darkforcerising | OPEN POST

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.

"You're very talented at things," he said, welcoming the banter, and decided to give back some of his own. "Meditation... Lectures... Beards." It was a ridiculous jab, but it was one Anakin has absolutely no talent in.

"Really, Anakin, if you were jealous of my beard, you should have said something, sooner. I won't shave it off, but I'm sure we could work out one for you. It could double as a disguise."

Anakin the First with a beard made him want to laugh, but This Anakin with one he found mildly horrifying.

For the first time since that lightsaber made its appearance, Anakin laughed. Not loud, but clearly amused, if a little shaky.

"I'm not jealous," he said. "Just admiring greatness. And I don't want a beard. Maybe we could give me more facial scars? A cybernetic eye?"

Something in him loosened when he heard that shaky laugh, but he did not draw attention to it.

He looked puzzled instead.

"Do you have some never mentioned before desire to look like some sort of pirate?"

"I am a drug smuggler now," Anakin pointed out. "I need to look tougher."

He looked at Anakin very critically and apparently seriously, then shook his head slightly.

"No you don't. You don't look tough at all, but you look exactly like you."

That was serious.

Anakin laughed again, this time more sure. "Ya, that's what I mean. No one looking at me, like this," he looked down for affect. "Would think I'd last more than a few rounds in a fight."

Sure, he was tall, he still trained, and the metal arm was an advantage. But he knew he held himself differently than when he was a Jedi. Also, the Jedi robes really did help convey so much about prowess. Master Yoda would appear very different to a casual observer if he wasn't wearing Jedi robes.

"Oh, no. That isn't even remotely what I mean," but he didn't elaborate. "But that's also true."

Obi-Wan would reach a point, probably years in the future, of no longer being easily recognizable as a Jedi.

But it would take a long time.

Because it was stamped into him, woven into the fiber of his being. Jedi had been a terrible fit for Anakin but for Obi-Wan-

Whether because he was taken there so young or just because he simply was, it was his identity and his life.

...and he may have to realize that on a more subconscious level as a reason he's currently struggling so hard.

Obi-Wan was the most Jedi that ever Jedi-ed, Anakin would not argue with that. On some level, that Anakin would not admit to, he might be jealous of how easy it was for Obi-Wan to just be a Jedi. If just for the fact that the friction Anakin caused everywhere he went could be exhausting. Sometimes he did want it easy.

"Please, do explain what you meant," Anakin goaded Obi-Wan.

The Negotiator.

He shook his head, very slightly and actually made a tsking noise. That part was a tease, but the teasing stopped quickly.

"You only superficially resemble - or feel like - Vader. You look and feel like you - and I do not mean who Vader was before he was Vader."

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