“Yeah, you think—you think I don’t see that?”

      Although he’s trying to sound brave, impervious, sarcastic, it comes out very simple: the high-pitched rasp of someone who is closer to tears than anything else as he watches his own trembling hands move towards the roll of bandages to cut more to wrap around the side wound from which blood keeps gushing forth. 

     He feels tremulous, sweating, nauseous, as if he’s the one bleeding out on this rock and not Obi-Wan. And of course, even bleeding out, all Obi-Wan can do is state the obvious. 

     “Just—don’t, it’s only been a few minutes. It’ll stop, just wait.” As he puts some more pressure on the wound, Anakin knows that he may as well be offering words of comfort to himself more than anything.

     The bleeding doesn’t quite stop. It’s one more minute, two, and he pretends that he can’t see or feel the blood seeping through the bandages yet again. No one had prepared him for this just yet, he thinks. 

     Combat is one thing. Being prepared to watch your friends die is quite another. 

     He tries his comlink again to no response, and around them, a light breeze swooshes the endless vegetation back & forth. The morning suns are scorching and blinding, he hears the cry of a strange bird—and all of it, every piece of it, feels wrong. But either the news of the war simply haven’t reached them, or things like war and death simply don’t matter at all when you are bright and endless and free like the sun and the flowers and the earth. In those two, three, four minutes that pass the entirety of his life feels as it if flashes through his eyes and he keeps thinking, thinking of every other thing he should tell Obi-Wan, might have wanted to tell Obi-Wan. Just in case. And then he tells himself he should refuse to even consider it. 

      “I should’ve taken stitches, that’s all. When the medical aid gets here, they’ll … they’ll fix it. I’m a lousy medic, I sh—” It’s like he’s apologizing, allowing himself one sort of blundered confession until he suddenly catches the sight of his blinking comlink and he hears Ahsoka’s voice, a shining miracle, on the other end of it as he passes along their coordinates. 

     And suddenly, Anakin straightens up, firmer, more resolute. 

     Today’s not the day, he thinks. Today’s not the day. When that day approaches, he will know—and as long as he’s here, the sun will not rise over a day when Obi-Wan is no longer around. 

“Look, Vos, I don’t have to explain myself to you.”  

Two things: one, he’s just picked up his comlink and launched into this rebuke without even so much as a hello. It’s a continuation of an earlier semi-serious argument. And two, he’s mispronounced ‘explain’ as ‘esplain’, which is an indication that he’s a little bit drunk.

“But you’re wrong. I do know how to have a good time. I am having a good time right now, as we speak. So, stop calling me.” Had Quinlan contacted Obi-Wan? No, it was the other way around but, due to the inebriation, that fact seems to have evaded him.

For once in his life, Quinlan had actually been trying to go to bed at a reasonable hour. It wasn't often that he got to sleep in the Jedi Temple, in his own room that he used so little nowadays it always felt like just a guest room that was assigned specifically to him.

And just when he was about to fall asleep, Obi-Wan called him. Didn't even say hello, just went on a rant about something that Quinlan's mind didn't even register as the continuation of their previous argument at first, until Obi-Wan mentioned knowing how to have a good time- his good time sounded more like a drunk time, if his mispronunciation of words was anything to go by.

        Nobody understands yet what happened. Or it may be more accurate to say that nobody knows why or how what’s happened happened. But Anakin knows. 

        He knows it from the strange sensation that he’s carried in his chest, in his stomach, ever since they got off Mortis, the off-beat rhythm of his heart every time his mind goes back to that moment, to the thick blanks that cloud his memory when he tries to recollect and piece together what has taken place—and what it might mean.

        But for now, the two of them collapse on the gentle green grass at the gardens, press their backs to the thick trunk of a tree, having just finished giving their report to the Council. And Anakin, who still hasn’t calmed his unsteadily beating heart, doesn’t waste a moment in sliding down slightly to surreptitiously put his head to Obi-Wan’s shoulder. 

        It’s not something he would do were they not entirely on their own, and did he not feel that this is an exceptional moment in which the tacit request for closeness and comfort is, at the very least, semi-acceptable. Unease of mind has crept up to him, wrapping itself about him like furtive, unrelenting vines; the confusion would be fine, but it’s this doubt that scares him. 

        Fear, that’s all it is—all it ever is. What does it all mean? And did they make the right choices? Did he make the right choices? Does it matter at all? If it doesn’t, if it all is a trick, why does he have that strange disquiet still rolling about in the pit of his stomach? 

