DVD Commentary: "Some Things Are Certain" by cupiscent (2/2)

[bedlamsbard]

The next day Anakin was subdued. No chatter, no antics, he was even keeping his colourful language more or less to himself. Perhaps the celebrations were catching up with him belatedly.

Obi-Wan had never been one to lament solitary time, and the monotony of gasket-changing was as close to meditation as anything else. But, for whatever reason, it was not soothing today.

So true. It’s not mechanics with me, it’s knitting, which can be a little like meditation in itself. When it’s good, it’s good. When it’s not? It’s the most frustrating thing in the world.

Chafing at the delay, perhaps. Time was slithering past, like sand into cracks, filling up the moments where he should be engaged in his job. He wondered if Jedi were dying, on Belderon, without him. So many had died already. Their numbers were being whittled away.

Not. The. Problem. Part of the problem, I’m sure, but it’s like the war itself, a phantom menace. The real problem has nothing whatsoever to do with the situation on Belderon and everything to do with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan is aware of this on some level. He just can’t admit it, not even to himself.

He knew the impatience, no matter how understandable, should not be allowed to move him like this. But his urgings to calm didn't seem to have much power, and the Force was surprisingly little help. It was there, of course, and the resonance of Anakin's presence had settled with remarkable alacrity into the landscape. But it was somehow aloof. The first comparison that sprang to mind was an old memory of Qui-Gon, waiting with infinite patience while his Padawan struggled towards an answer for himself.

The Force isn’t helping because the Force is busy saying, “Hey, you! Yeah, you! Get the picture already.”

It had irritated Obi-Wan at the time, no matter how much he understood that it was essential he claim certain things for his own. He was only slightly surprised to find that apparently it still irritated him.

I think everyone knows what this feels like. I mean, it may not be the Jedi Master in the corner with the zen look on his face, but there’s always something, someone waiting when they could just give you the answer.

The last gasket changed and screwed back into place, Obi-Wan slid down off the ship. Anakin was sitting, leaning against the landing support of the ship, waiting while the liquid drained out of the flux hydraulics. Staring into space. He felt contained, but beneath that were tremours. A disturbance. Obi-Wan barely restrained himself from demanding what was wrong.

Which would be out of line on multiple levels.

Anakin looked up anyway, his eyes clearing. "Know how I said I never dream?" he said. Obi-Wan nodded. "Well, I did last night." He watched Obi-Wan for a long moment, with blue eyes that seemed to know him far too well. "Why do I get the idea I'm not telling you anything you don't already know?"

Obi-Wan smiled faintly. "I don't know what you mean. Was I in these dreams?" He was trying for light; wasn't sure if he made it.

"Yes," Anakin said. "You were there. Always there. And some old guy who I think was important. And a girl - a woman."

For some reason I’m really amused by the idea of Qui-Gon being dismisses as just “some old guy.” Then I realized – hey, maybe it’s not even Qui-Gon. The assumption is that it is because it seems like he’s talking about the events of TPM, but it might not be at all. “Some old guy” could be Palpatine, and not Qui-Gon at all, because Palpatine’s the other corner in their little screwed up ménage a quatre. Everything revolves around Anakin: Obi-Wan, Padmé, even Palpatine.

"Pretty?"

And for some reason, it’s really reassuring the story’s not all about Obi-Wan and Anakin, much as I love those two. Padmé’s very nearly as important, especially to Anakin.

"She was an angel." He closed his eyes, but Obi-Wan could still see what he was feeling on his face, the questions, the baffled frustration. He could empathise. "What's going on?"

Obi-Wan shook his head, even though Anakin couldn't see it. "I wish I knew."

He did. Wished he knew what it meant that he could feel Anakin like a splinter in some appendage he didn't have, not painful, just there. That when he stopped thinking, they moved in intrinsic counterpoint, a part sliding into place with a jangling gap where twenty minutes of trying to get it right should have been. That when Anakin's wrenching grip on a tricky connection slipped and he wavered on the edge of balance, Obi-Wan's hand was already up, just the barest touch in the small of his back and all that was required to steady him.

