darkforcerising | OPEN POST

Anakin’s deadpan look at Obi-Wan’s evasion would be hard to miss. But he figured he’d pushed the older man far enough on that topic for now.

“You mean, was I child with memories of committing massacres, attacking my wife and friends, destroying governments?” he asked.

After a pause, “No. my life was very... basic until one day, as an adult, these memories just started coming back to me... I did not handle it well at first.”

"I can't imagine that there is any handling of that well, at any age, though I won't pretend I'm not relieved you weren't having those memories as a child."

It would have been worse.

And that evasion had not been subtle but then it hadn't actually needed to be, had it?

“I used to be so afraid I would just... wake up one day and be... him.”

That had been a long process, to completely reevaluate his morality. What he was capable of doing. Who was he really after knowing what it felt like to participate in a massacre that spanned a galaxy, or stand by and watch a planet with millions of people blow up, or torture his own children.

He smiled, sadly, and that sadness went much deeper than his smile. It was woven all the way through.

"You didn't just wake up one day him, even in the life he's living."

“That’s not that comforting.”

An admission the Jedi was probably not any less afraid of that possibility still.

He wanted to joke about each of them getting a pass if they wake up to other choking them in their sleep. But really, only Obi-Wan deserved a pass on that.

Obi-Wan pushed up on an elbow at the ... not sound of Anakin's voice, but something less concrete to look at him.

It was entirely too damned cold for them to be out of the covers at all, but still-

"Look at me."

Anakin heard the seriousness in Obi-Wan’s voice and even pushed his drawn hood back from his eyes so he could meet the man’s level gaze.

"I am not afraid of you."

That isn't absolution for the past - for either of them - and Anakin could probably still push him into fighting far, far, harder than he should but meeting Anakin's eyes, being very serious and very firm about it.

"Not what you are now, and not what you think you could become again."

Anakin hadn't realized how much he needed to hear those words from Obi-Wan until his friend was saying them.

Without thinking, he leaned over and tried to get another hug from Obi-Wan.

He sighed, softly, wrapped his arm over Anakin to return the hug and just held onto him for a bit.

"I don't think I realized until just now that you even thought it was possible. Too busy thinking you were afraid of me, I think."

"To be honest, I was. But I can be afraid of multiple things at once. My emotions are complicated like that."

Now that he was this much closer to Obi-Wan, he didn't want to let go. Mostly because it was freezing out. And for other reasons he didn't want to examine right now.

"You're warm, don't move, I can go to sleep like this."

"I don't blame you. I did fling you into a wall, and that's not even beginning to approach the worst of it." That he doesn't want to talk about. Think about it. Deal with much at the moment.

"I'm not letting go." He did drop his head so his nose was in Anakin's hair, because it was easier to breathe warm air and - well. Because. "If you can sleep, sleep."

Anakin wanted to ask what Obi-Wan considered 'the worst of it', but he wasn't lying. He was comfortable, and warmer this way, and his eyes were finally willing to close. He would ask tomorrow, maybe, if he could pin Obi-Wan down again - pin in the sense of getting the man to talk about emotional things.

He was asleep a few short seconds after Obi-Wan was done speaking.

He hadn't been lying when he said he wasn't afraid of Anakin as he was, or as he could be. That didn't mean he trusted himself at all, especially not his subconscious.

So he evened his breathing, slowed his heart-rate, closed his eyes and -

meditated instead of slept.

It worked, Anakin got a peaceful night's sleep and Obi-Wan got to feel him sleep and get somewhat rested himself. Enough that in the morning he was only slightly awkward in getting out of the bed, and not at all by the time they had breakfast.

From there there was one goal for the day (one acknowledged). "I think it's safer for you to get the parts than me." That was true, absolutely. "I can't imagine we want to freeze another night if we can avoid it."

Anakin was eating his meal packet as fast as possible. Not because he was in any rush, but that's just who he was.

Without suspecting a thing, he asked, "Do you have something specific you want to trade with them? Or do you want me to pick through that pile I was making yesterday?"

"You can pick through the pile if you like. There is a variety of currency here." NOt much, but he had to be able to live, and there were limits to that when there were no Jedi to rely on, status or social support. "Take what you need. As long as we wind up with a functioning here, it will be worth it. Though be careful."

