darkforcerising | OPEN POST

Maybe, just maybe, the Jedi had a point about Force users - powerful, trained ones - not having deep personal attachments.

And maybe they were full of shit and just broke people to the degree that it made love and human connection feel like a thing to be apologized for.

Maybe the truth was somewhere between the two and it really didn't matter right now because there were no Jedi here.

"No."

One word, but hard as hell and flat and actually pretty angry sounding. Because he was still bouncing from one extreme to the other and couldn't find any ground in the middle and the options were broken and guilty and pissed off and afraid, but - Ok.

"Why?"

It was simple. “I’m not going to force anything on you that you think is wrong.”

And Anakin realized he’d unfairly used the mental connections they’d forged to get that information. It was passively done, but unfair all the same. He would have to draw back from that somehow.

"Oh, well, if we aren't going to do anything that feels wrong to me, I suppose we're going back to Tatooine and sitting there until we both die. Wonderful idea."

He paused, briefly, frustrated and angry and hurting but hurting because Anakin was hurting and he did not want Anakin to withdraw and nothing - nothing - felt right except being mad, and that was the thing he intellectually knew was wrong.

"You aren't forcing. You asked. I agreed. I wanted that hug. You wanted it. Now Come back here."

Anakin wasn’t afraid of anger, he understood it all too well, especially after a day like today; he was just afraid of how it was affecting Ovi-Wan.

He did step closer, but not exactly into a full embrace again.

“I think I’m going to need to hear you say out loud what you want for a little while. I don’t care if you yell it at me. I just need to hear that you’re okay with it.”

He definitely was afraid of anger, but at least being mad helped him be able to use words.

He reached out for Anakin with a very slightly shaky hand and pulled him back in and back under the water. "What I'm feeling isn't very reliable right now," he agreed, "the rest might get complicated. All I really want right now is you."

See? Even coming off the anger - (mostly, still mad under there, somewhere, mostly at himself right now) - helped him with the words.

Anakin let Obi-Wan pull him back into an embrace, feeling relief again.

He didn’t want to move away from this. From Obi-Wan.

He wanted things to be better, to be right again - again, his natural impatience rising to the surface. Again, he told himself to be patient.

He wished they could stay like this forever.

But now would simply have to do.

He didn’t know what to say really, so he settled for, “Thank you for telling me.”

He managed to shrink some - or rather slouch and spread his legs out to stand a bit lower so he could use Anakin's shoulder as a place to rest his forehead. He just - he held on. "After this I want to go to bed - naked - and sleep. Please." There was a certain amount of pleading behind that, through the bond. He... really needed the reprieve. Desperately wanted it, but also Anakin.

Positive reinforcement worked for people too.

Anakin carded his hand through Obi-Wan’s wet hair and pulled him in thigh tee with his other hand on his back.

This was the first moment of peace all day. Anakin relaxed into it, hoping Obi-Wan would do the same.

And it helped get them to some level of functioning that they got through the shower without anymore miscommunication.

In bed, Anakin pulled Obi-Wan close, more like half over him. A hand moved slowly through Obi-Wan’s hair, the other resting on the other man’s arm. As many points of touch to help anchor Obi-Wan. Anakin’s plan was to not sleep because he knew this first attempt to sleep after today for Obi-Wan would be difficult for Obi-Wan. He knew because he’d been here before.

Anakin had been there, and Obi-Wan knew it. He also knew that him being there was probably one gigantic trigger for Anakin (hey, looked, he'd learned more words than 'fuck'). He felt bad about that - really, heart-brokenly bad - but he also knew that Anakin was probably the only person left alive in the galaxy that could help him.

Even if there was any other Force sensitive he would have been willing to let near him. Which, in truth, there probably wasn't.

Too much pressure to be fair to Anakin, but again: It's what was.

He managed to sort of relax into the peace and quiet in the shower, to physically and mentally unwind a bit. He stayed focused on Anakin and the process and the fact that he really did, near desperately, just want to go to bed and go to sleep.

He was tired, and sore, and neither of them had gotten any rest since Anakin had been taken. Anakin was injured. Sleep shouldn't be a problem. He didn't expect sleep to be a problem.

...sleep was a problem, and he was naive.

He kept one hand on Anakin's back, feeling him breathe as another point of contact and source of sensory input. He did not, however, go anywhere near meditation - he really, really, could not stand the idea. He was tired enough, physically, for his body to demand sleep, which meant that dozing off wasn't a problem.

Staying asleep was.

Because the second his mind started to slip consciousness and conscious control, memory happened. Violently, disturbingly vivid, memory. He gasped, tensed, and his pulse skyrocketed as he was jolted awake with a rush of adrenaline.

"How good are you at mental manipulation?" He wasn't joking. At all.

Anakin was awake and ready for Obi-Wan when he woke up.

But he wasn’t prepared for that request, though he realized he should have been.

“I’m not sure I should try without guidance,” is what he said. What he left out was that he could do it, because he’d learned how to do it as Vader, and all those times he’d used it he was essentially torturing someone. Changing those techniques so that he was helping Obi-Wan, not harming him, should take him some time to figure out.

But he tried to think of a solution for Obi-Wan, and he was kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner.

“We can go find you a sedative in the med bay. Something that will let you sleep.”

"No." It was confidently sure, but it was also gentle. He closed his eyes again, and turned a bit onto his side so he could wrap himself around Anakin a little more, and properly hold him.

"I don't want to get stuck in a... cycle of dependence." That applied to Anakin, too, but in Anakin's case at least there was a necessary gate keeper. He wasn't upset about it, though. "My mind will eventually catch up with my body." Probably, anyway. "Why don't you just talk to me. Do you have a plan for this thing?"

