Anakin Solo (anakinsolo) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2015-02-15 21:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, anakin solo, rikki barnes / nomad (616) |
Log; Rikki Barnes & Anakin Solo
Who: Rikki Barnes & Anakin Solo
When: Shortly after midnight, 16 February
Where: Anakin's bedroom, 1505 Potts Tower
What: Dreary subjects brought up by a mad midnight moment.
Rating: Low
Status: COMPLETE.
Anakin Solo sat in his once again darkened bedroom, staring at the place where the television had just a moment before had been on but now was simply dark again. He knew Rikki was still there, but she hadn't said anything yet and he didn't know what to say. He still wasn't certain what had just happened. At first he'd thought somehow he'd managed to hit the remote and turn on the television on a channel that was playing one of the Star Wars films, but it had quickly become clear that wasn't what had just happened. It was him, but it wasn't him, but it was like so many dreams he'd had as a boy, and thoughts that he didn't allow himself to dwell on. Part of him wanted to stand up and move, throw on a shirt and a jacket and head for the door and the city and be out of this room and this tower. But most of him couldn't seem to figure out how to move his body to make that happen. He still hadn't quite gotten over having last night's nightmare posted to the network, and now this. At first it had just been a flickering light. But it soon became apparent that whatever had appeared on the television was far more than that. Instead of being able to ignore the small clip Rikki had found herself next to Anakin, watching as a cold horror slowly filled her stomach. What they had just watched seemed to be a reflection of his grandfather whose fall they had recently become more acquainted with. Except the Sith Lord here was not Anakin Skywalker. Looking over at Anakin as her eyes adjusted back to the darkness, Rikki couldn’t quite make out his face. There was an obvious tension, as if he was about to bolt. She had felt that enough times herself to know and recognize it in someone else. And who was she to judge? Her own nightmares drove her into the night more than she was able to admit. “Anakin.” Rikki broke the silence gently, resting her hand on his shoulder to remind him she was there. “Anakin, it’s not real.” Her fingers were soft on his skin and as so frequently seemed to happen when Rikki's hand touched him, it served as an anchor. In this moment, as bizarre as it felt it served as an anchor to Anakin Solo - to the person Rikki had chosen to be with. She hadn't left, or run out of the room. She hadn't moved at all except to reach for him. These little details were easier to observe and recognize and turn over for clues they might provide as to what should happen next. The problem of course was that it might not be real, but it could be. Wasn't that really what it could all be pulled down to? His grandfather had been turned, his brother had embraced the Dark Side for answers - and Anakin could… he closed his eyes. He wouldn't. He never would. Except the reality was that he recognized how easy it could be to pull on that Dark Side if he were desperate. If Rikki… A noise caught in his throat and he found the ability to move suddenly. Standing he stepped across the room to the window and wrapped his arms across his chest staring out at the lights of the city. This impulse she knew better than just about anything. It was one thing to have the nightmares play out in your head, haunting on the edges of sleep till it became a struggle of which did you need more, sanity or sleep? But tonight Anakin’s worst fear had been right there, given a visible, tangible reality instead of just being locked up in the hollows of his mind. Action helped clear the head, the need to escape that sudden moment so that you could breathe again. Standing, Rikki took her place next to Anakin easily. How many times had he said she wasn’t alone here? It was nearly beaten into her mind. That went both ways though. Rikki wasn’t exactly sure when she realized that she would do anything for this boy that she had only known a few months, but it had happened and there was no stopping it even if she wanted to. So again she reached out, hand resting on his arm as she looked over at him. “What do you need?” she asked, ready to follow. Don't push her away. The words were so crisp in his head, so forceful that for an instant he thought they came from Rikki, and upon realizing the phrasing made no sense, there was the split second impulse that someone else was here in the room, but there wasn't. And it didn't matter where they'd come from Anakin knew that the instinct to run away or to just leave wasn't a good one. And Rikki knew… Anakin knew that she knew, but they'd only ever talked the edges of it.They'd watched the films about his grandfather just this week, but they hadn't really talked about them. They had a conversation about his grandfather