darkforcerising | OPEN POST

He was not-

Yes, actually he was hiding behind humor.

He looked for an argument to refute Anakin with. Tatooine was blisteringly hot and bitingly cold in turns, dirty, rough, beyond dry, and nearly living thing, including (most) people, was hostile in the extreme, but-

"In most ways," he agreed. "But it does have some of the most glorious sunsets I've seen anywhere."

“You need to get out more,” he said dryly. Obi-Wan was not going to convince him Tatooine had admirable qualities.

Taking his own steadying breath, he reached into the Force and used it to summon his phone to him. He needed to see if it was okay, but not for the reason one might think.

“We need to figure out how I can control how I feel in the Force, so I don’t upset you again.”

He most certainly does not need to get out more.

Yet.

He leaned back to make sure he wasn't in the way of Anakin's flying... whatever that was, to him basically some sort of data pad, and watched him curiously.

"The fact that you aren't crawling with fear and hate really should have been enough. It just... wasn't." Should have been, though.

Anakin wasn’t sure if right now was the time to point out he was dealing with fear and hate, but just also along with a thousand other emotions. He’d just learned to control them so for the most part they didn’t overwhelm him and take control. That could be a later conversation.

“Brains are unkind like that. When something triggers certain memories, brains just kind of fall back on basic responses. I should have known this would happen.”

He fiddled with the phone some more and then said, “Good news, only the screen is broken. Everything else works.”

He won't be surprised when that later conversation happens, probably. If only because feeling a thing being quite literally consumed by them are different and -

He was sitting with Anakin and missed Anakin.

It was a very strange thing.

"Why is that good news?"

“Because screens are replaceable. The stuff I need is still there. Like my alarms, this is how I keep an approximate perception of the passage of time.”

He had noticed that Obi-Wan avoided the other thing he said completely. But he wasn’t outwardly denying anything he’d said. Small steps.

“We should check your other things, see if you broke anything necessary for living on this trash heap.”

He would like to deny it, but he truly couldn't. Especially not when he'd been deeply enough asleep that he was acting without any truly conscious input.

What he needed to do was figure out how to stop it happening again.

"I'll check the cellar. There's nothing up here that's truly necessary." The cellar's his source of water and, to a large degree, power. "And I'd like to argue with you about the sate of this place, but it is terrible." It had been abandoned for a long time before he'd moved in, and it hadn't been good to start with.

He sighs, stands, and heads toward the cellar. "You should eat."

The admission about this place being terrible made Anakin smile. This was a trash heap.

He almost offered to follow Obi-Wan down to the cellar, but held back when Obi-Wan told him to eat, catching the instruction for what it was - an excuse for some space.

So he let Obi-Wan have it. He was surprised to find that it stung a little, but he couldn’t blame the older man. Obi-Wan was expecting peace and quiet on Tatooine, and instead got another version of that kid Qui-Gon had left him.

Anakin found a meal pack in the kitchen, but instead of sitting idly while he ate, he walked around picking up the things that had been shoved around. He sorted them into three piles: the things unbroken, the things that could be fixed, and the unfixable. It was a good way to pass the time while he waited or Obi-Wan to come back up.

What he expected on Tatooine was not peace and quiet. What he expected to find was the sort of absolute isolation that went far beyond a lack of company, and would have made him worry for his long term sanity if he were emotionally aware enough to do so.

Jedi may shun attachments, and certainly their communal upbringing prevents attaching deeply to individuals, but it was still communal living and it was very difficult to be truly alone when you're surrounded by other Force Sensitives. Not that he hasn't done solo missions, or paired ones, or traveled, but this wais none of those things.

This? Was the rest of his life.

For all his response to Anakin's presence in the force when he first woke, and all that he did need some space just to breathe, he was more comforted by the feel of Anakin upstairs than not.

He came back upstairs and found Anakin and the piles, once he'd finished putting things back to rights. "I forgot one very important thing here. The heater. Did you manage to find it?"

“Unfortunately,” Anakin said, and he reached into the ‘fixable’ pile and hauled it out.

“We can fix it, but some essential components were damaged that will need to be replaced. Gotta track down some Jawas.”

He is forty years old.

He is a Jedi. He is a Master. He is a General. He has sat upon the twice damned Council.

He has led his troops into battle after battle after battle. He has been captured. He has been tortured.

He has handled all of those things with an impressive amount of equanimity. He just about, almost, wants to pick the heater up and throw it through the nearest wall.

A deep breath and a moment of silence (and honestly glaring at the thing like it was doing this to him instead of the other way around).

