Obi-Wan is aging surprisingly well (obi1) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-30 12:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, dani moonstar (mirage), obi-wan kenobi |
Who: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Dani Moonstar
What: Obi’s working on Dani’s roof when something goes awry in classic hapless Obi-Wan fashion.** Also, some feelings sort of bubble to the surface.
When: During the Week
Where: Dani’s House/Backyard
Status: Complete
Rating: PG
**But seriously. Anyone else ever notice how many times he knocks himself out or gets himself captured or forgets he’s tied to Jango Fett?
The job’s most difficult parts were over. The old roof had been torn down and mostly disposed of, except for a few beams and other fixings that Obi-Wan wasn’t convinced were completely unusable. The frame for the new roof was already in place. He had even adjusted the height of the posts, so that the view from the house was less obstructed. The rafters for the roof itself were today’s project, and he walked along them with agility that was more than cat-like. It was Jedi-like, although there was little risk anyone other than himself could have drawn that conclusion on their own.
It was mid-afternoon, and nobody was home but the animals. Obi-Wan had fed them all and walked Ho’nene, too. He’d done this on a daily basis, if only for a change of scenery. He liked having things to take care of, even during the job’s downtime. Especially during the downtime. Maybe Jedi were drawn to contemplate their navel, but he certainly wasn’t.
Obi-Wan knew the way he not only avoided, but recoiled from silence wasn’t an attribute, but he’d adopted a leave me to my harmless vice attitude about it. At present, he was filling his ears with the sounds of Bob Dylan’s “Rolling Thunder”-era: an onomatopoetic period in the songwriter’s life. More than once, it crossed his mind that there was some kind of parallel going on between the two of them, although obviously several decades apart.
The help with the animals had been very welcomed by Dani, whose schedule was getting crazier the further into summer they got. And Summer was only beginning! Her animals loved him, too, and the sentiment wasn’t lost on her. Anyone who could be so considerate and then bond with her animals, too?
Hell, in her book, that was a BFF situation. If he drank at all she’d buy him drinks and play cards with him. She could probably still talk him into playing cards, and mentally decided that they’d have to do a game night sometime.
Her shift was over, though, and she’d made her way home after stopping for some Chinese take out. The tunes rolling through the air as she pulled up at her house let her know that Obi-Wan was, in fact, still there working. That suited her just fine, because she’d brought his favorite, just in case.
She headed into the house and shouted over the music, “Hey Carpenter guy! I brought you food!”
Obi-Wan’s head popped into view as he crossed the roof. He spotted Dani on the ground and his secret smile appeared, the one where his eyes crinkled, revealing not only his age but also a man who had earned a few smile lines in a previous life. But maybe he was still earning them. Anything was possible.
“Food? Excellent!” he shouted over the music. He tapped the power button on the stereo and cut Bob short. Taking up his shirt--he’d been working in the heat all day--he swung his legs over the side and sat up. He used it to mop his brow first, and then pulled the shirt down over his head and chest. “Do I smell five-spice chicken?” It was a rhetorical question, because he did.
He did in fact smell five spice chicken in one of the bags she was carrying, but Dani's brain short circuited for a moment when she noticed he was topless, and it took her another few seconds to formulate a reply.
Not that it needed a reply, because it was a rhetorical question.
"I got you a double helping, since I figured you'd probably be working up an appetite," she finally said, after discovering her ability to speak english. She headed into the kitchen and set the bags down, while stepping repeatedly on the brakes of the car her hormones were speeding along in. That man might just be a friend, but it was seriously a waste if someone wasn't dating him. And that's all there was to that.
She grabbed out some water from her fridge, "Tell me you're using sunscreen if you're working up there like that. I don't need you to get cancer and then blame my roof."
"SPF One-Thousand," he shouted, so that she could hear it indoors. But he really was wearing it. He'd learned that the hard way a few times. Then again, if any kind of cancer would get him first, it wouldn’t be the skin kind.
Obi-Wan hurried down the ladder, skipping a few of the rungs because he had indeed worked up a ferocious appetite. He ultimately landed on the ground with a little grunt. Brushing the dust off his arms, he strode up to the patio door without entering. He didn't want to tread dirt on Dani's floor. She had enough animals coming and going and bringing in the great outdoors as it was.
