"honestly, just stop it" or "i'm not even sorry" for princess diaries au?
"i'm not even sorry"! for the princess diaries au (or, the obikin version of the scene in princess diaries 2 where they push each other into a fountain)
(2.2k)
Riyu Chuchi is a nice enough princess. She’s kind, and she’s pretty, and she has enough of a backbone that Anakin feels confident that if he ever does something she doesn’t like or approve of, she’ll let him know.
These things are important in a marriage, Anakin thinks.
Riyu, a twin born two minutes after the first, loves her country enough to leave it and marry someone else so there’s no contender for her sister’s throne. And Anakin loves his country enough to marry a woman and resign himself to living what’s always going to be at least partly a lie to produce an heir, to keep Genovia’s monarchy going strong.
It’s a duty he spent most of his life—eighteen years of it—unaware he had, but now at twenty-one, he can’t ignore it anymore.
He doesn’t want to, is the thing. He wants to get married. Now. So the love has as much time as possible to grow. His parents married young and for love, and they stayed together right up until the day his father died.
Anakin will marry young, for duty and not for love, but Riyu seems perfectly nice. Very accommodating so far, though this is mostly based on how the last candidate for the wedding he’d met had turned up her nose at the pears.
Anakin’s only been prince of Genovia for three years, but that’s long enough to get pretty attached and defensive about their pears.
She’ll make a great wife is what everyone says when Anakin asks, which is all Anakin needs to hear to start planning how to ask.
They’ll have a long engagement, if she says yes, which Anakin knows she will. Maybe if—if certain things had not happened, they wouldn’t even need to get engaged immediately.
But certain things had happened.
Obi-Wan Kenobi had happened.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, one of Genovia’s more well-endowed with land lords, had happened. Had—had waltzed up to Anakin’s private coat closet freak out, got him drunk and halfway in love before humiliating him at his own birthday ball, only to then corner him in a linen closet and kiss him halfway back to being in love, only for them to get caught by a few gossipy maids.
So now Anakin is getting married so people will stop fucking talking about it. He can’t be king of Genovia if the people don’t trust him to lead, and the selection of articles and tweets and opinion pieces his valet leaves out for him in a box every morning makes it very clear that getting caught making out with a man sixteen years his senior in a fucking linen closet has not inspired confidence in Anakin’s ability to make decisions with anything other than his dick.
So marriage.
Engagement now, marriage in a year or two. A long engagement. To give Anakin as much time as he can to ease into love, build it and commit to it, even if he’ll never feel it naturally, not for Riyu.
And he thinks maybe today’s just as good a day as any to propose. They’re hosting a garden party on the palace grounds because there’s nothing his grandfather is more proud of or in love with in Genovia than his gardens.
Well, his gardens and Anakin, which is why Anakin thinks maybe today is the perfect time to ask Riyu formally for her hand in marriage. She’s looking very nice and put-together, wearing a blue dress that definitely makes her look. Very nice. And her hair is up too, also looking nice, and she’s smiling at everyone and remembering all their names, which is great because Anakin is terrible at that, and her smile definitely makes her look—nice.
Lunch has been served and eaten, and now the part that’s left is Anakin’s least favorite: walk around, make nice, and slowly go insane trying to pretend his shoes aren’t pinching his feet and his head isn’t hurting from the dehydration and the intense amount of sun beating down on him. At least with Riyu on his arm, he’s not suffering alone.
If he’s never able to love her like a husband loves his wife, at least he may be able to love her like a teammate. The thought gives him a bit of comfort, ring box burning in his jacket pocket. He shifts slightly, bringing himself and Riyu to a standstill on the garden path between two groups of people. They’re at the mouth of one of Qui-Gon’s miniature hedge mazes. Anakin could lead Riyu through it, to the center, and propose.
The ring is heavy in his pocket. No, he will propose. He—
“Princess,” a very familiar and very unwelcome interrupts, and Anakin turns around immediately, already flushed and angry because Obi-Wan Kenobi had not been invited. Anakin knows that for a fact, and he’s going to fucking—
Obi-Wan Kenobi isn’t even looking at him. “Princess Riyu, what a surprising delight.”
“Lord Kenobi,” Riyu replies, looking unfairly and remarkably charmed. “I wasn’t aware you were coming.”
“He wasn’t supposed to—”
“How could I miss a garden soiree, my dear?” Kenobi asks innocently, cutting right through Anakin’s voice as if he weren’t interrupting his future king. “Has anyone told you how lovely you look today?”
Anakin scowls. “Yes.”
Obi-Wan arches an eyebrow.
“He did say I looked very nice,” Riyu allows, shooting Anakin a small grin.
“You do,” Anakin mumbles, unable to shake the feeling that he’s on the wrong end of a joke he doesn’t quite understand.
“Well, a compliment no matter how bland from a future king is worth ten from a mere lord,” Kenobi says blasely, and Anakin scowls.
“Obi-Wan, please, I’m about to get jealous,” an unfamiliar but no less welcome voice says, and Anakin blinks away from Kenobi for the first time since the man’s arrival to see another man—a boy, really—standing just behind Kenobi.
The boy has dark curly hair, amber eyes, and a strong jaw. He looks about Anakin’s age, and holds himself like he’s God’s gift to this hellish party.
“Apologies, darling. Please,” Kenobi wraps an arm around the boy’s waist and brings him level with them. “Meet Princess Riyu of Pantora.”
Riyu coughs politely.
“And, of course, Prince Anakin. Of Genovia.”
“Who are you?” Anakin asks when the boy reaches out a hand to shake. He crosses his arms over his chest.
Obi-Wan arches his other eyebrow. “Darling, where have you been the past five years? In the back of a closet? This is Set.”