and him, but that had been different. This had been visible not just a dream he'd had as a boy, and sometimes - if he were honest - still haunted him. Was there danger in his attachment to this girl? Possibly, but was there strength here? Almost certainly. He was about to open his mouth to say 'out', when the thought occurred to him: Had it been just this television? Had it been all the televisions? That thought froze him again. Walking out into the hall, or into the lobby, past Sam's with the televisions that typically showed various sports Anakin didn't know the rules for but which might have just had this. It was one thing for Rikki to have seen it. It was one thing to have sat and watched it himself. It was another thing altogether that his brother might have or his mother, or dozens of people in this tower who didn't know him. And there had been these things - these weird things he'd seen other people that he'd passed in the tower… "I don't know," he managed instead. His words felt tight and terse to him and there was a moment before he added: "You." “I’m here.” Rikki affirmed, squeezing his arm gently. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.” There was a soft bit of teasing to the remark, likely an ill advised attempt to break some of the cold tension that filled the room. Comforting people had never been one of her strong points. But he hadn’t run away, which really was one up on her in these situations. Anakin needed her, as terrible at this as she was. There had been rumors of clips like this around the tower in the past couple weeks. Rikki had always been out on patrol or away from a television. But this was proof, right there for them both to see. And if it was anything like the others, than other people had seen it too. That thought almost made her a little sick, the idea that his pain was broadcast for everyone to see without fully understanding it. And there was nothing she could do to protect him from that. Gently she guided him to turn,wrapping her arms around him and pulling him in close. Holding him was a tether to reality, a rock against the storm of everything that had happened, that would happen, and that could happen. Rikki pressed her cheek against his and simply held on. “You’re not your grandfather.” She reminded him gently. Anakin's arms slid around her almost automatically. In the brief period of time they'd been together this had become so familiar and essential to him and the idea of doing life here without her in it was as much a nightmare to him as what he'd just watched. But that had possibly been part of the point. The silence stretched out as he kept his arms around her, relying on the strength she was offering him to face that statement head-on. He wasn't his grandfather. He knew that, he'd told himself that, he'd accepted that he had choices that had to be made and that they would always be his own. He was in charge of his fate and how he chose to use and draw on the Force and what he chose to do with it. But he hadn't always made good choices and he wouldn't always make good choices. And perhaps in dying at home he'd simply saved the Galaxy for an inevitable terrible choice -- it was a possibility. "I'm not," he said finally. "I know that. I also know that I understand better than I'd like to." He let out a breath, and with it the smallest amount of tension drained from his shoulders. They both did, didn’t they? So rarely was there ever a being that was purely evil. In fact they were so rare that they might not exist at all, not really. Darkness was a series of choices, often made for reasons that were supposed to be with the best of intentions. It was a constant test, a line that had to be walked. Heroes and Jedi weren’t really all that different when it came down to it. How many heroes had she known who had made a bad decision? Not all of them came back to the light in time. “Understanding isn’t a bad thing though, is it?” she asked. Her hand rubbed a small circle between his shoulder blades, a gentle constant movement to keep them in the moment. They had watched Anakin Skywalker’s fall. She knew it was a shadow that haunted him, something he never could fully escape even here. And she also knew that her Anakin didn’t like to talk about it anymore than she liked to talk about her own fears. Part of Anakin still wanted to go out, but the idea of walking out of the building and having to deal with people's looks didn't appeal. He could possibly draw on the Force to keep him and Rikki concealed - he'd been practicing that sort of ability, but it wasn't something he felt like he'd perfected, and in the moment he couldn't help but question if drawing on it for selfish reasons, just to keep himself hidden because he didn't want to deal with the looks, wasn't exactly the sort of thing he should keep from doing. And so he didn't move, but Rikki's motion on his back kept him from feeling completely edgy and restless with the lack of motion. "No," Anakin admitted. And