"Unless you want to wait while I shower, we should probably eat outside," he shouted through the screen door. Spotting a hose on the wall, he used it to rinse his hands and get a drink, and thought about how he'd never been treated so well on a job before. Dani was a rare find, both as an employer and a, well, friend, he supposed. There was no reason for her to think of him at every meal, and yet she did. There was no reason for them to get on so effortlessly. He didn't get on remotely effortlessly with anyone, as least once things got back the surface. Hell, his closest friend was literally his sparring partner.
It was just something she did, and she didn't really have much of an explanation beyond that, really. She'd spent most of her life thinking of her Grandfather at every turn until he was gone, and had cared for other people in her life to the point that one of them joined the Army just to get away from her.
That was her side of the story, anyway. She'd never felt like she was smothering him so much as looking out for him, but that was probably the reason it never worked out, anyway. And that was a story for some other time.
In any case the man was working very hard on her house and if he was there, while she was eating, then she intended on feeding him. It was fair, and it was right, and Dani did the right thing.
She glanced at him through the screen door and came to the same conclusion, "Let me get some forks and I'll bring this stuff out there."
Shortly after that, Chinese Food was set out on one of her patio tables, like a feast.
For Obi-Wan, pursuing a sense of responsibility, hard work, and honor was a relatively untrod path. If Dani had known him only a few years ago, she may have had a very different opinion of him. (Or perhaps not; because more and more often, he questioned his ability to judge himself objectively.) But, no question about it, the man fixing her roof was a newborn creature in many ways--though the grueling obsession with atoning for his past sins had transmuted into something far more organic in the last few months. (He undoubtedly had Loras to thank for that, for beating it out of him, quite literally.)
But he still wasn't comfortable thinking about himself in more than the most vaguely positive terms. Whom he had been, what he had done, who he had failed--it still haunted him. Every now and then, his previous life would rear its monstrous head, leaving Obi-Wan crippled and helpless in its wake. There was nothing put on about his ease of mind and happiness in this particular moment, but his wounded heart was constantly guarded, like a dark secret.
Obi-Wan settled into the patio table, which had been pushed out of the way and onto the grass while he worked. There was a nice breeze coming in from the west and the sun was low enough on the horizon that the surrounding trees and homes blocked it from view. It took quite a bit of restraint not to tear into his meal like a competitive eater.
He nodded towards the roof. His hair was a little stringy from sweat, and it flopped against his forehead. "You like how it's coming along? It's starting to look like it was always part of the house, intit?" Funny how when he let that guard down, even a little bit, the Glaswegian accent popped out.
It was a charming accent, and Dani loved it when it managed to rise to the surface. Obi-Wan wasn’t the only person at the table with a guarded heart, but the rest of her was so open that it often felt like there was nothing hiding underneath the surface. Which suited her purposes just fine.
“You’re doing a great job with it,” Dani nodded as she looked the work over appraisingly. She tilted her head to the side, “Is it lower than it was before? It looks a bit lower.”
She couldn’t be sure, though, without going inside and inspecting it from the second floor. Which she wasn’t going to do, while enjoying a nice lunch out in the backyard. It was a great day for it, too. She took off her sunglasses and picked up her container of General Tso’s Chicken, grabbed some chopsticks, then settled herself more casually in her chair by putting her legs up on the table. She didn’t figure Obi-Wan would mind.
He didn’t mind it all. Firstly, he was too busy stuffing his gob with delicious, spicy chicken. But there was also something disarming about the way she did it, in one carefree motion. Disarming! That was the word he’d been looking for this whole time.
“A bit,” he tried to reply without spitting out his food. He swallowed. “But it’s flatter underneath. It will actually improve the view.”
The breeze picked up with a low whistle. Obi-Wan shielded his dinner and squeezed his eyes shut against the dust particles carried on the wing. Dani's dark hair danced about her face, and he had a second to admire it before his eyes closed--though the negative after image followed him briefly into the darkness.
A rattling on the roof caught his attention. He lifted his head and narrowed his eyes on the toolbox he had left behind. I should get that, he thought... with an unmistakable but fleeting pang of foreboding. It was overtaken by his stomach's demand for more food. I'll get it in a few minutes, he promised himself, and from wherever the warning came.
