AN:
Guest – Haha I love this! :D
Cheire – Yep, you called it! Fear of loss... :(
Sunmoonwindandstars – haha aww I'm sorry! This probably wasn't what you were expecting... :(
Ivy – This is so spot on! You know the characters well! It's like in chapter 6 when she was cleaning the cut on his mouth, she doesn't pry or push where he doesn't want to go
Angie – Yep they don't communicate well. But in Padme's defense, it's been a day, emotions are high! She needs time to think, and Anakin hasn't really given her space to do that yet with him wanting reassurance quickly. You'll see her conclude her thoughts of all this after the next two chapters – that's all I can say, really :D. And thank you! I really try to update regularly
Choices, Consequences & Crucifixion (Part I)
Oh, father, tell me, do we get what we deserve?
Oh, we get what we deserve
And way down we go
Way down we go
Anakin held a cigarette between his dexterous fingers, as he sat on a what would be a comfortable couch if it wasn't in this half lit room. A room where the light only touched specks of it. The corners were hidden. But he wasn't scared of what he couldn't see. He was more concerned with what he could see even when the light didn't shine there – the dangers that lurk in the hall that led to the kitchen. That was where Miraj popped out from. Her heels clicked against the clean, polished floor.
"Here." She placed a glass of whiskey on the coffee table in front of him. "To take the edge off."
She sat on the corner end of the couch and her gaze skated over him. He was ignoring her and the drink on the table. His eyes low, almost unresponsive, dull as he brought the tip of his cigarette to his lips. He breathed air in and out of his lungs, eclipsing himself in a smoky haze. There was no tension, no trembling, just a man who wasn't really present.
He's back in that mode. Preservation. The one she knew well. Anakin would continue to put his blinkers on to anything he didn't like, to run through freezing cold temperatures, thinking that he'd feel warm if he just kept moving. Outrun the cold. Outrun any problem. Outrun it all. Keeping his mind off it, erasing what he didn't want, padlocking any storm that builds. As far as he was concerned, he could build a bigger storm to hold it back.
Anakin and her had something in common. They were exhibitionists. Living fast, fully loaded. Stacking the deck in their favour. There was only one difference: he could offer his heart if the reward was worthy; hers was just an organ that pumped blood. His heart could get drunk on love; hers could only get drunk with power.
"You're in a mood." Her beady eyes were badgering, mocking, and she knew he could spot her in his peripheral vision while he stared off ahead.
"I'm not exactly thrilled about cheating on my wife." He gave off a petulant sigh, scratching his scar with his thumb while swirls of smoke rolled off the end of his cigarette.
She perused him, hunting for the pretenses, the aspirations she had mapped out, the stones she wanted turned, and trying to mold them with this night, bring her goals to fruition. But she needed a team player, and Anakin did not play well with others.
His eyes icy blue, jaw set, like nothing could soften his hard edges. But she did see them soften at the restaurant. They were soft when he looked at Padme. The young man who she'd known to chase rabbit holes, ones he was told to leave alone. The boy who lived in extremes, black and white, love and hate, had finally found what he was looking for after all this time – purpose. The ultimate balance of life.
She swatted a hand in the air, casually. "So don't."
His brows knitted as his eyes crawled to her, suspicious, not expecting that response. Miraj had the poise of a statue. Her expression was a smooth, tepid liquid, and he was just waiting for it to turn into gasoline.
"Go home. Tell her everything." She said while picking at her nails, not looking up at him "Who knows – if she loves you as much as you love her, she might forgive you."
Anakin put out his cigarette and leaned back on the couch. The thought only made his heart plummet further in his stomach. He looked down at his lap, rubbing his brow, depleted, almost laughing at the painful hole that had been dug. "She won't. She's a fucking lawyer." He breathed out and the chuckle that was on the edge of his lips faded. It wasn't funny anymore... "I tell her, I lose her."
She now lit her own cigarette, taking a break between her words to let smoke pop out of her mouth. "Your choice."