"Right. Well, it could be worse, but we're in for an uncomfortable night." Tracking down some Jawas was doable. Doing it before dark? Less likely.

Anakin couldn’t help raising his eyebrows while watching - or feeling - the scene unfolding before him.

“Probably a bad time to point out the bottle of alcohol is also broken...”

"Bad idea to drink when we're likely to freeze, anyway. Worse idea for me to get into the habit of drinking every time I experience an emotion I don't like."

He had... some degree of self-awareness? Limited, but some.

He looked at the piles another moment, then rubbed his eyes again. "If you'll help me move what can't be fixed out, we can come up with a plan for the next several hours. Lighting a fire in here is probably a terrible plan." Mostly because he was frustrated enough to take some mild satisfaction in imagining burning the whole thing down.

He was recovering but the ... prickly irritation of frustration at himself was lingering and likely to continue to for a bit. "Did you at least manage to eat?"

"Ya," Anakin barked a laugh. "You'd be perpetually drunk." That was probably a thought he should have kept to himself.

He swiftly got to work moving out what couldn't be fixed. Though while he was doing that, he made a new pile of 'parts can be salvaged from these for later use,' also known as the 'Anakin needs to fiddle with something or he'll drive friends batty.'

"We're going to be fine," he said. "I once spent an entire night by myself out in the wastes before I left this rock." Meaning, back when he was a slave.

"I would not," he said, very precisely, "be perpetually drunk" A short pause as he picked up and started to work at moving things out of the hut and out of their way. "I would be drunk."

Briefly, probably, unless being drunk led to more emotions and then-

Anakin may have had a point.

"At one point during my conversation with Yoda, after watching the security feed from the temple, I told Yoda I should have died before I brought you to the Jedi. ...I still can't make myself believe that. Can't make myself wish you'd stayed in slavery."

Anakin cringed. That must not have been easy to watch. He almost said he was sorry again, but if he said sorry every time Obi-Wan relived everything, he'd be perpetually saying sorry. And Obi-Wan might as well stay perpetually drunk.

"It's not a dichotomy, you know," he said. "Those didn't have to be my only two options... You can also think taking me out of slavery was right, and that I failed..." Then he said more quietly, "That's how I think about it."

"I still can't come up with a right, even with the benefit of hindsight." And he had been trying, because clearly letting this go was not a thing he was capable of. "Not really. Yoda wasn't wrong in saying you were too old, but that isn't a failing in you. No one else was going to train you. I was the worst possible option and. I have no idea what would have kept you protected from Palpatine for any length of time."

Anakin was silent for a moment. A long moment.

"Almost as if... there couldn't be another outcome."

He reaches out and drags his thumb down the bridge of Anakin's nose in a brief, seemingly casual, but affectionate gesture.

There's a definite current of sadness there.

"The force is balanced."

"It will be."

Anakin watched Obi-Wan for a moment.

"The Jedi... probably wasn't the place I belonged. But if I didn't go there, I wouldn't have known you."

He didn't quite understand what Anakin was telling him about the future, even with his own intent and suspicions. His confusion was pretty mild, though, and so was his curiosity.

"I'm having a hard time seeing how that wouldn't have been kinder to you." Maybe later. With more time, but. "I'm glad I knew you." Even with the horrible, horrible end to it all.

The truth was, Anakin had had a kinder life - in another reality. But it didn't involve Obi-Wan. And it was hard for Anakin to choose which one he wanted more.

"Okay, so about tonight." He figured he was better to move on before he overfilled Obi-Wan emotional cup. "How many blankets do you have here?"

The truth was also that Obi-Wan was not reconciling this 'same Anakin but different' very well and was flipping between almost talking to the ghost of who Vader had been, and the Anakin in front of him.

It would likely stabilize at some point, but for now-

He was just grateful Anakin lightened the conversation before he was forced to do it. Far better when someone else did the deflecting for him.

"Four. Five if we count my cloak." Which should count, it's enormous and it is heavy.

"Four or five-!" Anakin said. "Oh my god, Obi-Wan, we're going to be fine! It gets cold at night, it doesn't turn into Ilium at night for eighteen days. Maybe we'll have to share blankets, but if that's too uncomfortable, I'll take the cloak and you can have the rest."

"Why would I be uncomfortable sharing blankets with you?" Confusion first then mild offense, and something even a little petulant: "I hate being cold. Not as much as I hate being dirty, but I do not enjoy it." Could tolerate it, but he didn't want to

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