Anakin colors, heart picking up as fury stirs in his chest. “Of?” he asks the boy. Set. Whatever.
Set smirks. Anakin thinks he’s definitely got maybe the most punchable face he’s seen, like. Ever.
“Of nothing,” the boy says.
“Of pop stardom,” Obi-Wan intercedes. “Set here is the number one most listened to artist across the board in Genovia, did you know?”
Obviously Anakin didn’t know. “Oh, well. Riyu here has been playing the piano for the past twenty years, she’s quite talented.”
“I can imagine,” Obi-Wan smiles cooly. “Set was discovered while busking on the streets during his senior year of high school.”
“Oh, just last year then?” Anakin asks innocently. “Did you know Riyu has a master’s in international relations and business entrepreneurship?”
“That’s noteworthy,” Obi-Wan ducks his head, but Anakin’s eyes are drawn to the way his hand curls around Set’s waist like it belongs there. “I read an article a few days ago that said Set is the future face of Genovia.”
“Then it looks like you have a type,” Anakin bites out, dropping his arms to curl his hands into fists.
“Like hell I do,” Obi-Wan snaps back, face pinched and eyes sharp. “Set is actually honest about what he wants and from who.”
“Set,” Riyu says, “would you like to escort me to the lemonade table? I’d hate to get in the way of their pissing competition.”
“It would be my pleasure, milday,” Set replies, extending an arm that Riyu gratefully grabs. “And has anyone told you that you look lovely today?”
“And meant it?” Riyu says with a laugh as they depart. “I don’t think so, no.”
“The nerve,” Anakin hisses at Obi-Wan, reaching across the scant distant between them and shoving hard at his chest. “You can see yourself out.”
He spins around and stalks away. He doesn’t get very far at all before Kenobi is catching his wrist and pulling them back together.
“You know I can’t, princess,” he murmurs, just for them, and it’s so fucking—it’s the fucking worst, because his voice is so light but his eyes are so dark. His hair looks so soft, and his beard smells so good, and he—he looks fucking lovely, in his light gray linen suit and light blue tie that brings out the gray in his eyes and he’s looking at Anakin like he knows that Anakin thinks he looks lovely and Anakin is going to scream.
“Why not?” he snaps, begs, bringing up a hand to push Obi-Wan away but forgetting to do so as soon as Obi-Wan catches it with his free hand.
“Because,” his voice drops. “That’s not the way a suit jacket is supposed to lie.”
The words don’t make sense, not until Obi-Wan darts a hand down, into the exposesd inner pocket of Anakin’s suit jacket to pull out the ring box.
He raises both eyebrows, face flushed as if he has a reason to be angry, before turning on his heel and stalking away, through the hedges to the Qui-Gon’s stupid miniature maze and away from the party all together.
Anakin is quick to follow.
After all, the bastard stole his engagement ring.
“Give that back!” he demands as he chases after Obi-Wan’s surprisingly quick figure. “I am your future king—I could—hang you for this!”
Obi-Wan whirls round quite suddenly as they turn a corner, pressing him back against the wall of the hedge, higher here now. “And I’m just a lord,” he says, slipping the ring box into his own backpocket as he boxes Anakin in with his arms. “Trying to stop his future king from making an idiotic mistake.”
“Oh yeah?” Anakin scowls. “Pretty sure all the mistakes I’ve made so far have involved you!”
“You don’t want to marry that woman, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says as if Anakin hasn’t spoken at all. “You don’t have to—”
“Maybe a lord can show up to a party with a man on his arm, but you do not get to tell me what my duties are as a prince—”
“No one is asking this of you!” Obi-Wan puts his hands on his shoulders, as if barely resisting the urge to shake him. “No one in Genovia cares if you marry now or not! They are excited to have you as their king, they do not need a queen—especially one their king will not want!”
“You have no idea about what I want!” Anakin shouts, using his height to his advantage to loom as much as he can over Obi-Wan. When that doesn’t feel like enough, he shoves him out of his way, spinning them around and against the hedge so hard the plant shakes.
“I think I do,” Obi-Wan murmurs, allowing himself to be held, and it’s only then that Anakin realizes he’s been staring solely at the other man’s lips. “Do you really think kissing me was a mistake?” he asks, tilting his head up in a much more effective use of their height difference.
“Yeah,” Anakin says roughly, swallowing the sudden rush of saliva in his mouth. “I regret kissing you. Fucking—all the time.”
Because he can’t stop thinking about it. Because Obi-Wan keeps showing up. Because he can’t focus around him now. Because he smells so good. Because—because—
“I don’t,” Obi-Wan confesses, closing the gap between their lips and whispering the words against his lips. “I thought about it, and I know I should feel—different. But if I must watch you marry a woman we both know you will never love, I cannot regret stealing those moments with you. I’m not even sorry.”
Anakin finds it hard to swallow, air scarce between their faces. He stumbles back, and this time Obi-Wan allows him to go, an unreadable look on his face.
“I—you’re wrong, I—could, I would love—we’d—you’re wrong—”
“I’m not,” Obi-Wan’s face looks tender, which is an expression Anakin isn’t sure he’s seen on him before. “I—wish I were to make it easier for you.”
He reaches into his pocket and withdraws the ring box, taking Anakin’s hand in his own and wrapping his fingers around the velvet material.
“I’m sorry I’m not,” he says very quietly, as Anakin drops his gaze to stare at their overlapping fingers around the box. He stares at it long after Obi-Wan squeezes his fingers and leaves.
He almost wishes he’d kissed him instead.
He almost wishes he’d pushed him in a fountain. That would have been kinder.
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