darkforcerising | OPEN POST

Anakin snorted and said, “You have very low expectations for my cooking and that is very sweet.”

"Don't take it personally; I have very low expectations of everyone's cooking." He has never met a Jedi who could cook. It was very strange, but then maybe not. The Temple fed them, in the field they were fed or used meal packs or ration bars.... All right, not really strange.

Though he remains bewildered by the idea that anything was sweet. Though:

"I never thought Tatooine could feel like anything but exile. But it does."

No, the Jedi didn’t learn many life skills. And Anakin was never a good cook in his second life.

“You have very low expectations for Tatooine, too.” Anakin wasn’t going to let Tatooine redeem itself to him. And because Obi-Wan was getting very sentimental, “It’s just endurable because you have someone to have sex with.”

The look he shot Anakin was equal parts offended and almost... hurt? Not quite, but not entirely removed from it. He didn't really respond to either of those, just let his expression go flat.

"Well, you've just nearly guaranteed that we aren't going to have sex here again."

And he'd still be relieved to see it.

Probably.

Okay, Anakin could see he’d crossed a line.

“Obi-Wan, you’re the only thing that makes Tatooine worth it.” Well, and Luke but he didn’t get to see Luke, so...

“Even if we were still just friends I would stay on Tatooine for you.”

There is a gentle warmth and light directed to Anakin, through the force. Reassurance but also love.

"And if we were still friends, I would still see coming here as a reprieve because you are here."

Sex is fun. He likes sex. Sometimes, sex is... more useful in keeping him sane than he would like or should be comfortable with.

It isn't the point.

He wasn't upset on his own behalf, but Anakin's.

Stop minimizing your own importance, Anakin (As if either of them ever really would)

Anakin reached over and gave Obi-Wan's hand.

Tatooine just couldn't surmount Anakin's experiences on it.

"It is a good place to hide from the Empire."

He thought about it a moment, and then added, "The best kind of place to plot its demise."

He turns his hand palm up, so his fingers are under Anakin's wrist and Anakin's fingers are lightly against his. It's both more and less ... solid, as contact goes, but it allows him to touch back, and that matters.

"It is, and we have been far more successful than I would have imagined possible." Which isn't about anyone's ability, just about how much bigger and more menacing the Empire had seemed at the start. It's still enormous and menacing but he believes they can. "This isn't going to turn into a working lunch, is it?"

...He has more personal concerns, he'd like to find a way to finally broach.

“When you know all your enemy’s secrets, it makes winning easier.” That was how Palpatine did it - he held all the cards and knew what everyone else was holding, too.

“Do you want to make it a working lunch?” He didn’t have any plans to do that, he figured they’d wait a few more days for Obi-Wan to recover before making new plans.

"Especially if knowing your enemy's secrets means they begin to turn on themselves." He had no real proof that was happening.

He still knew.

They had to suspect someone was betraying them.

"And no. I do not want a working lunch, at least in the sense of future plans. I am... in need an explanation."

For the moment, Anakin was okay not knowing who the Empire thought was eating them from the inside out. They would discover that soon enough. And then use it to their advantage.

"Okay," Anakin said, catching that hesitation. And at the least he could guess it was about the things he knew. "What do you want explained?"

He eats in silence for a bit, deliberating how to approach this and decides to opt out of anything that could be even a bit leading.

"My memories after I was injured are ...uncertain, at best. How did you manage to get us out?"

He does remember somewhat, but 'explosive fire' isn't really any answer, and he wants Anakin to... tell him.

Oh, that.

Anakin sobered quickly and pulled back his hand.

He thought for a moment, going back to the fight with the stormtroopers and the two Inquisitors. And what he did to them.

He’d thought about that a lot the last few days, he had many complicated feelings about his actions, how they were skills he’d learned as Vader, and what did it mean if he used them. He hadn’t reached for the Dark Side when he’d used them, that wasn’t a requirement to use them - it was all an act of necessity... and yet they were still skills that came with memories he didn’t want.

And it wasn’t pleasant feeling the Inquisitors and the stormtroopers burn up.

Well the best place to start was a basic explanation of what he’d done.

“I used the Force to immobilize the Inquisitors, threw them back into the group of stormtroopers, and then activated all the stormtroopers’ thermal detonators.”

He gives Anakin room to withdraw, but the need for space doesn't match the matter of fact nature of the explanation Anakin actually gives him.

