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OMFG! Anakin might do ~something~ *pearl clutch* (darkforcerising) wrote in makebelievelog,
@ 2012-09-09 04:08:00

Entry tags:

anakin skywalker, obi-wan kenobi

Who: Big Anakin and Obi-Wan
What: Repairing fresh and old wounds? Who knows
When: Saturday evening
Where: The roof
Rating/Warnings: TBD – low to start, will update if necessary
Status: In progress/Closed

Anakin had been having such a lovely day with Padmé. They’d had an enjoyable picnic far from the castle, far from prying eyes. Just the two of them, save for one text message at a most inopportune time for which Anakin’s phone had suffered dearly. And then they’d returned to the castle and the dank pit of emotional despair the place had sunk waist deep into as of late. It seemed to have grown worse still in the expanse of one half day while Anakin had been out. It felt like his starfighter was being ripped apart at the seams from two forces pulling in opposite directions.

Anakin was perceptive. He knew almost the moment Obi-Wan had texted him back that first time from where this new source of sorrow and pique flowed, if he didn’t quite know the details.

Then Obi-Wan had stopped texting him back altogether. Which wasn’t a good sign.

After prying some rather important details from his younger self, Anakin went in search of his former master. Having a better grasp of the situation was certainly helpful. And, his duty to his master, former though he was, had been set by the wayside for too long. Obi-Wan was going to talk to him, they were going to discuss things that had been left unsaid, and more.

For the first time in weeks Anakin delved into the Force for that signature that was Obi-Wan’s. It opened old wounds, that sensation, part of the reason he’d stopped in the first place. They had not healed, they stung as if fresh. Losing someone close to him felt like that, always raw. Pushing the hurt aside he focused on where Obi-Wan was and followed that beacon.

He opened the door of the tower and was met by life, almost. The approaching night was being heralded by a comfortable breeze that brought with it the scent of pine, the lake, and the end of summer. On the ramparts sat Obi-Wan with the holocron placed before him. It was on, and the transparent, three-dimensional likeness of Master Qui-Gon was chatting away with Obi-Wan as if he were a real, breathing, foot tall Jedi Master. Anakin swallowed back that remorse threatening to seize his throat and walked forward.

“Forgive the intrusion, but we need to talk, Master,” he said to announce himself as he approached. Anakin was already finding it hard to do this, but he wasn't the Hero With No Fear without justification. “We’ve left things unresolved for long enough and they are, for lack of a better phrase, hitting rotating blades much in the same manner bantha poodoo might.” He might have received a Temple education, the finest the galaxy had to offer, but sometimes a good Tatooinan curse summed things up better than any eloquent turn of phrase.

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do_what_i_must
2012-09-09 04:53 pm UTC (link)

"Fine. Non-secretive married life suits you as well, how's that?" Obi-Wan replied. This, this was good. He missed this. Missed Anakin beyond the telling of it, if he was honest about it. And he actually laughed when Anakin complained about his younger self. "I was a tad energetic as a Padawan, it's true. You should have seen me as a Youngling. Although I'm starting to wonder at the wisdom of letting you talk with the holocron now, if you're going to discuss my younger self. I fail to see the problem with becoming mature, though."

And then the mood shifted.

He folded his arms and looked down at his feet before lifting his head once more. "What does he know already?" he asked, before continuing on without really waiting for a response. It was difficult to be the Negotiator when one was running on Force fumes and not much else. "He... He told me he wasn't my Padawan, and I explained that... I said that I wasn't well. But how can I be not well and still train Galen? I'm not ignoring him, I'm really not, but ..." He slumped against the wall at his back and scrubbed at his face. Normally, he would have been careful to keep any and all traces of emotion from his voice, but he couldn't remember a time when he wasn't exhausted; his voice cracked and betrayed him, showing just how hurt he was from what young Anakin's first words to him in this place had been. And yet, he couldn't blame him for thinking such things.

Had he ever done anything right by the boy?

"Satine called me a moron. I think she's being kind."

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darkforcerising
2012-09-09 10:20 pm UTC (link)

“The Duchess wants to teach him to be a pacifist.” Anakin let that worrying thought settle in. It was a good spot to break up the seriousness of their conversation. He knew Obi-Wan must now be imagining a politician-trained version of Anakin verbally sparring with him. The Jedi Master wouldn’t stand a chance. And without swift intercession it was very likely to come to pass.

But the levity couldn’t last, not with this subject. Though Anakin was finding it was much easier to discuss as a third party observing. It almost seemed as if his culpability in the whole affair was next to nothing. “He knows about the fall of the Jedi, Palpatine’s rise and the Empire. He knows about Luke… He just doesn’t know what part he plays in it all... I think he thinks the Sith Lord we told him you fought was Palpatine.”

