#styles like girl whats the difference either way he gon be thinkin about me when he gets home

[firelise]

Kant: I need you to make this guy fall in love with you

Style: Sure I'd love to annoy the fuck out of him

Kant: ...Not what I said at all

[tennessoui]

29 G.A.t.W. AU - The C.W.s start 2yrs early bc of Galactic Law EVERY Natborn in the GAR MUST be 18yr old. Obi-Wan is forced to leave behind his young Padawan. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.. Without the Masters being able to be there physically they have to start training programs to help the Pawadans. Every Master now has to teach certain subjects. Anakin finally sees a mind healer & finds inner peaces without the Council breathing down his neck. The Temple Locked Down so No Sith Influenc

so this is a beautiful ask and beautiful future and i followed it like i follow my google maps directions which means maybe 30% of the way but i was watching lord of the rings and thinkin about braids so here is this and i'm very sorry it's what it is

29. Going Away To War AU (Tatooine slave culture, 17!Anakin, preslash/Anakin's pining, mullet!Obi-Wan)(2.3k)

The Padawan braid isn’t the first braid Anakin learns about. It’s not even the fiftieth. By the time Qui-Gon Jinn, Queen Amidala, and Obi-Wan Kenobi land on Tatooine, Anakin is well-versed in the language of braids and what each means. He hadn’t had any of his own yet, seeing as how he was only nine with no accomplishments or triumphs or romantic entanglements to advertise, but if he had stayed on Tatooine, he’d probably have gotten his first braid after he won the podrace.

HIs mother would have done it with gentle hands and a proud smile, and their neighbors would have gathered outside their door to try and be the first one to congratulate him.

Braids are important. They’re sacred. Their style and the beads woven through the strands signify everything important to know about the Tatooinian wearing them. He’d see the freed people’s braids in the marketplace and burn with envy. He’d see a blushing girl braid her lover’s obsidian into his hair to signify courtship, and know one day he’d do the same to someone else. He’d practice his braids until his hands hurt from the motion, wanting to be perfect at it before he’d need to know. After all, as a slave, there wouldn’t be much else he could offer them except beautiful braids and beads.

There is only one braid he doesn’t know the meaning of, and it’s the one that hung down Obi-Wan Kenobi’s shoulder when they first met.

He thinks about asking him, even though it might be considered rude, but before he can, they’re at the Jedi Temple, then on Naboo and then Master Jinn is dead and Obi-Wan’s braid is gone, and Anakin thinks, oh. So the braid means love.

Mourners on Tatooine cut the braids off their dead and then a single braid from their own head, to mean that a part of themselves has died as well. Obi-Wan tries to be extra nice to Obi-Wan after that.

That is, until the man approaches Anakin with a serrated knife and a rueful grin and tells him that because the Council has allowed him to take him as his padawan, it’s time for Anakin to have the Padawan haircut.

The fit Anakin throws at these words could probably be heard back on Tatooine, but his new master must be made of the same strength Lukka crafts the sandstorms from, because an hour later, Anakin is looking at his shorn locks on the floor in a state of horrified shock.

Obi-Wan kneels down at his side as he begins braiding together the lone strand of hair Anakin has been allowed to keep.

“I’m sorry,” his master says quietly. “I know that your hair is very important to you on Tatooine.”

“How will I practice my braids now?” Anakin asks despondently. If he is to have short hair until he’s Obi-Wan’s age (ancient), then he won’t ever be able to practice the courtship braids. The engagement braids. The marriage braids. All the other ones too. Do the Jedi just present their beloveds with sloppy braids?

The thought has him near tears.

Obi-Wan looks very panicked. “Please don’t cry,” he begs. “Jedi apprentices shouldn’t cry.”

Anakin’s vision becomes even more blurred at this. Now he’ll never be able to practice his braids and he’s a bad Jedi.

“Oh blast, that’s not what I meant,” Obi-Wan backtracks, hesitantly putting his hand on Anakin’s shoulder. It’s not very comforting, but it’s the best Anakin has so he resolves to make do and lean into the touch. “Well. You can, uh. You can braid my hair?”

Anakin sniffles. “Your hair is short. And ugly.”

His master laughs and ruffles Anakin’s own short hair. “I’ll grow it out, just for you if it’s that important to you.”

He would? Anakin looks up at him hopefully. That could work. It even makes sense, kind of, for Obi-Wan to let Anakin braid his hair. After all, Anakin’s going to be wearing Obi-Wan’s braid, even though he doesn’t love him yet.

