OMFG! Anakin might do ~something~ *pearl clutch* (darkforcerising) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-03-03 21:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, anakin skywalker, padme amidala |
Who: Anakin Skywalker and Padme Naberrie
What: Talking about not talking about Anakin's dreams
When: During the tether plot
Where: Thomas' house, where they are all staying, tethered together
Rating/Warnings: Low
Status: Complete
Anakin knew his dreams could jump around. Sometimes he’d revisit dreams he’d had before. He never knew when he would close his eyes and find himself back in Watto’s shop. And when he did, he was there until this terrible movie played out.
He woke with a started but was grateful he hadn’t called out or used the Force in his sleep. He was getting better about that.
He settled back on the ground – there was no way he was going to sleep up in that bed next to Thomas. Maybe he could fall back to sleep. And maybe he could have slept again, but Majy on the ground with him started to roll and beg for attention, thinking that Anakin was up to play.
He pulled the lumpy fur beast close to him to calm down. “Majy,” he whispered, as sharp as he could. “Be still. You lunkhead.”
Padme was actually starting to like Thomas' bed ..but not in any kind of sexual way. It made her re-think her old mattress. Maybe it was time for an upgrade and to invest in some Egyptian cotton sheets. The only thing that was weird was well, trying her best not to actually touch Thomas. She didn't think she was someone who moved in their sleep, but honestly? She had no idea. This was all new territory for her, sleeping next to someone. Because of that, she slept fitfully, waking to almost every little noise, made harder by the fact that three adults and a pet were all in the same room.
When she heard Anakin's voice, she perked up a little. Good, someone else was awake. Inching her way to the edge of the bed, she looked down. She still couldn't really understand why Anakin was sleeping on the floor, but he didn't seem to mind. It was probably the military background. "Anakin," she said quietly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. "You can't sleep either?"
He rolled to his back, away from Majy, he hope the useless beast would just stay still, and looked up at Padmé.
“I was asleep, but now I can’t get back to sleep. What’s keeping you up?”
She shrugged under the blankets, before realized he couldn't see. "Light sleeper," was her response. Padme dropped a hand over the side of the bed and gently stroked Majy's head. Thinking for a moment, she peeked over at Thomas's sleeping body and decided she wasn't going to get to sleep anytime soon. Sneaking her way down, she slowly sat with her back up against the bedframe. It was only slightly colder, but instead of her usual sleep gear, she was in yoga pants and a t-shirt. "This is so weird," she said softly. "This ...weird tether..bungee cord thing....but I'm glad you're here too. I don't know how I would have handled this on my own." She lifted up two fingers." That's two crises you've saved me from, Skywalker."
Anakin shifted to allow Padme room on the floor next to the bed.
“I don’t think this one counts,” he responded. He pointed his chin up at the bed. “Don’t let him know I said this, but he’s not bad. He would have made this as easy to deal with as he could.”
"It's important to be flexible," she responded. "I would assume the same must be said for his line of work. Actors have to just roll with the punches."
Padmé looked at Anakin for a moment before tilting her head. "Are you sure you're okay? You look a little flushed."
Anakin couldn’t think of a lie that wouldn’t make things awkward, so he admitted, “It’s just my Dreams. That’s all.”
"Oh." From what Anakin had mentioned to her before, he didn't seem too fond of the dreams he was given. That converastion about jedis had gotten a bit heated, especially between Ahsoka and him, which made Padme a bit curious about what exactly he was dreaming about. She also recognized that these were very private, and didn't want to pry.
"You know, if you ever want to talk about it," she began, playing with the hem of her pants, "I'm happy to listen. Dreams are dreams until you make them real." It was probably easy enough for her to say, considering her only dreams were about becoming a queen. She remembered vague things, like her path to the monarchy, studying decorum, learning traditions. Things that she honestly liked to do in this life. It wasn't hard for her to dream...but she could understand that it might not be the same for someone else.
Anakin frowned, looking uncomfortable.
He’d decided months ago that he wouldn’t use the people from his universe to help him get through his experience with the Dreams. Victims shouldn’t have to comfort their abusers. He was pretty sure Padmé hadn’t yet dreamed about any terrible thing that he’d done in the Dreams, and that made it more discomforting for him. If she didn’t even know who she was helping, and he did, it felt like he was lying or cheating somehow.
“I’m sorry… you can’t. I don’t… share the things in my Dreams with the other people from our universe.”
