darkforcerising | OPEN POST

"Getting to Leia would be almost impossible," he agreed.

He was again impressed - this time by Anakin curbing his own impulses and seeing problems. Getting to Luke was one thing. Getting to the Princess of Alderaan? Entirely different ballgame, for both of them. He was an 'execute on sight' enemy of the Republic, and Anakin had Vader's face.

"'Freight' runs would be fun for you, just use some discretion and try not to get yourself shot down. I'd like you to stay at one missing limb."

These were exactly the conclusions he'd drawn. Here on Tatooine, far from the central core of the Empire, they were safe. A word he never thought he'd associate with Tatooine. And he'd convinced Obi-Wan not to try to kill him, but Obi-Wan had the Force to aide him. Bail did not.

"Drug smuggling," he laughed softly again. "I can add that to my losing categories in the game Never Have I Ever." This was one of those things he said without thinking. Sometimes he just had to let himself do that so he could catch the bigger things.

"You can add it to your what?"

Sometimes, sometimes, the difference in language and his complete lack of comprehension of what Anakin said struck exactly the same way as realizing Anakin was... the emotional stable one.

An odd pride, some bemusement, and becoming far more intrigued than he should have been.

"Oh," Anakin paused his hands so he could focus on this explanation.

"It's a party drinking game back where I was. Everyone takes turns calling out something they've never done, but that they think others in the group have done. And if you've done the thing, you have to take a drink or a shot- whatever ground rules you set for drinking. Like... a common thing someone might say is 'Never Have I Ever, uh, consumed spice.' The more things you've done, the faster you get drunk. The goal is to get everyone else drunk before you so you watch out for patterns in things people drink for..."

He picked up the part he was working on again.

"Took that off the list of games I could play once I started getting my memories back. I would make things get very dark, very fast."

Speaking of subjects that could get very dark, very fast, and subjects probably best left alone:

"Do you remember dying?" he asked, when Anakin finished speaking (and he understood a drinking game he was not at all tempted to play).

That was very dark, very fast. (And is it technically playing if you never have to take a drink during the game?)

"Yes." He could be blunt, too. But he wasn't going to just dump the details on Obi-Wan. Anakin suspected there were still boundaries to the easiness between them and he wasn't going to rush them. "Do you want to know anything about it?"

It was very a very strange thing, this relationship they're trying to work out between them.

Anakin knew him, but he doesn't really know Anakin.

He wasn't afraid of Anakin - but Anakin was the reason for his worst nightmares.

He was drawn to Anakin, but he was hiding from him.

Delivered the man's son to him, while protecting his son from him.

There was a relationship here, but there isn't.

He was trying to work out a boundary here, though he believed it was purely for Anakin. In reality, he's trying to work out one for himself, too.

"I didn't until you asked. Now I do, but I first want to point out using anything that happened from another life in a game is probably unfair, anyway."

"The game is not really about being fair," Anakin pointed out. "It's a drinking game, they're underhanded by nature."

As for his death... "Technically, Palpatine is the reason I die. He attacks Luke with Force lightning, I intervene and attack him- Palpatine, but the Force lightning-" Anakin paused, he didn't want to say 'shorts out the suit I'm stuck in and I don't have lungs to breathe on my own' because Obi-Wan was part of the reason he was in that suit and he didn't want Obi-Wan taking any blame for this. Because it wasn't his.

"Kills me."

See, saying Luke was attacked gives him something of a timeline - enough to know it's not very soon, anyway.

He quirks a faint smile, but the feeling that actually happened was just... some lethal combination of guilt and grief he could drown in, and a touch of gratitude that Anakin was trying to spare him and even more that he'd at least tried to save Luke, but...

Well.

"Disrupted whatever was keeping you alive after I left you dismembered and on fire."

"That is a way of explaining it," Anakin acknowledged. "...But there's a twenty-three year gap between now and then. So I feel making that connection is a stretch."

He laughs, softly. His emotions don't get released so much as they sort of... lost coherence and cohesion and slowly dissipated.

"Did you succeed at saving Luke?"

Edited 2020-01-11 23:09 (UTC)

Anakin set down the part and reach over to Obi-Wan's hand. He was careful to reach with his left hand, the one that wasn't cold, unfeeling metal.

"Yes. I do."

He twisted his wrist so he could reach up and give Anakin's hand a gentle squeeze and managed to feel reassuring - or more to the point directed that reassurance to Anakin. He was fine.

Reassurance was actually pretty easy.

"That's good news. On multiple levels. Though you really should get busy turning smuggler soon. I can't imagine you won't find a way home at some point, but the thought of you stuck here for twenty-three years--"

Made him mildly nauseated.

Anakin nodded, letting Obi-Wan think that he - Obi-Wan - was fine. Anakin was starting to hope that maybe he would stick around long enough to see Obi-Wan actually 'fine'.

"Should I be concerned that you're pushing me towards a life of crime?"

And there was a thought - Obi-Wan did think he was fine.