*bursts into tears. again* Because that’s what they are, you know, they’re just that perfect, that meant to be. Even when they’re not together, they are…what they are. Together. They’re The Team.

He tried to remember things his Master had said, comments about potentialities, a very old and barely half-understood lecture Master Yoda had given once on convergent realities.

None of it helped.

No. It wouldn’t. Theory never helps when you’re faced with the real thing.

He crouched beside Anakin, laid a hand on his shoulder, because it felt right. Anakin's eyes opened, met Obi-Wan's. "I wish I knew," Obi-Wan repeated.

Another beautiful image. God, I could just go through this story going, “I want a screencap of this image, and this image, and this image – ooh, and this one I want to be an oil-painting –”



Obi-Wan woke late the next morning, clinging to dreams that lingered even as he lay on his bed, blinking in the lines of light slanting through the not-quite closed shutters.

Ha, totally right about Obi-Wan sleeping late by default.

When he made it down to the hangar, Anakin grinned at him from his perch atop the ship, that grin of his like sun on sand. "I was starting to think you weren't going to show up today."

"Where else would I go?" Obi-Wan asked, grinning back.

Anakin shrugged. "Might have got a better offer."

Adorable. I mean, really. Adorable. They’re so comfortable, and I’m glad they’re like that both in word and deed – I mean, besides those moments of WTF is going on awkwardness.

"Unlikely." He reached up, and Anakin leaned down, and they gripped wrists, Anakin not really pulling, Obi-Wan not really leaning on him, the manoeuvre smooth and easy.

GUH.

Obi-Wan couldn't be bothered being troubled by that.

The repairs were going well. There were moments when there was nothing for Obi-Wan to do, nothing he could do but find a relatively comfortable place to sit and watch Anakin at work, the sure movement of hands and grease-smeared forearms. The supreme confidence Anakin had with his hands on machinery that never seemed misplaced, even when something slipped, something went wrong, and he spat a pithy curse.

Don’t you just hate people like that? I mean, you sit there and go, “Hi, I’m trying everything I can over here,” and they’re like, “Ooh, this is easy.”

*cough* See: me and physics, me and calculus. Occasionally me and piano.

The repairs were going very well. Obi-Wan suspected it even before Anakin came over to him at the end of the day, wiping his hands on a bit of rag, squinting thoughtfully. "We've done surprisingly well," he said.

Obi-Wan nodded.

Anakin tossed the rag aside, missing the toolbox he'd been aiming for and not seeming to care. "Reckon you're going to be ready to leave by tomorrow afternoon," he said, blandly.

He'd suspected it, but the words were still a shock. A week, he thought, you promised a week. And there, poised on the tip of his tongue, barely swallowed in time, I might as well stay another night.

Oh, baby. I mean, yes, default whimper to anything that…um, makes me whimper, but seriously, oh, Obi-Wan. He wants what he can’t have. It’s his curse, always will be.

There were Jedi - good men and women - fighting and probably dying somewhere a very long way from here. There was Anakin here, watching Obi-Wan with eyes that he knew, any rational explanation be damned. Somehow this whole detour felt like it had been lifted out of time, out of reality, but it hadn't been, he knew that. He could not linger here.

I love the contrast here. The abstract and the concrete. Here and there. Probability and certainty.

He could not say anything. In the end, he just nodded again. Anakin nodded as well, like an echo, looking away across the hangar.



Obi-Wan was still awake, waiting (for sleep, he would have said), when the door to his room hissed quietly open. He rolled over, finding the lamp control by instinct in the dark. He was sitting up, covers pooling around his waist, blinking in the tepid light before he realised who it was. Who it must be.

Well, obviously; he went for the light before he went for his lightsaber. He knew on some level that it had to be Anakin; there was a hell of a lot more unconscious reasoning before conscious reasoning.

Anakin smirked, closing the door again. "Twitchy, Ben?"

Not as twitchy as he would be if he’d pulled his lightsaber on you!

Yes, and it was a damning thought. "What are you doing here?" Though he knew.

