darkforcerising | OPEN POST

"I know. As unpleasant as the experience itself," he said, in weary understatement, "it is evidence that we are changing things. We simply need to continue to change them."

He might actually leave Anakin. It wouldn't be voluntary if he did though, and that included being over accepting of the potential for any given outcome leading to his own death.

If Anakin tried to back off or stop though-

They were going to argue.

If Anakin could discern those thoughts, he'd certainly have words.

"It's also evidence what we are doing is working. We have to do more. While keeping you alive..." There was no question about that.

He thought about that moment of clarity he'd had before.

"I... know how Sith work. We should be using that. I should be telling you more of what I know."

"That's what I meant to imply, but I'm grateful for the confirmation." He truly was.

He stroked his thumb over Anakin's arm again, and - "Can you?" It would be useful, but he.. still didn't want to upset Anakin. No more than necessary, anyway.

"Obi-Wan," and this was the thing he'd put together: "We are holding back because we think we are going to hurt each other. We need to stop doing that. There's a way to do this, to not hold back, but in a way we won't hurt each other. There are routines to it, too, and I know you like routines."

"We do need to stop holding back so much. We do not need to stop caring. If you have an idea for a routine that will make both of those things easier, or less contradictory, I will happily employ them."

Also he really did need to know more about the Sith.

"Same time, each day. For only a specific amount of time- we don't go over. We talk about one discret thing for that day. Checking in with each other often- I'll ask or you'll ask something like 'I'm checking in, do you want to keep going?' And if we need to stop because something is too much, we say it, and trust that the other person knows their own tolerance... like what we do with your wrists, but without the sex- unless you wanted to incorporate sex. I haven't thought through that permutation."

He looked up, tilting his head back trying to look at Obi-Wan from this impossible angle, because he anticipated how Obi-Wan would receive this: with resistance.

"I trust you."

He didn't like it. He was resistant. He was resistant because he... the desire to protect Anakin from the shit in his own head was intense. Anakin's phrasing, however, made it hard for him to.

If he admitted that, he would be saying that he didn't trust Anakin, and being positive Anakin had set things up that was intentionally changed nothing.

"I don't like it, but I trust you, too." Wait, that sounded wrong. He nudged an apology toward Anakin. "I don't like the idea overall, but I do trust you. Though if you manage to make discussions about Sith sexual, the entire deal is void."

Anakin knew he'd won before he felt the apology. But he took it, and wrapped it in appreciation with a bit of light humor and sent it back to Obi-Wan.

But he barked a laugh at Obi-Wan's final term. He shifted around so he could pull back and look at Obi-Wan straight on.

"I promise not to make that a challenge. And I hope you see that as a compromise on my part."

He grinned in a way that was actually a bit smug, in spite of the hour and cause they'd woken up and the nature of the discussion.

"I'd love to tell you to make it a challenge, but it's one where even winning would mean both of us losing." If he managed, they really really lost.

If he didn't Anakin lost.

Anakin smiled back, though it softened the longer the moment lasted. He did remember why they were talking about this, and why Obi-Wan woke up.

"I'm with you, Obi-Wan. Through all of this. I'm not going to leave you to deal with your visions on your own."

"Yes, yes, the mistake of the Jedi was allowing ourselves to be divided." He wasn't dismissive, he was grateful. He even got a hand in Anakin's hair and kissed him, slowly. "Though I'm still not sure there is any effective dealing with, I feel better."

"Do you want to sleep more or talk about Sith."

Not joking. He was awake. He'd agreed.

If Obi-Wan was going to insist on kissing him like that, it wasn't fair to then ask him to talk about Sith. Anakin was almost inclined to believe Obi-Wan had taken on the challenge of seeing if Anakin would break his promise.

"I'm glad you feel better."

He considered Obi-Wan's offer. And then he settled back down, his mouth not in range of any kisses.

"Just a bit, that will help with your vision."