Anakin glanced at her, chewing his lip, thinking hard as he gauged her attitude. He knew why she was doing this. Because she can. It was a power play.
He scoffed. "This isn't a choice. It's a cliché, Miraj, and not a good one." His stare was an insult, avenging. "Aging beauty, wants any young guy to keep the bed warm, terrified of being alone." He thought it'd be sad if she weren't such a bitch; she might've even found someone who'd love her at every age.
"Not just any young guy. Only the hot ones." She said with mock seriousness, pointing her cigarette at him.
But all she was met with was tired eyes. Derision oozing off his lips. "Is that supposed to turn me on?"
"You're still here." Miraj rested her elbow on the arm that was crossed against her chest as she took another puff of her cigarette.
Anakin shook his head. "...I'm protecting my wife."
Now it was Miraj's turn to scoff at him. "You haven't changed. Always victimizing yourself." She pulled the ashtray that was close to him and dragged it across the table in her direction to ash her cigarette. "Truth is, you've always had a choice, Anakin. You just never liked your choices... You could have stayed home with your mom, been the bigger person, played nice with the family, but you didn't want to. So you left. That was a choice!" She now leaned forward with vindictive eyes. "And that day when you were in bed with me. . .you had a choice."
After a zealous session in between her sheets, Miraj reached over to the box on her nightstand. She pulled out a cigarette, offering one to her bedfellow. Anakin took it. He had propped up his pillow and immersed himself in his book.
Her bedroom was dark, cold, provocative, like her. Curtains drawn, never revealing more than people needed to know. She kept herself closed off. It was easier to keep her life running in a methodical manner. And it's not like she couldn't buy people's attention, keep things the way she wanted. But things were a little different when Anakin was in her bed. It was laced with life – sex, smoking, and tangled sheets. A dirty, irresponsible, disenthralling, rash youthfulness. He brought with him passion, liveliness, unpredictability, adventure.
She had grown quite attached to him, and the energy and feelings he brought to an otherwise dull room that had seen too many tedious days, and she wanted to chain them all up in here. But he was, and always would be. . .uncapturable.
Miraj got a good look at the cover of his book – The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Of course. Joseph Campbell. Again. Anakin had already read this book twice since he moved in. "You're not still going through that 'searching for a purpose' phase, are you?"
Anakin plunked the book down on the table beside his side of the bed. He turned to her with a sly grin and an unlit cigarette between his teeth. She lit her cigarette and then his. "Sometimes." That was the truth – sometimes he believed there was more to life; other times he chalked it up to wishful thinking. It really depended on his mood. He'd fluctuate between idolizing and devaluing his goals like the change of the weather.
"Didn't Joseph Campbell say life has no meaning?" She teased with a sneering smile.
"He said you add meaning to it." He corrected, reaching for the book again, resting it on his now bent knees. He then read a passage from the page he was on, "The hero of yesterday becomes the tyrant of tomorrow, unless he crucifies himself today." He nudged her shoulder with a gentle finger knuckle. "That's how you find your purpose."
"That sounds like a lot of work. Painful too." Her eyes followed the smoky twirls that left her mouth. "I subscribe to a simpler ideology. We eat, sleep, fuck, repeat until we die. There's nothing more to it. Might as well enjoy the ride."
"You'd be bored."
"Are you really bored, Anakin?" She smirked, arching a devious brow as she rested her head on his shoulder. Her hand slithered up his chest. "If you want. . .I can crucify you. Then I'll let you crucify me."
But he ignored her taunts.
"You should want more from life." He finally looked her way, giving her a cocky head jerk. "You want meaning? You conquer your flaws."
"Okay." She now rolled her body fully on her side, facing him. Her long fingernails still drawing down his chest. Some days he acted like a stubborn, naive little boy who just wanted his own way. And other days, he looked like this – messy hair, adventure-seeking eyes, with the discipline of a boy becoming a man – she wanted to capture it, feed off it, his thirst for life and all it had to offer. "What are your flaws?"