Maybe the Jedi do things differently. Maybe the Jedi weave the braid, and the love comes later.

---

“I remember a young boy telling me my hair was ugly,” his master says consideringly, as he lets himself be pushed to the floor while Anakin clambers onto the bed behind him.

“You bring that up every time, Master,” he sighs as he strokes his hands through Obi-Wan’s admittedly beautiful mane of hair. It’s not as long as he’d like, not really, but it doesn at least go down to his shoulders. “I don’t know how many times you want me to apologize.”

“Oh, just once more,” his master smiles with his voice. Anakin will miss this. Anakin doesn’t know how he’ll live without it, without Obi-Wan’s quiet wit and wry humor, his willingness to indulge Anakin no, even if it’s been eight years of braid-practicing.

“Once more might be all we have time for, Master,” Anakin whispers. His fears are not the sort one can say loudly.

“Do not think like that,” Obi-Wan turns his head to the side just enough so that he can look up at Anakin. “It will be fine. I will be fine.” “You’d be better if I came with you!” Anakin argues loudly. “You know I’m old enough! It’s not fair!”

His voice cracks on the last word, making him wince as Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow.

“The Jedi Council and all Republic legal branches have spoken. We will not take children into a warzone--”

“Then don’t, but I’m almost eightee--”

“--And I agree with them.”

Anakin’s fingers slacken on the strands of hair, loosening the braid. “You do?” he asks, feeling betrayed. “You want to leave me here at the Temple while you go get yourself killed on some Mid-Rim planet?”

“I want you safe, Padawan,” Obi-Wan corrects, breaking away from him so that he may stand up and sit beside him on the bed. “A war is no place for Jedi, but while us knights have no choice but to fight, we would keep our younglings as far from it as possible--even those younglings who are only a few months shy of being eighteen.”

“You’re taking away my choice,” Anakin says quietly, anger abating enough that he has to struggle to hide the fear in his voice. He brings his knees up against his chest and curls tightly into himself. “What if you die and--and--” he breaks off and pulls useless at his Padawan braid.

He knows what it means now after eight years spent at the Jedi Temple. It’s supposed to denote the Padawan from the Master, and signify the respect an apprentice has for their teacher.

But he’s never been able to shake his original conclusion that it was a representation of love, though he’d never say that aloud.

But when he touches it, sees it in the mirror, he’s reminded only of the love he bears for his master. A guilty, shameful love that takes up too much of his mind and heart. He’d fallen in love with Obi-Wan somehow. Now when Anakin dreams of marriage beads, his fingers are invariably braiding them into coppery blond hair. Now when Anakin dreams of--well, other things, it’s always Obi-Wan’s body beneath his, over his, inside of his, around his--

And now the galaxy is at war, the Knights and Masters of the Jedi Temple called to defend the Republic, and Anakin is too young to follow his master.

“And what, dear one?” Obi-Wan asks gently, hand coming up to unclasp Anakin’s fingers from his braid. “If I die, you will let me go as any Jedi would. I will become one with the Force and you will continue forward.”

Anakin almost wants to shake his shoulders. Doesn’t his master know anything about Anakin at all? How could Obi-Wan say these things as if he believes them? If Obi-Wan were to die--if he were to die away from Anakin, without Anakin--if the unthinkable were to happen--Anakin doesn’t know what he’d do.

A part of himself would die as well, he knows that immediately. He’d cut Obi-Wan’s braid from his hair so that the man could be buried with it, and he’d never weave another.

“Have faith in me, Anakin,” Obi-Wan tells him softly, hand falling to rest on his shoulders. “I will come back. Or perhaps in a few months you will join me.” He sounds falsely enthusiastic, like he’d do anything to keep Anakin away from the war.

As if Anakin would let that happen as soon as he’s legally able to fight.

“Will you let me braid your hair?” he whispers, slowly sitting cross-legged.

“Of course,” Obi-Wan says immediately, sinking back to the floor.

“Will you keep them in this time? For as long as you can?” Anakin asks, shily, running his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair slowly, savoring the softness of the strands.

“I will do my best,” his master promises him. “What will they mean?”

“Good fortune,” Anakin replies, seeing the braid come together in his mind’s eye. Yes, good fortune, a plea to the gods who see Obi-Wan in battle to look the other way. To take someone else instead. He gets to work, collecting a chunk of hair on the left side of Obi-Wan’s temple to braid back.

Nothing’s fixed. Nothing’s better. The person Anakin’s pretty sure is the love of his life will be sent out to fight tomorrow at dawn, and he might die never knowing how Anakin feels about him.