he tightened his arms around her for a moment. "When I was a boy I used to have dreams like this, not exactly like - but similar enough. Master Ikrit would say we all have a choice. You would too," his lips tilted up in a smile and he dropped a kiss on her head. "And so would Uncle Luke, and everyone I admire. And I believe that. You can't always control the consequences of that choice but you can control the why of you making it. And my grandfather made a choice too. A series of choices - and some of them weren't wrong in and of themselves - but they separated him from the people who cared most about him and could help him most clearly see himself." Anakin fell silent for a minute. "I feel like Jacen did that too." He frowned and tilted his head, ideas he'd been swirling in his head all week long clicking into place. "It's not purely attachment. The Old Order was wrong about that. It's selfish attachment. It's attachment that puts your needs above the other person in the relationship, it's attachment that believes you know best for the other person without taking into consideration their journey. You have to connect to other beings in the Force, or you are missing an essential element of connecting to the Force. When you lose that connection, you become isolated. When you have that connection - like a battle meld or the sort of connection Jaina, Jacen, and I used to have as siblings - that can strengthen you." He stepped back from her for a moment, lost in pulling together stray strands of an idea and an answer he hadn't really known he was searching for. "For weeks now, I keep asking myself, what if the worst happens, and what would I do to save you…? And after watching my grandfather… and this…" he waved a hand back at the television. "And my brother, Jacen keeps saying constantly he did everything to make the galaxy safer for Allana… And I keep fearing that I'd do anything, cross any line if I thought it would keep you safe. But that's not -" he stopped and the next word held conviction. "Me. It's not, because if I care about you… if I truly love you, then I take your wishes and your beliefs into consideration. Because this isn't me… it's us. I'm not alone unless I choose to be." Anakin was much better with words than Rikki ever could be. And as she looked back at him, all those pieces clicking into place for him, she couldn’t help but admire him. There was just a warmth to him, a wisdom that really neither of them should have. But it was there all the same, through all the trials he had been through that she really only knew the surface of. His world had lost someone who would have been a great man when he died. And Rikki wanted to be part of him finding that out about himself here. “It wouldn’t be love.” she agreed, reaching up to touch his cheek gently. “It’d be obsession or infatuation or something like that. I would never want you to go to any length for me.” She had asked him to do a terrible thing for her already if it came to it. And there had been the worry that he wouldn’t, that he would cling too desperately to hope and that hope could become twisted if it failed. Smiling, she tilted her head slightly as she looked over his face for a moment. He was so determined, so sure. It was a hard fought moment of clarity. “And you’re not alone. I’ll track you down whether you like it or not.” she teased. The lopsided grin was an instantaneous response to her teasing, and his tone was lighter and more relaxed as he returned: "Sure, like you could find me if I wanted to hide." He reached up and wrapped a hand around hers and the grin softened and then faded out to a more serious expression, and he reached an arm around to pull her over to stand beside him, his arm around her waist. For all they frequently ended up tangled up in each other, there was something quietly comforting about just having her standing beside him and knowing it was where she wanted to be. "I know you wouldn't, Rikki," he said finally. "And I won't." There was a moment and then he let his breath out. "I can't promise I'll always make the best decision, or necessarily even the right one, but I am a Jedi. That's the path I've chosen. I'm responsible for that choice and for continuing to make it every day." He dropped a kiss on her head. "While we're on dreary subjects. Did I tell you I maybe found something that might help, if we need it? I'm working on it with my Uncle." The instinct to roll her eyes was too strong to ignore. Still it didn’t completely wipe away the smile on her face. “You know I’m pretty good at tracking people down. You don’t even know the half of it.” She let him guide her next to him, arm easily wrapping around his waist and holding onto him. Like it always did the motion just felt natural, as if this was where she was supposed to be. He was responsible for his choice, but so was she. And Rikki’s choice was to stay by his side and to drag him to hers. While he might have the dark side looming over him, they both had