That very problem - the one where you need to finish chewing and swallowing before you answer - is why Dani usually didn't bother with talking with someone over dinner, and instead preferred talking while cooking it. Or while waiting for room for dessert, or after dessert. After dessert talks were the best, mainly because full bellies made for more comfortable conversing.
"I really appreciate that you'd even think of that, Obi-wan. You do a lot of things on this job that you ... well you frankly don't need to do, but they're nice things. I notice."
She smiled at him, but made a motion at him that implied he didn't need to respond to her until they were both done devouring their tasty chinese food. Mainly, she enforced that by not saying another word, herself, until after her own container was empty.
Whether or not he was being intuitive, Obi-Wan fell into silence as he continued to eat. The problem with having a lot of things on one's mind was one swung between giving into the pressure of speech too often and then not realizing one might be rude by keeping silent for too long. Truly, though, he'd never enjoyed being alone with his thoughts. Not great for a supposed Jedi Knight, but it was the truth.
So he tried to focus on his plans for the roof. He smiled at the pretty woman across the table. And he listened to the wind. And the rattling toolbox.
Keeping busy was his last addiction. Hence, the extra work on the roof. Pressing on his mind at this particular moment was the matter of his living situation. A lot had changed in the past week, since he'd turned down Dani's offer to stay while he worked. He'd been foolish, putting defenseless Mrs Higgins in a risky situation, allowing a dangerous person to know there was someone he cared for. Now, he feared he would have to move on, just for the sweet old woman's safety.
Obi-Wan frowned into his chicken for a while, sighed, and lifted his head. "I'm glad you like how it's turning out." His mouth was empty this time.
The silence between them while they ate had started off companionable, like it always did when they shared a meal together. Dani relished it - there were few enough people in the world you could sit with in silence and still feel comfortable not saying a word. The sounds around them filled the silence perfectly, and while she noticed the rattle of the toolbox in the wind, there was nothing about the sound that made her feel alarmed.
What was alarming to her was the way things suddenly seemed a bit out of place when he spoke. She’d been watching his facial expressions here and there, and it seemed to her that there was something on the man’s mind besides roofing. He was obviously troubled, but they had a way of not speaking for long or in depth about their private business so far, and she wasn’t sure how it would go if she asked him about it.
Still, she found herself glancing at him and tilting her head, “You’re not really thinking about the roof right now, are you?”
"Em, no," he replied, at some length, feeling for all the world like a boy caught looking through his mother's purse for her pack of cigarettes--which he had been, more than once. He even felt his ears flush a little.
What followed was a short battle, between the part of him that trusted that Dani was someone worth confiding in, because she was strong, and she seemed to get him for some inexplicable reason, and because she'd been brave enough to share her dreams with him. But there was another part of him that warned that stories about mobsters and illegal boxing matches weren't to be shared under any circumstances. He wasn't proud of any of it. He cringed at the thought of her thinking less of him...
"Thinking about my living situation, thinking of moving. Living with an 85-year-old can cramp a man’s style--" (Not that he, at the moment--or for the past few years--had any kind of “style” going on.)
It was impossible to know what, exactly, happened first: whether Obi-Wan saw the toolbox flying towards them, or if he was diving across the table before it even moved. One thing was certain, it was not the wind that pushed the box from the roof.
His eyes felt like they locked on each individual nail and hammer and wrench, like he could see each one's finest details and all of them at the same time. He put himself between all of them and Dani. If his strange psychic affliction was going to be the end of anyone, it would be him. He
braced himself. He squeezed his eyes shut.
When he opened them, he saw the tips of his outstretched arms, and the tools and nails hovering in the air, inches from his palms. The air between them vibrated and hummed, while his arms felt charged with electricity. His mind itself seemed to be holding the raw end of that
wire. It sparked and the world around him rippled at the edges, like a metal sheet.
He dropped his hands. The tools fell to the ground. And, with a cry of anguish, he fell beside them. It was possible he lost consciousness for a few seconds. (He entered something like a dream, and for a moment he was a child--no, a toddler--running through a field grasses so high that they tickled his chin. His mother called his name from a distance, and he pretended not to hear her.) And then he was looking up at the California sky again, flat on his back. His skin was cold and it felt like the entire world was sitting on his chest.
