Star Wars fic: "Bottom of the River" (5)

[bedlamsbard]

Bottom of the River (44883 words) by bedlamsbard
Chapters: 5/?
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Republic (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mon Mothma
Additional Tags: Genderfuck, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Murder Mystery, Original Character(s), Unresolved Romantic Tension
Series: Part 2 of Oxygen and Rust
Summary:

Murder, mayhem, and mistaken identity! When a body turns up in Coruscant's underworld with a very familiar face, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are dispatched to investigate the case. Newly returned from the front lines of the Clone Wars, the two Jedi find themselves in a deadly game of cat and mouse: but are they the hunters or the hunted?

*

The pain in his arms and shoulders blended in with the pounding in his head and the fallout from the beating he’d received. He felt liked he’d been stepped on by a Mandallian Giant – oh, wait, he had, though he had managed to roll aside before catching the worst of it. Being squished was a death too embarrassing to even consider, though the mental image of Obi-Wan having to deliver that news to his mother amused him for a moment. His mother probably wouldn’t find it funny, though. Obi-Wan wouldn’t either.

Anakin actually groaned out loud for reasons that had nothing to do with the throbbing in his head or the blood he could feel dried on his face.

Obi-Wan was going to kill him when she found out what he had gotten himself into because he had hesitated a beat too long on what should have been a killing stroke. He could remember it now, with a clarity that made him wince. For an instant, trapped in that alley between Emerald Star and Crimson Arrow, he had been back in that abandoned base on Aargonar. Left behind. Forgotten. Hovering on the edge between the madness and the Dark Side. That had only been a few weeks ago, though it seemed a lifetime gone now. Anakin still didn’t know which way he had slipped when he had ignited his lightsaber. He hadn’t hesitated then, and he had nearly killed a fellow Jedi because of it. This time he had hesitated and come perilously near to getting himself killed as a result.

Well, he thought, looking up at the shock-cuffs, which clicked gently against his prosthetic, there was still plenty of time to get killed today. It wasn’t even midnight yet.

*

I rewrote this chapter four or five times, but two things remained consistent throughout each draft: Anakin being chained up (to a chair, a bed, and finally a wall) and a character named Felisha (at one point an Arkanian, but finalized as a Zeltron). POV shifted between Ina-Rati and Anakin before settling on Anakin; at one point Anakin was having flashes of the future instead of the past.

As with previous chapters, hairstyles for this chapter can be found on my Oxygen & Rust: Hair pinterest board (Felisha and Yeine in this case, since Ina-Rati's hairstyle carries over from the previous chapter).

Some of the dialogue from Anakin's flashback scene comes from Star Wars: Republic #59, "Enemy Lines", written by John Ostrander.

One of the major points of departure from canon in the Oxygen & Rust 'verse is mentioned in this chapter, which is that Shmi Skywalker is still alive, the Lars homestead wasn't the one attacked by Sand People, and Anakin never committed the massacre that occurs in AotC. This has its origins in a currently unpublished O&R fic that takes place a year after Bad Moon Rising ("the Obi-Wan and Padme road trip story", as I like to call it; like Obi-Wan's identical twin sister and the friendship with Padme, it's one of the keystones of the O&R 'verse, part of the 'verse's original headcanon).