The sound he made when Anakin settled out of range of being kissed was blatantly huffy and irritated.

But affectionately so, at least, and entirely about Anakin's failure to be distracted.

He refocused, though, and committed to the discussion. "All right." Explain. He was lost.

Okay, maybe not break his promise, but try to make him not talk about the topic altogether.

Anakin did his best to send the feeling of a deadpan stare at Obi-Wan.

"You're the focus of Vader's anger but you're not the actual source of it." That's where he started, part from memory part from how he knew their actions must have angered Palpatine - they'd started all this by killing his Grand Inquisitor - and he knew how Palpatine reacted to things not going his way.

"A Jedi Master-apprentice relationship is one that is mutually beneficial, with both participants working towards a common goal that benefits each individual in different ways. The apprentice learns about the Force and how to use the Light Side, the Master learns about how to keep another sentient alive and how to be disappointed when their apprentice does everything the opposite of what they said." The last part was a joke which he's sure Obi-Wan will appreciate. "But jokes aside, both parties are supposed to end up better for the experience."

He took a deep breath and let it out slow. He wasn't paralyzed by fear talking about this, just filled with a deep sadness.

"That is not how it works for Sith. The relationship is Master-subservient. One where, in spite of everything a Master does to their apprentice, the apprentice learns how to use the Dark Side of the Force. And this just continues until the apprentice grows in enough strength and figures out how to kill their Master. Or the Master discards their apprentice, usually by killing them, but not always." He paused. "Maul is an example of that. He failed on Naboo and Palpatine discarded him, he didn't need to put in the effort to get him back... he had other... options by then." Dooku, a random slave child he'd seen on a landing platform... "Maul is no longer Sith- but I wouldn't give him a hug."

He did his best to return the feeling of a deadpan look with one of a smirk.

Then he settled down and listened.

He didn't get too distracted by the joke. He didn't interrupt. He listened, and he listened intensely and with a quiet and absolutely steady focus.

"I'd ... understood some of that, I think." Not known, but had suspected the drift of, through hindsight and observation. Then he blinked a couple of times. Contemplating Naboo and Maul's actions there from another angle - he hadn't considered those events for a very long time.

He almost jumped ahead to the conclusion Anakin was likely to give him - not quite sure enough, though, and also slightly distracted by Maul and Sidious and political nonsense he hated.

If they weren't talking about Sith - a subject he was forbidden to make sexual - that 'smirk' would have earned Obi-Wan a fierce kiss, the kind that would lead to other things.

But Anakin had agreed to stay on topic.

"So Palpatine and Vader are stuck in this cycle of sabotaging each other while trying not to undo their own plans. Palpatine is better at it than Vader right now. Vader doesn't get how the dynamic works yet. Palpatine went from this supportive uncle figure to someone who now tortures him when he fails. Or when Palpatine's plans fail. Which is what we are doing, disrupting Palpatine's plans... But Vader thinks he needs Palpatine- his major focus after Padme died was getting her back and he thinks Palpatine will help him with that. He won't, but that's not the point. Vader doesn't get that yet.

"So he can't lash out at Palpatine, and just transfers all the blame to you."

He couldn't decide if he had too much compassion, or just a frightening and until now unexplored, capacity to hate.

Because he had thought he was done feeling bad - and guilty - for not just the man who became Vader, but certainly Vader himself. He certainly didn't think he could... was hate the word he wanted here, really? Was that even what he felt? He wasn't sure but he didn't know what was better ... hate Palpatine more.

Yet, here they were.

"There are worse places to transfer the blame." Though he is, strangely, relieved that there is... an intermediary, as it were. "And I believe this is the first time I thought we might actually manage to rescue Vader."

Anakin knew it was possible but...

"That would be... difficult." For some reason, hearing Obi-Wan say that made Anakin, but still sad. He knew he should figure that out more clearly. Maybe another time.

