Chapter Text
He hasn’t been getting better, not really. He knows that. Luminara knows it. Obi-Wan knows it. Everyone does.
Oh he eats, and he takes a sonic every day. His agreement with Obi-Wan holding out so the man doesn’t go running off to turn himself in. But his efforts are just surface level. They just makes him look like he’s doing better, at a glance.
But he isn’t. He’s snappish on missions, now he’s taking them again. He chafes against orders given, almost reflexively. He gets into arguments with his mission partners. Whether it’s Luminara or Aayla or Master Plo with Reva watching on with a frown.
Never Obi-Wan. They don’t go on missions together, not anymore. They hardly talk at all, in fact. Occasionally Luminara waves Obi-Wan over in the refectory and they awkwardly eat together. Luminara trying to draw them both into conversation while they avoid each other’s eyes. Or sometimes they have stilted conversations in the gardens, if they come across each other. Or Obi-Wan finds him to check how he’s doing. But it’s…
It’s nothing like it used to be. Their old relationship is gone. Any semblance of what they had before the collar seems unrecoverable. Anakin misses Obi-Wan, even when they’re in the same room together. He really, really misses him.
And that is what makes it so hard. To go from his entire life revolving around Obi-Wan, spending as much time as he can with him, to almost nothing at all, has thrown him into chaos. He has no baseline anymore.
And as much as he struggles to, he can’t return to his old baseline either, from before. Because that centred Obi-Wan as well, though to a far less extreme degree.
Everything in his life has become split into two parts. Before the collar, and after. It hadn’t even felt like that while Anakin was under its influence. Not to such an upsetting degree anyway. Because he couldn’t be upset about it.
But now he’s cut loose, and every little thing about the last several years can beat at the inside of his skull. Endlessly, and all at once. Losing the collar’s influence was akin to being gutted, and Anakin feels like he’s still slowly bleeding out on the floor months later.
He… he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know, anymore.
He’s in his bunk while in hyperspace on the way back from a solo mission that involved him getting to arrest a slaver. But not before that slaver got to spit poisonous words at him. Words others have said before, like the Queen of Zygerria. They had claimed that because Anakin was once a slave, he always would be. A statement he used to be able to deny, to be able to brush off. But no longer. It sits in his chest like a barb, lodged and not coming out. In his bunk that night… Anakin dreams.
He dreams about the sensation of a weighty, cold and smooth material encasing his neck. He dreams about the way it felt, the moment after the pain ceased and his mind bowed in submission. The rapture of his psyche cracking, and him being reborn anew.
The devotion, the need, bathes him and laps at him pleasingly, like the tide. It’s simple and easy and it feels so good to just know. Devotion and submission are ecstasy. The indistinct feelings and shape of that day, that moment that redefined his existence forever more, twist around him endlessly. The moment replaying over and over, stretching on and on in the dream. The pain and fear he actually felt in the moment distant and indistinct next to the magnified and exaggerated pleasure.
He wakes in his bunk with sticky sleep pants and the aftershocks of recent completion. He breathes loudly in the silence for a long second, just processing the reality he’s faced with. He blinks up at the grey and dull roof of his bunk, trying desperately to hold off the prickle in his eyes. After a few seconds he loses the battle and turns over to bury his head in his pillow as hot tears slide down his face. His cheeks burn and he heaves as he cries and cries and cries.
After a long time, his face aching and head throbbing weakly, he finally lifts his face away from his pillow. The tears have stopped, and his pants have grown cold and dry in an awful way.
That dream and how he’s woken from it are finally the last straw. He can’t deny it anymore.
He misses it.
The admission costs him dearly, even though it’s just in his own head. The overwhelming wave of self-disgust and horror that hits turns him nauseous. He rushes to his small, attached fresher, but bile doesn’t climb his throat.
He steps in front of the mirror once he’s sure he’s not going to be sick, and stares at his reflection. His face is a puffy mess, and his hair is tangled and sticking up in all directions.
The face staring back at him still has defiance and steeliness etched into its lines. It doesn’t look like the face of a slave.
Yesterday he would have said it wasn’t. That he’d escaped that. Twice. Despite all that’s been taken from him, despite all that the fight has cost him. He’d told himself he was free.
But it wasn’t the truth.
Or if it was, or is, then he’s not built for this. He’s not built to live without knowing where the limits of the cage are. He needs that certainty to know how to move, how to act.
His chest feels hollow, at that acknowledgement, but it’s the truth. It’s the truth.
The eyes staring back at him now are instantly recognisable. They have the look of so many downtrodden, hopeless beings he’s seen over the years. The ones he said he’d never be like, because his spirit would never break. Not if he didn’t let it.
He understands now. That was youthful naivety talking. That younger version of him just didn’t know the truth yet.
Anakin turns away from the mirror and switches the sonic to the waterfall setting. He stares down the drain as he wastes too much of his ship’s limited water supply cleaning himself. It cascades down his hair and over his body, eventually pooling beneath him.
Once a slave, always a slave.
