#he wasn't expecting him to be like he used to be pre-melidaan

[shootingstarpilot]

Hi! 🌧️/☔/🌈 for the ask game?

the ask game in question

me, gobbling down these asks like a vacuum cleaner: YES EXCELLENT FEED ME <333

🌧️Share something angsty from your WIP.

"He will forget how to scream."

The words fall like rocks into the silent hall.

"He will forget how to scream," Master Kenobi repeats. The blue blade trembles for a moment before steadying, something brighter blazing in his eyes. "And there will be bits of him laid out neatly on metal trays, and other bits will be bagged up and taken for further experimentation, and even more will be pulled out and put back wrong, and, well, self has such a flexible definition, doesn't it? And there will be no getting better for him, afterwards. He will learn to manage it because he will have no choice, but he will not get better, and slowly he will come to realize it- the scale of the loss, the weight of it, and the grief- oh, the grief will threaten to drown him all over again-"

His voice cracks before hardening.

"And you ask me to give him back? Unknowing, unaware, and unafraid? Of you?"

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

Basically-

What if Anakin had muted his comm?

What if Kix had never seen the messages? What if he'd never thought to toss it?

What if there was never that pressure to confess? What if, faced with the beguilement of comfort without guilt, Anakin chose the comforting lie- that of course it wasn't his fault, of course you couldn't have known?

Because the Jedi wouldn't have had cause to put him under essentially house arrest, when he hadn't necessarily committed any crime. I think he'd still be removed from command, of course, because clearly his judgement is in question, but... maybe they wouldn't have had the same power to deny the Chancellor access to him. And maybe, after a few weeks, the Chancellor offers Anakin an opportunity to get off Coruscant- it must be smothering, after all, my boy, why don't you come with me? I know the feeling, sometimes, and I'm sure you could accompany me as a bodyguard- I simply wish to investigate a rumor of a Force anomaly, and I could use such a talented Jedi as yourself-

Anakin, my boy, have you ever heard of Iwanaga?

So. Off they go.

Palpatine doesn't tell Anakin the full truth, of course not, he knows he's not that far in yet- but he lets him get a taste of the raw power that's getting brutally yanked out of Force Anomaly KenobiTM, so much so that it's vibrating in the very atmosphere-

(And deep in the drowning dark, what's left of Obi-Wan stirs, the faintest bit of recognition twinging at the edge of consciousness-)

(Anakin?)

But Anakin's never been very good at listening to the quiet things.

So they return. Anakin is utterly unaware of how very close he'd been.

And things... progress as they do in series canon. There is a discovery. A rescue. A reunion.

And I think, maybe, Obi-Wan still doesn't want to see Anakin. He's tired. He's so tired. And Anakin, even at his best, requires a lot of emotional labor he's not prepared to deal with.

(And maybe- he's allowed to feel hurt, too. And angry. He's allowed to grieve what Anakin's stupid, stupid decision has cost him.)

This is passed onto Anakin. As in series canon, Anakin chooses to ignore this fact. As in series canon, he goes to meet them at the dock anyways-

And Obi-Wan goes very still.

"Anakin," he asks, quiet and frozen in the same way a sheet of thin ice over a November pond will crack at the slightest hint of pressure-

"Why were you on Iwanaga?"

🌈 Share something soft/fluffy from your WIP.

Needle clicks his tongue.

“I’m put together all wrong, you know. General Kenobi said I felt like a kaleidoscope. I didn’t even know what it was, and then I looked it up afterwards– all broken colors, right? Jagged edges. Sometimes sunrises taste like lemon, and silence tears lines in the sky, and the smell of bacta sounds like dropping a tray of scalpels. Pieces don’t fit together right. And they don’t know all of it, not really, but Stitch gets me glitter and Helix puts syrup in my caff and they don’t try to make me be anyone else. I get to be their Needle. Why are there blankets in the bathtub, Master Jinn?”

Qui-Gon stares.

He hadn’t even thought about it, come to think of it. They had– been there, when he’d gone to shower. So he’d taken them out, and he’d folded them neatly, and he’d stacked the pillows on top, and he’d set the whole lot carefully in the cupboard.

And then, when he’d finished, he’d cleaned the tub, and had unfolded every blanket, and had set everything exactly back where it had been.

Because Obi–

“I thought Ben might need it,” he says hoarsely. “When he comes back.”

Needle’s eyes soften.

“Helix thinks there are sides, here,” he says. “But I’m not too sure about that.”

He unfolds himself, tucking the tower of Tupperware under his chin and clipping the datapad Qui-Gon had given him onto his belt. “Thanks for the soup, sir. I can see myself out.”