"Hate and anger just gets you stuck on the Dark Side more. And Palpatine is doing everything to keep Vader angry so he won't feel anything like remorse or guilt. Anything... When he got Vader from Mustafar, all the medical treatment he needed, all the cybernetic implants that were added, Palpatine made him stay awake without any anesthesia, just to make him more angry about needing the procedures. Vader doesn't separate what you did to him with what Palpatine did- does to him."

He knew that was not a mitigating reason to lesson Vader's culpability. It was just an explanation.

"It's not your fault he thinks this way. But that's the logic behind it."

"Oh no," he said, with the same tone and same... feeling he would have told Anakin that his math was wrong or that Tatooine had two suns. Something that was just indisputable fact, not... even guilt in play anymore, really, just recognition. "It is absolutely my fault."

It was his fault he'd been left vulnerable to Palpatine, his fault that he'd needed those procedures - and been alive for them - his fault that the trust wasn't there to come to him for help. Extended to the Jedi - of which he was a member of the Council of, and one of very few surviving it was utterly and entirely his doing.

There wasn't anything he could do about it, and he'd let go the emotional association (overall - right now, at least), but the fact of it remained.

"Whatever the eventual outcome for him, it will be better than what he's experiencing now." That... he had emotional response to. Mostly deep, aching, sadness.

They could not unbreak the past. Only re-examine it. And they both did that in spades.

"You- everyone, the Jedi, even Vader, failed mostly because of Palpatine. He's the one to blame the most... Maybe we should stop blaming ourselves for what Palpatine did to us?"

Sure, he could say that, but could they see it from that angle?

"The more we change the future that is your past, the more I find myself thinking of Qui-Gon, and one particular lesson I believed he tried -and failed, if I'm honest- to teach me. Life is neither fair no unfair, but rather simply is. It is up to us to make it so."

He pauses a moment, dragging his thumb over Anakin's cheekbone, slowly and with, no other word for it, a profound amount of tenderness.

"I do not, at least currently and I feel as though it may change with my next breath, feel personal responsibility for Vader's creation. I loathe Palpatine more than is good for me, but he's more symptom than disease, and he did not cause the fall of the Order. The Order fell under the weight of its own arrogance."

Another, briefer pause with his hand still on Anakin's face. Trying to remember what his point was and then finally just coming up, rather lamely and with less eloquence. "In the end, I don't think we really need to blame anyone. We only need to make things more fair."

He didn't need eloquence.

"I agree with you."

There was something different about a 'lecture' when you were on equal footing. It was a discussion, a sharing of ideas. Or maybe he was sure of the fact that if he had something to contribute, Obi-Wan would listen and not dismiss him. He remembered that being an undercurrent of his relationship with Obi-Wan in his previous life. He was never sure Obi-Wan would listen to him.

It's what brought them here now.

And now was different in so many ways.

"Can we stop talking about Sith now?"

He lifted his eyebrows at Anakin, just a little. "Can we stop talking now?" Especially about the Sith, because if Anakin had more to say? Something else they needed to discuss in the wake of that vision and in the warm dark and profound Quiet of the middle of a Tatooine night? He would stop, and he would listen.

If not, he'd do something else.

In response, Anakin leaned in and kissed Obi-Wan.

"Unless you have more you want to talk about- about your vision," he said. "We can get back to that distraction you tried before."

Sometimes the dichotomy of this life struck him. It felt as though he were as much two people as Anakin, only both of them still in the same skin. The man who handled the rebellion and plotting and tactics, who was still a Jedi General -

and then this.

He wondered how in the name of anything Anakin could want the second while seeing and remembering the first. Not because of guilt, per se, just the messy complication of it all.

He didn't think about it for long, and certainly not now.

It was probably just the slow cycle of healing in the midst of new trauma.

He snorted, soft and somehow elegant, but settled his hand around Anakin's jaw and kissed him. This time properly, slowly deepening the kiss and turning it gently, slowly, demanding.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject