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#AM I WRITING/POSTING FIC LITERALLY FIVE MINUTES BEFORE I LEAVE FOR COLLEGE? MA Y B E
renegadeontherunn · 3 years
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hello fiona my love, hope you are doing amazing - i am so excited you are doing prompts!!! AAAAHHHH could you do 29. "you're a really bad liar." with obi & soka?? or really whoever you want!!! ily queen
SAM MY LOVE!!!!! AHHHH THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK AND FOR YOUR KIND WORDS I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WONDERFULLY TOO ILY!!!!!! and thank you for being my first EVER prompt fill!!!!! 
29. “you’re a really bad liar.” // from these prompts! // read it on ao3!
Ahsoka doesn’t look at the Temple.
She can still feel it—that gentle warmth and familiar glow—wherever she goes, but she doesn’t look at it. And it’s fine. She doesn’t need to see it to still feel the gaping hole where the Jedi used to reside and she shoves the Force away at every opportunity.
Ahsoka pulls her cloak tighter. The nights have been getting colder and colder and she finds herself missing the Temple (and its inhabitants) more and more.
She looks over her shoulder again on instinct, half expecting to see Anakin or Master Yoda, or even Rex. But there’s just the usual blank, dark faces of the Coruscant nightlife and Ahsoka breathes a sigh of sad relief. If she can just get off Coruscant, get to a new planet, maybe somewhere Mid-Rim, then she can actually relax. Then she’ll be free. Ahsoka shakes her head, arms wrapping around herself.
She shouldn’t have to worry about being free.
The diner she steps in is nicer than most of the ones she’s frequented in the weeks she’s been exiled, and it’s late enough to not be crawling with too many sketchy figures. The Force simmers as the little bell dings to announce her entrance, and so Ahsoka keeps her senses sharp. A quick reaction can be the difference between life and death. She’s learned that enough times.
“Ahsoka.”
There. Ahsoka’s shoulders tense up immediately, her whole body freezing, and she squeezes her eyes shut. Of course. Of course. Ahsoka thought she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see anyone—each check behind herself was bittersweet, would it be better to reconnect or is complete isolation the safest option?—but as soon as the quiet, surprised word drifts into the air, an anvil slams down on Ahsoka’s chest and she wishes she was anywhere else.
She could leave. She could just turn around and walk—run—away, hide back in her seedy apartment with the moldy ceiling and rusty door. But something, be it obligation or pride or just plain shock, forces Ahsoka’s head to her left and she locks eyes with Master Kenobi.
He’s dressed exactly as she remembers: a few thousand layers of robes with no doubt the hundredth brown cloak wrapped loosely around his shoulders. There’s a full cup of what looks like cold caf nestled between his hands. Ahsoka tries not to walk too woodenly over to him, screaming against her own body for betraying her.
Not now, not him, not this.
His face is paler, a bit more sunken than it used to be, or so Ahsoka thinks, but his face is all pleasant surprise and familiar, if a bit hesitant, warmth.
“Please, sit down.” He gestures to the seat across from him.
Ahsoka’s heart lurches. “I’m good.”
A beat of silence. She sits.
His eyes scan her face. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she answers automatically. Oh, this is not going to go well.
Obi-Wan doesn’t seem fazed. He nods. “That’s great.”
More silence. Ahsoka tries not to fidget, fails; tries not to stare, fails at that too. And her flailing attempts to squash the surging anger inside herself—well, you can probably guess.
“What brings you to a place like this at such an hour?”
Ahsoka nearly huffs. He hasn’t changed a bit. She can’t decide if that’s comforting or . . . disappointing. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Obi-Wan nods again. “You could.”
She doesn’t.
“Would you like something to eat?”
Ahsoka’s mind goes on the defensive immediately, though she knows that’s completely off the mark. Does she not look like she can support herself? She doesn’t want—or need—his help, his charity. Ahsoka is perfectly fine on her own, thanks (for nothing), and has no desire for unsolicited aid.
“No.”
Obi-Wan doesn’t flinch, but Ahsoka feels like he wants to. Like this conversation is somehow pricking his chest with bitter pain. Well, that makes two of them.
“I’m glad to see you’re alright.”
Ahsoka bites her tongue hard, fangs digging in deep enough to make her head pound.
Obi-Wan’s brow twitches, lips pulling down into a pretty good impression of concern. “Ahsoka?”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He blinks at her. “I’m sorry?”
Ahsoka’s eyes widen and she huffs in near-incredulous mocking. “Are you?”