Anakin's robe was wide at the neck, collarbones casting shadows. He was unbelting it, letting it fall from his shoulders. He was clad in only trousers beneath, bare feet not making a sound on the floor. Only a few steps across the room. His knee on the bed beside Obi-Wan's hip, his hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder. He was straddling him in one smooth movement, and the sheets felt cold, shifting against Obi-Wan's skin.

GUH. Excuse me, I need to take a moment. To breathe.

"Anakin," he said, hands coming up to the boy's hips, and both of them flinched slightly at the contact, but nothing crackled between them this time, nothing but the air, the heat that coiled in Obi-Wan's stomach at the feel of Anakin's skin under his thumbs.

"Yes," Anakin whispered, bending down, leaning over Obi-Wan and smiling, that smile unrestrained, full of mischief, full of pure joy. "Consider this a gift."

Obi-Wan curled his hand around Anakin's neck, threaded his fingers into the boy's hair. Their breath mingled, Anakin's bare chest close to Obi-Wan's, but they weren't touching anywhere but that hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder, Obi-Wan's hands on him. He'd pushed, Obi-Wan knew him, knew how he could be, but he was stilled here, bunched muscles quivering beneath Obi-Wan's hands. He could tell him to go, he suspected, and Anakin would, that obedience nothing of who he was here.

And here the line between our boys in canon and our boys in this story shifts and vanishes. There’s barely any distance between who they are and who they should be here; Obi-Wan is aware of it on a conscious level and Anakin – maybe is, maybe isn’t. He may be even more conscious of it than Obi-Wan, although not in the same technical manner.

There is no passion; there is serenity, Obi-Wan thought. And pulled Anakin down, to him.

Guh. Oh, Obi-Wan. The juxtaposition of Anakin with the Jedi Code is perfect, because they’re so diametrically opposed.

Because he sensed, he knew, what they had been in some other time, some other place. Knew how impossible this would have been. Didn't know how he felt about that, about Anakin and potential and repercussions, but that was difficult and this was easy, this was right, Anakin's head in his hands, his mouth on Obi-Wan's both hungry and giving.

Oh. Oh, Obi-Wan. Just going with it, for once in his life just giving in and letting things happen. And potential, God. What is and what could be and what should be and what should never be.

Because at the end of all things, there was the Force, and he felt it now, wrapped around them, and maybe that was just Anakin. Maybe it was.

Because Anakin is the Force, more or less, and Obi-Wan’s steeped in it. He’s a Jedi; he’s never known anything else. But Anakin is more than anything he’s ever known.

Anakin settling against him, skin searing together, their tongues tangling and Obi-Wan's breath gone from him, drawn close against Anakin's skin. Anakin was already half hard where he pressed against Obi-Wan, shifting his hips in a way that made Obi-Wan's lift to meet him. Too fast. Not nearly enough. He gripped Anakin's neck tight, pushed his other palm at the small of the boy's back, where trousers gave way to heated skin.

Anakin broke the kiss with a gasp, a sound that carved itself into Obi-Wan. The boy's head went up, back a little, pressing against Obi-Wan's hand. He leaned in, sucked at the side of Anakin's neck, dropped his mouth to where shoulder and neck met, close to where his fingers pressed into tendon. Anakin's hand clenched on Obi-Wan's shoulder, fingers digging in. His other hand skimmed down Obi-Wan's side, trailing a frisson of ticklish feeling in its wake. Two fingers hooked beneath the sheet, stretched taut over Obi-Wan's lap, teasing at the sensitive skin just inside his hip.

Obi-Wan pushed - Anakin gave way reluctantly, but he pushed, got up on his knees, the sheet falling away and the night air cool against his skin. Pressed up against Anakin, knees, hips, chests, and the boy made a sound that disappeared into a kiss, his mouth slanting hard across Obi-Wan's. They kissed, a long time, again, over and over, until their mouths tasted of each other, of the blood brought rushing beneath lips and teeth. Hands over skin, callused fingertips snagging, hands between them, Obi-Wan shoving aside the waistband of Anakin's trousers, a whine in the boy's throat as he swayed against Obi-Wan.