Padme was silent for a while, but not because she was offended. She'd offered, and he'd respectfully turned her down. There wasn't much else she could say. On the other hand, she didn't like how he seemed to be so bothered by it all. Leaning her head back on the bed, she closed her eyes and started to talk softly.
"When I was little, I had really bad nightmares. I think the doctors called them night terrors. Anyways, I would wake up, screaming, at least two or three times a week, sometimes more often if I was stressed. My parents didn't know what to do, they couldn't calm me down. They had to just ...let me get it all out, I guess. And then when I was actually awake, I couldn't remember any of it. I could feel the burn in my throat, my finger would ache from clenching the blanket, and everyone would be annoyed at me for keeping them up all night. Sola and I used to share a room, more because my parents thought sisters should share rather than an actual need for space." She opened her eyes and gave a sad smile. He'd been to her family home, he'd seen what it looked like .Just a house full of space. "She demanded to move out, and my parents gave her a room on the other side of the house. Every night, I would get such anxiety before going to sleep, worried that I'd have another 'episode' and cause problems ...long story short, one day, they just ...stopped. I guess children outgrow these things, and all anyone needed to do was give me time to work it out. I learned that my family's love was conditional, and they only wanted me when I was perfect. I took that to heart, and did everything I needed to do to make up for that ..failing, that poorly behaved child I was."
She gave a small chuckle and looked down. "I don't know why I just told you all this. I guess I'm trying to say is, you don't have to apologize for not wanting to share. You should never feel bad for what you need. I'm your friend, and I'm here for you because I want to be. There are no expectations at all, and if you ever do want to share? That's okay too."
Without even pausing to think Anakin said the first thing that came to mind, “Whoa, your family sucks.”
It wasn’t too far from what he meant to say.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, looking embarrassed. He knew that people could have complicated feelings about their families, and even if their families did hurtful things, it didn’t mean they appreciated hearing a devaluing assessment of their families.
“I meant- what your family did sucks. I know what night terrors are.” He’d lost his arm in a jet fighter crash. Plus he now had the Dreams. “Most of the drugs that help with them you can’t give to children. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Padmé couldn't help the small laugh that escaped. "No, you're right -- my family does suck and what they did suck, and I know this now. It's kind of why I am .....close to them, but not really close, if that makes sense. I go to Sunday night dinners, I ask my mom for her opinions on my clothes and ask her how her day went. I play tennis with my dad. I call my sister weekly. It's all more out of a familial duty though." She shrugged again. "We are a family because we're related, and that's been enough, but now that I'm getting a big older and seeing more of the world...well, I can see how weird it is." She glanced up at him. "I guess we're that typical WASP family. No surprise, considering my parents are in the military and in politics."
“Families are... what they are,” Anakin said. He didn’t bring up his mother or the brief relationship she had before she died. Cliegg and Owen were nice people, he supposed. But he had no relationship with either.
All he had really was Ahsoka.
“When I first got here- I mean part of this alternate reality, Ahsoka knew, she, uh, could feel it. She sought me out to talk and ended up throwing a tennis ball at me. Faster than any human should be able to. She wanted to know if I’d started using the Force. I hadn’t yet, and the ball hit my head and floored me. I’ve never let her live it down since.” Because how or why would he give that up?
“Things were... uneasy between us for a bit until I’d... Dreamed enough... and come terms with some things.” Ya, that was purposely and obviously vague.
Padmé simply nodded in response, and shifted a bit closer to Anakin. She still felt bad she couldn't give him any comfort, and once again, here they were, talking about deep things. Why couldn't they have small talk, she wondered to herself, but at the same time, she didn't want to. She liked talking to him, working this stuff out. It felt comfortable, even if the topics weren't.
"And yet here you are, very close. I think you told me she's essentially your sister, and from what I can tell, that's a title that isn't taken lightly." She took a chance and leaned her head on his shoulder, still petting Majy. "Things work out in the end, one way or another. And you'd be surprised how accepting people can really be."
Anakin knew he was the source of their stilted conversations. He did it on purpose. He just didn’t know how to explain without… saying too much.
When he’d seen Padmé at the Wounded Warrior’s ball, he had no idea she was then caught up in this multiverse nexus. He’d assumed he been safe being easy with her then because he thought he wouldn’t run into her again. He thought then that she wouldn’t dream of him attacking her and killing her, so what was the harm of being present in that moment?
But now he knew that she would dream about the things he would do.