He would ...not handle something happening to Anakin very well.

He nodded. Off the top of his head he could think of at least five things the Jawas would value for trade. "Do you have a pack for carrying everything?"

He snorted. "What's the worst that will happen? Probably a terrible sunburn." He looked up. "I'm kidding! I'll keep my skin covered. Promise."

He looked pointedly up at his own hair. Yes, a terrible sunburn and yes keep your skin covered. He'd been here... three days? four? himself. Time is blurring more than it should.

He took a deep breath and nodded. "There's a carrying bag under my bed. Take it and a second cloak. Your clothes aren't terribly unusual but they may draw some questions if they're too exposed. And take water."

Anakin rolled his eyes and shoveled more food as Obi-Wan listed off all the things he needed to remember to do.

And then, without missing a beat, with perfect cadence and the deference of a padawan, he said, "Yes, Master. Of course I will take water." He knew exactly how he sounded.

He narrowed his eyes at Anakin. "If we weren't in a desert, I'd dump that water on your head."

That was... both hysterically funny, and deeply uncomfortable. He really couldn't decide which it was more of.

Anakin didn't even try to hide the grin on his face.

Something had changed last night. He didn't know what, but they'd reached a kind of easy comfortableness between them. It wasn't the banter they'd used to share back when they were both Jedi - it was 'back when' for Anakin at least. Anakin could never wear that mantle again, he knew. But they weren't each bracing for the impact their words might have on the other.

Anakin finished the meal packet, and went to fish out the pack and cloak. He started picking out pieces of machine he would bring with him.

"Don't get too bored without me, Old Man."

Something had changed last night.

Obi-Wan, for his part, was pretty sure that some of that was that Anakin remembered... everything that mattered to him, things that were hard to face but even harder to say and he'd have never been able to share with anyone who didn't already know. Anakin felt mostly like the Anakin he'd known and fought to be familiar, to be fun, to have that grin look right-

But there was a solidness, a stability and maturity in this man that he had never, ever, truly felt in the Anakin he'd trained. It inspired trust.

The combination?

It changed things.

"Oh, I won't be too bored," he promised. "Go off with you, and leave me and my creaking joints to organizing my food stores."

Yeah. Right. He had plans.

Edited (icon) 2020-01-11 04:19 (UTC)

"You need a hobby," Anakin called after himself as he left the front door, not suspecting a single thing.

He paused just outside the door, centering himself like he'd done so many times before. He knew how to use the Force as a guide, no public transportation here. When a direction came to mind, he started out. He headed east, and planned to keep along the southern border of the Dune Sea until he spotted the Jawas.

Obi-Wan busied himself with cleaning and organizing his living space until he was quite sure Anakin was gone.

Then he set out, in a direction he knew even without having to rely on the Force.

He went to visit Anakin's step-brother. He did not influence his mind with anything except a pretty intense guilt trip, and excessive amount of agreeableness and promises that he meant and would keep.

Which was why, by the time Anakin arrived back home, he was sitting inside, with a contentedly sleeping baby not quite hidden in the cloak he was still wearing. It was hot, but he'd used it to protect Luke from the sun, and now if he removed it he'd wake the baby.

Even he wasn't stupid enough to wake up a sleeping baby.

Anakin had trusted Obi-Wan. He'd left that morning thinking their conversation from the night before was settled. But at a certain distance out from Obi-Wan's hut, it was clear Anakin was wrong.

He could tell there were two living beings inside the building. Both familiar, but in very different ways. Obi-Wan, his friend turn infant kidnapper. And then the other felt like it resonated with Anakin's own sense of belonging in the Force, but so full of light in a way he knew he could never feel about himself.

At first he was angry. Luke needed to stay with his new family. That's where he would be protected and raised and given what he needed.

So it was with a loud presence that he opened the door and firmly said, "Obi-Wan, we talked about this-"

But all his words stacked up against each other in his throat the moment his eyes looked down to the infant in Obi-Wan's arms. Mesmerized, he walked slowly over to them to he could see his son closer, arrested with overwhelming emotion.

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Omg my autocorrect corrected ‘that he’ to ‘the Jedi’ wow autocorrect wow

I read it right anyway, which is the really amazing part.

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