch, so it wouldn’t chip. Some of Anakin’s first lightsaber designs.
It feels like a nightmare he can’t wake up from everyday, when he feels the beat of his heart against a soulmark he thought didn’t exist, for a man that is dead.
Only. He isn’t.
^^^
“Anakin?”
Anakin doesn’t move from his spot in Obi-Wan’s bed, gritting his teeth. A shadow falls over him, and Anakin looks up at a ghost. He almost screams, but the words he couldn’t say are now clogging up his throat all at once.
Obi-Wan looks tired, bags under his eyes like he hasn’t slept in months. His clothes are unfamiliar and disheveled, and his hair and beard look soft, as if regrown quickly. Anakin’s mark starts sparking, prickling like a wound pulsing blood, and Anakin curls up with a small whimper, the pain whiting out his eyes.
“-akin?! Anakin, what’s wrong, what hurts?” Obi-Wan sounds frantic, and Anakin is still processing, still trying to understand, because this can’t be real. This can’t be him. But the hand on his cheek, the thumb wiping away the tears that are pouring from him, the soft familiar pressure of Obi-Wan’s body over his, makes Anakin realize that it is. It’s real.
The pain is spiking, growing insistent, and Anakin knows what he needs.
His hands shake as he comes up to grasp Obi-Wan’s wrists, the physical weight of them heavy and overpowering. Anakin speaks for the first time in a month, broken and hurting. “Master.”
Obi-Wan’s chest expands and contracts, breaths real and beautiful as he whispers with a gentle, all-encompassing love, “Padawan.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes are wet as they watch Anakin fall apart, following Anakin’s insistent tugging and straddling him from where he’s curled up to the farthest corner. Anakin’s shaking and suddenly it’s all pouring out of him, everything he can’t keep in at the weight of Obi-Wan on him again.
He fists his hands in Obi-Wan’s shirt, gasping for breath through his tears, whimpering, crying, “Why did you leave me Master? Don’t leave me alone again, don’t go, it hurts so bad, everything hurts, you weren’t here to make it stop, Obi-Wan I can’t live without you, I feel so empty, I love you I love you I love-”
He’s cut off by Obi-Wan’s stilted growl and the feeling of their lips meeting, messy and perfect. It feels like Obi-Wan is trying to consume him, taking in every tear and every scream that’s trapped inside, the leftover ache from their separation dissipating. They move against each other, pulling closer until there’s no part of them that’s separated.
When they move away they’re breathing heavily, Obi-Wan littering kisses across Anakin’s face, his forehead, his nose, his eyes, his tears, the trembling of his chin, the scar that marks his eye. Anakin feels like he’s alive again.
“My Anakin…I hurt you, didn’t I? More than I could ever imagine.” Obi-Wan’s grip becomes even tighter at Anakin’s choked off noise, fearing he’s about to drown in all the emotions he’s feeling. The ache of his soulmark is lesser, but not completely gone, not quite satisfied.
Instead of responding, Anakin squirms out of Obi-Wan’s grip to uncurl himself, untangling their legs. Obi-Wan lets him go quickly, his face going white as his body moves away, eyes heartbroken. Anakin almost wants to laugh at him, seeing what his Master is thinking, and uses his still tight grip to bring Obi-Wan back closer so that their foreheads are bumping softly.
“Obi-Wan, I…my soul couldn’t handle your…your death. I think…I think I almost died with you.” Anakin’s moving his head to rest it against Obi-Wan’s tensed shoulder, hearing the way Obi-Wan’s heartbeat becomes faster, and suddenly he’s sitting in Obi-Wan’s lap, holding in a gasp at the way his Master’s hands trail over him, searching for some hidden pain that he could sooth.
Anakin squirms and hums in delight at how he feels overwhelmed by Obi-Wan, taking in his scent, his warmth, his hands, his whispers of apologies spilling out and settling over them like a warm cup of caf. Anakin reaches out for their Force bond, Obi-Wan immediately reaching back and reconnecting the severed lines of it.
His soulmark sings, feeling Obi-Wan in his every pore, his every thought, his every breath. His soulmate is here, alive, holding him.
Anakin kisses him again, moaning at the way Obi-Wan grips his hair, angles his jaw to lick into Anakin’s mouth, thawing the last of the tension between them as Obi-Wan whispers against their lips, “I love you, I’m sorry Anakin, I’m so sorry…”
Anakin shucks off his robes, grappling with the bandages he had kept over his mark, desperation tinting his breaths at the pure need he feels to see it, to show Obi-Wan how their souls rang true with their words.
“Anakin, what are these, were you shot?!” Obi-Wan’s steadying his hands, trying to meet his eye, but Anakin growls at him, tugging so that Obi-Wan’s helping to take them off with him. At the first sign of color Obi-Wan’s protests are dying, helping him gently unwind it until the entire soulmark is hovering between them, swirling and bright.
Obi-Wan’s gaping, hand hovering in uncertainty, tears welling in his eyes as he finally understands what Anakin had meant. Anakin presses up closer in his lap, whispering between them, “I couldn’t live without my other half, I need you Obi-Wan, please, please help me, make it stop hurting.”
Obi-Wan’s hands move to hold Anakin’s hips, keeping him steady as he leans down and brushes his lips against the sun marked over his heart, forehead resting on the stars that mark them as one, voice broken and tears coating his words, “Anakin, my love, my soul, my dear heart.”
Anakin keens, body going taut as the pain finally vanishes, flashing white hot and then cool, their Force signatures glimmering with the colors of their marks, and Anakin is digging his hands under Obi-Wan’s shirt collar, gripping at the skin of his back, feeling Obi-Wan shudder at the joint touching of their marks.
“Master, Obi-Wan, please-” Their kisses are hurried, Anakin tearing at Obi-Wan’s clothes to reveal skin, pressing his mark against Obi-Wan’s bare chest and whimpering at the way pleasure courses through his skin.
“My love, you’ve been mine for all this time, as I’ve been yours, and I won’t waste another moment of it, I promise,” Obi-Wan is panting into his skin, and Anakin knows his words are true.
They’ll never be apart again, and Obi-Wan proves it to him, for years and years.