On Dani’s end, she wasn’t really sure what had just happened. The toolbox had obviously fallen, and Obi-Wan had obviously stepped between her and it - something that she would thank him and also berate him for at some other time that wasn’t now - but she couldn’t figure out what had caused it to head in that direction to begin with.
That was putting aside the few seconds where it seemed to her that the tools were suspended in the air, of course, and while she was running over to him, she remembered that time he’d unlocked the patio door. Was he even aware he could do something like that? He pretty much looked like he was as shocked about it as she was, though right now was really not the time to ask questions.
Right now, her first responder instincts came to the forefront, and she found herself kneeling next to him on the ground. She instantly pushed two fingers against his neck to check his pulse, then grabbed her jacket and tossed it over him to try and keep him warm. She slapped his cheeks a bit at that point, then looked into his eyes when he opened them, “There you are. Are you alright? Tell me what’s going on. Does anything hurt?”
He was awake, but for a while it felt like his thoughts were nothing more than a static hum. All he could think about, and it was more image than words, was the dream Dani had shared about becoming paralyzed, and how he was determined that his affliction would have nothing to do with it.
Obi-Wan began to shake his head. She bobbed back and forth across his vision. “Not... hurt...” His throat was dry. He motioned for some help sitting upright, just to prove to himself that he still could. Then, he gestured for some water. He swallowed and tried speaking again. “I’m sorry. Things like that... have happened a few times... before. I’m never... sure when it will again. I’ll be thinking I need... to get something. And then it will come to me instead.”
There was no hint of a smile, even towards the end. Obi-Wan was, in a word, mortified. As his color reappeared, it filled his ears first, and then the skin across his cheekbones. “I’m so sorry.”
Unsure what level of physical contact was appropriate here, or if he wanted any comforting at all, Dani simply got him the water after helping him up. Then she sort of hunkered down next to him. Not too close to make him feel like she was hovering, but not so far away that he’d feel she was trying to stay away from him, either.
The blushing - if that’s what she wanted to call it, since it was probably more a flush of embarrassment - was kind of cute, but he wasn’t smiling, and she wasn’t going to keep thinking about the poor guy like that. Seriously, she really wasn’t, in his time of need. So that was the last thought about that, before she was tilting her head to the side, and regarding him with eyes that mainly seemed curious.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You didn’t do anything wrong, and … well it could be argued that you saved me and yourself from harm, with … whatever that was, that you want to call that. Telekinesis? I think that’s the word they use. I’m more worried about you. Your pulse was kind of abnormal there for a bit. You really don’t look good.”
She was actually thinking about calling the paramedics, but what was she going to say? Maybe it was the property they were on. She made a mental note to smudge the place later.
"Yes, well, it took quite a bit out of me." He gulped down some more water. His strength was beginning to return, but slowly. "That was the first time I've ever held the object off." He pointed out a healing gash hidden by his hairline. “That one was just a wrench. Gave me a concussion.”
While the event had moved Dani to push everything but offering her assistance out of her head, it had a somewhat different effect on Obi-Wan. The "short circuit" in his brain felt as though it had loosened something, he began thinking things that he'd blocked out up till now. Like how Dani's beauty was so earthy and natural. She could go through the day without a bit of makeup, which he had always thought to be a rare find in a woman. He thought about, of all things to have unlocked, the prospect of smashing his lips against hers right then and there--and for the first time in a long while, found the idea pleasant instead of terrifying. He didn't, of course. Partly because he hadn't the strength. Everything still felt fuzzy and dreamlike.
"I'm alright, I think," he smiled to reassure her. "I'm feeling better, now. I'm just sorry I scared you."
“I’m somewhat dubious about your claims of being alright, Sir,” Dani smirked a bit at him, and reached out her hand to lift his arm. She held up a finger as she took his pulse again, and gently set his arm back down the second she’d decided it was more or less normal. Still, she was a little worried.
Though not really worried about the part where he’d actually just done all that. That part was pretty damned amazing. It pretty much put her ability to feel the emotions of her lazy cats to shame.
She inspected the gash on his hairline, not quite certain she remembered seeing it before the construction had started, “You should have said something. You shouldn’t really be climbing around on my roof with a concussion. How long ago was this?!”
