Anakin Skywalker x Reader One Shots & Series

Watching You Fade Away [ANGST]

...Where you're forced to watch the love of your life slowly fade away.

Author Note: No warnings - but I bring you a lot of sadness today. It will be very brief but emotionally charged. (I literally cried writing this, lol)

Word Count: 700

You watched as your boy slowly faded.

You watched as he gradually disappeared.

To endure - that's all that's left for you. Sometimes, you put on a painful smile, holding back the tears - because that was the only thing you could stop. You knew you couldn't halt what was slowly consuming your beloved. Maybe you were beginning to get used to it, maybe something had stopped reopening your wounds - at least that's how you sometimes explained this state to yourself.

You hoped for adaptation, but what kind of adaptation is it when pain covers pain?

Every day, you observed his face - once so radiant and full of life - which, for some time now, acquired new traces each morning. You still see the same beauty in it - you'll probably see it for a long time, until the inevitable pain consumes it completely, but you don't want to think about that. Not yet. But even if it evaporates completely from that face - you will still search.

You try to buy time as much as you can.

When Anakin returns to the quarters and his weary face meets yours, you infect him with your routine - just like usual, like in the good old times. You grit your teeth as you make his favorite sandwiches - the ones he used to always ask for when he returned from a mission - now he leaves more of them behind, but when he does reach for them, you sit across from him and marvel at every little move he makes.

"Something wrong?" he says, his mouth still filled with food.

"No, nothing. I just like watching... Seeing you enjoy. You always liked these," you say.

Perhaps at times, you seemed peculiar, but you desperately wanted to soak in your normalcy. Your routine, torn from your grasp, and you can't do anything about it - so you fight as you can, reveling in your small gestures.

Nights are the most painful.

Of course, you always spend them together—sometimes you have to coax Anakin into lying down and stop overthinking, to stop being afraid of falling asleep... But it works. For some time now, he falls asleep in your arms—once it was the other way around—but now both of you need it this way. He—for peace, you—for reassurance.

Nights are the most painful because that's when he looks like he used to—calm, relaxed, and you just watch with tears filling your eyes at the rise and fall of his chest. You absorb this sight, take it in with both hands, but on the other hand, the thought of what the next morning will bring overwhelms you.

Will his face be even more filled with pain when he gets up?

Will the touch of his hands be even colder?

You could think about it, but you still deluded yourself, hoping that maybe you would make progress, perhaps delay the inevitable even for just one day.

Your feelings were so fresh, you were so young, and you were condemned to treat your closeness as if that day or night could be your last.

When he slipped into sleep, you always stroked his hair, kissed his forehead, adoring his relaxed features—because that was your chance. Your chance to hold onto your boy as he once was.

Sometimes, he comes to you in your dreams. You see a smiling boy from Tatooine in them, melting your heart, and when you wake up exhausted, it shatters into pieces—signaling the tragic reality where the boy from Tatooine walks through each day in agony and suffering.

You told him so often that you loved him. Maybe out of obsession, maybe out of fear, or perhaps because even then, you already knew that if you said it one day, he might not understand anymore.

Maybe he wouldn't even respond.

This awareness was pure pain, and though you tried to be strong for him, the sight of his silent suffering weakened you.

His silent fear of himself. But you never feared him. You never will.

And even when the face of your love fades, when the blue eyes dim and light up in red, he will still be as beautiful to you as that day when you lost him.