julzdagger88 Thank you very much! I appreciate the review.
Crow T. Author Not a one-shot. I'm too evil and twisted to limit the torment and suffering to one chapter. I'm not sure if he'll get rescued this time. He may have to rescue himself, but it's not going to be easy and it might be impossible. I haven't decided yet, haha. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!
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He was trying to keep up, but his boots were just a little too big, and his feet slid around inside, although he had doubled up on socks when he dressed that morning. His Master just took such long strides. He wondered sometimes what it would be like to be so tall, to see the tops of everything, to never be intimidated.
You can see the tops of everything too, young one.
The man always knew what he was thinking. No, I can't, Master. Bruck Chun calls me a pipsqueak.
Soft ribbons of laughter. Bruck Chun calls you names to deflect his own insecurities.
So I'm not a pipsqueak?
More laughter, real and resonant in the Force. No, you certainly are. For the moment, Padawan. Even Jedi can only grow so fast. Time enough, you will be taller, and older, and know far too much.
I predict I'll never be as tall as you, Master.
Probably not. But if there is somewhere you need to reach, something you need to see, you will find a way. And you won't have to worry about hitting your head on low door frames.
Something did hit his head, and all the warmth and good leaked away, and he cracked open his eyes to see Jango Fett's face. Another clone, this one with heavy marks across his cheek and nose. Battle scars, from before.
Before. That was where he wanted to go, before he knew too much.
It took him a second to remember that Vader had knocked him out. He ran his tongue along his teeth and tasted the familiar, copper tang of dried blood. "What?" He croaked.
He supposed he should have phrased the question more politely, in an agreeable tone, because Not-Jango responded by slamming the back of his head against the wall.
"You were always a snotty little shik, even for a Jedi." The clone grumbled. "His Excellency will be seeking your audience soon."
But his mind was going away from...that, finding again those days lit in golden simplicity. "Too short." He muttered, from the place where his Master looked down at him with kind blue eyes.
The clone was walking to the door of the cell. "Don't know what he thinks he's gonna get outta you, kriffing brain dead Jedi scum."
He drifted there, in warm fragments of a gentler past. His Master brought him the pastry and it was the best thing he had ever eaten, because it was a secret between them, a smuggled indulgence, sweeter because his Master had thought of him, marooned by his own youth in the boring hotel, knew he would like the kavasa fruit jam in the center, the bright red—
Red red red red red blood blood fire death not even the younglings why the younglings—
An endless, crashing wave of blood and agony and he was just debris carried along the onslaught, one cry in the shrieking cacophony of an eternal, bone-deep torment—
"Stop screaming, you fool."
His guts would fall out, he would die, Master I will die—
Electric fingers clutched his wrists. Convulsions raced up his arms, jolting him from the turgid depths of nightmare, and his eyes flew open.
Doom.
Sidious's sagging white face, hooded in shadow. The curdled voice came from everywhere, rasping and groaning, clustered whispers of a thousand Sith.
He heard the funeral dirge of all that had been good, in that voice. An innocence he didn't know he had, until—
"Look at you," Sidious grinned, baring rotted teeth. "The last hope for the vaunted Jedi Order, and so quickly you've been reduced to...this."
This. This.
A hoarse cackle, a cough. The dark creature that had been Palpatine was a Sith Lord in possession of a shuddering amount of power, but he was also human, and his body was disfigured, still ailing from Master Windu's efforts to defeat him.
Master Windu. Mace. Gone, out of reach, safe in the Force where he himself could not go, or even touch. His chest burned and his stomach lurched. The collar was tighter, someone must have tightened it—
Sidious dragged a blistered finger, lightly, back and forth across the band. "Ahh, that's what you want, isn't it? The Force. The Light, which has already forsaken you."
No. Never. The Light was with him, in remembered laughter, in the way he could almost feel his Master's hand on his shoulder. Chains could be broken. If not the ones clamped around his flesh, then the bonds yoking him to life. The Light would be there for him, when he was free.
Sweat ran into his eyes. It stung. He would not look away. "The Darkness will forsake you."
A fingernail found the cleft in his chin, and pressed there, until hot blood dribbled into his overgrown beard. "I thought you were lauded as the Negotiator. Your well of clever comebacks seems to have run dry."