He’s fought that slaver sentiment with everything he has, every day since leaving Tatooine. Believing with a scorching passion that it isn’t fact, that it can’t be. Because he’s needed his courage when faced with masters who smiled cruelly and saw something within him that he’s refused to acknowledge.
He finally confronts it, as he watches the water form a whirlpool around the drain, being sucked down, down, down.
Every single one of them was right about him. They could see the truth stamped plainly across his soul. He denied it, while they knew him better.
He scoffs bitterly in the silence, eyes hot and blurry.
His resolve strengthens as he reaches up to turn off the waterflow a minute later.
When he gets out and dries off he changes into fresh robes. And then, in the middle of the night cycle, changes the ship’s course.
Ilum isn’t very far out of the way. He probably won’t even have to explain his delay to the Council or anything. Which is preferable. He doesn’t want to raise Obi-Wan’s suspicions.
Obi-Wan will definitely try to stop him if he gets any idea of what Anakin plans to do. Most people would probably try to stop Anakin, realistically. But Obi-Wan is the only one alive who actually knows what happened to him years ago. Anakin’s still not told anyone. So Obi-Wan would be the only one to suspect this.
Anakin retrieves a new crystal from the ice caves, writing in his report that he lost his saber at the very end of his mission.
It’s an easily believable lie. He has been on a good luck streak since the end of the war, but his propensity for losing his lightsaber when he was younger is legendary.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers to his crystal as he floats it from the casing and replaces it with the new kyber.
He does feel bad about what exactly he’s going to do to it soon enough. But he doesn’t linger on it, knowing his guilt will be gone before it has the chance to settle in.
It takes him one more day of hyperspace travel to reach Coruscant and the Temple. In that time he doesn’t falter in his convictions, doesn’t doubt his decision.
He usually doesn’t, once he’s made up his mind.
But this is probably the most foolhardy idea he’s ever had. At least, that’s how someone else might see it.
To him, it’s simply inevitable.
He arrives at the Temple at an hour most beings are eating latemeal, so after some food he gives his report to the Council on his successful mission and retires to his room.
He doesn’t manage to sleep, spending hours staring up at the roof of his bedroom before giving up and getting out of bed.
He tinkers with a half finished project on his desk for a bit before getting up for the day properly.
He takes a sonic, he dresses himself in clean robes, and he exits his quarters at five in the morning.
The two halves of the collar are in the Temple’s vaults. Obi-Wan had them retrieved from their location off-world years ago. They’re under quite high security, but Anakin happens to know Obi-Wan’s codes. He’s not supposed to, obviously. And he doesn’t know them all. But he knows how to get into the vaults. Because Obi-Wan brought him down here to where the collar is kept in his attempts to reverse the process many times.
Anakin had watched and studied how Obi-Wan opened the way to the correct vault. He imitates the action exactly, and the Temple security grants him entry.
“Too easy.” He scoffs quietly as he steps inside. With security like that there are probably dozens of highly skilled beings in the galaxy who could break in and steal what’s stored here.
The two perfect halves of the void rest innocently on a pedestal in the middle of the otherwise empty and featureless room. They don’t even feel malevolent or Dark. They feel like nothing, inert. But Anakin believes. He knows in his bones.
Because they have to still be active. He needs them to be.
He raises his com and sends Obi-Wan a message to meet him here with the highest urgency flag attached. A minute later his com pings in response. And then several more times.
He doesn’t look at the messages, but he does reach out through the Force subtly. He can actually feel Obi-Wan’s apprehension and concern across the Temple. Obi-Wan, sensing Anakin reaching out, attempts to read him and ask what’s wrong without actual words. Anakin retreats and locks down his shields.
Even with his shielding, Anakin still feels the flare of annoyance—presumably at Anakin breaking into a part of the Temple he isn’t allowed in. Then that turns to understanding that’s he’s down in the vaults alone. That he is anywhere near the collar, and why he might be there. And then finally Obi-Wan is flooded with desperation and fear.
He attempts to plead with Anakin, but Anakin only raises his mental defences higher. After a second he lowers them just enough to sense Obi-Wan’s desperation crystallise into determination.
Knowing Obi-Wan is now on his way, probably already sprinting through the halls with the assistance of the Force, Anakin steps up to the pedestal.
He lifts the pieces and fits them around his neck, feeling them fuse and seal together. He sighs in a kind of relief, when they do. It’s still active and still holds enough power to work, after the last time.
Then he slowly retrieves the kyber from his pocket, feeling it’s song ringing somewhat sadly. Like a final hurrah. Like it knows.
Anakin lifts it to where the collar touches the back of his neck and feels the material part and swallow it hungrily. Then, for the second time in his life, he is treated to the feeling of one of his kyber crystals screaming out in the Force as the collar pollutes it ruthlessly.
It’s not a pleasant feeling to witness. But he does nothing more than grimace slightly at the discordant melody of a corrupted crystal playing so close to his skin.
Then he sinks to his knees facing the door in front of the pedestal and waits.
