surrender || obikin [COMPLETED]

23.

Ten or twenty minutes passed, and Anakin and I simply watched Ahsoka. I felt him slip into meditation beside me, and decided that sounded lovely at this moment. My hand slid down off of his arm, folding in my lap as my breathing fell to a circle. I ruminated about the past few weeks- we had begun on an icy planet, sleeping close together in that tent, completing missions and laughing together, not a single problem.

Before then, my feelings for him had lingered in the back of my mind, but I never payed attention to them or acknowledged them. Then, that twisted, cursed night in the cave turned me on to the intense desire which I held for this boy. I had watched him grow, and with every passing year he grew more powerful, more arrogant, more... tall, and more devastatingly attractive.

I had always noticed this- who wouldn't have- but had never realized just exactly how strongly I felt about him. I remembered his 18th birthday, where I cooked him a meal he particularly liked and poured him a glass of something strong that he probably shouldn't have had at that age. I didn't care though- he was mature and I wanted to celebrate him.

I remembered watching him that night, how I felt something stir. I hadn't known what it was at that point, but now I realize it was the seeds of my desire for his love. Now, in the present, I moped. Certainly he didn't feel what I felt, and these past few flirtatious days had been to entertain himself at my pride's expense.

He was trying to get a rise out of me, so that he could beat me down, derogate me, and make me small. He had always somewhat resented my title of 'master,' he wanted to be equals, and if not equals, he wanted to be the powerful one.

Hm. I wondered what he wanted me to do- how far he would go with this. Last night had been farther than I anticipated he would ever venture, but he still wasn't finished with me. With a weary sigh, I ended my meditation and found Anakin to be dozing in the chair beside me, his head drooping forward.

I was glad- he needed rest to soothe his anxiety about his padawan. I regarded my padawan, and suddenly realized just how long I have known him, how long we have been together.

His words echoed in my head, from the moments when I met him when we were younger. "Hi, you're a Jedi too? Cool!" From that day onward, I hardly went a week without speaking to him, hardly a day without thinking of him at some point.

At first, he felt like a burden, but after several months I grew somewhat fond of the boy. He was certainly not a normal padawan, and hadn't grown up in the temple. He didn't speak like the others, didn't have the same mannerisms, and had never seen rain.

Small things like these set him apart, and it equally frustrated him and made him proud of himself. I remembered one night when he was around eleven, after two years of being with me. He walked over to where I meditated and plopped down in my cross-legged lap. I noticed his braid had grown out a bit, so I began to re-braid it silently.

After a moment, he spoke. "I'm not like the others, am I Master?" His shields were terrible, and through our bond I felt every emotion of his. He felt hurt, he felt inadequate, he felt alien. I sighed as he leaned back against me, seeking the contact which I had tried to stop giving him.

"No, you aren't like the others. Anakin, you aren't like anyone else. There is no one like you, young one." He smiled at my words, and a warmth fell through our bond. He always needed my touch, and I assumed this was because he was used to his mother. He would seek touches as confirmation, as permission, as approval. He would collapse upon me when exhausted, he would cling to me when frustrated, he would cry into my tunic until it was soaked.

He would seek this affection from me, even when he was a fifteen year old boy. He would spar, he would win, and he would look to me for approval. If.. or, rather, when I gave it to him, he would walk over, wrap his arms around my waist, and tuck his head into the nook between my neck and my shoulder. Of course, no one would watch when he did this.

He grew, and grew. I watched him outperform everyone his age, and those older, and felt so much pride- noting how lucky I was to have him as my padawan. Of course, I never told him this- I knew it would go to his head. I could sense his growing arrogance, his brewing rebellion. However, through this, I saw that although he was arrogant, he was not truly cruel. He had a softer side to him, though I seemed to be the only one who saw it.

I had never thought about it, until it was gone. He didn't cry anymore. He stopped asking me to hold him when he was sad, to hug him when I was proud, or to rub his muscles when he was sore. He didn't need me after the Battle of Geonosis. It was for this reason that I knew about him and Padmé, and although it stung that he didn't feel like he could tell me about it, I let him be, breaking the code for my Padawan.

The Clone Wars began, and he became more distant from me. I hadn't truly touched him that much until the night in the cave. Then, feelings bottled down since that night on his birthday exploded into my mind and revealed themselves for the horrible disease that they were. Since that day, Anakin plagued my heart.

I feared there was no cure as he opened his eyes, the sapphire daggers piercing into mine.