And the Sith sucked the blood from his pruny finger.
He did not react. "Forgive me. I believe I may have a migraine. People keep bashing me in the head." He cocked an eyebrow, like he would have back then, when he was the silver-tongued General. "Do you think you could do something about that?"
"If it had been up to me," Sidious drawled, spreading the blood across his captive's mouth, "you wouldn't have a head by now. I have never been particularly enamored of you, Obi-Wan Kenobi."
He snorted at the dark irony. "You could have fooled me. And the feeling is mutual."
He had not trusted Palpatine. But he repeatedly ignored the coiling dread inside him, explained it away because he was the Chancellor, because he held so much sway with the Council. Most of all, because Palpatine was Anakin's friend, and he didn't want to test the limits of his often strained relationship with his former Padawan.
Vader was right. He was to blame. So much willful blindness, about the Sith, and Anakin's marriage, the moments of intense conflict he glimpsed in the young man. Yet he had not been shot down. He continued to live, he, with the heaviest guilt. He drew breath while Mace and Depa and Aayla and Plo and everyone was dead. He lived even through Mustafar, and the uncounted atrocities endured since he was brought to the cell.
Was this his punishment, to live?
"I wanted to kill you during the celebration on Naboo. Standing there, while the idiot Gungans danced and the streamers waved in the sky. The hatred was overwhelming and...delicious. Of course I could have easily arranged for your death. After all, there has never been a shortage of those who would delight in murdering a Jedi." His smile stretched into a hideous, jagged rictus across his face. "But you know that now, don't you?"
His arms were intolerably numb. He tolerated it. "So why didn't you kill me?"
"I watched you with the boy. He was like a supernova, beside your weak light. You still had that pathetic little braid tied off by your dead Master. The Jedi handed their Chosen One to an untested child. It was too perfect. You did all my work for me." Sidious laughed. He rubbed the bloody bottom lip, his breath sour and warm and too close. "Beautifully. Better than I could have done myself. He slaughtered a village and you didn't suspect a thing, because you couldn't bear the thought that your insipid Master was wrong and you wasted your silly life training a monster."
A monster. Yes, Vader was a monster. He had murdered his own brethren, left the slain bodies of children on the Temple floor. He was a monster, too, for loving Anakin even now, for the way his heart keened in grief and denial. His love was a prison worse than the cell, with its skittering rodents and the way his screams echoed off the stained walls. It was his legacy, his failure.
A void was growing inside him, a roaring silence in the absence of the Force.
He was a monster, because without the Force he was just a man drowning in his own pain and need. He was not devising a way to break out of...wherever this was. He had no visions for the future. He was not the person he was before.
Sidious' jaundiced eyes were scanning his face. Other eyes, peering from sinister catacombs, stared into his mind. Though cut off from the Force, he could feel the invasion, another violation.
Unfortunately for the Sith, there wasn't much to see. Even his more lucid thoughts wandered. And he was not the keeper of secrets they suspected he was.
"Useless," Sidious hissed. He stood and turned in disgust, waving one grey hand behind him.
Abruptly, the shackles opened, and without their agonizing support he toppled onto the floor. His arms were useless. He could not take enough weight on them to turn himself over, let alone sit up. So he lay with his cheek against the cold duracrete, gasping in pained relief.
He watched the boots circle him, the black robes sweeping against his skin.
"Tyranus, Dooku, the dead old fool, urged me to Turn you. He said you had more potential, a laughable notion, but Dooku could never accept Anakin's lack of breeding. You were his Padawan's Padawan, after all; one blind spot of many for the ill-fated Count." Sidious sighed. "But he served his purpose, in the end. Vader decapitated him."
A nonchalant revelation, but he reeled, bile at the back of his throat.
Decapitated—
"I told Anakin to leave you behind then. I knew in that moment he was mine. But he refused, dragging you along, the burden that he would not slough off to ascend to his true destiny."
Anakin always saved him. He had first saved him on Naboo, all those years ago, but he realized it too late. Now Anakin was dead, and there were things he could never tell him, would not tell Vader.
