darkforcerising | OPEN POST

He could have, possibly should have, said several things to Anakin.

There were things he would say when he got back.

Maybe by then he'd want to cry less himself. Maybe.

He took Luke and Luke's things, and settled for using his free hand to give Anakin's hand a brief, warm, squeeze.

He was amazed. He was proud. He was heartbroken for Anakin, and awed by him. He was... he was a lot of things.

Then he left, to take Luke back to his uncle.

He wouldn't be gone longer than he had to be. He hoped Anakin was still there when he returned.

Anakin gripped the counter behind him to hold him in place until he heard Obi-Wan leave in his speeder. And then he counted to ten. Counted to ten again. Counted to ten until he couldn't feel Luke anymore.

A choice he'd made eighty years - for him - before dropped him to the chair at the table, shredding his emotions to ribbons that he knew he didn't have to piece together again. Not yet, he could let himself feel this. He could sit at that table with his head in his hands and feel what he needed to feel.

And when he his hands didn't shake anymore when he pulled them away he reached for the practice that had always help him put his emotions to rest. He picked up one of the broken bits of machine he'd set aside before and set to taking it apart to fix it and put it back together again. Each piece was one of his emotions, untwisted, laid bare, smoothed out and then reassembled.

He was still at the table when Obi-Wan got back.

He could feel Anakin inside the hut and he stopped outside long enough to feel not just his mental state but to understand what Anakin was doing. He stayed outside another moment or two because that, as Anakin talking to Luke, briefly held him... captivated.

He finally walked inside, pulling the door shut behind him.

He went to the table and rather than sitting across from Anakin dropped into that half-kneeling crouch he used in front of Anakin. He wasn't showing any kind of subservience, it was just the best way to be close to Anakin and be at eye-level.

And once there, he really simply, waited. It could take Anakin 3 seconds or 3 hours to look up and look at him, he would be there when he did.

Anakin didn't take long, just enough to finish twisting one last fastener so the part was secure.

"Back hom- the other place I was living," he started talking. "I was working on machines and vehicles since... I don't really remember how old I was when I started. After I crashed and lost my arm and my career as a pilot, I fell back on aerospace engineering. Some things about me are just..." he searched for the right word. He gave Obi-Wan a smile. "I guess they're just always part of me. This..." the bits and pieces in front of him. "Will always make sense."

He chewed on his lip for a moment. "I know I keep saying it, but thank you."

"Some things will always be part of you. Like this, and your love of flying. Memories, unfortunately." A pause, but watching Anakin's face while he searched for words. "But after what I witnessed today, there is no chance that you will ever become Vader."

And, least they get too serious: "And you're welcome, but I'd really rather hear 'You were right.'".

"Hm? I don't think I know how to say that," Anakin said shaking his head lightly.

He focused on that because he didn't have a proper response to the other thing. He could still do stupid things, he could still be rash, his emotions still overwhelmed him sometimes- lots of times. Today was the culmination of sixteen years of therapy teaching him coping mechanisms, the right dosage of medication, and a good support system (Obi-Wan) stepping up. And he had still fallen apart. He knew he shouldn't be ashamed of that, emotions were what they were. But right at that point, still so raw, he didn't feel non-Vader-like, he felt very emotional.

"How about I say I'm impressed with your initiative to break the rules? That was very Anakin-esque."

There was something here he wants Anakin to understand, but much as Anakin has a limit to how far he was willing to push Obi-Wan at one time-

There was only so far he as going to push Anakin about this, in this second.

He laughed, softly and pushed himself up to stand, and moved to sit in the chair across from Anakin.

"I'll have you know I followed the rules. I just didn't do what you told me to do. Or did what you told me not to, I suppose."

Some lessons needed time to finish. Some truths needed space in order to resonate. Anakin would understand someday. In this minute, he needed to feel not okay, that was integral to everything Obi-Wan was trying to tell him. Both the simple act of letting himself feel and in the precise emotions themselves. If he didn’t stop to self assess - a process that could take days or longer - he wouldn’t have been the person who could let Luke go.

So... Someday.

“Hm,” he laughed softly with Obi-Wan. “That sounds like breaking the rules to me.” But it started a thought - how much, in one day, had he changed the timeline? And if he had, what did that mean about him being here, the concepts of timelines and time travel, and the fate of this galaxy now.

Obi-Wan had wondered, if only a bit, how much change had already been done and how much more would be done if Anakin continued to be stuck here.

But only a little bit, in an abstract way.

He had been forced into accepting many things in his life, and most recently all of them had been... really unpleasant. It was almost definitely not the 'right' sort of acceptance or reason to live in the moment, given it was basically a very subtle, quiet, sort of... defeat rather than even surrender - but it was where he was.

And that meant Anakin was here, now, as well as out there as Vader. It also meant that whatever was changed would be changed. Both simply were.

"Everything sounds like breaking the rules if you want to break the rules. In fairness, everything is following the rules if that's what you want to do." Speaking of: "Have you given more thought to how to get yourself in the air?"

Edited 2020-01-11 16:18 (UTC)

Anakin’s expression said ‘Oh, really?’ for him at Obi-Wan’s particular spin. He needn’t say more.

