darkforcerising | OPEN POST

"I... don't know." Why Padme died. He was careful around the subject, both for Anakin's sake, and because her death was still fresh in his mind and she'd been a good friend, and because he hadn't forgotten the implication, somewhere in there, that he and Padme had betrayed him. "I only know that at we couldn't find anything physically wrong when she died."

He stopped and pulled up his sleeves, fairly matter of fact. "Start there." They could still talk and, if nothing else, the bruises from Anakin's hands forcing his arms apart and back by the wrist had bled to indistinct and blurred into more generalized bruising from the bones feathering into green-stick fractures from the force.

Anakin still had no ability to heal others, but it was easy to see where to start. Med-kits only had so much bacta products in them so he made sure to apply the spay judiciously.

He understood how Padme was not a good topic for all the various reasons!so he moved on.

“He- Palpatine did other things. I can’t prove it, but I know he was messing with my thoughts. With the Force and without. He lied about the Jedi. Manipulated facts and evidence to make me believe they were trying to take over the Republic...” working on Obi-Wan’s injuries gave him a good excuse to keep his eyes averted.

“He never said it exactly like that, but when members of the Council went to arrest him, I was... confused. When Master Windu wanted to kill him, I thought I was doing the right thing to stop him because the Council rarely condoned killing... I shouldn’t have intervened, I should have just let him.”

Force, he hated the smell of Bacta.

It was an olfactory trigger for some of the worst memories in his life.

Until the most recent, anyway. By comparison those were now good memories.

"Mace was more aware of what was happening than the rest of The Council combined." When Anakin finished with one arm, he turned his hand around and briefly brushed his fingers over Anakin's wrist, making an attempt to settle and reassure.

An unsteady attempt to be sure, but an attempt.

"This began when the Republic disbanded it's military. It continued when the Clones were commissioned, and that was at least ten years before Geonosis, and Dooku trying to... convert me. The Chancellor manipulated you , abused you, and used you, and had an enormous amount of pride tied up in having you as his Apprentice, but the trap was set long ago and we walked into it."

Anakin stopped what he was doing with the medical supplies.

“I know.” He knew and he still couldn’t forgive himself because nothing could correct what he’d done - what the copy of him that was out there doing right now, making memories for him.

He forced himself to look up, to meet Obi-Wan’s eyes because at the bare minimum, he should show that remorse. And he didn’t care how his emotions bit at his eyes and his vision blurred.

“I am so sorry, Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan's impulse was to dismiss the apology.

There were many reasons for that, but when Anakin looked up at him it entirely stopped being able whether he needed - or even wanted - an apology, if he deserved an apology, his own guilt and grief, and -

And Anakin needed to say the words and have them heard, understood and believed.

"I know." His voice was rough, but not cracking and his eyes most certainly filled with tears. "So am I."

Anakin nodded. After all the wondering about this conversation, it concluded with this - and he didn't need anything more. Time and distance provided enough force to act on many emotions, redirecting them so they ended up far from their original trajectory. And Anakin's fine as they were.

He blink, the tears that had been welling fell, but they stopped at that.

"Okay, other arm."

He could feel the conclusion of the conversation. If he were less interested in keeping Anakin close (and that feels frankly pathetic to him) he would have used that as an excuse to end the unnecessary first aid session.

But he very much wanted Anakin close.

He gave Anakin his other arm.

"Why are you carrying drugs?"

He did not care what the conversation was, actually.

Anakin snorted. "They are not recreational." He started there.

This was another long explanation. Though he wasn't at all ashamed to explain it.

"I have ADHD- Uh, Attention Deficit, Hyperactive Disorder and PTSD, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. The first is an executive functioning disorder- the frontal lobe of my brain developed differently than what is considered typical. My brain either doesn't produce enough dopamine and norepinephrine or processes them too quickly leaving me with a deficit. And when that happens I struggle with attention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, emotional control- and the perception of time, which is my favorite." Nothing like thinking you've only spent fifteen minutes on something but an hour or two has passed.

"PTSD, that's when you experience traumatic shit and your brain reacts to protect you from the memory of it by locking them all away. But those barriers are not very good because your brain is used to functioning like all memories are accessible, so you encounter something that triggers signals firing through those synopses and then you lose control of experiencing those memories. That's not an inclusive definition.

"I have drugs that help manage all of that."

He hadn't thought they were recreational, though if pressed he would have struggled to explain that his assumption was that they were not.

He listened to the explanations, and then nodded slightly. "That sounds like... you." Anakin? His Anakin? Anakin's former life? Or just Anakin. That was probably easiest. He'd never heard of it, didn't even truly know what some of those words were, but he understood the description.

The description of PTSD, however, made him just wryly wonder if there was a 'traumatic stress disorder' without the post, and apply absolutely none of it to himself because why would he.

"I'm glad you wound up somewhere that could make sense of it and help." It also explained, he thought, why Anakin felt steadier to him.

Far from being upset about Anakin touching him? At least at the moment and with less emotional conversation happening, he was... not relaxing, exactly, but losing some of the adrenaline that had been driving him. Slowing down, both in feelings and thoughts and movements. Just a little.

"Should I avoid asking about your arm?"

It did sound like him. He knew how he'd been before, exactly how frustrating he'd been. And he reverted to some very annoying habits when he went off his meds. Hopefully they figured out how to send him back before they ran out.

"You can ask. The thing about PTSD is that it only gets better when you address the traumatic shit that happened." Was that too pointed?

It was not too pointed. Too pointed might have been pointed enough for him not to assume that Anakin was talking about the reason that Obi-Wan could ask about the loss of his arm.

Possibly even not to sincerely believe that he has addressed the 'traumatic shit'. They'd just had a discussion about it, that was addressing, right.

