#WHY AM I GOING SO DARK ON THESE JEEEEEZZZZ

[legobiwan]

Whumptober #3 (delirium)

TW: some gory imagery, more than what is considered a reasonable word count

Fandom: Star Wars (Obi-wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano)

Notes: this got out of control so a lot is under the cut and yet I’m already behind and hopefully going to work on Day 4 RIGHT NOW. Learning how to let go of my obsessive need to edit and just churn it out, for better or worse.

—–

Obi-wan strode down the abandoned corridor of the Star Destroyer. If his steps tapped a click too fast, rhythm disjointed, anxious - well, it had been an exhausting week.

Not that Anakin was helping matters at all.

Still, for once Obi-wan couldn’t criticize his former student’s tetchy behavior, at least not entirely. One did not touch the Dark Side, have it fill their unwilling body, without consequence.

Obi-wan paused, reaching out with the Force. Not that he needed to extend much effort - the agitated waves were likely being broadcast all the way back to Coruscant.

Ahsoka, resilient as always, seemed to be faring a bit better. If she hung around Rex a bit more than usual, spent twice the time necessary doing inventory checks, and joined in the secret sabaac-tournament with some of the shinys - well, no one saw fit to say anything, especially Obi-wan himself. For now, distraction was the best strategy. There would be time, he hoped, when they returned to the Temple - after the inevitable debrief, the mandatory meeting with a mindhealer, the consultation with another member of the Council - there would be time for her to grapple face-to-face with she had briefly become. Her faith might be shaken, but Ahsoka was solid, a series of roots reaching deep into an albino plains, a landscape neither of the light or dark, but something else entirely. Obi-wan would be lying if he said it didn’t concern him just a bit, this idea that Ahsoka seemed to drifting from how the Jedi would traditionally define the light.

Then again, being a student of one Anakin Skywalker was bound to place one on a more nontraditional path.

Obi-wan paused the the intersection of two hallways, long, grey expanses stretching on either side, dark pinpricks looming at the the edge of his vision somehow casting a long shadow curling near his boots. He ran a tired hand over his face, ignoring the slight flutter in his chest.

There. In the secondary mechanic’s bay. Not that he had needed to use the Force to deduct that turn of events. Anakin tinkering with old droids had been his favored coping mechanism since he had been a small, blonde ragamuffin. Obi-wan would know, having hauled his oil-streaked, wayward Padawan from every possible room that even breathed the promise of chaotic mechanics.

It had been easier, then.

Well, in a manner of speaking. As a child, Anakin had still been prone to bouts of temper and melacholy, but it was far easier to mollify a nine-year old boy with the promise of a trip to the junk heaps and a sweet than it was a twenty-something man burdened by unfair expectations of prophecy.

Obi-wan preferred not to think about where those expectations had originated.

It was craven, in a way, sneaking up on Anakin like this, shrouding his Force presence from his former student. Force knew the two of them had had so many confrontations over the years, adding one more to the list wasn’t going to change the balance of anything.

But Obi-wan was concerned, and even a short glimpse into Anakin’s unprotected Force presence might tell him something.

And besides, Obi-wan was so very tired.

True to form, Anakin was hunched over some ridiculous piece of machinery eight-armed, head whirring as it made angry buzzes, spewing a stream of night-black lubricant Obi-wan managed to avoid by a careful inch.

Anakin let loose a string of curses, throwing his hydrospanner to the floor.

Some things didn’t change.

“It’s not supposed to do that,” Anakin muttered, kicking at the disposed tool, sending it skittering across the bay.

Irritation, impatience, guilt - these were all par for the course with Anakin. Not that Council would approve of a Jedi Knight broadcasting his ill-temper but at the very least, Obi-wan couldn’t sense anything more malevolent.

“Do what,” the older Jedi drawled, “imitate a swarm of angry bees or act as a rather disgusting garden hose?”

Anakin jerked around, wide-eyed expression folding in to a practiced pout as he swung around to the droid in question with an irritated grunt.

“You again.”

Obi-wan crossed his arms over his abdomen, frowning. “Yes, me again, Anakin.”

The beleaguered hydrospanner flew into Anakin’s open had. Obi-wan bit back a comment regarding inappropriate use of the Force as Anakin attacked the droid’s mechanism with vindictive dedication. Whatever Anakin’s plan (or lack thereof), his newest ministrations resulted in the droid hopping off the table, all eight arms akimbo, flailing wildly as it let out of violent buzz before it crashed out of the mechanic’s bay with a series of loud, clunky hops.

