darkforcerising | OPEN POST

He shakes his head mutely, because he temporarily cannot get words out of his mouth. He puts his meal pack down, forgets about it and grabs a blanket.

"It's fine. You're the one who experienced it. You're allowed to make jokes or not think about whatever you want. Including not thinking about how I'm going to respond."

...Someday he might stop smelling Mustfar and burning flesh.

No. Anakin wasn't going to just let it be that way. Obi-Wan mattered, his feelings mattered. That's where the Jedi had failed every member so completely. Feelings mattered, they had a purpose, ignoring them was an abuse Anakin wouldn't perpetuate.

"Obi-Wan," he said firm but not harsh. "It was traumatic for you, too. You're my friend. Of course I care how you're going to react to it."

"Of course it was traumatic for me," he - didn't exactly snap, but shot back with the tiniest bit of an edge. Hey, it was an admission - that he felt vaguely forced into making.

...It was also an admission that needed to happen.

"If you want to care how I react to things that you did, that's ... acceptable." Barely. "But that is something I chose to do."

In essence? He didn't deserve consideration.

"That I forced you to do," Anakin said. "We were friends. I chose to go to the Dark Side. You had to stop me."

"Except I still didn't stop you." There it was. "It was... pointless."

He was basically being pushed pretty hard - for Jedi standards, anyway - to really let emotion go in a meaningful way and it was... working.

He wasn't mad, the... wall of reserve was just breaking rapidly. In ways similar to what had happened in that conference room with Organa and Yoda, except Anakin wasn't telling him to get his shit together.

He was pushing Obi-Wan to let it the hell go.

And it was working.

And he was about a half inch from physically collapsing and crying, all over again.

"Could you have killed me?" Anakin asked, crossing the distance between them. If Obi-Wan struck out at him physically, he would back off, but Anakin felt this was the better move.

"Yoda shouldn't have made you try."

Obi-Wan was a very, very good at fighting - hand to hand or with a lightsaber - but through and through, he was also someone who chose to fight defensively. He frequently ended fights, but making the first move in one? Very, very, very rarely.

If anyone knew that about him, it was Anakin.

Even nearing something that could probably be called hysterical, him lashing out was damned unlikely. Especially at Anakin. Especially with where his head was.

Anakin approached and Obi-Wan just basically... fell down. Not to get away from him but because he was abruptly not really capable of remaining standing. ...That had happened at the Temple, too, after he'd watched the security feed.

"No." No he couldn't have. "And I told him that."

Anakin sat next to him on bed and placed an arm around Obi-Wan's shoulders.

He hadn't been sure what to say about 'the future.' He knew Jedi didn't like knowing, or trying to know - the future was always in motion, and all that. But he felt like now he should say something.

"You watch over Luke here. You train him. And he helps me come back from the Dark Side. It's not pointless... It's just the excruciatingly painful will of the Force."

For a fraction of a second, it seemed Obi-Wan might reject the physical contact. Barely long enough to blink he stopped breathing and tensed.

But then he relaxed not just physically but mentally and emotionally. Not the fake kind of relaxation that was deliberate, but an almost slow motion collapse and give. Because he was tired and out of the ability to fight it all back and down and away, and because in spite of being a ridiculously uptight Jedi he needed physical contact after this mess and just -

Just because he was, ultimately, human.

He still thought Anakin being the stable one, the steady one, was profoundly backward, but right now? He was going to take it.

He closed his eyes and listened to what Anakin said. "I can live with excruciatingly painful." Still sorry for Anakin's sake, and the Galaxy's, but - "I couldn't live with pointless."

The benefit of good therapists. That’s what Anakin could offer his long time friend.

“That is the most Kenobi thing I’ve heard you say this whole time.”

Anakin wondered if he could get away with pulling Obi-Wan closer, and decided to go for it. The man deserved a proper hug.

But he also said. “You should still eat. You’ll be frustrated at yourself tomorrow when you think you’ve wasted that food.”

Not only could Anakin get away with it, Obi-Wan barely registered anything odd about it. He would shortly, but when initially pulled closer, he actually curled into the hug and returned it.