"Being in bed with you, for one." He said casually. Without meeting her eyes that stared at him in fascination.
Her forehead raised, wanting to laugh. "That's a flaw?"
"That's a big one."
He grew quiet. Those blue, pensive eyes working through the thoughts that made his heart rock against his ribs, cruelly. He dwelled on his darkness, his ego, his tyrannical tendencies. He knew it was a part of him he wasn't quite ready to tackle. It's why he was in bed with her, tolerating surface level support from an older woman, who he cannot love, and who cannot love him. He was making up for the absence of his mother. Because he wouldn't go back. To go back and make peace would require a vulnerability he was too proud, too stubborn, too egomaniacal to submit to.
So, he was going to stay here, beside the woman who can't hurt him emotionally. He would forever avoid attaching himself profoundly to another woman who he would have to bear losing when she didn't do what he wanted her to.
His straying thoughts were interrupted by a distant noise. A thump of strong shoes. Both Miraj and Anakin shot up in bed, along with the hairs on the back of their necks, and strained to hear. Anakin slowly jabbed a thumb toward the door, his heartbeat loud in his ears. "Is that. . .your husband?"
Miraj took their cigarettes, putting them out. She quickly tied her robe around her body and moved her way around the bed, placing her index finger to her mouth, insisting Anakin stay quiet. She caught a quick glimpse outside the door and swallowed a gasp. She then gestured with hurried hands for Anakin to escape through the window.
"You said he wasn't coming 'til Christmas!" Anakin was up and quickly placing one leg in his boxer shorts.
The little bit of sunlight creaking through the bedroom door was now shadowed. The shadow was caused by Mr Dooku standing in the doorway. He was a lot older than his wife. At least fifty years old. But this man did not let age define him. Anakin could see Miraj wasn't kidding when she mentioned her husband had the work ethic of a soldier, who trained daily in the gym, who was sharp as a tack. And the look on his face demonstrated the quickness, fierceness when his eyes landed on a doe-eyed Miraj.
"Darling–" She called breathlessly, rushing out of the bedroom with aimless hands in the air – but her words barely reached him before he grabbed her by the jaw, dragging her to the wall.
"You think I don't know what you're up to?"
She realized he knew. Of course he did.
Anakin knew he should've listened to Miraj and jumped out the window.
This woman was manipulative, spiteful, selfish, hurtful. She didn't care about him. He should walk out. Leave her in the mess she made herself. Just go out the window.
But he couldn't. He couldn't leave her like that. It wasn't in his nature to leave anyone behind. He raced over to them outside the bedroom door and grabbed the man's arm. "Let her go."
Mr Dooku's eyes hopped over to Anakin, a wrathful hurricane building up. He punched Anakin in the nose, throwing Anakin back before he could register what was happening. He then snuck in another punch.
Anakin wiped the blood off his nose with the back of his hand and a dark, tense glint crystalized in his eyes. He walked up to Dooku, a feral resolve in every step. He swung away, again and again until they were on the floor. Rolling around, punches still being thrown until Dooku had trapped Anakin under his brutal arm. A screaming Miraj tried to pull her husband away, but he shoved her off.
Miraj fell back, knocking the cabinet, letting all the supplies on it fall to the floor. Anakin had left the handsaw there after work. It now had fallen among the jetsam on the floor. Dooku grabbed it in a fit of rage and aimed it at Anakin. Anakin mustered all the strength he had to ward Dooku off. His fingers clutching the handle of the handsaw to keep it at a distance, away from his face. But he failed. Dooku had the firmer grip. The handsaw sliced through Anakin's flesh, down the side of his face, just missing his eye. Anakin grunted out in pain. A pain he channeled into a ruthless determination. He threw Dooku off him with such vicious momentum that he couldn't prevent his hands from falling forward. The handsaw, still in his firm clasp, cut through the skin on Dooku's neck.