The cacophony was not doing wonders for the beginnings of the headache curling behind Obi-wan’s eyes.

“Well, that was…something,” Obi-wan observed, pressing his thumb and forefingers into his eye sockets, hoping to forestall the inevitable headache and series of stimsticks needed to pretend it wasn’t there.

Anakin whacked the side of the abandoned metal table with his hydrospanner.

“I know what you’re doing, Master.”

This time, Obi-wan did allow himself a loud, frustrated sigh.

“Anakin, I told you before - “

“Yeah, I know. That you needed to keep an eye on me in case I’m contaminated, in case I go dark side on you.”

“That’s not at all what I said - “

In one step Anakin’s angry face filled his vision, his breath hot on Obi-wan’s nose. “You didn’t need to,” he hissed. “I see the way you look at me, how you prod at my Force presence, like I’m something dangerous.”

Obi-wan winced, memories of an ill-timed comment made in the heat of frustration threatening surface.

“You don’t get it, do you? You’re too much of a perfect Jedi, wouldn’t understand how we could be so weak, to let the Brother take us, to fail!” Anakin’s voice rose, the Force swirling in tandem as he hurled the hydrospanner across the room.

“I never asked for any of it!”

Obi-wan swallowed over the panic balling in his throat, the image of Anakin’s yellowed eyes overlaying the angry brown eyes staring back at him.

“Please, Anakin,” the words tumbled from Obi-wan’s lips before he could stop them, a plea, anything to keep that terrible visage from Mortis away from Anakin.  “You need to know, I should have told you - “

But Obi-wan’s overture played to deaf ears as Anakin huffed, anger draining to a shadow of frustration, of well-worn feelings of betrayal.

“Save it for the Council, Obi-wan,” Anakin said, sweeping from the room without a second glance back, footsteps fading down the long, grey corridor, leaving Obi-wan at the mercy of an oppressive, accusatory vacuum.

The confession died, foul and rotting on his tongue.

I did feel the Dark Side on Mortis.

You just weren’t there to witness it.

No one was.

Knees buckling, Obi-wan lowered himself to the floor, back sliding against the side of the mechanic’s table. It would be against every tenet of the Jedi Code to compel the nearest sentient being into bringing a bottle of something cheap and alcoholic, and the only stopping him was the complete lack of company in this section of the ship.

Abandoned, even by his own Padawan.

It wasn’t that he had only felt the Dark Side on Mortis - they all had borne the overwhelming weight  of it, the impossibly density of the Son’s increasingly malevolent presence, Anakin most of all.

I did feel the Dark Side on Mortis. Not only felt, but was taken by it, allowed it in.

It had been the cave. Ahsoka slept as Obi-wan had taken first watch.

And then the specter of his dead Master had come to converse.

Obi-wan chuckled, a dark and twisted sound.

Hadn’t been much of a conversation. They had picked up right where they had left off, Qui-gon dying in his arms, his final moments in the universe dedicated to his ridiculous prophecies, extracting a promise Obi-wan could not in any way deny.

I didn’t believe in the prophecy. I believed for him.

I still do.

This illusory Qui-gon - it was too real, his old Master returning with nary a word for Obi-wan, his whole attention (so hard to gain, yet overwhelming when granted) focused on Anakin’s progress, on the promise made for Anakin, on the prophecy about Anakin -

Even now, the Force shrieked, metal grinding on metal, an echo of the discordant psalm of his anger.

On Mortis, that same sensation had swollen, sickly and throbbing, an untreated, festering boil growing rotted teeth, jaws, a fecund mandible unhinging in an impossible manner, devouring Obi-wan in his entirety.

Qui-gon’s ghost had been but the prelude to a terrible symphony.

Warmth trickled down his chin, sputtering a path from nose to beard. Obi-wan felt at his face, frowning as his gloved fingers came back sticky and viscous.

“I’m sorry, Obi-wan.” Qui-gon’s specter looked on with stony disapproval. “You’ve failed the test.”

Something hooked at Obi-wan’s stomach, sharp and painful. It pulled at him, waist first, legs and arms trailing his midsection. Qui-gon remained steady, his stare fixed as Obi-wan was wrenched through the air, slamming onto his back as he fell to the unforgiving, stony earth.