"That is really not going to happen," he said, with a soft but derisive snort. He meant the eating, not the frustration. The frustration would probably be an issue at some point. "I'll finish it later tonight." Once his stomach calmed down.

The heat from the twin suns around Tatooine, that made the planet unbearable during the day, bled off into the black heart of space quickly after the last rays of light slipped below the horizon. Temperatures dropped to freezing before the hour was up.

Anakin pulled the hood of his hoodie up over his head and drew the strings tight. Five blankets (actually four, plus one Jedi cloak) were going to get him and Obi-Wan laying next to him through the night, but the chill in the air was uncomfortable.

"Ugh, I hate this planet so much," he complained. He wanted to hunt down Palpatine if only for the chance to get off this awful planet.

"I hope Jabba is having a terrible night, too... Ugh, he's probably not. Stupid sand slug."

"I seem to recall you implying I was being ridiculous for being concerned."

Which was not actually unfair - they weren't going to die, just get awfully cold and miserable until the suns reappeared to bake the planet again.

He was lying on his side so Anakin could fit in his bed and under the blankets (and cloak). He was surprisingly unbothered by the closeness. After you've been to war with someone, is there really any point in reserve?

Yes, said Obi-Wan, but there was none after you'd cried in their presence. Also? He was definitely already cold.

"You could find a ship in Mos Eisley, you know." Get off the planet.

"I'm not concerned, I'm uncomfortable," Anakin corrected. "And I just want one of the perpetrators of abuse in one of my youths to be as uncomfortable as I am. Don't take this from me, Obi-Wan. Complaining out loud is all I can do about my situation."

Anakin didn't mind the closeness either, it was the best way they were going to survive.

"Why would I leave you?" he asked, matter of factly. He also got more talkative the less medication he had in his system. "Where would I go? Hunt myself down? I could bother him." That made Anakin smile despite his whinging before. "Ironic."

"Oh, well then. Do carry on." There was something approaching a normal tone from him, there, for the first time since Anakin's arrival. ...No, not normal. Playful. Almost, sincerely, light.

He pulled the blankets up higher around him, so he had his nose tucked into fabric and he wasn't breathing cold air.

"It isn't about leaving me. You could go anywhere, do anything. Including bothering Vader, I suppose, but I can't imagine that being much fun for you."

"Why wouldn't it be fun?" Anakin asked. "I'd be literally self-sabotaging myself. That's hilariously ironic- in a way this place doesn't use that word like that." Hmm, should he explain Alanis Morissette? "It would be funny to people back where I was." Should he explain memes?

"But I don't want to leave you alone on this rock. That's just... so sad."

He blinks because he has no idea what in the name of the Force Anakin had just said. "I'll take your word for it." Well, he understood all of the words individually.

"And I don't want you to be suck on this rock with me. That isn't any less sad, though-" He frowned, thoughtfully. Then switched tracks, on purpose. "There's no reason it has be one or the other. Though please don't go bother yourself. You might die. Again."

"Then I would haunt him," Anakin said with amusement, as if this was an even better prospect. "I would so move his shit around."

"If you're haunting him," Obi-Wan pointed out reasonably, "you are also not keeping me company on this rock."

"Space and time and spacetime are meaningless concepts when you die."

But he did pause for a second, before saying thoughtfully, "But Luke is here... I'd like to see him at least once if I could."

"If I haven't managed to achieve enough mastery of the force to communicate with Qui-Gon, I probably won't manage with you, either, and that means you won't be company."

He's joking but not. The idea of Anakin dying was... beyond upsetting.

"That's... not how that... works," Anakin said.

He was quiet again, Obi-Wan hadn't responded to his comment about Luke, was his friend trying to subtly change the topic?

"Do you not want me to see Luke?"

"I'd already decided I wanted you to meet Luke, I was just trying to figure out how to best arrange it before pursuing it any further with you. I doubt it's going to be... well received."

Which was fine, but if he could... negotiate, he would do so.

"Ya..." Anakin could see Obi-Wan's point. "Don't know how to tell them I'm not dead. And then there's the fact Owen doesn't like Jedi."

"He doesn't trust Jedi, especially around his family, and I can't say I blame him." He flashed a slight smile at Anakin. "But I think I can manage something. If you can avoid telling him you aren't really dead."

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