Lots of people on the Network approached the Dreams like a night time movie that played in their heads when they slept. They could disconnect from the story because all they were doing was watching it.
It was different for him. Everything he experienced in the dreams was enhanced by the Force. He was empathic, he could feel what he was doing to others in the Dreams, not just from his own point of view, but from the perspective of everyone else, too.
When he finally dreamed of attacking Padmé, he would feel what she experienced and he would feel his own justification for it. And because his Dreams weren’t a ‘one and done’ deal, he was sure he’d experience that over and over, possibly for weeks.
And he firmly believed it wasn’t Padmé’s place to help him cope with that or the other things he experienced or did in the Dreams, not until she knew all the details and made a choice stemming from informed consent. So he kept himself distant from her, pulling back if things ever started to feel too easy between them.
He knew he needed to explain, but he wrestled with what to say. He didn’t want to tell her anything about the future she wanted to dream about first.
“I understand what you’re trying to say. But… I’m… not the good guy in our Dream universe,” he finally said. “I’m actually really, really evil.
“Ahsoka knows because she’s dreamed about all of it.”
He started fingering the hem of his shirt with his robotic hand. He didn’t have touch sensors all over his arm, but he had them on his palm and fingers. It didn’t feel the same as with his left hand. But it was still feeling.
“There is a … non-zero possibility I might wake up who I am in our Dream universe. It happens to people here all the time. It happened to Ahsoka’s fiancé, and she died because of it.
“If or when that happens, someone will have to kill me because I won’t be-” he gestured to himself. “This. I’ll be someone else.
“Ahoska thinks that there is another way, but everything in the Dreams suggests otherwise.”
And honestly, he didn’t want to live like that.
That was the last thing she expected to hear, and she was actually happy for the following silence so she could process what she had heard.
Her immediate thought was to brush it off, be adamant that no, he wasn't evil, he wasn't beholden to some pre-ordained destiny, and that he shouldn't push her away.
Was that a fair thing to say though? Put her own thoughts over his when this was his reality, this was what he thought, and who was she to say otherwise?
Instead, she shifted and turned to face him, putting what she hoped was a comforting hand on his leg. "Thank you for your honesty, Anakin" she said sincerely. "I can't imagine admitting this is easy to say, so I really want you to know I respect how difficult this conversation is. I also want you to understand that I really do feel like we're friends...there's a connection between us." What exactly, she couldn't say but she knew she didn't want to lose his friendship. "I'm happy playing things by ear, seeing where things need to go based on your...dreams or whatever. As long as you're honest, and we're communicating, I believe our friendship can only strengthen."
The look Anakin gave Padmé was, for a moment, full of sadness.
He wanted to stay quiet and nod along with what Padmé said, they could be great friends. He could really see there being something more between him and Padmé, if he didn’t put himself in the way of that.
But he couldn’t back away from his ethics now. Clinging to his ethics was his first defense against the specter lurking in his dreams. And she’d asked him to be honest.
“Padmé- I can’t,” he finally said, he tried to keep his voice even. He tried. “You haven’t dreamed any of what I do yet.”
He shook his head, “I want to, but I can’t be the friend you want if you don’t know what you’re agreeing to be friends with.”
Padmé almost let slip a flash of frustration that she tempered quickly. This wasn't about her, she kept reminding herself.
"I don't know what to say back, Anakin," she finally admitted. Her hand was still on his leg and she wondered if she should move it. "I really don't. You won't push me away, unless you genuinely want to never see me again." She raised an eyebrow, accompanied with a soft smile. "And I really hope that's not the case."
Anakin felt Padmé’s feelings roll off of her and radiate out towards him. But he understood, he could see how his behavior was frustrating. It frustrated him, this stumbling block the Network had placed on his shoulders.
“I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t make much sense and it’s really frustrating,” he said. But he didn’t move her hand.
“I feel,” he tried again. “I feel deceitful knowing things someone will experience, things that will be bad and done by me- or at least it will look like me, and pretending that that’s not going to affect them- you or that you should just be okay with it. I’m not okay with it-
“I’m not going to be okay with it-“ he shook his head as he spoke, “but that is not something I should place on you to manage.”
There wasn't much else Padmé could say. She'd made her point, and Anakin had gently disagreed. It wasn't really an argument per se, more a differing of opinions. She could live with that.
"One day at a time," she finally said, sitting back to her original position, only this time with her head on his shoulder. She was okay to sit like this until he wanted to sleep.