He tried opening his eyes, but the lids were too heavy, his skull to rattled as his brain tried to throb out of his head. Finally, he wrenched one bloodshot eye open,  only to be met with a long corridor of grey stone in either direction, Qui-gon nowhere to be seen.

Failure. That’s all he had been. All those years, every effort he made to obey, to predict what Qui-gon wanted (an impossible task) - and for what?

Capable.

Not good, not even trying. Just…capable.

Obi-wan sat up, groaning as he clenched his battered midsection.

Too fast. The world tilted at a sickening angle and immediately Obi-wan leaned over, retching, his stomach empty for too many hours to produce anything but a thin, interrupted stream of bile.

Failure.

It shouldn’t tear at his fragile stomach the way it did. He had accepted this fact, come to terms with it years ago. And still, it ripped open that unhealed sore, a vulnerability he had long since considered well and buried.

So much time, so much effort following the Code, adhering to the Council, trying, with all due diligence, to combat the invisible mark upon himself, to prove that it was only an illusory scar, some minor inconvenience rather than a virus embedded into his cells, a virus that would always resurface, no matter how many time he would lance the wound with white-hot repentance.

And for what?

Hours spent for someone else’s vision, for someone else’s development, for someone else’s betterment. And there Obi-wan was, capable, reliable Obi-wan, the bedrock, never-changing, steady and solid and ground digging into his flesh.

Obi-wan burned.

It was like Qui-gon had said.

He was a failure.

Velvet temptation coiled in Obi-wan’s chest.

Without faith in the Light, his path to being a Jedi, to being the Master of the so-called Chosen One, to occupying a seat on the Council - his path’s true form was exposed. An iron lattice wrought from lies and condescensions, from last-ditch choices and desperate measures.

Nothing but a convenient excuse, a capable beast of burden for Qui-gon’s prophecies, for the Council’s unsolvable problems.

Obi-wan stood in one fluid motion. He reached to his side, weapon igniting as he held it over his head.

(He’s on Mandalore, the terrorists who would dare threaten Satine impaled on his weapon, one by one. He eliminates Tal Merrick with an easy gesture, an open hand, fingers curled as the useless traitor falls to the ground, face ashen. He sees his mortal enemy, the red and black phantom, now bisected once, twice, his head lopped bouncing off the sides of the reactor shaft with a series of satisfying plops. He raises his weapon again, blue turned a darker shade, violet as he eliminates the criminals who wish terrorize some poor defenseless farmers. He’s dressed in a black cape, hidden in shadow, the corrupt Senator falling dead to the floor, the untraceable poison having done its work, securing a brighter future for Thy’llda. He confronts the cowardly Rael Aveross, does what the Council should have done decades ago, leaving his fresh corpse as a monument to Pijal’s bloody history. His weapon turns darker again and he’s in the Council room, angry, the Jedi have become as corrupt as the Senate and skwers Mace Windu with his crimson blade, lops off the arms of Kit Fisto with a sharp smile, and there’s Anakin and Ahsoka, hands bloody with their own crimes, and he raises his weapon to, satisfaction pooling in his stomach and brings it down - )

Obi-wan opens his eyes and screams.

The floor of the cave is cold and damp, the chill seeping past his robes, past his clammy skin, burrowing into his chest, which rises and falls in sharp, shaky movements. Obi-wan shivers, craving a warmth he think he’ll never touch again, the memory of that sickly, viscous satisfaction still lying heavy in his groin.

He runs a hand over wet eyes, arm bumping against cool metal on his side. Obi-wan jumps to his feet, world spinning, illuminating his lightsaber, his eyes closed.

He’s afraid to look, doesn’t want to know what judgement has been passed on him in this terrible place the sees past all his defenses into his darkest desires.

But Jedi or not, he has to know, and so he peels his eyelids open, relief and disbelief flooding his body as a familiar blue light shines in the dark.

Ahsoka is still asleep and Obi-wan watches the steady and fall of her shoulders with a strange cocktail of relief and guilt.

He would have killed her. Killed Anakin. Killed them all.

Shutting down his saber with a shaky breath, Obi-wan comes to his knees in a simple meditation pose. He won’t meditate, he knows, but the gesture of penitence - the small, sharp rocks digging into his skin, the cramp in his muscles after hours of not moving - it will be something, a mere drop contrition weighed against the vast ocean of his imagined crimes.

He will let Ahsoka sleep into the second watch, allow the innocent, the unmarked the kindness of oblivion on this cursed planet.

legobiwan does whumptober