When he pushed this time, Anakin went, sprawling backwards, dragging Obi-Wan after him. Obi-Wan slid down Anakin's body, tugging the trousers off completely, crawled back up, his hands on the twitching muscles of Anakin's thighs. He was pale, where the sun didn't touch, where Obi-Wan touched now, spreading fingers not to take, not to have, but to know. (He could touch him forever, watch him forever, and still not know, not completely.) Pale skin over the muscle above his hip, where Obi-Wan bit, soothed with his tongue, Anakin's erection twitching hot against his shoulder. Obi-Wan looked up his body, Anakin's head back, his neck arched, arms spread wide with fingers knotted in the bedsheets. He moved up, covered him entirely, hands over clenched knuckles, his mouth over Anakin's, the incoherent noises he was making as their thighs twined together swallowed up by Obi-Wan's tongue. Anakin's hands turned over beneath his, gripping him, now, fingers interlocked and Obi-Wan leant, pressing their hands against the mattress. Pressing Anakin against the mattress.

GUH. Also, basically the entirety of this scene is me making really incoherent noises.

Anakin moved beneath him, almost testing, not quite writhing. He muttered something against Obi-Wan's teeth; he edged back, and the boy tried again: "In my robe."

"Mmm," Obi-Wan mumbled, more interested in staying, but he shifted sideways, towards the edge of the bed, still half on Anakin (and the boy was taking the opportunity to scrape his teeth along Obi-Wan's jaw) as he reached for the fallen robe on the floor. Called it the last small distance into his hand and, juggling it, he felt something solid amidst the cloth. In a pocket; a small vial.

See, the Force is good for something!

Obi-Wan slid back, kissing Anakin deep and hard, the vial warming in his palm. Gave way as Anakin pushed up. He sat back on his heels, letting his fingers trail over Anakin's skin as the boy turned over. On his knees. Gripping the foot of the bed. He shuddered when Obi-Wan covered him again, mouth on Anakin's shoulder blade, fingers splayed over his chest. Nudged backwards, and the arch of him was something sleek and beautiful, like the hull of a starship, but warm, of flesh and blood.

GUH.

And when Obi-Wan pushed inside him, his breath stopped and started again, Anakin's muscles bunching beneath his hands. Anakin's skin was hot, sweat beading beneath Obi-Wan's lips between his shoulder blades. Anakin rocking back against him, in time to meet his thrusts, Obi-Wan felt the universe slipping away from him, a frantic whirl, but the Force a steady pulse. He slid a hand around Anakin's hip to wrap around him, found the boy's hand there already, and their fingers entwined brought him to juddering release, and as tensed, crying out, Obi-Wan came, open-mouthed against Anakin's back, surprised, gifted, full - of this and Anakin. Empty of regrets; they were burnt away entirely, here and now.

Burnt. Things in Star Wars burning – Qui-Gon in TPM, Anakin in RotS, Vader in RotJ – rebirth. Not quite an ending. Or, um, something. I don’t know; fire and Star Wars and Anakin, you know.

Collapsed in a tangle of limbs, Obi-Wan shifted, twisted, until he could reach Anakin's mouth. His lips were already swollen; one more kiss could hardly mark him more.

I love this last line.

They crawled languidly back up to the pillow, and kicked the soiled sheet onto the floor. Well, Obi-Wan kicked; Anakin turned limp and sleepy and whiny. Curled up against Obi-Wan's back, mumbling in his ear. Was asleep, Obi-Wan suspected, before he even turned the light out.



Obi-Wan didn't dream.

Of course not. I’m not sure I can verbalize exactly why, but of course not. Of course Obi-Wan wouldn’t dream, not after this.

When he awoke, he was alone in the bed, but even before he opened his eyes, he sensed Anakin still in the room, a warm contentment and a curiosity almost childlike in its innocent idleness. Smiling, he opened his eyes—

OBI-WAN. IT’S ANAKIN. How can he not have gotten himself into some kind of trouble when he’s still in the room?