His face darkens a touch. “Ahsoka—”
“Stop.” Force, why hadn’t she just walked out? “Whatever you’re about to say—don’t.”
But Obi-Wan has always loved talking, and Ahsoka should know that. “Ahsoka, please. I understand your feelings toward—”
“No you don’t.”
Obi-Wan’s jaw clicks shut.
Ahsoka’s face grows warm. “You can’t possibly imagine what I’m feeling, what I went through, other than your own part in it.”
“You’re right.” Obi-Wan’s hand is out and Ahsoka can’t remember if it always used to shake like that. “I misspoke. But I do know that you’re hurt and you have every right to be. I am so sorry.”
If this conversation doesn’t end soon, Ahsoka is either going to start throwing punches or sobbing and neither is a great look for her. “Okay.”
“If I could go back—”
“Well you can’t. And neither can I, but I guess that’s life.”
She’s purposely trying to goad him; fighting has always been easier than talking and maybe if they’re both angry, then Ahsoka won’t have to deal with the regret and guilt and fear and homesickness. But Obi-Wan is not so easily led.
“I only wish to explain, though I know it can never fully alleviate the pain of what happened. May I?”
Ahsoka can’t think of anything she wants less than to hear what he has to say. She wants—she wants Obi-Wan to stop talking, wants him to feel her devastation, she wants him to see how she is crumbling beneath the weight of what his Council has done to her.
“You all expelled me. You lost faith in me the second you got the chance to jump ship.” She chokes back tears. “The Jedi were supposed to be there for me—you were supposed to be there for me. Like family, right?”
Obi-Wan looks half on the verge of tears too.
“Ahsoka, I never lost faith in you, you must believe me.” He reaches for her. “I promise you, I tried everything in my power to speak for you in the Council, to try to prove your innocence.”
Ahsoka scoffs, feeling more bitter by the moment. “Fantastic job. Do you want applause?” She’s not sure where all this pent-up rage is coming from; she’s spent enough time meditating, considering the situation, her decision, trying to look at every angle. It’s been months. She thought she was past it. Or, at least, mostly past it.
“I understand your anger at me, I feel it myself. I completely failed you in your trial, Ahsoka, don’t think I’m unaware of that.” Ahsoka’s nails cut crescents in her palms. “I wish I could’ve done more—I should’ve done more.”
“You know what? Yeah, you should’ve. But this isn’t about you, Obi-Wan.” The name is sour on her tongue. “If forcing all this guilt on yourself somehow makes you feel better, be my guest, but you don’t have to burden me with the guilt of not absolving you from it.”
Because Ahsoka does feel guilty. She wants to forgive him and have everything go right back to the way it was, she a Jedi, he her partial Master, the three of them more like family than anything else. Her own stinging words churn in her stomach, half her brain raging against the other half: accept what’s probably your last chance at that old happiness or fuel the retribution you’re convinced you deserve. And she doesn’t know if she actually deserves it. And more importantly, she’s not sure Obi-Wan deserves this.
Haven’t they all been through enough?
But Ahsoka has never been good at thinking before speaking. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to feed the wolf craving vengeance than to scale the high road.
“Ahsoka, I am so sorry—”
Tears stinging her eyes, Ahsoka grabs her cloak, nearly knocking her chair over, her eyes never leaving Obi-Wan’s. “You’re a really bad liar.”
Obi-Wan flinches like he’s been struck.
Ahsoka lets the festering rage in her chest slither up to her tongue, lashing out in the empty air. “You’d think you’ve had enough practice.” Her voice is rough, harsh with stifled tears, words ripping holes where affection and warmth used to rest. All Ahsoka feels now, though, is scraped raw, and frustrated, angry confusion, and . . . and something else she doesn’t have time for. The door handle is cold on her blazing skin.
“Ahsoka!” Obi-Wan grabs her arm. She tries to shake him off, but his grip is too strong in its desperation. “Please, listen.”
Tears are dotting the greasy floor now and Ahsoka doesn’t know if they’re hers or Obi-Wan’s. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, I—” She’s still pulling away. The bell on the door is ringing.
“Ahsoka—”
“Just let go!”
The Coruscant air is freezing on Ahsoka’s face and she wrenches her arm away as they burst out of the diner.
They turn to face each other, blue eyes to blue eyes, two strangers with far too many memories.
“Ahsoka.”
And his voice is home and friendship and comfort and Anakin and the past.
“I’m sorry.”
The air is too stuffy, her chest too tight. There’s no room for the past in the scathing pieces of her heart.
She bolts off into the darkness.
“Ahsoka!”
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