"And then he had the chance to kill you on Mustafar. Instead, Vader carried you away from the flames. I ordered him to execute you. He swore he would do anything, if only I let you live." Sidious kicked him in the side as he continued his slow, circular walk. "I despaired that Vader was not truly my apprentice. He clings to you, this final shard of his lesser existence."
Vader urging him to eat, imploring him to give up information to Sidious. But he also allowed his new Master to—
Anakin Skywalker would have saved him from that. Anakin Skywalker would have died saving him from that. Vader lacked that courage. And heart.
No one would save him. He knew he was nearing the end. Sidious or one of the clones would kill him, out of rage, or boredom, or to push Vader further into the Dark Side's embrace. He was already dead, died on Utapau when he fell into the water. He was still there. Perhaps he would always be there, floating in the hopeless murk.
"Kill me then," he said, "if I'm such an obstacle to your lofty plans. I have nothing you want, and your monologues are tiresome and uninspired. I've heard more compelling soliloquies from a bantha with digestive issues."
An invisible pressure flipped him onto his back. The Force. It was only used against him now.
"On the contrary, I have come to realize Vader's weakness for you is the key to my plans. He knows I will not permit him to keep you here forever. I know, too, that he wants to overthrow me. As Tyranus, and Maul before him." Sidious paused, as if savoring the flavor of his own putrid words. "I can feel the heat of his hatred. It simmers beneath his skin. The Darkness thrives in it. He massacred your Temple and commits slaughter at my whim, but seeing you in pain, humiliated and used, enrages him."
He remembered nearly dying before, and Anakin was eleven and
grips his hand so tightly
and the boy sobs into his tunic, not like a Jedi, his heart is too scarred and tender, he was too old to be trained no matter what Qui-Gon said, Anakin can't let go
let go padawan you must let go of what you fear losing
but the Force is a maelstrom of fury and terror and love, and Anakin is the storm's center, always
no I won't I won't go without you master you're going to be okay and I'll find out who did this and I'll show them what happens to sleemos who try to hurt you
the storm is inside him too, because Anakin will not be denied and he finds his way through locked doors and locked minds and locked hearts, and when he is dying the storm is unbearable, bright lightning
vengeance is a poison anakin you will go on
no no no
anakin please you must listen to me
I can't master you're my best friend you're more my best friend than even kittster was and if you die then it'll be like I'm dead too because I love you
he is dying and so it should be forgivable that he cannot, does not say he loves Anakin, it is not the Jedi way besides, but the real reason he does not say it is because the storm frightens him
and that is not forgivable
he never forgives himself for his silence—
He is silent.
Sidious loomed above him, a warped specter haloed in the cell's eerie incandescence. "He detests me," the Sith whispered. "As it must be. I will break him, as it must be. By breaking you."
He was broken. Not a piece of him was intact. He broke Anakin by never saying what his apprentice needed to hear. Genocide had broken him. Sidious had broken him, again and again and again.
There was a time when they were unbreakable, together. He and Anakin, the Negotiator and the Hero Without Fear, Master and Padawan, bound by their shared victories and tragedies.
A mouth was on his mouth.
He did not fight. He knew the Sith enjoyed when he struggled. Instead he floated to the good things, and there he saw the Temple, his Master's clear blue eyes—
A hand was around his throat.
Decapitated. Dooku's black eyes widened in the ether.
Sidious laughed into his mouth. "I can feel more than anger from Vader," fingernails crawled along his jaw, "I feel his jealousy."
He did not understand. He did not want to understand. There were still good, clean things somewhere and he would go there, he would just go there…
away away away
"He wants you like this," the kisses were gentler, a hand carded softly through his hair, "wants to know how you taste…"
The grotesque imitation of intimacy turned his stomach. He tried to close his mouth but a tongue darted between his lips.
"That is why I needed to have you first. So I could tell him you taste like kavasa fruit—"
Kavasa, macerated in the pastry's center. His Master, his good and private sanctuary, and this—this demon taunted him with the things that soothed him, this kriffing soulless Sith beast had taken everything and now Sidious was plundering those pure memories, putting his filthy hands where they didn't belong in his head, in other places no one had ever touched.
The perfect, gleaming red kavasa.
Qui-Gon. Anakin.
