A/N: Hee, oh, Star Wars, how I've missed you. I fell into the fandom after Episode III came out, but after I went back to school, Lost came back up and stole my attention. It was nice to dabble in it for a while, especially since I've really missed these characters. This is my first Obi-Wan/Anakin, and while it's nothing too explicit, I'm still not really sure about it, so any criticism you've got would be awesome. Oh, and this is for Fantome for Christmas, 'cause she's awesome and helps me spread the slashy love. Merry Christmas, dear.
Salvation
The Dark Side is gripping tight onto Anakin, a sickness he can't shake off, a bad dream that lingers over him. But nobody seems to really notice it.
He is crying out for help in all sorts of ways, wanting to share the secrets and leave behind all the stress that's a burden on his shoulders. But nobody seems to really notice it.
The darkness is spreading from his heart onward, coursing like lightning through his veins and dying his eyes a bright yellow. But nobody seems to really notice it—except for him.
Obi-Wan searches for a cure for Anakin, for a way to bring back the bright boy he once loved. He hates to think that the Council may have been right after all, that maybe there's no chance to save Anakin at all. He's tasted the power of the Dark Side, a forbidden fruit, and in their eyes he is already damned.
But Obi-Wan won't and can't give up. He fights the darkness in Anakin, fights the lightning that sizzles in his veins. He wants to burn it away, purge it somewhere to see the boy he loved come back to him. He wants to wrap his arms around Anakin again, hold him tightly the way he used to before secrets and darkness tore them apart. He wants to wake up, discover that it was a dream and that the world isn't falling into a nightmare.
But the Anakin he knows has been lost to the darkness, to the magma that oozes out on their battleground. The lightsabers hum around them in what feels like an eternal struggle, something stretched out and eternal, and Obi-Wan realizes he'll be lucky to escape Anakin—no—Lord Vader alive, let alone with his Anakin back. It makes him stoic, makes him leave his apprentice little more than a torso on the magma hill.
"You were my brother, Anakin," he cries above the volcanoes that burn bright, send eruptions careening into the air. "I loved you."
"I hate you" is the only response he's given when the boy he loved catches on fire, cries out in pain. Obi-Wan can't bear to watch. He already knows that his Anakin is dead.
But now he'll never escape that image, and he'll have nightmares for the rest of his lonely life. He'll see the boy die, see him burn—the boy he loved, the boy he wasn't able to save.
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