"All right. How did you lose your arm?"

"Crashed a jet," Anakin said. "Not the worst thing I've endured, but at the time, my brain decided it was... It was also career limiting where I was. I couldn't fly anything anymore."

He let a smile chase the seriousness off his face.

"Maybe I can get some flying in before I go back. I'll even take a spice freighter at this point."

"We're near a Space Port. We'll find you something more exciting than a freighter."

Anakin had worried about Obi-Wan's reaction to Anakin being close? Unnecessarily, apparently, because while he's listened, heard, understood and felt bad about the crash - enough to wince, even - he was also falling asleep.

"I promise."

That is an absolute vow, by god, even if it comes with absolute exhaustion catching up to him and him dozing off.

Edited (fixing word salad good grief) 2020-01-06 01:42 (UTC)

"Ooh, smuggle a smuggler's ship," Anakin remarked. But he could see where Obi-Wan was headed, not being filled with exhaustion himself.

He touched Obi-Wan's shoulder gently to make sure he was awake enough to move.

"Hey, Old Man, time for your nap. I highly recommend you sleep in your very uncomfortable looking bed and not here."

He... made some noise or another of acknowledgement that was honestly a growl, and took himself to bed where he properly went to sleep.

Sort of. He didn't sleep without dreams - they stayed vague more impressions and emotions, snippets of sound or sight, than a full recounting of events, or clear memory - but he was too exhausted not to sleep pretty deeply all the same.

He woke up to the feel of Anakin nearby, and disoriented. "Protect Luke" was far beyond the need for conscious thoughts, though his vague, restless, dreams reinforced that. That there was another Anakin, and he was here, was something he'd need to be far more oriented than he was in the instant of waking, to remember.

He startled, the chair flew off the trap door, the trap door flew up, his lightsaber went flying toward him as he sat up.

And, honestly, everything smaller than a person in the house levitated about 6 feet off the ground, and then slammed into the walls and floor.

Anakin had his air pods in, music turned up as loud as he could stand - the louder the music the more he could focus - and was engrossed in a game on his PS4. And very much ignoring the Force. He was also thinking about what he’d need to do if this visit turned into an extended stay.

But all that was thrown out the window when he was slammed back into the hard stone wall. His ears rung, but not from the music, he’d lost his air pods along the way from where he was sit to where he was now pinned against the wall. His vision blurred and turned double. And it took him a moment to breathe again.

The Force has his focus now. He cursed to himself, stretching out to find the source of the attack. But he was looking outside the hut, not inside.

There was nothing outside the hut, and inside it-

Well, at least Obi-Wan didn't stay disoriented -at least not that disoriented - for long. Once he was upright and the hilt of his lightsaber slapped into his palm, and he ignited it, he started to come back enough.

Enough to immediately quench the blade and see the wreckage and process-

This was bad.

He went to find Anakin, his own heart racing with both worry and lingering dream/memory/protect Luke adrenaline. "Anakin!"

Anakin dropped to his feet, and then his knees. He'd kept up training with his lightsaber back 'home', kept to a good regimented program of exercise and activity, but he wasn't training to fight anyone specifically. Not exactly ready for an attack.

He started to realize what was going on.

Well, he had only asked not to be stabbed, and Obi-Wan had kept that promise.

"Over here," he said, and then coughed. He pushed himself back so at least he was sitting up.

"You okay?"

"Are you out of your mind?" He looked down at his own hand, holding his lightsaber, and made a noise of disgust and dropped it before continuing on toward Anakin.

Then got hesitant and stopped just a bit away.

"I'm fine. I wasn't the one who-" He realized he didn't know. "I just woke up. Are you all right?"

Anakin winced, his head would be sore. And his shoulder. And arms. But that would pass, because if there ever was a good reason to rely on the Force, it was for fast healing. This wasn't the worst thing he'd experienced.

"Slammed into a wall." He finished for Obi-Wan. His friend might as well know the truth.

"I am fine. Just figure sitting here for a moment is the right thing to do." He pat the ground with his metal hand, it made a nice thudding sound. "Stop hanging back and join me over here. The sitting is fine."

"Absolutely not." Because he was still worried. Worried in part because he did it ( large part ) but now that he's awake he knows that Anakin-

This Anakin -

probably has neither the training nor experience to handle that sort of thing, and even if he did he'd been caught off guard.

He did, however, crouch down in front of Anakin, look carefully into his eyes without touching and then sort of... checked him over with Force sense gone oddly tentative to find out what the deal with and make sure, at least, nothing was outright broken.

"Is it the dust?" he asked, smiling. "You're on Tatooine, dust is going to get into everything. You should probably get over your Core-world snobbery and sit down, Obi-Wan. I've done this-" he gestured at the general area. "Before. Woke up and blew out all my windows. Do you know how expensive windows are to replace? I'm still working on replacing them- or I was. Now I'm here, just sitting on the floor- The dream was about Watto, not you."

For a moment he wasn't sure if he wanted to protest the remark about his Core World snobbery or accept the truth of it. Not that the dust bothered him, but he did hate being dirty with a passion that was well beyond logical, and the dust on Tatooine did irritate him.

He shook his head, but sat down beside Anakin. At a respectful difference.

"I hope you at least dreamed you threw Watto out one of the windows."

Anakin noticed the distance, but chose to take this as a win. He stayed where he was.

"I'm not mad," he said. "You want to tell me what happened?"

No, he did not want to talk about it.

However his guilt, both for slamming this Anakin into a wall and for everything Anakin remembered him doing, basic honesty, and sense of justice meant he did it, anyway.

"I slept more deeply than was wise. I woke up fairly disoriented, and aware that you were here but not which you, and remembering that I was supposed to be protecting Luke."

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