Anakin wanted to say that using sedatives once wasn’t a cycle of dependency, and that the nightmares just wouldn’t go away on their own. He still had nightmares of his own.

But it was Obi-Wan’s body, and his health wasn’t too impacted by not sleeping right now.

Anakin hooked a leg over Obi-Wan’s and held him close and talked into his hair.

“Well, it will need a crew. And a lot more fuel that the other ship. I have...” he wasn’t sure how to explain the idea he had in his mind. It might hurt Obi-Wan to hear it, which was why he was holding back.

He knew the nightmares wouldn't go away - just like he suspected, just as strongly, that now that he'd turned toward the Dark once there would always be a draw toward it.

But at some point his body would give out and take his mind down with it, and while that wasn't an ideal... it wasn't going to be avoided entirely by using sedatives. Better to save sedation for those times that his physical health and sanity were necessary to serve their cause, than now.

He could sense the reluctance and the fact that it came from concern for him, but he assumed everything was going to hurt for a while, accepted that as a given and wanted to know anyway. "You have what?"

In Anakin’s opinion, his half formed idea wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t attached to the concept of being a Jedi as Obi-Wan was, or had been.

“I think the Jedi Order should change.”

This ship wasn’t directly linked to that idea, it was now just part of it because they took it today. He didn’t form this idea around making the Jedi militaristic.

“... What if the Order wasn’t just for Force users, but just people who wanted to devote themselves to the tenets of the Order because they believed in them?”

"Yoda already said that the Order needed to change, and he was right." Before they'd separated there'd been a conversation about the necessity of that, and how much of their downfall had been in not changing while the Sith - and galaxy, he'd extrapolated himself, had.

He felt compelled to say that, because it was true.

But looking deeply into Anakin's eyes, holding eye-contact, what he actually thought himself was said with feeling. "I do not give a single, solitary fuck what becomes of the Jedi Order."

Edited 2020-03-09 22:43 (UTC)

That was not the response Anakin had expected.

It would have been funny if it wasn’t so out of character for Obi-Wan that it was sort of chilling.

“What do you mean?” he asked, quietly, but not trying to sound accusatory or upset about it. He was just concerned about Obi-Wan.

Was there a non-alarming way for him to say this? Did he have the energy and coherence to find that method and employ it, if he did?

He didn't know.

"I mean that I told Yoda I would happily spend the rest of my life on Tatooine, watching over Luke from a distance and I very much meant that. For the most part I still do. I love you. I love Luke and Leia. I want to see you all survive and to live happy, fulfilling lives where the Empire is just another bad memory. I will do any and everything in my power to ensure that happens. My Order is dead. What rises in its place... belongs to other people. Resurrect it as a brothel if you want."

Obi-Wan’s Order was dead, and he, Anakin, had killed it. He knew Obi-Wan had not meant it that way, but it was how he took it because he couldn’t not accept responsibility for doing it. Actions had consequences, and this, all that Obi-Wan had said, was one of the consequences Anakin had to accept.

Quietly, he settled back down, kissed Obi-Wan’s hair gently, and said, “I’m sorry.”

He stroked his fingers lightly along Anakin's shoulder, then traced as far along his side as he could reach, his touch light and gentle.

"It wasn't your fault, Anakin. In the end it wasn't really even Palpatine or the Sith's. What the Jedi Order fell to was its own tradition, history, and resistance to change. Evolve or die applies to everything. Including the Order."

Including him, even, because he still didn't really know how to change. He was... almost a throwback, even before he'd fallen. He didn't fit in very many places. Where he did fit was... with Anakin, mostly.

"You have an opportunity with your children, to make it into something better. Don't hesitate. It'll be good for you and the galaxy."

Edited 2020-03-09 23:24 (UTC)

Anakin closed his eyes and welcomed Obi-Wan’s touch. He tried to accept what Obi-Wan said, if that’s how Obi-Wan interpreted what had happened. Though of course he wouldn’t be Anakin if he didn’t still feel guilt for the part he’d played. He could accept Obi-Wan’s interpretations enough to not argue with him.

“I love you,” he said softly. Was now the right time to spell it out so clearly? It felt like it.

They were both going to die still feeling guilty for things that the other did not blame them for. Accepting that there was a lack of blame was probably as good as it could reasonably be expected to get.

Anakin accepting even that this was truly his interpretation was enough.

"I love you, too."

Yeah. Now was the right time.

Anakin smiled, and he opened that feeling a little bit to Obi-Wan in the Force. He didn't want to overwhelm Obi-Wan, just wanted him to know that hearing the feeling reciprocated made him happy.

"What do you want to do with this ship?"

Now that he was properly thinking about it, he started thinking militaristically, sort of. He wondered how many planets would follow Alderaan if it openly took a stand against the Empire (and to do that, Alderaan needed defenses). He knew without a doubt Mon Cala would follow, and they had one of the biggest shipyards in the Empire. He was also certain Chandrila and Hosnian would, too. Naboo was currently held loyal to the Empire by Moff Panaka, but if they helped remove him...

It was nice feeling that he'd made Anakin happy. He left his hand in place where it was and closed his eyes again.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I feel this is an opportunity to continue to push the Empire fully onto the defensive, but how best to make that happen is beyond me at the moment. I'm tempted to give the thing to Bail and be done with it, but if it outs Alderaan and puts his people at risk before he's prepared I fear the only thing I will accomplish is losing a friend."

"Then maybe we should ask Senator Organa," Anakin pointed out. "He'd be the best one to answer that."

Anakin moved his hand to card slowly through Obi-Wan's hair.

"We can station it with the prison ship for now."

The hand in his hair made him feel heavy and tired again and his eyes drifted shut under it. He also turned and... nuzzled, nearly, toward Anakin's shoulder.

"Even partially outfitted it can also protect the prison ship...."

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