choices to make that would not always turn out well. It was part of being alive, of growing up. The Allies looked to her to make choices and honestly she wasn’t sure if she made the right calls all the time. But she chose her path and would have to make the best of it. They both would. Resting her head against his shoulder, Rikki looked up at him. “Aren’t we on your dreary subjects right now, not mine?” "Are they even 'yours' and 'mine' anymore?" Anakin countered, giving her a gentle squeeze with the arm wrapped around hers. "Aren't they 'ours'?" Somehow it seemed that had become the case. They had started out skirting the edge of everything that was so challenging for both of them. Just barely sharing worst fears and nastiest nightmares until one day they'd woke up and those walls had crumbled in on each other and they were both standing in the middle of the most difficult things that they carried - hand-in-hand and side by side. "Besides, you assume that the subject is only dreary for you. Trust me, it's pretty damn dreary for me to contemplate much as well. I like you here by my side even when you're sassing me." “You’re making us sound a little married, Anakin.” Rikki tutted, not heat behind it. But it was true that their problems weren’t just one or the other. They were a team whether she wanted to admit it or not. Anakin had situated himself into her life so expertly that she wasn’t really sure how to detach him from it, if she ever wanted to. She leaned against him slightly, swaying them for a moment in amusement. “You better like me by your side. Because you’re stuck with me there.” Still her voice softened again as she tilted her face to get a better look at him. “So what did Uncle Luke say?” Anakin's cheeks flushed slightly. "That wasn't - I didn't mean it like that," he protested. "Just we're together, we're doing things together, that's all." After the idea of marriage had briefly come up in conversation on the network, it seemed to recur now from time to time and he didn't mind the idea, but it hadn't been what he'd intended. They were a team, and to a degree he supposed that was what marriage was too, so maybe it was closer to sounding like that than he'd intended. "Anyway," he moved on. "There's a technique where you use the Force to find weak places in things - it can be weak places in anything, presumably. Even incredibly strong things, in people, or in actual events… although I'm still not certain how that works. It's called the shatterpoint. And if you can see those weak places, fault lines if you will, in the Force, then you can use the Force to… break it apart. And Uncle Luke knows how to do it - at least partially, so I'm asking him to teach me." Rikki smiled at the blush and leaned up to kiss his jaw softly. So often he was the one that pushed at those teasing little topics for her and it was occasionally nice to get back at him. Even if it was ridiculous. After all they’d really only just started to get to know each other, never mind the fact that they were both so young. And he was right, they were in this together. They had already committed to that. The smile faded away again as he explained just what it was that he wanted to learn. It didn’t sound all that different than what Gravity had done, pulling apart her atoms so that there was no body, nothing for Onslaught to grip onto and pull himself into reality. Sure it was the force instead of gravity but the idea was fundamentally the same, especially since Anakin had said the force was what bond living things together. “It sounds like it’d be good to know. If it comes to that.” "It's useful for all sorts of things, potentially," Anakin stated trying to draw other applications to it. And those other applications existed and he was going to be glad to add the technique to things he knew, but he also knew neither of them could over-look the reason why he was learning it. And it was theory, he didn't know if it could work, but if she had been put together as a tether from Onslaught - part Rikki and part monster whom Anakin hoped never found a hold in this universe - then in theory there would be cracks between the two. In theory, if he needed to, he'd be able to find those cracks, weaken them, disable Onslaught… and Rikki. He didn't say anything but he pulled her closer just a little bit, his arm tightening around her. He'd fight having to do that till the very end. Being able to was a contingency - a 'the world must be saved and there are no other options' contingency - not a solution he would look to. But if it came to that, he would do what was needed for the world - what Rikki had asked of him - because his desire to never lose her was not more important than the world and it wasn't more important than his commitment to the Jedi, a commitment that was to something larger than he would ever be alone. "You. Me. Bed?" he suggested softly his hand resting on her waist. Despite their dreary subjects he no longer felt like he needed to run. |