The Force could not succor him in his rage. He screamed into the void, where Obi-Wan Kenobi used to be, he screamed and screamed, he would kill Palpatine-Sidious-pile-of-steaming-Sith-shavit he would tear into his chest and pull out the stinking pit of a heart and macerate it for Qui-Gon and Anakin and the younglings left to die he would do it for them and it didn't matter what happened to him because this would be worth it and he was a failure anyway if Qui-Gon had lived he would not recognize what he had become, would not love him
if he could go back he would say
I love you Master I love you I love you I love you Anakin
but he never said it in time, he was always too late, except now, now he would crush the Sith's heart and eat the raw red pulp of it
a red haze
and he would lick the trail of blood from his fingers
disgusting murderous perverted evil nightmare—
He bit down on the tongue twisting in his mouth.
Sidious withdrew. A mixture of their blood was smeared across his pale, thin lips.
He kicked with his bare feet, trying to sweep Sidious' legs out from under him, waiting for the eruption of blue fire, it would be enough to kill him but he kicked while he could, spitting the bitter blood from the Sith's tongue out of the corner of his mouth, bracing himself on a trembling elbow.
Then Sidious was on top of him, pinning his wrists above his head, jarring the tortured muscles in his arms. But he was beyond pain, beyond fear.
"You must have known you would be mine eventually, Master Kenobi. My apprentice killed your ridiculous Master. I orchestrated the war in which you lost half your soul and half your friends. Now your Temple has been razed, the Jedi extinguished by your own Padawan, and he calls me Master, kneels before me in deference, will be remade into the most powerful Sith Lord in history." Sidious smiled, his eyes sick yellow lamplights. "The path of your life has been carved by me. I know your every thought. I know your body, completely. Yes, Vader will try to overthrow me, but he will fail, he will accept his place at my side, and I will see to it that you are witness to everything. Why kill you when there is a fate far worse than death?"
He writhed under the weight of the Sith. no no no no no
Sidious laughed at his feeble resistance. "What would Qui-Gon Jinn think of you, I wonder? This is what has become of his Chosen One, under your tutelage. You weep, even now, for Jinn, where you think no one can see you. I can see you. You have never stopped weeping for him, in your heart that should be galvanized against, what do the Jedi call it, attachment. But he was lucky that his incompetence against Maul saved him from all that was to come. If he had the choice, he would still choose a Sith blade through his chest."
He had felt his Master's pain, wanted nothing more than to take his place…
"But perhaps, seeing what you've become, he would want you just as Vader wants you. Would he hold you down like this and—"
no not his Master not Qui-Gon good good good
"Taste your kavasa fruit? I would wager he wanted to taste it back then, in that hotel room, when you were so young and pure and trusting…"
"No." no no no no no never Qui-Gon never like that you wretched Sith scum
"You worshipped him. Those parts that are mine now must have ached for him…"
no no stop shut up Qui-Gon unwrapped the pastry and that's when he knew his Master cared for him and they would get past Melida/Daan and New Apsolon and all the false starts he would be the apprentice Qui-Gon deserved because their partnership was destined by the Force itself just good just good
"You worshipped him but he knew the boy was more talented and that is when you fell. You never got back up after that. You hated Anakin for taking what was yours, you hated yourself for letting your Master die, for being the consolation prize to a slave boy."
no I never hated Anakin never I taught him everything I know I gave him everything I had
"Listen to you, so earnestly denying the truth. I can hear you, Obi-Wan. The real you. You may have taught Anakin everything you knew, but you knew jealousy, you knew resentment, you knew hatred. When he needed you, you held yourself apart, and so he came to me. I was his confidant, to whom he told his worst secrets."
"You deceived him," he rasped.
"So did you," Sidious leaned closer, whispering in his ear, tracing the lobe with a bleeding tongue. "You pretended to be the devoted instructor, the darling of the Council, the perfect Jedi, but underneath you were none of those things. You have always carried that shadow in your heart...your own worst secret: because you loved your Master, you hated your Padawan."
no no no no no no
"You hated him for taking what was yours. You worked so hard to earn your Master's affections…"
no it wasn't like that
"...and in one moment, Anakin claimed your Master, claimed the rest of your life." Sidious' tone softened in faux commiseration, "Who could blame you? You were very young yourself, after all. We both know you weren't ready. That's why you were angry with your Master, wasn't it? For casting you aside before completing your training?"