“Oh, weeks ago, “ he replied with a wave of his hand. “That was the first time it happened, so I didn’t know the warning signs. The second time, I had the forethought to duck.” That had been Loras’s coffee pot, which he’d replaced. “It was only a wee concussion, anyway.”
It was almost a shame Obi-Wan didn’t feel amazing about what he was slowly learning how to do. At the moment, it was entirely a burden, and he had no control over it. It wasn’t like in the movies--yes, he frequently found himself thinking along those lines--where he could just point at things and make them move. There was some trick to it that continuously eluded him.
“But I appreciate the concern,” he said. There was the slightest, tiniest bit of an attempt at flirtation in his voice. It was something he would have blocked at another time, but at the moment, it slipped through. And maybe just to send the message home, his fingertips grazed her arm.
The slight fingertip graze did not go unnoticed by Dani, whose cheeks went just the most subtle bit of pink over it, before she was back to paying attention to more important things at the moment, like his health.
“I’m glad you appreciate the concern, because I’m going to be concerned whether you appreciate it or not.” She ran through a few ideas in her head. Obviously whatever he’d just done had taken a great deal out of him. If it was anything like athletics then she thought he probably needed something more than water to drink right now. It would be ideal if she had gatorade in her refrigerator, but of course no one stocks gatorade in the off chance that their friends will suddenly manifest psychic abilities.
She did, however, have some juice, and she thought maybe he ought to drink some. With a very business-like tone, she got up and pointed at him, “Stay right there.”
She headed into the house and returned with a glass of apple juice, “I don’t have orange juice, but this should help balance out any sugars lost in the process of... saving us from a horrible death by toolbox.”
She squinted at him and added, “Unless you’re allergic to apples, you’re drinking it, and I’m not taking no for an answer. You’re lucky I didn’t call the EMT’s.”
“When have I ever turned down food from you?” he replied, lifting the glass to his lips, which had turned upward at the corner. “And what would you tell the EMT’s?”
Obi-Wan began by taking small sips. He hadn’t mentioned it, but he was feeling a little queasy, most likely from the drop in blood pressure. The juice helped to settle his stomach. And he could literally feel the sugars enter his bloodstream and bring fresh life to his limbs. The color returned to his face. By the end of the glass, his head began to clear, though he still felt like he’d been through the wringer. It was sort of like the weakness one feels after emotional trauma or a long cry, which also helped to explain the mental blocks that had shifted out of place.
But as his strength returned, so did the the blocks. The post-exertion euphoria faded. And he was left feeling... Ashamed? Embarrassed?
He took a short breath and released it through his nose. “Please don’t go thinking that you owe me for... that. I mean, I’m the one that caused it. I jumped in front of you because... well, I just had to think quickly. But, I’m the one that caused it, so it was all my fault.” His voice was sincere and firm, not wilting. Even if this power was beyond his control, he was going to take responsibility for it.
He didn’t bring up, however, his fear of somehow being the cause of her dreamed paralysis.
What would she have told the EMT's? It was a good question, and Dani gave him a bit of a smirk that implied he'd caught her in her own little lie. She didn't reply at all, instead busying herself with cleaning up the food left out on the table. Mainly to keep her hands busy before she ended up fidgiting and checking his pulse again or fussing over him more. She wasn't sure if he wanted any more fussing over.
In fact, when she finished picking up the chinese food containers, she noted that his entire air had changed again, back to the Obi he usually was. She could have sworn he'd been flirting with her before this, and found herself extremely confused for a few seconds.
Things started to make a little more sense when he spoke, but she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. She wasn't having any of that.
"Obi. You have some kind of skill that you have no control over. Blaming you for making a toolbox fly at us accidently would be like blaming a child for knocking over a table of knick knacks and breaking them, just because he stumbled into it while learning to walk. I'd be upset about the knick knacks, but I couldn’t rightfully blame him for his actions. And there's no way I’m going to blame you for this, either."
She shook her head and started marching towards the trash cans, containers still in hand, "Anyway, other men in your position would have ducked out of the way. Your first instinct was to protect me. Your second instinct was to try and stop it. That sounds like taking responsibility to me, but it’s also brave, and worthy of my respect."
Obi-Wan looked up at her, still and quiet, while she glared and spoke. He listened quite intently. She spoke with authority and confidence, and he could certainly appreciate a good glare. He realized what he thought might have frightened her had actually registered very differently. Perhaps he had even impressed her, and he liked that thought.