--to see Anakin crouching down, flipping open the bundle he'd stashed beneath the chair. Rolled up in his Jedi cloak, all the items he didn't particularly want anyone on Tatooine to know about. (Keep a low profile.) His first inclination was to summon the lot, the second to say something. Instead, he merely lay there, watching Anakin pick up the lightsaber. He balanced it in his palm, tried the grip, a faint frown on his face, the look he got when examining a machine he was trying to figure out.

Yes, because having it fly through the air toward you would be remarkably low-key. I mean, come on, Obi-Wan.

I think it also adds a measure of how comfortable Obi-Wan is around Anakin that he’s neither carrying his lightsaber or sleeping with it under his pillow, considering the fact that he’s in the middle of a war. Either that or he’s really trying for low-profile. (Again: Qui-Gon = doesn’t exchange money, carries a lightsaber. Obi-Wan = exchanges money, doesn’t carry his lightsaber.)

He found the control, and the blade sizzled into life. Anakin jerked to his feet, staggering back a step. In the faint blue light, his face was shocked into blankness. His gaze slid sideways, found Obi-Wan's.

"You're a Jedi," he said. There was shock in his voice, but also hurt.

"Or I killed one," Obi-Wan noted, bitterness in his.

OH BABY. I love the echoes in this story – scenes in all three movies, Qui-Gon’s voice, Yoda’s, all the people that aren’t here right now, in this moment, but shaped it somehow nonetheless.

Anakin shook his head slowly. "You're a Jedi," he repeated, no shock now, no hurt, just a stark certainty. "And I'm... I'm..."

Because he knows. He doesn’t need Obi-Wan to say anything, he just knows. And if he’d finished this sentence, I would have started bawling every time I read this story. I don’t even know how he would have finished it, but I would have started bawling because oh, baby. BABY.

He trailed off. The lightsaber crisped the air in the room, a slow menacing slither of sound. Slowly, Obi-Wan sat up on the bed, then stood. Took the step necessary to wrap his hand around Anakin's. The boy was holding the lightsaber, unthinking, in the first guard. Obi-Wan's fingers moved over his. Found the control. Returned silence to the room.

Because Anakin’s a natural with a lightsaber, trained or untrained. Some things are certain.

"You're Anakin Skywalker," he said.

Never controlled. Never enslaved. No matter what appeared to be the case.

*bursts into tears*



After Anakin left, Obi-Wan took his time. Used the fresher. Dressed. Gathered his limited effects back together.

Sat for a long moment on the bed, lost in thought. Wondering. Useless to do so.

He came downstairs, settled up his bill with the eternally disinterested owner. Shmi was working behind the cantina counter. She paused a moment to smile at him, and Obi-Wan paused to smile back. "Thank you," he said. "For everything."

"You're very welcome," she replied. "Any time you're in the area, drop by." There was a twinkle of humour in her eyes. Anakin's twinkle.

Love this little detail. Because Anakin is basically made entirely out of Shmi – there’s no second set of chromosomes to come from a father.

Turning away, Obi-Wan suddenly had a thought. Looked back. "Have you been having strange dreams recently?"

And one has to wonder if somewhere, somewhere, if Padmé Amidala is having dreams too, ones she doesn’t understand and can’t begin to interpret. (I mean, if Padmé’s alive in this ‘verse, of course, and we have no reason to believe she isn’t.)

"Yes." She was as serene as if he'd been asking about the weather.

Is Shmi Force-sensitive? The logical assumption would be yes, but not extremely so.

"About... me?"

She nodded, going back to wiping down the counter. "You - you're a lot younger, and there's another man, and sometimes a girl, I don't understand it - but you take Anakin away." Her chin lifted. "And the universe spirals into darkness."

I’m serious. Is the other man Qui-Gon or Palpatine? It could be either. There’s no way to tell. (Dee, if you’re reading this, did you intend the “other man” refs to be about Qui-Gon or Palpatine or is deliberately left ambiguous?) The girl is obviously Padmé, because the prequels don’t feature any other prominent female characters, and because of the description of Obi-Wan as much younger, it occurs during the TPM timeline. But I swear to God, is it Qui-Gon or Palpatine? Automatic assumption is Qui-Gon, but it could be Palpatine, because he’s much more important in the long run. Oh my God, I’m so conflicted.