I take Anakin as my Padawan Learner.
the words had hit from out of nowhere a physical pain in his chest he didn't breathe and then breathed too hard trying to appear composed but he looked at Qui-Gon and
he's not looking at Qui-Gon at all not the Master he knew this was not right this was not fair he had known the boy for a few days and already that meant more to him than over a decade of partnership he had not gained Qui-Gon's trust until he offered up his own life on Bandomeer that's what it took to get Qui-Gon to accept him he had to nearly blow himself up and Qui-Gon had just told him on the balcony before the Council session that he still had much to learn oh but not from Qui-Gon because something more pressing more important the Chosen One himself had come along and now he was just the inconvenient thing in the way the old responsibility to be shed to make room for Anakin Skywalker
He shook his head, trying to pull back from the lying mouth on his face, pull himself out of the spiraling thoughts. "He only did what he had to do. The Council forced him into drastic action."
"Ahhh," Sidious laughed, "So that makes it alright. You never looked upon the boy with irritation or resentment? You did not seek out a place aboard the starship after, the pain having built inside you until..."
he could barely see through the blurring veil of tears and he hunched in the cramped closet of their sleeping quarters on the ship and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and cried as he had not cried since he was a rejected initiate but that's what he would always be wasn't it second choice taken out of pity and now finally discarded no it wasn't like that he was not a child he would not react in such a juvenile emotional way peace there is no attachment there is no anger
there is no Padawan
there is no Master
there is no self
there is the Force yes the Force he would do as he must as his Master did as he must and follow the man to Naboo and he would honor the commitment he made all those years ago because it didn't matter if his Master loved him because he loved his Master and would still die for him
"...it consumed you? Perhaps if you had not been so unbalanced you would have been able to defeat my apprentice sooner, and save your Master, hmm?" The mockery of a lover's sigh against his beard, "How different everything might have been. You know Qui-Gon Jinn would have been the better Master for Anakin. He believed in Anakin. For you it was an obligation. You were trapped by the promise you never should have made. It never should have been asked of you."
it's too late it's
Obi-Wan
promise me
"You would have promised him anything as he was dying. Because you were a dutiful apprentice, weren't you?" Fingers in the deepest layers of his mind, probing, touching everything, "It is understandable that you wanted a few of his last words to address you. He was your Master." Fingers searching his body, as if to find something different than what they found all the times before.
He could not bear it. He had come to terms years ago with his selfish behavior during the Naboo mission. He had never, never told anyone about those thoughts, unworthy of a Jedi, petty and puerile. He had concealed his flaws beneath a fast wit and a brown robe, and hoped no one could see.
That it was this beast who saw—
"We all deserve our secrets, don't we? Those little unbecoming thoughts we bury somewhere safe, those thoughts that if discovered, would change the way others look at us. What would the Council think, Master Kenobi?" Sidious chuckled, "But I don't suppose we'll ever know the answer to that. Perhaps I should call Vader in here, and let him see who you are, what you truly feel, when everything else is stripped away. If he saw inside your tortured mind, I think he would be surprised. I think he would kill you for it." Sidious smiled, "And I think you would welcome the death blow."
penance
yes
death
yes
"No," he whispered, "He won't kill me. He won't. You'll have to do it yourself."
Sidious' blood-stained mouth prevented him from saying more. Smothering suction. The wounded tongue ran along the inside of his cheek. He knew it was a demented gesture of dominance.
bite again it said see what happens to you
or to someone else in your stead
"I will have all of you, every memory, every inch of you. It will be mine, as no one else ever has possessed it. It will destroy you and create a masterpiece. Vader. A true Lord of the Sith. And then, when you have served your purpose, you will wait for the Force to take you." Sidious braced his face in icy hands, so close now they breathed each other's stale air, "You will wait for your Master to welcome you. But he will turn away from the pathetic failure before him. The Force itself will spit you out. And after your life of selfless service to the Light, it is a Sith Lord who knows you best, knows your soul in all its frailties, knows how to make you scream…"
He pried the hands away, panting, but the trespass of his head went on and on and on. His mind was sick with the hot pressure.
