title without granting innocence
author patientalien
rating R
word count 1122
summary post-RotS AU, Anakin is cast out, and Obi-Wan is his warden
notes Written for the "ostracized from society" prompt on my hc_bingo card. Dear Lord, I used lyrics from "How to Save a Life" by The Fray for a title. WUT. I think this might be the darkest one yet (like, really dark) so, uh, be warned.
warning(s)self-harm, suicide, character death
It's nothing less than he has expected. Even in less than right mind, he knows what he has done deserves punishment. Deserves death. One does not slaughter an entire Order without expectation of payment in kind.
While Darth Vader - Anakin Skywalker again, maybe - invites execution (he killed so many of his friends, his wife, his Padawan), the truth is much crueler. They don't even send him to the Citadel, where he would have been free to rot alone.
He is to be a free man, from a certain point of view. Removed from the Force, and from society at large, but free. Free to roam the planet of his exile, free to accept employment from whoever might employ a former Jedi-turned Sith Lord turned nobody. As his warden is the man who raised him, and Anakin is unsure if this is a punishment for Obi-Wan, too.
It is not rehabilitation. It is so he will wake every night to the screams of his victims with no recourse.
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Saleucami is not inhospitable, but it is remote, escape nearly impossible. Anakin has no desire to escape, not from Saleucami, anyway.
There are villages, and the two find themselves in one at the far side of a huge caldera, remnants of a meteor storm eons before. They are the only humans, which makes them curiosities. They have nothing with them indicating they were once Jedi and they are left alone.
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For weeks they live in silence. Obi-Wan does not speak to him, and Anakin cannot bring himself to speak. He doesn't know what to say. That he's sorry, that he wants to take it all back, that he surrendered on Mustafar not because Obi-Wan had the high ground but because Anakin wanted it to go back to how it was, before. He's said it all, and Obi-Wan has not believed him. Anakin doesn't expect him to start now.
That's not to say Obi-Wan ignores him outright. Usually they circle around each other, but Obi-Wan cooks their meals and they eat together. He rubs soothing circles on Anakin's back during the worst of the nightmares. He washes Anakin's hair when Anakin can't get out of bed on his own. He just does it silently, solemnly, sadly.
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No lightsaber means every cut wells with blood, every burn blisters and oozes. The first time Obi-Wan discovers him in their 'fresher, crouched beside the toilet, blood staining the white fixtures, is the first time he speaks. "Anakin, what are you doing?" He sounds horrified, as if he is surprised.
Anakin can only shake his head over and over, hot tears stinging the slashes in his flesh arm. He can't speak his agony to Obi-Wan, doesn't deserve to expound on his grief, not to this man he has hurt so violently, so personally.
Obi-Wan wraps his wounds in bacta patches and lapses back into silence.
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They get the holonet, and watch the galaxy rebuild. Anakin curls up on the sofa and stares through the projections. Whenever the news is on, Obi-Wan has to get up several times, unable to watch a world he is no longer a part of.
Anakin forces himself to watch the nightly tally of names of lost Jedi, and when his and Obi-Wan's names appear, he goes into the 'fresher and doesn't emerge again until he has blood-purged his grief.
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Anakin isn't sure if Obi-Wan begins talking to him again in an attempt to keep him from staining all of their towels with his guilt, or if it's because Obi-Wan finally cannot stand the silence anymore. In any case, when he greets Anakin at breakfast one morning, it's almost easy to forget they're not just on another mission. And then Anakin reaches out with the Force, meets a brick wall, and remembers.
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After three mornings of "Good morning, Anakin," Anakin responds. His voice is hoarse with disuse and the remaining effects of Mustafar's sulfurous air, but he manages to return the greeting. He feels shy, like his first morning as Obi-Wan's apprentice, but with an undercurrent there.
He's not sure what to call his old Master. Obi-Wan never feels right on his tongue, but he knows that 'Master' isn't right either, not after he'd sworn allegiance to another and then recanted.
He doesn't know what to call Obi-Wan, but he talks to him anyway.
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Talking doesn't fix anything, because they never talk about why they're on Saleucami to begin with. Neither of them can forget and neither of them can talk about it, so they talk about everything else. When he's wrapping up Anakin's arm or legs or stomach, wiping away the blood and thumbing away the tears, Obi-Wan tells stories. Usually they are about his apprenticeship, but sometimes they are ancient tales. They are never stories about Anakin's apprenticeship, because they both know how that story ends.
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Anakin has one scar per Jedi he's killed. He's keeping track, comparing his flesh to the lists read on the holonet news every night. Even when the lists stop, he continues, determined to pay his penance in blood. If he can't die, at least he can physically suffer. Because physical suffering he can deal with, can quantify, can understand. Emotional suffering is what got him into trouble in the first place.
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Obi-Wan kisses him one afternoon, and he's not sure what to do. While they'd once been lovers in the dark secret places between battles, since their exile they've barely touched each other beyond the clinical detachment of Obi-Wan's cleansing of his wounds. But then Obi-Wan kisses him, and Anakin realizes that he's wanted it all along. He kisses back, and then they're entwining their bodies and for the first time Anakin feels almost whole again, but then Obi-Wan pushes away, says it is a mistake.
And Anakin is empty again, and alone.
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Their lives unfold in spurts and spasms. Anakin goes between blood-stained bathrooms to sinking into glasses of whiskey and back again. Obi-Wan, always dutiful, follows and cleans up the mess, but does not initiate physical contact again. When Anakin wakes up screaming, Obi-Wan offers kind words, but no embraces. Anakin hugs himself, reverts, rocks back and forth, head buried in his knees.
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It is Obi-Wan that suggests the idea that both of their suffering can be alleviated. Anakin never thought he'd hear such words from his old Master, but he embraces the idea with a passion he's not felt in what seems like - and must be, by now - years.
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The poison is fast-acting, but not so fast that they do not have time to entwine their bodies, hands clasped, evil and pain and madness nothing but a bittersweet memory.