He shrugged. "Probably not. It suits your skill set, and depending on the cargo you choose could be actively helpful or simply harmless. I know you won't help slavers."

The fear he had about it had to do with safety and he would just deal with that, because it was entirely selfish.

Anakin was laughing before Obi-Wan finished.

"My skill set? Learned from the Jedi? Makes me suited to be a criminal." Certainly Obi-Wan saw the irony.

"I'll try to find a good crew."

"I actually meant your skill set as a person Anakin, the whole of you from this life you're living now and one you've already finished."

He was mildly irritated, but to hell with it, he did see the irony.

"Try to find a small crew."

"Good advice," Anakin carried his good humor forward. "Smaller crew means fewer people to annoy, fewer people who'll want to toss me out the airlock."

"More like fewer people who will worship you." Anakin was always almost universally loved.

...had been.

Now it was-

He shook his head, without losing his slight smile. "Just be as safe as you can. You are still force sensitive."

Obi-Wan said a lot in those few short sentences. His perception of Anakin's likability, perhaps that was viewed through rose colored glasses because there were plenty of Jedi who would argue the opposite about Anakin. But he had to admit he had a penchant for getting into trouble. And this was now a galaxy inhospitable to Force users.

"I will, Obi-Wan." He'd chosen his words very carefully, a deliberate contrast to his teasing about Obi-Wan worry for his safety from that morning, though said with the same warmth. They weren't Master and apprentice anymore, hadn't been for an eternity any way it was cut.

They hadn't been for a long time.

They had never been.

They were relatively recently.

He didn't try to figure it out. He simply accepted the use of his name, and didn't try to figure out how... weirdly relieving that felt, either.

He did a lot of not trying to figure out things too much out while Anakin got himself situated for criminal activity. It settled out quite a bit with time, anyway.

He stopped being surprised by Anakin's stability. He didn't stop being ...intrigued was a good word, by it.

He was surprised by how quiet and empty it was when Anakin left on his first run. Lonely wasn't a thing he was predisposed to. Then again, he'd never had more than a day or two in his entire life when he was completely alone.

He wasn't surprised by how often he had to remind himself not to worry. He was a little surprised that none of that worry had nothing to do with any confusion about feeling responsible for Anakin's well being, and that some of it was just concern that Anakin wouldn't be back.

He was half asleep when he felt Anakin on his way back and didn't resist. He got up, opened the door and went to meet him in the doorway.

Anakin had not been thrown out any airlocks. He'd truly been given the opportunity to pilot a faster than light traveling, space-faring vessel, carrying agro-supplies stacked over a hidden cargo hold of spice. But he could look the other way. The crew was generally easy to get along with, he kept his sabbac win record low enough to not draw suspicion but played frequently enough that they all more or less tolerated each other.

He considered this first run a success, told the ship's captain to keep him in mind for the next run and that he was a comm click away.

It had been odd feeling Obi-Wan both slip away and then, a few days latter, slide back into his senses again. Only because he hadn't felt that outside of memory until now. And he remembered how anxious he used to get when Obi-Wan's presence was stretched to the edges of his mind when they were apart. Now, that anxiety was dull, manageable.

But between the games with the crew he found time to think. Who was it in his past timeline that had filled the role of pilot on this ship that he was replacing? How many cascading consequences would that cause? And smuggling spice for the thrill of flying wouldn't last, how long would he stay here? If he could change this, what else could he change?

He was surprised to find Obi-Wan at the door.

"Is this a new trend of stargazing without committing to the cold?" he joked, walking in with the night chill at his heels.

In sharp contrast to Anakin, Obi-Wan had previously found his anxiety when he could no longer sense Anakin manageable.

This time, with everything behind him, he did not. It left him restless, jumpy, and distracted. He didn't even recognize it as anxiety, he more or less dismissed any thought that might have led him to realizing the source and understanding where it was coming from, and the validity of it, but he was not precisely calm.

He smiled when he saw Anakin, though slightly until Anakin snarked off. "I came out to spare you having to decide whether to knock or not -" And to make sure Anakin was in one piece. "But now that you mention it...." He looked up at the sky. "It is one of Tatooine's nicer features."

Anakin could not help it. The comment about the stars and their being one of Tatooine's nicer features had Anakin closing the distance between them for a hug. The comment felt like home in a way Anakin had not felt in a very long time.

"Do not ever change, Obi-Wan," he said, but then in the same breath, added. "There is nothing nice about Tatooine."

There were situations where he might still panic at physical contact from anyone who looked even a little like Anakin The First, but those were increasingly extreme and unlikely situations.

Certainly it didn't surprise him when he was hugged.

In fact, when Anakin hugged him, the only thing that surprised him was his own reaction. He wanted to not just return the hug but lean when he did. Relax. Maybe let his knees buckle a little and just give in for a second.

He settled for just returning the hug, since that impulse was almost alarming, but he did return the hug, with one arm but firmly.

"I suppose you're right. Technically the stars are the space above the planet..."

He let go after a moment or two, and before that desire to just fucking stop for a bit got any stronger. "Are you hungry? How was the trip?"

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