"I know you best, Obi-Wan Kenobi, because I know you hate yourself most of all. You failed your Master, you failed your apprentice, you failed every Jedi killed at Vader's hand. Yes, I know…" Sidious moaned in his ear, "I know too that you hate yourself for liking what I do to you. The Jedi made you think you didn't like it, or need it. Now you realize even the saintly Kenobi is just a man at the core. Crude matter. You are so adept at hiding things, but you cannot hide how your body responds to my touch. You cannot hide from me at all."
A siege.
He closed his eyes against it. He had good things good things the Light his Master the Temple—
"They are gone now. You are mine."
the Light the Light the Light
"Soon enough, you will come to the Darkness. Don't you feel it? Feel it."
the beautiful forgiving Light it would forgive him his anger his helplessness his failures
oh his failures
his failures
he was too slow
he didn't see
he didn't want to see
why didn't he see Anakin
He saw Anakin no no no Vader Vader standing at the door to the cell—
closed his eyes again and Qui-Gon brushes the hair from his face
he is Obi-Wan
young
safe
You did very well, Padawan.
I lost.
Sometimes we all must lose, even you. But losing is not the same as defeat. Have you been defeated, Obi-Wan?
I did not win.
And yet, here you are, ever in the Light. Even as you lose. I do not expect you to be perfect. I expect you to be Good. If you are Good, if you follow the way of the Force, no one can defeat you.
I am Good I am Good I am Good I am Good I am I am I am I am I am Good Good Good the Light the way the Light the way
"Feel it."
He felt the eyes of his old student on him, but they were churning lava terrible Darkness anger pain regret anger anger anger
And Sidious stared into his mind the glowing red eyes under the bed Garen had teased him and said monsters aren't real but even then he knew that was a lie he dreamed of the eyes and the monsters and an unspeakable looming horror later much later when he was twenty twenty one twenty two twenty three twenty four twenty five he woke screaming and sometimes his Master would find him retching
Tell me what's wrong. Tell me what you see.
the wrong is wrong the wrong is wrong
the here and now
"I have always been with you. We are connected in death. My apprentice killed your Master, you killed my apprentice. Now we are united in flesh and spirit."
here
now
"Stop! STOP! Please, just leave him alone!"
Anakin was yelling. But Anakin was dead, so he must be sleeping, where he could still hear Anakin, where he heard all the voices.
"Stop! Please! I'll take his place! Please stop! I've done everything you asked. Just stop hurting him."
He looked up, saw Sidious and Vader through a kaleidoscope of blood and shadow and his own tears. Lips against his ear. "Shall I do as Vader requests? Shall he take your place?"
He looked over Sidious' shoulder at Anakin-Vader-Anakin. He wore the Sith's black mantle, a scornful inverse of the Jedi uniform.
You're the closest thing I have to a father.
"No," he said, his voice an empty husk.
"Then tell him you like it. Tell him you want it, or I will do the same and worse to him."
He breathed harder.
Have you been defeated, Obi-Wan?
"Yes, Master." He said to Qui-Gon Jinn, but it was Sidious who smiled at the concession.
"Then say it. Say it to him."
"I…" The words caught in his throat. A Jedi would not bend. A Jedi would not debase himself before a Sith. He had been taught better. To protect Vader now was to betray those teachings. Even if he was the last of the Jedi, shouldn't he live-and die-in honor of the Code?
A Jedi shall not know attachment
here and now
And then images flashed in his brain. Vader, forced to commit acts more hideous than anything that had happened so far in the cell. Darkness and pain and the Sith Lord's snickering laughter.
He grabbed his throbbing head and cried out.
Now he watched Qui-Gon impaled on Maul's blade but instead of the shocked, open-mouthed horror replayed so often in his dreams, his Master smiled as the saber cut through him, and kavasa fruit fell in clumps from his mouth.
Promise me. Promise me you'll make a monster, Obi-Wan. Create a killing machine to gut the Order, one by one. I know you can do it.
You are competent.
You are competent.
Competent
Endless. Qui-Gon was stabbed again and when he ran to his side kavasa and cream filled the hole burned into the broad chest.
Taste it, Obi-Wan. Sweet gore, and there is so much more to come. Glut yourself on it. You let me die. You let everyone die. Feast, Obi-Wan.