The breeze had shifted slightly, causing Anakin’s hair to tickle his ear in a way that was distracting. This was already an uncomfortable situation, he didn’t need anything adding to it. He reached back to straighten his hair and discovered the culprit was a blade of grass he’d missed when ridding the evidence of his tryst with Padmé earlier. Embarrassing. Non-secret married life indeed.

Letting the blade of grass go in the wind he pressed on.

“His entire world centers around you, you know- don’t let it go to your head,” he said with a look. But the look faded quickly. This might be easier for him to discuss using the third-person, but it was, for the most part, still a reflection of his feelings and desires, too. “Back home he’s stuck at the mercy of an Order that doesn’t like him nor wants anything to do with him. It’s not like it’s some secret. His age-mates refuse to talk to him, his instructors are annoyed with him on a near constant basis, and he can feel the Council’s aversion towards him. But… it’s still home, he’s safe, his welfare is seen to, he’s provided an education and a future.” Maybe not the future the boy was hoping for, but it could be something better than being Watto’s slave. “And he knows the reason he has all that is because of you, without your intervention with the Council he doesn’t know where he’d be. Without you…” Like a linchpin pulled free, it would all rattle apart. “The Order and the Council might not be here but he’s still operating under the idea you hold his world together.”

Anakin paused. He’d heard that catch in his former Master’s voice and he understood it. But it made this next part no less necessary to say. “Seeing you training someone else, someone who openly hates him, when you won’t even talk to him, much less see him... I... what else is he to conclude?”

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do_what_i_must
2012-09-10 10:15 pm UTC (link)

Obi-Wan watched the blade of grass blow away, then looked round at Anakin as the younger man spoke. He scowled very slightly at the Look, but said nothing. He knew everything Anakin was saying, had fought tooth and nail against the Council when Anakin was still a young Padawan over how best to train the boy on any number of occasions, and really, if Anakin's world centred on Obi-Wan, it was nothing compared to how pretty much everything, every single thing Obi-Wan had done from the moment he'd been granted permission to train the boy, revolved around Anakin.

The silence that followed Anakin's words stretched to an almost uncomfortable length of time, all manner of words and feelings roiling round in Obi-Wan's mind that no amount of meditation seemed to be able to purge, and that he had no idea how to deal with. "I can barely hold my own world together at the moment," he finally admitted, his voice pitched just louder than a whisper as his gaze flickered away.

"I want to see him. You have no idea how much I want to see him, and you, kriff, I have missed you." Running his hand through his hair, he closed his eyes and let himself slide down to sit on the roof with his back to the wall. His tee-shirt rode up at the back and the stones were cold enough to make his skin crawl a little, but he ignored it. "I want to see him, I just don't know if... if..."

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darkforcerising
2012-09-10 11:17 pm UTC (link)

Anakin let the silence stretch. There were things you could not rush; you just simply had to wait them out. Anakin was learning.

“I know,” Anakin said when Obi-Wan finally spoke. He didn’t need his former Master to say so to know, the waves of tumultuous emotions rolled off the older man with such force Anakin couldn’t miss them. It was strange, dare he admit somewhat frightening, to feel all those unrepressed feelings coming from his friend, the situation was usually reversed. Obi-Wan had always been so calm and collected before, and now he almost felt like a different man. The most concerning thing he felt was all that fear and doubt that seemed to underlie everything, this man was the solid rock upon which Anakin stood, and all that uncertainty was like insidious cracks spreading through that foundation.

When Obi-Wan slide down to sit on the roof Anakin followed suit, though with a great deal more grace in his movements.

“I thought… given how all the blame for your situation rests at my feet I couldn’t be the one to help you. That the best I could do for you was to stay as far away from you and not… trigger the memories of what I will do. Because I didn’t want to make it worse… But..,” a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, unbidden, as was usually the case when he smiled during serious discussions. “But, I’ve just now realized most of the situations necessitating I save your hide were my fault to begin with. So… why break that pattern?”

Anakin took a deep breath then let it out before continuing. “I’m sorry, Master, I shouldn’t have left you alone these last few weeks. I should have been helping you directly.”

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do_what_i_must
2012-09-12 12:13 am UTC (link)

Pulling his knees up, Obi-Wan ducked his head down and scrubbed the heel of his hand at his temple before looking round at his Padawan once more. If he knew he was practically battering Anakin round the head with his emotions, he gave no sign of it, although he did shore up his shields as best he could. "You should stop... stop talking about what you 'will do' and what is your fault. You are already a far different man to the Anakin in my memories, and you have not done the things he did."