There was a chill down Obi-Wan's spine. Hope and pride and fear and despair. But not here, not now. It had not happened, something else instead. Though the universe out there, the one waiting for him... Jedi fighting, Jedi dying, war and a shadow. "It might still," he said.

And the question: Is this better, or is this worse? Have things happened the way they were meant to, or not? My money is on not, and I think Obi-Wan’s is too.

She tilted her head with a sad smile. "Some things are certain, perhaps."

And there’s the title-line right there. Gut shot, right where it hurts. Some things are certain, and Obi-Wan and Anakin are one of them. But is the destruction of the Jedi certain as well? (I think so, and I don’t think Anakin’s betrayal is. But that’s just me, and it’s hardly relevant here.)



There was little remaining to be done at the hangar. Minor systems to be reconnected. Final diagnostics to be run. The hull panelling to put back into place. Little enough before Obi-Wan was shrugging into his cloak, hooking his lightsaber into his belt.

Literally changing into someone else, of course. Changing from Ben Kenobi the pilot to Obi-Wan Kenobi the Jedi Knight. But is he shedding a mask or putting one on?

He looked up, and Anakin was sitting on a drum, chin lifted, as challenging as the first moment Obi-Wan had seen him, looking life in the eye. And there was a small shadow at the neck of his tunic, the memory of Obi-Wan's mouth. "What's your real name?" Anakin asked. Lazy and arrogant, bordering on the insolent.

Another favorite image. Anakin! Sitting (cross-legged in my head) on a drum!

"Obi-Wan," he said. "Obi-Wan Kenobi."

"Anakin Skywalker," the boy said, holding out a hand.

And there it is again. Destiny. Those two names, put together, whenever they’re introduced – it’s it, man. That’s all there is.

Obi-Wan took it, took a step closer, and Anakin stood up. The hug was as firm as if they'd known each other a lifetime, not barely five days. Obi-Wan closed his eyes, felt Anakin's shoulders under his grip, Anakin's hands on his back.

"May the Force be with you," Obi-Wan said, meaning the words more than he had in long years of saying them.

"And with you, Master," Anakin replied.

*bursts into tears* I’m not sure what else I can say at this point. Echoes, again, of something that didn’t happen, but… Seriously. I can’t say anything. They are them. No matter what, it’s always Anakin and Obi-Wan. Always.

I love how I’m picking stuff up even as I’m formatting this. There are a lot of contrasts between canon Anakin and this Anakin in the beginning of the fic, but they get less and less as the story goes on, because the lines are blurring. He’s not set in stone as Anakin Skywalker, slave, anymore; he’s aware (consciously or unconsciously) of himself as something else.

Obi-Wan climbed into his starfighter, fired up the engines. He did not look down as he launched into space.

He did not think he would see Anakin again. These were uncertain times. There were Jedi dying every day in the galaxy. He suspected he would be one of them, one day. Perhaps soon. But not Anakin. Not Anakin.

And there’s something he can be grateful for, because it never will be Anakin. Never should have been Anakin, really. (And in the end, of course, Anakin didn’t die for the Republic or even for the Jedi.)

Out of Tatooine's atmosphere, he pushed communications through to the Jedi Temple. It was someone else on dispatch today, a female voice, enthusiastic to hear from him.

And this is the break, the switch from one world to another. Now he’s General Kenobi again; now the war is what matters. He isn’t himself anymore; he is the Jedi.

"General Kenobi!" she said. "How was Tatooine?"

"Hot," he allowed. "Sandy."

She laughed. "So I hear. I'll relay your ETA to the command on Belderon. They'll be pleased to see you."

Space slipped away around him.

All that said, I love this story. I really do. I pretty much went at this commentary the same way I like to babble for movies and TV, so there’s not a lot of, “I love that Dee did this” in here, although there is a fair amount of that as well. It’s more along the lines of, “Oh, Star Wars, this is what I think,” type rambling. Yeah, I don’t know why I’m putting this after all the commentary either.