darkforcerising | OPEN POST

Obi-Wan breathed with Anakin, without being more than half-aware of it. Mostly, though, the breathing was in response to Anakin's emotional ... tension unwinding.

At that point he could sort of figure out what was his own emotional state and while his coping method was markedly not approved by the American Association of Psychology, it wasn't actually terrible, in this instance.

He was able to redirect back to the moment and to the meal and the pulse against his hand and let the fear go. This time more actual release than dissociating from it, or even not being able to maintain it.

He also kept his hand there and the... quiet compassion for Anakin stayed.

He picked up his fork with the hand not under Anakin's, and worked on his own meal.

"We have a month. This is something we can do, though I won't be sorry that we're not going to do it on a holoscreen in every home in the galaxy."

They'd get it done, but he could already tell with near certainty that it was going to be ugly on every level.

Edited 2020-01-12 22:07 (UTC)

Anakin tried a smile. "We could have long term goals. Get back in the spotlight."

Food consumed. Hands finally parted. The dishes cleared.

"Okay, before you get it..." He grabbed something from the tub of 'things to fix' and some tools and set them on the table. Fixing things was his meditation, reaching through the Force, finding the problems in the device, then putting it straight helped him make sense of the universe. They were about to do something the would rock any sense of stability they both had. Anakin needed every little bit of help through this.

He sat back down and said. "Okay. You can get it."

He left Anakin to it and went into the living area, which was more than close enough in this relatively small house to continue to see and hear Anakin, sat on the floor and meditated.

Without the benefit of fixing things, though some of what slipped through his mind as he tried for - and almost surprising to himself achieved - some real center and balance, was that there was something so... appropriate about Anakin using fixing things to center himself.

He stood up without a word when Anakin told him he could go, went into the bedroom and into the trunk and retrieved the lightsaber. He absolutely did not shudder or recoil from it himself.

He did hear himself saying, in his mind, This is your life, Anakin..

That gave him a moment, but he took the moment and then returned it to the kitchen and put it down on the table. In front of him, in reach.

Obi-Wan had been right to be concerned about Anakin's feeling about that lightsaber. And Anakin had thought he'd understood. But the memory recall was like slamming into a cement wall.

He just sat there, staring at that weapon he'd made for the purpose of protecting others but it's last acts had been devastation and destruction.

Mustafar, dueling Obi-Wan, assassinating the Separatist leaders. Razing the Temple.

He didn't notice his breath becoming shallow and quick or the way a vice seemed to cinch around his chest or the way he gripped his hands so tightly together in front of him he was making his knuckles white. Or when he abruptly stood up and a left.

He was actually outside the hut leaning against the wall of the hut, choking through gulps of freezing, bracing air before he was back to his senses.

So much for trying to prepare.

He caught... enough from Anakin to know what those flashes were, if not any actual images. He watched Anakin's breath speed up, and his fists clench, silent but not unaffected.

He gave Anakin a clear path to get outside, and then followed him outside.

Where he promptly opted to drop to a graceless, lazy, sort of kneeling position in front of him - because that wasn't threatening, it wasn't enclosing, it couldn't make Anakin feel trapped, he hoped.

He said nothing, at first, but reached out and lightly circled his fingers around Anakin's wrist at first and then tugged lightly. "Come here."

Anakin let himself be pulled towards Obi-Wan, all but fell into him, actually. He was shaking and it had nothing to do with the Tatooine's fucking heatless night.

He tried to say 'I hate those memories' or even 'I hate what I did' but said instead something more deeply true, "I hate myself... I can't let that go, the people I killed don't deserve me letting that go."

He caught Anakin, with both arms and just held on. He didn't have tools from therapy. He didn't even have real coping mechanisms for himself. What he did have was a steady heartbeat, even breathing, and a force presence that was softly radiant and could pretty comfortably wrap around anyone who had the ability to feel it.

He didn't expect Anakin currently did and that was okay.

"I don't have the first idea of what the dead deserve," he murmured. "I refuse to speculate on what Vader deserved or deserves. I do know what the living deserve, and that's a chance." He's very quiet, steady, even his hands on Anakin's back because his heart was breaking, but it was breaking for Anakin first, at least in that moment. "And they deserve not to have that chance wrapped up in self-loathing."

"And the living deserve someone not me helping them," Anakin countered. The weight of all his failures stacked on top of him, it was so easy to just lose himself under it all.

But he could also feel Obi-Wan's presence in the Force. He could push it away if he tried, he didn't deserve comfort. But sometimes surrender was inevitable.

Anakin slowly stopped shaking.

And he finally said what he'd meant to the first time. "I hate those memories. I hate what I did."

And Anakin deserved someone to help him that hadn't dismembered him and left him burning. Maybe even someone who could have been ... what he wasn't. Able to see what was happening and to stop it.

He closed his eyes and took a slow, careful, breath.

"So do I." He rubbed Anakin's back, dragging his knuckles slowly up and down. "And the living probably deserves better than either of us, but since we're what they have, I am entirely on board with burning the Empire to the ground with you."