He went quiet once more after that, and tilted his head back so that he was looking up at the sky. The stars that were beginning to show up were still unfamiliar to him and he almost slipped into a light meditative state as he gazed up at them. He sounded almost dazed, the next time he spoke. "Our focus determines our reality. And while we're here, this is our reality, wrong stars and outside of time and all. We're here for as long as we're going to be. No matter how exhausted or... or in need of a mind healer I might be, this is a gift from the Force and I intend to view it as such."

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darkforcerising
2012-09-12 06:08 am UTC (link)

Anakin had never taken well to being told he couldn’t do something no matter how kindly they were phrased. “I’ll stop insisting I take responsibility for my actions when you stop trying to wrest it away from me.”

Anakin shifted before continuing. He crossed his legs and his arms, not for the first time noticing the position felt different without Jedi robes.

He kept his gaze directed at his own legs as he spoke. “We both know… had Palpatine been here when I arrived, had just five minutes more passed back in our universe before I arrived here… I thought I needed him, he promised to help me prevent Padmé’s death that I kept seeing every night in visions, and I thought that I needed to take whatever actions were necessary to get that help. I suppose, even serving him, though I hadn’t followed the thought to that conclusion quite succinctly.” He looked up then, over at Obi-Wan. “I don’t mean I will believe that, in the sense it has yet to happen back in our universe. I mean I did believe that when I first arrived.”

His commission had been a thought, a willingness to sacrifice everything for one, self-centered desire. Had he not received intervention by way of being shown the full consequences of his actions he would have become Darth Vader. Only a state of mind, sure, but just one result of that selfish thought was sitting next to him, haggard and broken. How could he not feel responsible for Obi-Wan’s state of being?

That thought had festered and grown beyond the cage of Anakin’s mind and had reached into his friend’s heart. It had ripped out everything the Jedi Master cherished and loved, not even the smallest shred of hope or light was spared, and it had replaced in that hollowed cavern a cold, vacant despair that Obi-Wan’s training only allow to manifest as soul-crushing guilt. It was in that darkness, where night blocked from all attempts at healing, that Obi-Wan was anchored. This was the truth of it, the irreparable damage Anakin had wrought upon his Master, his father, his brother, his closest, most dear friend with the start of an unchecked thought.

Anakin hadn’t the right to be the one to lifted his friend from the ashes of this wreckage and return him to the life he justly deserved. But, as fate would have it, Obi-Wan had few options; they both had little choice but to rely on one another. Will of the Force, perhaps.

“I am different from the man in your memories, you’re right.” Anakin fought the urge to add, ‘And don’t let that admission go to your head either.’

He reached out his hand and gripped Obi-Wan’s arm. It was a gesture that echoed back to what Shmi would do for him all those years ago in moments of strife. Comfort through touch was not a natural Jedi concept, not when emotions that necessitated such expressions were forbidden to begin with. But, he was Anakin Skywalker, bucking the Code was his specialty. It was what was essential now, and that’s what mattered. “And because of that you need to accept I understand I should be accountable for what I was willing to let happened to you and everyone else. Otherwise this gift will be wasted.”

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do_what_i_must
2012-09-14 01:00 am UTC (link)

He almost jumped when Anakin took a hold of his arm, and he looked round at his Padawan as he spoke. His gaze flicked between Anakin's hand and his face, and Obi-Wan found he had nothing to say for a few moments.

Eventually, he allowed himself to smile, just the tiniest hint of one, and he pushed his hair back from his face. "When did you get to be so wise?" he asked, still keeping his voice quiet, "Or is that Padmé’s doing as well?" Reaching over with his free hand, he put it over Anakin's and held on.

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darkforcerising
2012-09-14 08:51 am UTC (link)

“Don’t let Padmé hear you say any such thing.” He returned Obi-Wan’s smile. As fair and impartial as Padmé liked to think she was – and granted, that assumption was founded on a very impressive track record in the Senate – when it came to competitions with Anakin she was hardly just. There was only room for one ego-sized head in that relationship.

“And I told you already,” Anakin said, “It’s only by default. Because you dived out of airlock in low orbit.”

He squeezed Obi-Wan’s arm, but didn’t let go. There was moment there, when Obi-Wan started, that Anakin thought that this might have been pushing too hard at well-established Jedi boundaries. Old habits were hard to break, and Anakin wanted to comfort his friend, not aggravate him more. But Obi-Wan didn’t move Anakin’s hand; instead he covered it with his own. And so long as Obi-Wan’s hand remained gripping Anakin’s the younger Jedi wouldn’t remove his hand.

“What’s truly going to frighten you is when you realize, since it’s clear we’ve switched places, what large impulsive, bombastic shoes you now have to fill. I made it appear easy, all that carefree jumping from hovercrafts, ignoring everyone telling me ‘no’, but it’s harder than it looks.”

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