Qui-Gon reached into the wound, and then lifted wet, red fingers to his apprentice's mouth.
It's just for you, Obi-Wan. Taste it and I'll taste you. At last.
Taste it for Anakin. You hated him.
no
You hate him for not being me and you hate me for making you train him. Hatred is your gift, Padawan. Now taste my gift.
no
Taste it.
no no no
No one lived up to your moral standards. You begrudged Anakin the happiness he found with Padmé, lovely Padmé, and here you are, my chaste little apprentice, rutting with the Sith. You are no Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
If you were a true Jedi
the red haze red kavasa red tattooed demon face red blade red eyes Anakin's red eyes my Padawan my life younglings Mustafar Mustafar fire
I would still be alive, if not for you.
Anakin would be in the Light. He would know his children.
"Say it."
red heat crawling up his face
"I'm sorry," he managed a broken whimper, "Master, I'm sorry." His head buzzed and vibrated, as every despair in his heart rose and swarmed his brain. He would never have his Master or Padawan beside him again. The good things were untouchable, because they would forever exist only in the past.
All the days of Qui-Gon Jinn's life, left unlived.
Anakin Skywalker's beautiful, sprawling future, and now he was a slave, to the Sith and to Darkness.
His own sacred connection to the Force, choked off from him, as he had been choked on Mustafar, Vader squeezing and screaming his hatred. He looked into the eyes of the boy from Tatooine but found none of him there.
The Jedi. A loss beyond words. A pain beyond understanding.
It was not enough for this creature to take everything from him. His grief was mocked, his memories tainted, his body….
He had not hated Qui-Gon or Anakin. He loved them in a way he had never acknowledged, never allowed himself to feel, completely, until now, and no collar or false image could diminish it. They were not perfect, but they had been Good.
He missed them.
He had tried to be Good, knew he was not perfect, but it was not enough, and if hatred was his gift, he would bestow it only to the most deserving.
my Master my Padawan the younglings the Jedi Padmé Qui-Gon Anakin Yoda hear me forgive me
And he launched himself at the Sith, the buzzing growing louder and louder in his ears, his face hot and his hands cold.
"Master!" Vader was shouting, but it was impossible to know who the desperate cry addressed, and it didn't matter.
Nothing mattered to him now. He was Nothing, and he let the nothing take him, use him as he had already been used. If Vader said anything more, he could not hear it above the sharp drone in his ears, in his head.
I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you my Master my Padawan disgusting filthy evil Sith I will tear your heart out and eat it and then you'll know what it's like I want you to know what it's like that's what I'll taste you vile depraved thing I'll eat your heart and drink your blood and laugh as you laughed at me as you laughed and laughed and laughed
He snarled and scratched and pressed his thumbs into the hideous yellow eyes and pressed harder and harder
My Master my Padawan
My Master my Padawan
and he almost thought he could hear them, Qui-Gon and Anakin, calling to him, calling his name, begging him to stop
but he had no name
he would not stop
Sidious' hands were around his neck. He knew he should fight that, but he had to press those cursed eyes until they exploded all over the cell. Then no one would ever look at him like that again.
"Perhaps," The Sith was breathless, "Dooku was right about you."
A clean, crisp click.
All the restraint fell away from his neck. Something clattered onto the duracrete.
The collar.
It was the last coherent thought before a rush of energy assaulted him, filled him to the brim, burning and bright
he could not contain it after so long without it
The Force too much too much
and red and terrible
wave after wave of infinite power
whispering
take it take it take it take it take it use it use it use it use it use it
limitless potential trembled in his veins
kill him kill him power you have the power kill him vengeance kill kill kill him
He dropped to his knees and covered his aching head in his arms. His skin was too thin and tight, it would not hold—
no no no no no no no
Hands caressed his back. "Now you know what you are made of." The Sith crooned behind him. "It wants you. You want it. You thought you belonged to the Light, but when the Force returned to you, it was the Darkness that recognized you."
More hands touched him, grasped his arms, kept him upright. Vader looked into his face. "Master, your eyes."
He reached for the Light, but with nerveless fingers, and it was like closing his hand around smoke. For the first time, he had sought the Light, and the Light had not known him. "Anakin," He said, and collapsed between the two Sith.