That worries him more than the explanation itself - by quite a lot. Probably.

"I had no idea that Storm Troopers had thermal detonators, I don't think. Or I did and had forgotten."

“Ya, each soldier each their own arsenal.”

He took a deep breath.

“I wasn’t using the Dark Side- these are just- They are things I learned how to do when I was Vader. So thinking about them- doing them comes with remembering how I first learned them and used them afterwards.”

"Was the disclaimer for your benefit or mine," he asked, gently. He even managed, albeit narrowly, not to grimace about mention of Vader's memories.

Since the grimace would have been one of sympathy, that may not be a good thing.

"Yours? Maybe both?" It was probably for both of them. He did know the difference. Not everything a Sith did was the Dark Side. The opposite could be said of the Jedi, too.

"I'm sorry... if you don't want me to do them again. I won't."

"I don't entirely understand why you believe I would have a particularly hard time with this specific thing. We've been doing things I hate for months. The level of ruthlessness and... pain involved are upsetting, but I thought we'd reached a point where we'd decided that the ends justified the means."

Which he didn't love either but.

The ends did, at least mostly, justify the means.

Anakin reached for Obi-Wan's hand. "Can I have your hand?" It seemed like an odd request, maybe, but Anakin had his reasons. He'd explain them, he just wanted some part of Obi-Wan to touch, to ground him.

It only seemed odd that Anakin felt the need to ask, and even that wasn't particularly odd. He extended his hand across the table, palm up for Anakin.

"Obi-Wan," Anakin started, and then stopped.

He took Obi-Wan's hand in both of his, and he gently brushed his thumbs over the palm and then down the man's wrist. It was a soft reminder, what had happened to Obi-wan's arms on Mustafar - what he, Anakin, had done to him. And what he'd promised to never do again.

"Some ends justify the means," he started again. "Some don't... I haven't had anyone to talk to about the line between what I learned how to do as Vader that is usable and what isn't. It doesn't come naturally for me... But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it." He brought that palm up for a kiss. "Because we should know that line."

We - them, together. The team. This was about trust and learning to trust again and again. Trust was what made Tatooine bearable and every mission bearable. Trusting Obi-Wan this time.

There were lines he did not and would not cross. He didn't love Anakin's methodology in saving him, but he also didn't fault him for it and it wasn't over the line for his comfort with Anakin.

More globally... he didn't know.

He had other lines he struggled with, fairly hard recently, when it came to Anakin. Something about attachment and fear, and the past and the future and-

He curled his fingers lightly but let Anakin do what he wanted with his hand, albeit stroking his thumb over Anakin's jaw while he had it lifted to his mouth.

"Then tell me."

It could have come across as... dismissive, or even demanding. It wasn't actually either. It was encouragement and invitation.

Anakin wasn't put off, he'd dealt with Obi-Wan enough to know when he was being dismissive. This wasn't it.

"I guess the easiest to explain is the thermal detonators."

As he talked he worried a finger - from his right hand this time - over the lines on Obi-Wan's palm. Fleetingly, he wondered if Obi-Wan would get a kick out of the idea of telling fortunes from the lines on your palm.

"It's just a mix of telekinesis and the connection I have with machines and electronics. With enough practice, I just got better at controlling more things at once more intricately."

"Yes, once you told me what you'd done, I assumed that was the case." He could even have done it, had he understood they were there well enough to find them with the Force. Not as well or as dramatically (not with that many), he may not have been able to follow through - depending - but he could have done the action.

He curled his fingers a little when metal slid against his skin and - actually really enjoyed the trust and the contrast in sensation.

Anakin absolutely believed Obi-Wan could do it. It just took practice to find the familiar feeling of the detonators, and keep track of every switch all at once in your mind. But yes, you had to know they were there first, and be willing to do it. To take the deadly option against a foe. Before, the goal had always been to find the least harmful way possible to win... but they had numbers on their side then. Now it was just them. That’s what Anakin needed to work out here, the why it was okay now to do it.

“The other skill...” Done tracing lines, he dragged his finger down one of Obi-Wan’s fingers.

“It’s hard to explain the difference between just telekinesis and... the sheer force of will involved with the other.”

And given how that had been a problem for him before - the tendency to exert his will instead of going with the will of the Force, that’s where his discomfort lie.

He really just wanted to hear from Obi-Wan that he wasn’t slipping.

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