darkforcerising | OPEN POST

Okay, time for some more hard truths.

"Palpatine brought back the rank of Inquisitor shortly before everything fell apart. I was in charge of them, I used them as assassins to help hunt down the remaining Jedi.

"The one that will be on this mission just goes by the name of the Grand Inquisitor. He was the first one. He was a Temple Guard before everything that happened with Ahsoka's expulsion, but he became disillusioned with the Jedi after that and Palpatine used that to his advantage and snatched him up.

"His lightsaber is unique. It's doubled bladed, but it spins on its own. I can draw up the specifications. I think they are obnoxious and actually one of our best advantages, the hilt has more surface area to strike and disable it. It'll also be harder to wield in a ship's corridor."

There was s a... flicker that's almost flash, really, of incredulity from him.

It was the sort of situation and feeling that his Anakin would have interpreted in Obi-Wan doubting him.

In reality? He believed Anakin, trusted the information. He accepted both the situation, and the necessity of action and his role in it. He understood the information that was laid out and how it had come to be.

That didn't mean it made any sense to him. In spite of being perfectly competent - even very good -at both strategy and combat, being a soldier - or general or assassin - fit him about as well as as being a Jedi had fit his student.

He did not dissociate entirely this time, at least. The shift in mental gears wasn't entirely smooth (thunk), and his emotional response to the factual information fell back and away before it happened, but he was still present.

"I'm going to need them. Double bladed doesn't concern me, especially as you said, in a confined space. The overly complicated design also indicates some tendency toward more... flash than is likely well suited to close quarters. The rotation may be a problem. If nothing else it's going to generate an enormous amount of momentum and add power to any attack." His forearms hurt thinking about blocking that nonsense. Possibly because they'd been recently broken. "Though as you said, the hilt's vulnerable and we can use the ship's topography. We will need to make sure to at least move as far into the interior of the ship as possible. Especially with a plan of keeping the ship."

"They are incredibly flashy and only that," Anakin scoffed, derision overly present in his response. The fact that he, Anakin, lover of all things that went boom, found the showy weapons obnoxious, said something about their efficacy. "They really only work because most Jedi have discarded their lightsabers in an effort to hide."

Which brought up another thing Anakin had been thinking about.

"If we can, I want to try to keep the kyber crystals. The Empire has already seized Ilium, so getting new ones right now will be difficult."

He rubbed his forehead, and -

It hadn't been all that long since they had gone from the 'saviors' of the Republic, seduced into a role they'd never been meant for, to enemies of the Empire to be executed.

He didn't blame the Jedi for discarding their weapons - and he ever much did.

He did not have Anakin's ... hindsight to act as foresight, but he knew Jedi. Not just the very good examples, but the people.

"Yes, and some of them will have cut themselves off from the force entirely, for similar reasons." Similar. Not the same. He won't deny understanding the temptation of that.

"We'll salvage everything we can, and while I appreciate the intelligence and insight, and it is needed, I'm not sure I can take more than twenty years of in at once." It's self-depreciating, but also lightly humorous on the surface and in the tone but he meets Anakin's gaze seriously. There was a warning there, but not a threat. It was just... that there was a limit to what he could onboard if Anakin wanted him to 'stay with him'.

Edited 2020-01-13 18:26 (UTC)

Anakin reached across to Obi-Wan's hand, like he'd done before earlier in the evening. It was a thing now that they could do. He squeezed his hand and then started collecting the pieces of their project.

"We need to get up early tomorrow to find those Jawas. We should probably go to sleep."

A year ago being touched this much would have been... trying. Now being touched this much wasn't enough.

Amazing what a year, betrayal, and wholesale slaughter could do.

"We should." He followed Anakin to his feet, and helped make sure that project could be picked up again. "Which means we should go to bed."

It had been a few days since his lightsaber had first been brought out. Only just the previous night Anakin touched it for the first time. It was not a fun process, but he hadn't thrown it through the wall, and he was still here, work at conquering these issues.

There trip to the Jawas had been successful. They were able to get parts for him to build himself a new arm - it wasn't finished yet, but he was confident he would get it installed and kinks mostly worked out by the time they rescued Master Unduli.

He had started practicing the lightsaber forms on his own, though without his lightsaber for now. And he tried to do it mindful of Obi-Wan by utilizing the early mornings and evenings some distance away from the hut. The footwork was the easiest part, practicing mostly with his left hand was more difficult.

Today, however, they'd agreed to try sparring together - without weapons - for the first time.

It was early morning, the suns were just peeking over the horizon. It was still cold, but not freezing, and they would be sweating soon enough even with the temperature.

He squared off across from Obi-Wan and planted his feet in the first of the most simplest forms for non-weapon, hand to hand combat.

"I'm ready." Maybe. Right now, he felt fine. He hoped this wouldn't set them back.

He wasn't ready.

There was another one of those seconds, one of those hang-fire points, where he actually again came close to saying 'I can't do this' and just turning and walking away.

Some of that, he realized in that exact second, was just that he had ...given up the rest of his life on the Tantive IV. Not in the sense of dying, but he'd said he'd spend the rest of his life looking over look and he'd been okay with it. Because it served a purpose, because it was necessary, but -

The plan for the rest of his life wasn't far above some sort of half-life and now he was....

Doing something else entirely.

Once he realized that, it got a lot easier to stop thinking 'can't' , on any level, because he knew it for what it was: passive resistance to the idea that he wasn't really all that done.

He looked across at Anakin, gave him a moment, and then went in after him. Fairly slowly, more telgraphing, pretty formalized. Something he would have used with a 16 or 17 year old padwan. Not easy to the point of condescending, but something that would let him gauge where Anakin was, before going any further.

Anakin prefered the simplicity for this exercise. This simple form recalled memories of training at the Temple when he was just a Padawan, rather than that final battle on Mustafar. The forms had been difficult when he was first learning them, but the only negative feelings associated with those memories were of frustration over learning to grasp new concepts. But that was a matter of a lack of skill.

The problem now was conquering emotions.

So far, the first strike from Obi-Wan didn't send his emotions spiraling, he just followed the form into a block, then a retreat. From there he followed through with his own strike.

They did okay.

Obi-Wan dodged, deflected, and then came back at Anakin again. They found a rhythm.

They - or he at least - gradually pushed both difficulty and tempo. Turned the sparring session into something that was still relatively straightforward (for them, at least), but it turned into an actual sparring session and a workout, and honestly? It felt pretty good.

Until it didn't.

Which was the second Anakin grabbed hold of his wrist. At that second the pressure around his wrist and something about the angle of it may as well have transported him to the control room in Mustfar. He could smell ash and singed electrical circuits, hear Anakin screaming about being sick of lectures and all but feel the bones in his arm starting to splinter under impossible force.

Just fine to absolutely, but silent, screaming terror.

His heart-rate shot up, from mildly elevated to racing out of control, his vision swam, his pupils dilated, and he -

-stopped.

Stopped moving. Stopped reacting. Stopped responding. Stopped breathing. His hands fell open and he went completely, utterly, passive.

Because passive, instead of fighting back, was just about all he had enough even remotely functioning brain to be able to do to protect Anakin.

Edited 2020-01-13 20:58 (UTC)

Caught up in the moment, Anakin didn't notice the flash point of Obi-Wan being triggered. Didn't realize the reason he could follow through with the throw was because Obi-Wan had stopped.

Didn't realize until he was throwing Obi-Wan that the maneuver had been drastically too easy compared to everything else they'd been doing.

His memories changed from the controlled mats of the Temple training rooms to the platforms of the mining facility on Mustafar. His vision bled molten red. The suns' heat now felt suffocating. And his emotions boiled from a rage he didn't want to own.

Obi-Wan wasn't lying in the sand of a desert planet, Anakin was holding down an enemy on the control room floor.

"Fuck!" to borrow the phrase from his new life.

He let go and backed up, kept repeating the expletive.

"Obi-Wan, I'm sorry. Fuck!"

A step forward because he wanted to help. But he'd done this! So a step back again.

Force, what had he done?

The absolute utter laxness in his body - the passivity - meant that he didn't make hitting the ground harder or more likely to be damaging by tensing up. It also meant that he didn't do a damned thing to mitigate how hard he hit the ground - not physically, not with the force.

The sum total was that the throw didn't do any damage to him, but it did mean that he hit the ground hard, and his teeth snapped together so hard it was audible, and he bit his tongue in the process.

The taste of blood was nauseating.

The choking rage around him, and terror in him, were more so.

He continued not to respond to Anakin (or anything else) when Anakin initially backed off. He stayed exactly where he landed, tasting blood and staring without blinking into the still brightening Tatooine sky.

His name made him blink, take a breath again after having the wind knocked out of him, and roll over onto his side. "Not your fault," he murmured. He meant it.

Then slowly climbed to his feet.

He made it exactly one step toward Anakin before his head spun and he fell back to his knees. He was going to need a second here.

No, no, no, no!

Anakin didn't know what to do.

Shit!

He wanted to rush to Obi-Wan's side. He had so many good memories of being there when Obi-Wan got knocked down - by someone not him - and checking on him. As his master, Obi-Wan had a tendency to never stop to address his own health, but as his padawan, Anakin had unconsciously developed a habit of being the one to look out for those needs.

Obi-Wan needed that now. But Anakin was afraid he'd hurt him more.

And they were the only two people for kilometers. They didn't even have a droid he could use as an intermediary.

Fear usually made Anakin act, but not this time, not when he was pretty sure acting would just injury Obi-Wan more.

He stayed down for another moment or two. Stayed on his knees, dropped his head, closed his eyes and breathed. Slowly, deliberately, intentionally.

No mindfulness exercise going on, because that wasn't his world - but did he take a second, drop down, and at least established physical control of himself. Got his heart rate down, stopped himself shaking, pushed nausea out of the way.

Then he pushed himself back up to stand again.

He had not lost track of Anakin, or Anakin's frantic fear.

He walked over to Anakin, himself, and put one hand on each shoulder - very lightly.

"Anakin." Softly. "Breathe. Just. Breathe."

Obi-Wan was still out of his head, in most regards, shaken and sick and afraid - but priorities.

Anakin noticeably flinched when Obi-Wan touched him. His first instinct was to back up, put distance between them. Do no more harm.

"I'm sorry," he choked out. He tried to follow instructions, but he was shit at it. Breathing was extremely difficult for some reason. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize- I should have stopped. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He kept his touch light enough to give Anakin room to flinch, but he didn't remove his hands. Just waited out the flinch before he let them settle, then slid one around to the back of Anakin's neck and pulled him lightly in.

He was starting to shake again, and he wasn't even sure if it's his own emotions rearing up again, or him being affected by Anakin's.

"I know you are. Look up. Straight up." Look at the sky, Anakin.

This was easier to follow, looking up.

And when Obi-Wan pulled Anakin in, it was like a switch had flipped and Anakin just clung onto Obi-Wan. Maybe it was because Obi-Wan was shaking and Anakin wanted to make it stop. Maybe it was because if he let go they would both slip away. And they couldn't slip away, they had a goal, a mission to complete. They had to stay present.

Slowly, breathing became easy again.

"Are you okay?" he finally asked. And then mentally scolded himself for not putting that first.

Anakin clinging to him helped. He closed his eyes as Anakin started breathing again, and turned his head in toward Anakin. His grip on Anakin stayed pretty light, but he was definitely, finally, allowing himself to lean into him a little. Not so much physically, though that whole 'touch to ground himself' thing was becoming a habit, but still a cautious lean.

As evidenced by his quiet: "No." He was not okay. But: "It still isn't your fault."

Anakin responded by holding Obi-Wan tighter. Maybe he shouldn't cling to him so much, but he was here now and letting go wasn't a concept he could stomach right then.

"What happened?" he asked. "What do you need?"

He nudged his forehead against Anakin's jaw, without looking up or moving much - though he absolutely responded to the tighter grip by relaxing physically, in a way that wasn't... forced.

"Exposure therapy, probably," he said, dry as the desert around them. "Probably restrained."

Obi-Wan relaxing triggered the same response in Anakin - if Obi-Wan was okay, or gradually becoming more okay, Anakin could do the same.

He choked on a small laugh.

With his head clearing again, now that he was breathing again (oxygen helped in that way) he knew that wasn't really an answer. The trigger needed to be named.

"What triggered you?" he asked quietly.

He did not want to talk about this.

He did not.

There was no level at all upon which he saw any benefit in talking about this, and spelling out what had happened.

Because he didn't want to.

He knew Anakin asking was for a reason, that it could help avoid it in the future - or diffuse it - but he didn't want to know it.

He actually growled under his breath at Anakin, not from anger but frustration. At himself. At the fact that he has to use something that is not exactly... approved, emotion wise, as leverage to talk.

"You grabbing my wrist."

Anakin thought about that, closed his eyes and tried not to get lost in the memories that explained to him why that would affect Obi-Wan.

"I'm sorry.... I should have known."

They needed more than each other. They needed someone to practice with who didn't bring with them horrible shared experiences that popped up like booby traps whenever they tried to move forward. But they only had each other right now.

"Can we try something?"

Anakin's apology and feeling self-recrimination, combined with lingering adrenaline and frustration at himself and his physical closeness to Anakin resulted in a completely novel experience for Obi-Wan.

For the first time in his entire life, he actually briefly considered biting someone.

He didn't.

He considered it very briefly.

"We can try anything you want."

There was a strange spike of... not quite irritation from Obi-Wan that Anakin dismissed, because he was very used to irritating people.

He unwrapped his arms from Obi-Wan and stepped back to give them room.

Anakin held up his right hand, palm up.

"Can I see your hand?"

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