Touch Starved

Chapter 3 - Circles

Author's Note: Just to avoid any... confusion over Vader's and Obi-Wan's behavior, I'll give a brief explanation. They last fought maybe an hour earlier, so they're both emotionally raw and gutted and really not at all in the right headspace to be facing each other again. They're pretty broken right now, but if they had come from a different point in time, you'd be seeing Vader as a true Sith instead of as the broken, depressed man he often is anyways behind his mask. And Obi-Wan would be being more proactive about dealing with Vader.

But that didn't happen, so you get this instead along with looooots of angst. Enjoy! :D

Seriously, listen to Broken by Noelle Johnson and In the End by Beth Crowley when reading this. You'll never recover. :')

WARNING: Depression (major depression), suicidal tendencies, slight (or more than slight) possessiveness.

~ Amina Gila

Tears are a weakness, but Vader can't make them stop. He holds back his sobs, keeping his meltdown as quiet as he possibly can, just so Obi-Wan won't know, won't see how badly his words are destroying him. It had been foolish of him to try and goad Obi-Wan into doing something he'd already set his mind against. He had forgotten – how could he have forgotten?! – how Obi-Wan can wield his words more effectively than any dagger, how his words used to crawl under Vader's skin, digging in and staying there, a forever festering wound, adding to the silent fear of never being good enough.

Because if his very own master couldn't muster anything more than a distant affection, how was he to ever be anything, anything at all, other than a mere tool or afterthought?

It stings and burns, and he wants to rip his brain out. He wants to unhear all of it, undo all of this, but he can't. He time traveled, and he's already completely screwed everything up. Instead of making it all end, he's only made it worse. It's the only thing he's good for though, right? Even Obi-Wan can see it.

"Then, you're fire. You burn and destroy everything you touch."

He can't even explain why he's silently falling apart instead of using this pain to fuel him. Perhaps it's because his body is human again, and his mind is reacting the way that he would have in the past at this point in time. He can give in to his emotions without fear of suffocating, and he's making the most of that. He can't even count the number of times when he, over the past ten years, has wanted nothing more than to cry only to hold back, because he physically couldn't. Instead, he fueled his anger with the pain.

And he should do the same now, but he can't.

He just – he can't. It doesn't matter what Obi-Wan thinks of him. It doesn't matter that his old master only sees him as Vader and not Anakin anymore. It doesn't – he doesn't care. He shouldn't have ever thought Obi-Wan cared about Anakin enough in the first place to want to avenge his death. He shouldn't have said that, shouldn't have told Obi-Wan that, because it only led to his abandonment again. Would Obi-Wan have done that if Vader hadn't told him the truth, told him that he destroyed Anakin, not Obi-Wan?

But at the same time, how does it truly matter?

Hindsight won't change what's already happened. It won't change that they're both here, in the past, stuck in a storage closet together while Vader suffers a meltdown and tries to frantically think of something, anything that will be enough to make Obi-Wan go over the edge and finally kill him. There's no one else who's strong enough. Only Obi-Wan has defeated him. Twice. And sure, he wasn't fighting at his best the second time, but even his half-hearted attempts were overcome by Obi-Wan. Although, for some unexplainable reason, Obi-Wan is too much of a coward to go through with it, too stuck on his precious Code to do what needs to be done.