But it’s not like Anakin can tell him either, not when he’s seventeen. Not when he’s Obi-Wan’s Padawan.

He’s always planned to wait until after he’s been Knighted, after Obi-Wan has been given enough time to see Anakin as a man who has a choice whether or not to love him. And, yes, the Code forbids attachment and Jedi cannot marry, but it’s not like Anakin would ever be able to marry Obi-Wan legally even on Tatooine.

But he could give him the braids, if Obi-Wan wanted. That way, when they both died, in their sleep of natural causes, the Goddess Leia knows to keep their souls intertwined as she transports them to their afterlife.

Anakin’s fingers pause as he thinks of something that would make him feel better.

He bites his lip. His mother would disapprove. To give the braids to someone without their knowledge is heavily frowned upon.

Anakin winces, even as his hands change direction. These are extenuating circumstances. There’s a lot at stake here. Anakin can’t risk a life and an afterlife without his master. And he’s going to ask him eventually. Just not now. Just not yet.

The braids for good fortune form a crown over one’s head. The braids for marriage…

They start similarly enough at the temples, but connect to each other at the back of the head, where a third braid is begun. Then each braid is braided into each other. The left braid represents the braider. The right braid represents their beloved. The third braid that begins when the two meet represents the life that they will create together.

Anakin holds the three braids loosely in his hands, staring down at them in some sort of surreal shock. This is not the circumstances he has imagined doing this under, but he’s heartbroken. Not when it’s Obi-Wan who will be wearing his braids.

“Dear one?” Obi-Wan asks, breaking the heavy silence. “I do not mean to rush you, but my knees are starting to hurt.”

“You’re so old,” Anakin quips back, stroking a thumb over one of the braids, the right one--Obi-Wan’s.

“And you are so very young,” Obi-Wan retorts. “The two of us together is the equivalent of one good soldier.”

Anakin’s heart pauses for a second. “Would you want that?” he asks nonsensically.

“What?”

“If you could choose. If I were eighteen. Would you want to be…” Just as suddenly as he gained that sudden burst of confidence, he loses it. He sighs, mostly in disappointment at himself.

“Anakin?” Obi-Wan prompts.

“You’d want me there with you if I weren’t too young, wouldn’t you, master?” Anakin finally says.

Obi-Wan hesitates, and Anakin’s chest feels tight. “I would want you safe, regardless of age, dear one,” he settles on saying.

Anakin’s fingers clench down on the almost complete marriage braids. “But if there were no war,” he forges ahead. “If the war never happened. You wouldn’t want to leave me behind. You’d want to stay together.”

Anakin can just imagine the furrowed eyebrows Obi-Wan must be sporting as he tries to figure out what Anakin wants from him.

“Just answer the question,” Anakin begs, tightening his hold on the braids to prevent Obi-Wan from turning around.

“You are my Padawan, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says slowly. “And someone who will one day be my partner, my friend. I would like...very much to be allowed to see you finish growing into the fine man you will be. The one that in many ways you already are.”

“And then?” Anakin asks doggedly. “When we’re both knights. And you’re assigned...a mission. And you get to choose your partner. And it’s me or. Or someone else. I don’t care. Who would you choose?”

“Well, I suppose it would depend on if this fabricated mission depends on stealth. Secrecy. The ability to tell a believable falsehoo--”

“I’m being serious,” Anakin insists, cutting his master off. He almost wants to drop the braids, let them fall apart. Clearly Obi-Wan doesn’t...perhaps won’t ever--

“It’d be you,” Obi-Wan murmurs very quietly, as if afraid to speak louder. “We are better together than we are separate.”

Anakin blinks and then smiles, only a little teary-eyed at his master’s confession. “Yes, Master,” he agrees, finally--finally--braiding the three braids together and tying them off neatly. He pictures the material of their souls responding the same way that Obi-Wan’s hair has. The thought makes him feel equal parts giddy and guilty.

“After all, someone needs to make sure you don’t crash every ship in the Jedi Temple,” Obi-Wan continues dryly.

“Yes, Master,” Anakin agrees again, running a hand lightly over his work.

He’ll tell him when he’s a Knight. Really.

[firelise]

#styles like girl whats the difference either way he gon be thinkin about me when he gets home

^ I wrote this before I finished the ep but love how right i was lmao

Kant: I need you to make this guy fall in love with you

Style: Sure I'd love to annoy the fuck out of him

Kant: ...Not what I said at all