        When he lets out a small, barely audible sigh, it’s as if Obi-Wan can hear all that is on his mind; every trouble, every bit of hesitation. Maybe. Or maybe he’s thinking about something else, and he’s only happened upon the blur of his disquiet with just the right words to—not soothe it, or even make it go away, but to make the edges of it clearer in his mind. Anakin doesn’t move, but he blinks once, twice, shifts his head a little bit as if he were to try and look up at him, but changes his mind last minute and plops his head back down. 

        Is there? If there is, if there is such light, why does he feel that strange tug at his heartstrings again? The surefire certainty (it’s fear, not certainty, he persuades himself) that sooner or later, he will disillusion Obi-Wan’s easy faith in him? 

        So he’s quiet—he lets the comment fade into the air, as if he has no words to say at all, but it feels as if another small eternity passes as he sits there and drinks up Obi-Wan’s own sun. It’s that, he thinks, that maybe Obi-Wan is blinded by. Stars can’t see their own light.

        Easy to fall for it, then: to think that the light reflected on a strange moon must be its own. 

        It’s not deferential, it’s not even lowly or self-effacing, just the indisputable acknowledgment that his life is a reflection of every other person he’s ever loved, because he wants it to be that way, and sometimes Obi-Wan’s light shines more soothingly than every other thing. 

        His mother’s light had been kindness, warmth, the shape of her arms wrapped tight around him when he come home later than he should have after a long day of labor; Ahsoka’s light was warm-red fire sparks—as reassuring as a candle’s crackle in the middle of the night as they could also set the earth ablaze. Anakin doesn’t know that there’s a word for the hold that Obi-Wan’s light has on him yet, only that to think of a world without it is a dizzying, disorientating experience where suddenly all substance and definition seems lost. 

hard-to-find hurt / comfort action prompts !

        When he comes back from long, unspoken detail missions, Obi-Wan is always there. Usually, they don't talk about it, not even behind closed doors. He might wonder what horrors pass through Obi-Wan's imagination when he brushes his thumb over a fresh scar on his cheek, but it's never long enough for either of them to say a word, only long enough for him to give into the weary exhaustion such missions always leave lingering on his bones and fall asleep where he puts his head on Obi-Wan's lap.

       Obi-Wan, as far as he knows, doesn't complain about the sweaty curls, about the occasional twitch in his sleep when another vision that he won't remember later plagues his subconscious. In exchange, he lets Obi-Wan call him Anakin so long as it's a whisper not to be heard by anyone's ears but his.

       Anakin. Not Vader. It's Anakin who falls asleep on his lap, and Anakin who wakes first to the gentle tingle on his scalp, the tickle of hair being brushed away from his face, the ghost-sweep of a thumb down the side of his face. Anakin breathes out heavily as if to let him know he's awake, even though he thinks Obi-Wan already knows.

       He doesn't say a word yet. He keeps his eyes closed. Sooner or later, he'll have to get up, open his eyes, and the colour of his eyes alone will be enough to remind Obi-Wan of where they are and who he is. He decides that, for their sakes, sooner is best—so he opens his eyes and shifts on his lap to look up at him. He takes the gentle caressing hand, wrapping his own around it to place them both squarely over his still beating heart and gazes up at him to make sure he understands—the all-too-simple truth:

Questions Often Left Unanswered: Mun Edition

8. Out of the really popular pairings in your fandom, what’s your nOTP?

I don't think I have a nOTP. But if it's just a popular ship I don't care about, I'll say... Reylo.

10. What’s something you really hate seeing on your dash that seems to be popular with almost everyone else?

I haven't seen it happen in this RPC yet but, since all my rp blogs are sideblogs and everything ends up on the same dash, it counts: using multiple icons/gifs in a single reply to show setting, character appearance, the emotion the character is feeling, etc. It just shows the person is too lazy to actually write.

13. Who is your least favorite character in the fandom you RP in? List three admirable traits about them.

plotted starter.        “What? I’m not—”

       Very much was so. In fact, Anakin had hardly stopped laughing—that trembling shoulders, held back behind his teeth sort of laughter—ever since they’d descended the ship. And then it comes out again full-force, of course, because it’s harder to contain when Obi-Wan points it out.

       “I’m sorry.” Very much not sorry at all, as per his smug little shit’s smile. “That hat really doesn’t suit you. Just—take it off, please. It’s killing me.”

       The two of them had spent a good while picking out the appropriate civilian clothes before stepping out of the ship for what was supposed to be an undercover mission. A rarity. It only so happened that Jedi, unless they had a natural-born talent for it or went out of their way to train said skills, didn’t do undercover very well. But it was some respite from the heavy drone of constant battle, assuming this one didn’t also end in blaster fire, somehow.

@stillkenobi​ asked:

emotionally inept obi-wan wouldn't say it out loud but he definitely thinks anakin is good enough. not accompanied by any kisses though. he expects padmé has got the kissing part covered.