Edited 2020-01-13 00:10 (UTC)

Anakin realized he could view it that way. Focus on what the Empire deserved - which was to burn to the ground before it was more than an asterix in the history tomes.

His breathing was steadier, and though he'd stopped shaking because of his tumultuous emotions, the cold was starting to bite.

"Should probably go back inside... Try again."

Redirection could be amazingly useful.

He didn't want Anakin killed, but Anakin focused on a task - if Obi-Wan could manage to keep hate out of it for Anakin - was...

Leverage against the memories.

He hoped.

He stood up, hands moving to under Anakin's elbows to pull him up at the same time before he broke contact.

"After you."

Anakin was in control for this.

This had all been Anakin's idea. He could have interpreted the Will of the Force to be to just let things play out like they'd done before. But he'd decided that if the Force had brought him here, it wasn't to just play at smuggling drugs and reminiscing with Obi-Wan in between runs.

If he had done only that, he wouldn't really be Anakin.

When he walked in, he didn't look at the lightsaber, instead he focused on part he was planning to fix. The goal was just to be near the lightsaber. And he had been near it just moments before, he could do it again. His hands were unsteady when he first picked up the tools, but he took a few breaths, named a few of the parts out loud, and then began working.

Planning more of the mission was probably asking for more emotional upheaval so he picked a different topic.

"What did you do while I was away?"

Anakin had interpreted a lot of things as the will of the Force....

Obi-Wan wasn't going to let that thought even form. This was definitely Anakin - but not, and his lack of confusion on that front needed to remain and was going to. For reasons he recognized and would admit to, and reasons he would not.

He sat down across from Anakin, and picked up another part and worked on it himself. He wasn't as mechanically inclined as Anakin was, but he wasn't hopeless and he'd loved this sort of thing when he was younger.

He looked up in response to the question. "I mostly tried to stop coming out of my skin with worry," he admitted.

"Worry about what?" Anakin asked, not really catching the implication it was about him. "Dying of boredom on this rock?"

"No. Worried that your face or your force signature was going to attract notice and you were going to die of something a lot less enjoyable than boredom."

He... actually snapped that. It was a very mild snap, but for him? Definite snap.

"Aw," Anakin said, not minding the sharpness of Obi-Wan's tone. "I'm touched that you didn't say you were worried I'd crash the ship."

He finished pulling a piece of the main device and set it aside.

"This is Tatooine, there are very few people here who would recognize me."

"I worried about the ship in the event that you crashed it," he grumbled. "And I have that concern for any ship you fly."

"Didn't you use to like flying?" Anakin asked. He wasn't quite smiling, he couldn't not know the lightsaber was there. But he was doing his best to find his way through this.

"I did. I used to love flying." He's going to give Anakin everything he can, which is conversation, to help him.

He was also not going to acknowledge his own discomfort about that lightsaber. He wasn't struggling nearly as hard. Discomfort was just discomfort.

And helping Anakin helped.

Anakin appreciated everything Obi-Wan was doing to help him. Which was a change from the dynamic they'd had before he'd fallen. As much as he'd loved Obi-Wan, he struggled to see how Obi-Wan tried to do right. There were a lot of reasons for that - all his unaddressed trauma as a slave squished into the mold of trying to be a Jedi, his profoundly poor fit in the Jedi Order, Palpatine's manipulations. But nonetheless, he'd not seen it before as much as he should have.

He saw it now.

"Rell me what changed."

He hesitated, then snorted at himself. Why was he hesitating now. It was ages ago and hardly mattered, anymore. Fresher, newer, trauma had happened and he was well over any pride.

"When I was in my early twenties, I had engine trouble and crashed, badly. I ended up trapped between the seat and the control for a couple of days until anyone could get to me. The act of flying lost a lot of the appeal in the process."

Anakin chanced a glance at the lightsaber for the first time since sitting down. It was just a glance, and then he was looking on the fastener he was pulling out.

"I can relate, actually." He lifted his prosthetic hand.

"I know Dooku cut it off here. But the other place... I wouldn't exactly say I stopped loving flying after my crash, but I did have some memories of it to work through."

"Fortunately, that particular incident didn't leave me with... memories that were problematic." He doesn't have enough vocabulary, even. "Mostly I lost trust in my skills and to a degree in the ships themselves. I clearly can fly, and do. It's just not... recreational."

It's just an explanation, sharing in return for Anakin sharing and because the talk seemed to help. It was pretty clear Anakin continued to love to fly, on some level, since he continued to fly, even here.

"You're an excellent pilot," Anakin pointed out. Though he knew saying that would do little to build Obi-Wan's trust in his skills again.

"I would trust you flying anytime." He just preferred flying because it was fun, the thrill of it.

"I am," he agreed, with a slight smirk, "and you should."

Because he knows that, and because banter is easy and good and Anakin seemed at least a bit more relaxed.

"I'm skilled at quite a few things. Talent on the other hand-" Was always all Anakin.

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