“I have. In the spirit of honesty, I feel I should confess I considered at least five different ways to get a ship and fly to Alderaan. And I worked my way to seeing how each plan was stupid and dangerous... But as for just flying, the most beneficial would be to just hire out as a pilot for a, uh, freighter run.” All emphasis on the euphemism. As long as the freight wasn’t slaves, he was game.

"Getting to Leia would be almost impossible," he agreed.

He was again impressed - this time by Anakin curbing his own impulses and seeing problems. Getting to Luke was one thing. Getting to the Princess of Alderaan? Entirely different ballgame, for both of them. He was an 'execute on sight' enemy of the Republic, and Anakin had Vader's face.

"'Freight' runs would be fun for you, just use some discretion and try not to get yourself shot down. I'd like you to stay at one missing limb."

These were exactly the conclusions he'd drawn. Here on Tatooine, far from the central core of the Empire, they were safe. A word he never thought he'd associate with Tatooine. And he'd convinced Obi-Wan not to try to kill him, but Obi-Wan had the Force to aide him. Bail did not.

"Drug smuggling," he laughed softly again. "I can add that to my losing categories in the game Never Have I Ever." This was one of those things he said without thinking. Sometimes he just had to let himself do that so he could catch the bigger things.

"You can add it to your what?"

Sometimes, sometimes, the difference in language and his complete lack of comprehension of what Anakin said struck exactly the same way as realizing Anakin was... the emotional stable one.

An odd pride, some bemusement, and becoming far more intrigued than he should have been.

"Oh," Anakin paused his hands so he could focus on this explanation.

"It's a party drinking game back where I was. Everyone takes turns calling out something they've never done, but that they think others in the group have done. And if you've done the thing, you have to take a drink or a shot- whatever ground rules you set for drinking. Like... a common thing someone might say is 'Never Have I Ever, uh, consumed spice.' The more things you've done, the faster you get drunk. The goal is to get everyone else drunk before you so you watch out for patterns in things people drink for..."

He picked up the part he was working on again.

"Took that off the list of games I could play once I started getting my memories back. I would make things get very dark, very fast."

Speaking of subjects that could get very dark, very fast, and subjects probably best left alone:

"Do you remember dying?" he asked, when Anakin finished speaking (and he understood a drinking game he was not at all tempted to play).

That was very dark, very fast. (And is it technically playing if you never have to take a drink during the game?)

"Yes." He could be blunt, too. But he wasn't going to just dump the details on Obi-Wan. Anakin suspected there were still boundaries to the easiness between them and he wasn't going to rush them. "Do you want to know anything about it?"

It was very a very strange thing, this relationship they're trying to work out between them.

Anakin knew him, but he doesn't really know Anakin.

He wasn't afraid of Anakin - but Anakin was the reason for his worst nightmares.

He was drawn to Anakin, but he was hiding from him.

Delivered the man's son to him, while protecting his son from him.

There was a relationship here, but there isn't.

He was trying to work out a boundary here, though he believed it was purely for Anakin. In reality, he's trying to work out one for himself, too.

"I didn't until you asked. Now I do, but I first want to point out using anything that happened from another life in a game is probably unfair, anyway."

"The game is not really about being fair," Anakin pointed out. "It's a drinking game, they're underhanded by nature."

As for his death... "Technically, Palpatine is the reason I die. He attacks Luke with Force lightning, I intervene and attack him- Palpatine, but the Force lightning-" Anakin paused, he didn't want to say 'shorts out the suit I'm stuck in and I don't have lungs to breathe on my own' because Obi-Wan was part of the reason he was in that suit and he didn't want Obi-Wan taking any blame for this. Because it wasn't his.

"Kills me."

See, saying Luke was attacked gives him something of a timeline - enough to know it's not very soon, anyway.

He quirks a faint smile, but the feeling that actually happened was just... some lethal combination of guilt and grief he could drown in, and a touch of gratitude that Anakin was trying to spare him and even more that he'd at least tried to save Luke, but...

Well.

"Disrupted whatever was keeping you alive after I left you dismembered and on fire."

"That is a way of explaining it," Anakin acknowledged. "...But there's a twenty-three year gap between now and then. So I feel making that connection is a stretch."

He laughs, softly. His emotions don't get released so much as they sort of... lost coherence and cohesion and slowly dissipated.

"Did you succeed at saving Luke?"

Edited 2020-01-11 23:09 (UTC)

Anakin set down the part and reach over to Obi-Wan's hand. He was careful to reach with his left hand, the one that wasn't cold, unfeeling metal.

"Yes. I do."

He twisted his wrist so he could reach up and give Anakin's hand a gentle squeeze and managed to feel reassuring - or more to the point directed that reassurance to Anakin. He was fine.

Reassurance was actually pretty easy.

"That's good news. On multiple levels. Though you really should get busy turning smuggler soon. I can't imagine you won't find a way home at some point, but the thought of you stuck here for twenty-three years--"

Made him mildly nauseated.

Anakin nodded, letting Obi-Wan think that he - Obi-Wan - was fine. Anakin was starting to hope that maybe he would stick around long enough to see Obi-Wan actually 'fine'.

"Should I be concerned that you're pushing me towards a life of crime?"

And there was a thought - Obi-Wan did think he was fine.

He shrugged. "Probably not. It suits your skill set, and depending on the cargo you choose could be actively helpful or simply harmless. I know you won't help slavers."

The fear he had about it had to do with safety and he would just deal with that, because it was entirely selfish.

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