And he liked the child metaphor, too. He didn't feel like he was being admonished, like he might have if Loras had said it.
As she walked toward the trash cans, he took it upon himself to get up off the ground. Obi-Wan pushed himself up on his knees and, using the table for support, pulled himself up on his feet. It took more than a little effort, but he endured the residual weakness in his limbs and willed himself to stand. He closed his eyes as a wave of wooziness lingered, but he didn't lose consciousness again. By the time he opened them, he could meet Dani's eyes as she returned--he thought less about how lovely they were and more about how strong and intense they were, but maybe that was the same thing.
"In my dreams," he began, "I can do so much more than I can here. It's frustrating. Sometimes, while I'm awake, I feel trapped."
Well, he had always felt a little trapped within himself, but this was of a different kind. This was the pain of knowing he had the potential to do something great, and yet the means escaped him--and it had taken quite a lot of time and energy and many false steps before he believed he could be great at anything. And, really, Obi-Wan was still far from convinced. But while Dani was speaking, he had believed her.
"I think the secret lies in... letting go." At least, that's what Loras kept saying. "To stop fearing it. But I've never been very good at letting go when it comes to certain things. You don't know any secrets, do you?" He finished with a little smile.
Dani wasn't even sure where the confidence was coming from. She just felt, for some reason, like she was a person who had some kind of authority in these matters. Maybe it was all the counseling she did with her little. Maybe it was the dreams.
Glad to see him back in a chair, she took a seat and started to sip at her water thoughtfully. She definitely wasn't leaving him like that to do anything else. In her book, he still needed monitoring just in case. Talking through things was a great way to spend the time.
She was glad that he was sharing things with her, too, and smiled warmly at him as he finished, "It might be something like that. In my dreams, I belong to a world where people have ... mutations, that give them powers. I had one recently where I was taught how to control my own, and a lot of it has to do with not being afraid of them. In my case, that was very hard."
His eyes always seemed wise to her, like he'd seen a lot and done a lot, most of which had made him into the man he was today, for good or ill. They were certainly great to look at, which she did, as she continued, "In that other place, I can show people pictures, that they think are real. Of their greatest desires, or greatest fears. I havn't even been able to do that, here, but in the dreams I was terrified of it. It wreaked havoc for a while."
She paused and then added, with a bit of a chuckle, "As for how to actually do that, you've come to the wrong girl. I don't let anything go, I just climb on top of it and stomp a few times."
At this, Obi-Wan let his head fall backward as he not only chuckled, but laughed outright. It was a brief, but ringing sound, even to his own ears. He squinted a little and his smile lines crinkled. It tickled him, how she had struck so close to home.
"Yes, well..." he began, as his laughter subsided. But his smile didn't fade. "Maybe you can understand why I'm always keeping myself busy."
“I can, indeed,” Dani was practically grinning at this point, with a level of emotion that easily hit her eyes. They had an amused twinkle in them as she shook her head at herself, because honestly it wasn’t really the best mentality to have, and she knew it.
“I think that’s how it is for fighters. I’m a warrior, you know. I’m Cheyenne, and we’re all warriors. There’s supposed to be, probably, a bunch of spiritual mumbo jumbo about how we face our fears and conquer them and move on. I’m sure they mean that you leave them behind you, but I’ve obviously failed at that, since--” She cut herself off at that point, and frowned, “Well. Bears. Still haunting my dreams and everything. A psychologist could probably have a field day with me.”
"Cheyenne," he repeated softly. Obi-Wan had assumed there was at least some Native American ancestry there; now he knew for sure. He looked at her directly, admiring the unique shape of her eyes and the richness of her skin. He took in a breath and held it for a few moments, and released it slowly as he turned his gaze to his rough palms, his workman's hands. He flexed his fingers and folded them across his stomach, leaning back into the chair.
He shrugged. "Our faults have a way of rearing their ugly heads with the worst possible timing, don't they?" He wasn't about to tell her that something she perceived as a weakness was actually a secret strength. That would have been a platitude. Especially since he recoiled at the thought becoming so forgiving to his own faults that he might actually begin to cherish them, or think them charming. "There are things about myself I think I could do without, but I continue on, in spite of them. What other choice is there? I try to imitate what impresses me in others, and maybe one day I will be able to say that's me, as well."