The room had been tainted with a diabolical silence. Anakin's eyes widened at the sight under him. The blood from his head dropped onto Dooku. A motionless Dooku – who was now in a puddle of his own blood.
He hadn't meant to do it. He didn't even think he aimed for it. He just wanted to shove Dooku off him and keep the weapon far from his face. But something came over him, a force rising him from the ground, and before he knew it, he was hovering over his attacker with the turbulence of a madman.
Or... Did he mean to do it? Was he so angry that he couldn't think straight? Did he rage his way through to victory? Did he aim to slice through Dooku's neck with the handsaw out of spiteful revenge?
No. It was the sheer momentum of his movements in a desperate attempt to free himself. He decided. For every time someone told him what to do, for every time he felt held back, for every time someone snobby tried to put him in his place...
Anakin's trembling hands hovered over the man's face.
"There's no pulse... " Anakin's breath caught in his throat as he inspected the body. "He has no pulse. Miraj! Call an ambulance!"
"No."
Did he hear her correctly? Anakin looked back up at Miraj in disbelief, despair, pleading. He couldn't believe what he saw as his eyes tracked over her. She had smoothed out her expression from fear and shock to one of passivity, a clinical professionalism.
"Bury him."
The harshness of her tone zipped up his spine like sharp thorns, grinding everything he knew to a halt. The chaos, the drama, it all rolled off her back. Deep down she was just as traumatized but she wasn't going to let that get in the way.
It hit Anakin like a truck. She wanted this. She wanted him dead. She wanted his money.
The lonely trophy wife starved of attention. She chose a life of misery in exchange for money, status, prestige. He could never understand that. No matter what she said. Even when she'd tell him they were similar. Even when she said they both yearned for power – for different reasons – he knew she was wrong. He could never be like her.
"What?" Anakin blinked. Hardly any sound escaped his mouth. But when she didn't budge, he realized she was serious. "No–no–" He got up, hands erratic, heart pounding.
"Anakin!" She snapped him into focus. "Look around! Do you know what this looks like?! They'll say we planned it – after his money. We'll be charged with murder."
"It – it was self defense." Anakin stammered. He then charged over to her, bursting with exigency, hoping to talk some sense into her. "Miraj, you gotta tell them the truth! We gotta get him to a hospital."
"So, what, he can divorce me and take everything?!"
Anakin almost fell back on his step. Her voice hammering into his head like a worsening migraine. His eyes searched around the roof of the room for a brief respite. He whispered, practically to himself. "You're out of your fucking mind!"
"You're the one whose skull is cut open!" Her words were like a thunderclap, cracking his chest open, splitting him further. "What, you think you're going to walk into a hospital, no questions asked? Get in the real world! You're an accomplice."
Anakin's hands raked through his hair, stressing, woeful, wanting to shield himself from this crying, screeching reality trying to weasel its way through. He couldn't believe what was happening. His steps slowed as his thoughts ran fast.
Miraj's own breath finally settled as she watched him, clearing her head of the damages. She made her way over to him as calmly as she could. "Look, I'll have someone come down here and stitch you up. I'll keep us safe. Just get rid of the body." She moved over to a drawer, collecting a hefty sum of cash and handed it to him. "Here. Take this, get an apartment... You'll be free. Just keep your mouth shut!"
"You could've ratted me out." Miraj shot him a smarmy stare as she sat on the couch, crossing one leg over the other like a sinful vixen, wicked, harassing. "–gone to the police, the hospital, thrown me under the bus – but you were afraid of what would happen to you. And I don't blame you. I'm grateful. But you made your choices. And now. . .you can go tell your wife the truth, risk losing her, but have your conscience cleared... Or, you can come upstairs with me – and everybody wins."
She got up, giving him a look, conspiratorial, pestering with conquest before walking off. Leaving him drenched in his misery.
You let your feet run wild
Time has come as we all fall
Yeah, but for the fall, my
Do you dare to look him right in the eyes?
Kaleo - Way Down We Go
