darkforcerising | OPEN POST

He tilted his head up enough to return the kiss, quick and light. "Mace was afraid of you, but Mace was... more and less aware than any of us at the same time. And you should like me rebellious. If I weren't...." He stopped and frowned. "Actually I don't know what."

"If you weren't," Anakin said, taking a moment to capture Obi-Wan's hand with his. "You wouldn't be blowing up the Empire with me."

He frowned faintly and tilted his head. "...But I might have been. It depends on how rebellious I wasn't. ...or maybe I mean on the Council being less agreeable. No amount of agreeable would have made me just leave you."

"I'm glad you're doing this with me." He started lacing their fingers. "I wouldn't be able to do it without you."

He rolled over a bit more into Anakin and wound up half draped across his chest, but he didn't let go of Anakin's hand. "Mm. But would you be here without me?"

Anakin welcomed the change in Obi-Wan's position, encouraged it, in fact. Obi-Wan was warm, and Anakin craved warmth like the Tatooine desert at night. And he craved touch more than he craved warmth.

"Here on Alderaan?" Anakin asked, deliberately obtuse. "Absolutely not."

Obi-Wan would probably never stop being a little standoffish and aloof by default, but relaxed enough, close enough, tangled up mentally with Anakin enough -

he'd do this and love it.

Even if he weren't also still just a little clingy (for him).

He stayed draped heavily across Anakin, but chin propped up a bit on Anakin's chest. "Why not? It's beautiful." A pause. "Do you know how to swim?" This Anakin, not the one who had died.

Aside from the obvious answer - Anakin wouldn't have been welcome on Alderaan without Obi-Wan's help. Anakin took Obi-Wan ridiculous question and ran with it.

"I do know how," he said. "I just haven't been interested in it in... well since I was a kid in Arizona- that's the state in the country- Okay, do you want to hear about the world I was on?"

"Yes, and very much so." He paused, very briefly: "But only after you tell me how likely I am to be able to convince you to swim with me."

"Likely, yes. I just didn't when I was older because, well, I lost my arm and tore up the side of my body... people where I was... they aren't always accepting of... injuries like that. And I'm not the biggest fan of sand."

He'd seen Anakin naked a lot but they could talk more about that later. He was pleased with a probably for now. "Tell me more about Arizona."

"Okay..."

Anakin settled in more to talk. Not that he wasn't comfortable before, there was no way not to be comfortable on a bed like this. He just wanted to scoot down a little so he was more on Obi-Wan's level.

"The planet I was on- we just all called it Earth, because people there... are strange. The one moon in orbit around the planet - the moon. Our star - the sun. But there are seven other planets in that solar system, scores of dwarf planets, and hundreds of moons around the other planets and we gave all of them names. But... Earth didn't have one planetary government- there were like two-hundred countries and we did not get along... I lived and grew up in the country called the United States of America- and it was a strange place. Arizona was a state in the south western part of the country and it was basically one big desert. They projected it was going to run out of water in about thirty years but no one there cared- except probably the indigenous tribes- ya, they probably really cared about the water being used up. But America didn't care about its indigenous tribes, like at all."

"That all sounds," he said, after a moment of processing and a rather bemused expression, "terribly familiar."

In parts, anyway, to Tatooine. Clearly. Not quite exactly, not around the specific details of the solar system or moons or names, but at least in the desert and running out of water and conflict with the indigenous tribes.

"Ya, humans are... humans everywhere..." Anakin had noticed the similarities, but that was an oddity he couldn't parse.

"Growing up in Arizona wasn't bad. There were better places, but it could have been worse. No slavery this time, so that was nice. Life was very ordinary until I started getting these memories. I think you should ask me some questions, 'what's it like' is very open ended."

He tucked his fingers just under Anakin's hip and put his head down so his cheek was on Anakin's chest rather than his chin - for both their comfort.

"What did you do for fun?" Besides fly, he meant.

Anakin grinned and appreciated Obi-Wan getting more comfortable, not just for his own sake. But because it was one very small step towards Obi-Wan moving on from his brush with the Dark side.

