one night in coruscant || obikin

22.

Feet stumbling over each other and panicked dark spots swimming across my vision, choked breaths shuddered from my lungs as I blindly staggered through the halls- Cerra's halls- hands running across the wall searching desperately for the door to Anakin's room. Wheezing, my trembling fingers struck the doorframe- yellow paint chipping off around the edges- and clasped the control panel, pressing desperately to get it to open for me.

Silently, the door slid open and I hurled myself into the room, landing at the foot of the large bed where Anakin lay, sleeping peacefully, safely. A relieved, raw cry exited my mouth, and I ducked my head, trying not to rush to him, enfold him in my arms and never let him out, never let him go. A hand of mine made its way to his leg, and I gently felt his pulse, biting my lip to suppress a sob when I found one, sure enough. I sprawled myself into the armchair next to his bed, his mere presence calming me down. He was here, he was safe, he was breathing just fine. The blood was gone; His chest rose and fell with no labor, and he seemed at peace. He was asleep.

wait...

He was asleep... alone.

He went to sleep alone, by himself. I processed this, realizing the magnitude of this simple fact.

He doesn't need me. Anakin doesn't need me. He doesn't want me, doesn't need me...

This hurt me more than it should have, yet just as much as I expected it to. I knew that one inevitable night he would fall asleep without me, and suspected that after that he would push me from his bed, return to himself; My moments with him would be over, and I would be left to simply fantasize by myself, alone in my cold bed with only a pillow to clutch for comfort and a wall to convey my fear to. Of course, we would still have missions occasionally, but they wouldn't be the same.

Over the past few weeks, I sensed our dynamic changing. His feelings for me were obviously still platonic, but still- it was different. I feared- and rationally so- that I would struggle to hold myself back from him; that I would crawl into his bed uninvited, or touch him more often than he was used to, or that I would lose my head one day, and push past platonic boundaries.

To put it simply, I feared that the absence of Anakin's touch would only put my desire for him on steroids. Head tilting back, eyes squeezing shut, I prayed to myself. If only, if only I had never crawled into his bed that drunken night, and not started this strange cycle of dependency, a cycle which we fell unsuspectingly and somewhat innocently into. Of course, I never expected for my attachment to him to grow to such an uncontrollable extent. I had, however, expected to be the one to stop all of this. I expected that I would be mature, and tell Anakin to figure it out on his own, to sever my attachment to him and return to being his friend and partner on missions. But it was Anakin who did it. The boy sleeping before me, whom I needed so dearly, had abandoned me unknowingly.

I will be alone again.

This thought reverbereated in the chasms of my mind, amplifying its loudness each time it painfully struck the walls of my head, growing to a psychotic shout.

I will be alone. He doesn't need me. I am going to be all alone.

He won't need me anymore. He will leave me, leave me... I will be alone again, he will grow distant, he will forget about me, he will go on his own missions and never talk to me.- I will never have him in my arms again, he will never be mine, or me his. Never, never...

The echoes pressed in on my brain, my throat, and I choked on my own air as a heavy tear slipped down my face, and another.

My Anakin slept on.

These echoes were dangerous, and still I let them come; I let the waves wreak my body over the sharp rocks of my thoughts; let them break me; let them destroy me.

The situation was laugh-worthy, and so I laughed, quietly, at myself. The tears continued their endless assault down my flushed cheeks.

The situation was this: an image of the pathetic Jedi master who had a nightmare and ran to his sleeping ex-padawan because he can't handle his own attachment, only to break down and cry to himself while he wallows in his own despair. The weak Jedi, who couldn't even follow a small list of rules, who let his emotions take control, who fell for a boy who didn't even love him back. The foolish Jedi, who though he could control himself. The failed Jedi...

Every echo struck me hard, and opened a crack in my heart which I knew nothing could truly fix. Collecting myself as much as I could, I decided I was done acting this way, done. I wouldn't let myself exploit Anakin to fulfill my own wishes. No longer would I allow myself to fall deeper into the trap which I had lured myself into. I was done; I supposed I would just have to love him from afar, let my flaming heart grow cold. Resisting the urge to reach out and touch his hand, to feel his skin one last time, I stood and began to walk from the room, but paused at the foot of his bed, in the doorway.

My gaze rested comfortably and familiarly upon Anakin's face. I had memorized it over the course of his time as my Padawan, and during our nights together over the past three weeks I had memorized his body as well; I knew intimately the things about him that no one else did.

I knew that his body- chest, shoulders, arms, legs, back- was muscular and strong, but not so much as to make him seem inhuman. His hands were calloused but somehow soft at the same time. His hair was just long enough so that it ran fluidly through my fingers, but short enough to retain his boyish looks. An intricate map of scars traversed his back, arms, legs, waist, shoulders, but they didn't mar his skin, they completed it. His neck and shoulders provided a lovely pillow for my forehead, and his chin rested comfortably atop my head.

His scar intrigued me- and still he refused to tell me how he had gotten it.

Oh, and force, his eyes. They captivated me most- but they were closed now.

I had, at this point, stood for a long time- simply staring at Anakin from the doorway. My body seemed to ache for him; I wanted his arms around me, so badly. Even though I had just pledged to stay away from him, I wanted him more than ever. One last treacherous thought reverberated loudly in my mind.

My Anakin, my everything... you will never know how desperately I long for you.

And I turned to leave.