Maybe she didn’t know it, but she’d already shown him a few things worth imitating. With another sigh, he turned back to her, and said this.
Dani wasn't sure how to respond to that. She found herself blushing slightly, and studying the pattern on table for a bit while she tried to figure out what to say. Mainly, she had a hard time believing her was much about her that anyone would find worth imitating like that.
After some awkward silence, she finally gave him the focus of her eyes again, "You're... I don't see how, but I'll just take your word for it. You're wiser than me, after all."
Her eyes looked amused again as she said that last bit.
"Well, I don't know about wiser," he replied. He rolled his eyes back to the sky. "I've certainly lived through enough. I ought to be wise by now, shouldn't I?"
It had quickly become a very deep, probing conversation, hadn't it? And yet, Obi-Wan didn't feel uncomfortable. Not as much as he knew he should have, so far beneath the surface had he dived. These were uncharted waters.
Or maybe those mental walls had more than shifted. Maybe a few had fallen. Perhaps part of him just wanted Dani to know that he valued her, that he was more than simply fond. By now, she must have been able to grasp how difficult a conversation like this could potentially be for him. (And of course, there was this less-than-noble part of him that wanted to throw them both back on the grass and devour one another... Yes, he had to admit that. But Obi-Wan flinched ever so slightly as he acknowledged it. He even felt woozy again. Those kinds of thoughts made him so uncomfortable these days. He didn't know what to do with them. Acting on them didn't feel like an option.)
But it made opening up to her something like a priority in his mind.
"There's something worth imitating about a woman who goes out of her way to bring her carpenter his favorite foods."
"Well, don't read too much into it, Sir. I get all of my carpenters their favorite foods." Of course, she only had the one carpenter, and her eyes suggested that she was completely joking, either way.
In truth, she just felt it was the right thing to do, and that's probably why he mentioned it was worth emulation. She hoped. Or was he flirting with her again? She tilted her head to the side a bit, trying to read his eyes.
"Your life is rougher than you tell me about, and I like making sure you have enough to eat. Only you won't accept charity, and that's fine. It's not charity. I just ... care. It burns a lot of calories to do that work, and you probably don't eat until I get home. So it's mostly... I'm putting my foot in my mouth. I like you. I feed you. That's how it is."
She even stomped a foot on the ground, like she was putting her foot down over it, "I have horrible foot in mouth disease. It's true. But I think if I was doing construction at Mrs. H's place she'd probably feed me with pie or something, too. You're surrounded by friends willing to feed you."
He became still again, as he listened. Not just physically. It was more than that. And it was warmer, too. By the end of it, his ears and cheeks had turned a bit red again. He felt like he’d been given a great compliment, not so much in what she said specifically, but in that she knew what he needed to hear.
Obi-Wan smiled shyly. It was almost an awkward look for him. He wondered how difficult to could possibly be to ask Dani out on a proper date--not that he was sure what a proper date was. It had been so long, and he’d never gotten it right to begin with. He could feel the words forming in his mouth. Something like, Maybe you and I could do this again, only without the toolbox flying at our heads. That probably would have been a good way to put it. But only probably, because he couldn’t bring himself to get it out. Perhaps he needed another knock on the head.
He patted the table and smiled. The sky was beginning to darken. “Speaking of Mrs. H, I probably should be checking in on her. She likes to know where I am before she turns in.” It was the truth, but he couldn’t say he actually wanted to leave. Still, he pushed himself back from the table. “I think I’m okay to drive now.”
Obi-Wan considered his options. If he couldn’t find the courage to make his interest obvious, then maybe he just had to accept that. And he also had to admit that if she wasn’t interested herself, getting turned down would, in a word, suck. But maybe he could leave a different kind of impression.
He placed a hand on her shoulder. Not a heavy hand, a delicate one. He rubbed the fabric of her shirt between his index finger and thumb. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Maybe with a helmet.”
Then, Obi-Wan turned away, and started down the worn path that led out from the yard. He hadn’t been lying about not being able control his powers, or whatever they were, but he concentrated with all his might to brush his mental fingertips through her hair, just once. Maybe it worked, there was no way for him to know. If she wanted to think it was only the wind, that was fine, too.