"As a kid, before I joined the military, I built and raced dirt bikes- their a one to two person means of transportation. Nothing like podracing. I have a picture on my phone of the last bike I had-"

He called the phone to him from the night stand and pulled up his pictures. It took him a while to find the image he wanted. But he founded it and handed the phone to Obi-Wan - a candid picture of a kid, seventeen years old, post race, mud covering his face and racing jacket, but he's grinning, standing next to a yellow and silver dirt bike.

It is such a good picture and so entirely and quintessentially Anakin that he can't help but smile a little at the sight of it. He also remembers that first podrace he'd seen Anakin in, too.

"It's always Yellow with you, isn't it?" It was a gentle tease, and tinged - or rather absolutely saturated - in nostalgia. "I wish we had more time for you to build things, now."

"It's the best color. It's so happy and bright."

This was... wonderful. Obi-Wan present with him, the cares of the outside universe a distant thought.

"I get enough to work on," he reassured Obi-Wan. He had Goose, all the things to maintain at the hut on Tatooine, and the Maverick. Plus, now he had all those fighters in the star destroyer at this disposal.

"After I joined the military I stopped racing because I couldn't do both. I always knew that was going to happen. I wanted to join the Air Force the moment I saw fighter jets for the first time."

He was temporarily distracted by trying to think of what naturally occurring things were yellow, but tuned back in when Anakin mentioned the military.

He knew that hadn't ended well for Anakin, either, but his smile hadn't and didn't fade away, because. "I really cannot imagine any reality where you don't find a way to fly."

His idea of fighter jets and what they were was vague, but- close enough.

"Some things are eternal."

Anakin put the phone back on the nightstand.

"Like your sass, probably."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he says, primly, properly, and very, very dryly. "I am not sassy, I just have style."

He kissed Anakin's shoulder and curled closer. "How was your time with Leia?"

A distinction without a difference, and Anakin knew Obi-Wan knew that. But he let Obi-Wan have that. Sure, style, not sass.

Anakin felt a surge of complicated emotions that he tried to rein in as much as possible. Not because of what Obi-Wan said- not really. Even if Obi-Wan hadn't said what he had, this meeting was going to be awkward and strained.

"It was good," he finally said. "I mean it. I just, I realized... I can't be anything for her," or really Luke for that matter. When Luke got older, what were they going to say about Anakin's identity? At some point, those meetings would have to stop, he realized. It was a sad, unavoidable truth.

"Not until everything with Palpatine and Vader is over, at least. And maybe even then... If people knew Vader is her biological father, it would not be a good thing."

"What people know and what she knows are not the same thing, Anakin," he said, very gently.

Concerned? Yes. Because knowing he couldn't act as a father was one thing but this felt dangerous close to hopelessness. Maybe preparing himself for a possibility - but also maybe creating that possibility.

"That applies for Luke, as well. There is no reason you cannot continue to see them as you have here, nor any reason you can't explain to them as they get older. They're going to need the explanation and with no Order in place if either has the slightest glimmer of Force ability, they're going to need help."

"Look at what Palpatine did to get to me," Anakin said.

"If he knew who Luke and Leia were, he'd trade out Vader in a heartbeat... He isn't exactly happy with how things turned out with Vader."

Anakin was trying to be practical, not hopeless. Though he wouldn't blame anyone for concluding the latter rather than the former.

"Children are not experts of subtly or keeping secrets, even if it's the difference between life and death. Luke and Leia can't know what I am until Palpatine is gone or they are old enough to defend themselves. And... the longer a secret is kept, the more the truth feels like a betrayal, no matter how reasonable or necessary it is."

"Yes."

He definitely knew that hiding the truth could feel like a betrayal, when it came out, but-

But, but, but.

"But you will be obscuring the truth from them either way. At some point they are likely to discover it and that Owen and Bail have kept that information from them whether you are in their lives or not. Given the inevitability of that, the greater question is whether having known you and having a relationship with you at all is better than having questions without answers and still having a sense of betrayal - never mind everything else you can bring to their lives."

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