The Dark curls around the collar slowly, swelling little by little. Beyond the slow bloom of the Dark, Anakin can feel Obi-Wan approaching. He’s riotous in the Force. All anger and disbelief and terror. Anakin feels a touch of guilt at that, but is quickly distracted by a familiar squeezing sensation.
He retrieves the small blade he brought from his belt, and grips the handle tightly in his hand to ground himself.
A part of him rages at what he is doing, what he has committed to doing to himself. But it’s easy to ignore that little voice that cries betrayal to all of what he promised himself when he was a child on Tatooine. That voice is drowned out by a sweeping wave of relief.
Obi-Wan is bright and close now, he can’t be far. And he’s closing the last of the distance swiftly enough that Anakin knows his guess about Force enhanced running was correct.
When he arrives, he skids to a stop as the door opens for him. He freezes just inside the room and stares at Anakin kneeling with the collar around his neck.
“Anakin.” He sounds wretched.
Obi-Wan crosses the short distance between them in a few steps and drops to his knees. His hands instantly touching and feeling along the collar, like maybe this time there will be a seam or clasp he can open.
Anakin is shocked to see the glitter of genuine tears brimming in Obi-Wan’s eyes, though they don’t actually fall.
“Anakin no. Why would you-” Obi-Wan sucks in a breath, voice shaking, “You can’t do this. You were finally free of it. I’ll never be able to release you, you have to know that. You have to.”
His words are sobbed into the space between them as Anakin tilts his head forward to reveal the kyber touching his nape. Anakin finds one of Obi-Wan’s hands and presses the knife into it. Obi-Wan’s fingers are slack and unresponsive. Anakin grunts in irritation when Obi-Wan won’t take the knife from him.
He lifts his head and meets Obi-Wan’s… his Master’s gaze with his jaw clenched.
“I need this.” Anakin tells him.
Because that is what it comes down to. That is the truth, distilled.
Obi-Wan shakes his head, inhaling wobblily as he attempts to steady himself.
“No you don’t, you never did. You were good free. You were breathtaking and wonderful and blindingly bright. You don’t need this.” Obi-Wan tries to convince him. But the words are meaningless now, even if Anakin were inclined to believe them.
Because the collar is already around his neck, and neither of them have the knowledge of how to remove it without activating it. Anakin can see, in the depth of Obi-Wan’s eyes, the resignation that signals he knows this.
“You miss it.” Anakin whispers.
That is the truth as well. One that has turned his stomach every time he’s thought it as he’s tried to fight what it means, but now he just lets go and accepts it. And it’s so, so easy.
“No.” Obi-Wan refutes quickly, voice thick with revulsion.
Anakin has no idea if Obi-Wan actually believes that or not. The pressure of the collar is increasing and it’s getting harder to focus enough to read the minute details of the man’s expression.
“I miss it.” Anakin admits, instead.
“Why? You were so hurt, so disgusted by me. By what I’d done to you. How could you- how you could put that thing back on?”
How could you trap us both in this again?
It’s not a question Obi-Wan asks out loud, but Anakin thinks he means it anyway.
“It’s not meant to be undone. I…” Anakin swallows, trying to figure out how to phrase it, “It’s not meant to be reversed. What it does… it’s not built for that. I can’t be this way Obi-Wan, half in and half out. I need you. I need you, I need you, I need you.” He mutters it like a prayer as he leans forward, letting his head hit Obi-Wan’s chest.
His hair curtains his face as he once again presses the knife into Obi-Wan’s hand. Slowly, reluctantly, those fingers close around it.
“You didn’t have to do this, we could have… there could have been something else, without the collar.” Obi-Wan finally sounds resigned, which is only one step away from acceptance.
Not that Anakin has feared for a moment that Obi-Wan will let him waste away as his signature is devoured by the artefact. Obi-Wan would never do such a thing. He’s been prepared to bleed on the crystal since the moment he stepped into the room. All of the rest of this is just hot air. Whether it’s for the sake of Obi-Wan’s conscience or Anakin’s burden. Anakin doesn’t know which, and frankly doesn’t care.
“There is nothing else. There’s just you. I need this.” He hesitates for a breath.
Anakin wets his lower lip and gathers his courage and adds, “I want this.”
For some reason that is harder to say, even though it is ultimately less important than the needing. But it’s enough that Obi-Wan finally raises the knife. Both hands hang somewhere above Anakin’s neck.
No hot blood dripping down follows. Obi-Wan is still dithering.
“I want you to be everything Obi-Wan. You made me better. Made me make sense. I could finally be at peace, when you gave it to me. I need that. I need you. I…” Anakin takes a deep breath.
His eyes prickle slightly, threatening. But the impulse fades.
“I love you. Please.” Anakin finishes.
He knows it’ll be enough even before he hears Obi-Wan’s sharp intake of air.
A set of words Obi-Wan would never have imagined hearing from Anakin’s mouth without the influence of the collar sunk in. Words Obi-Wan must sense aren’t a lie. Even if Anakin has wished they were. Even if he has tried not to love this man, since waking in the Halls. Has wanted to stop. He can’t. And loving him like this, it’s killing Anakin. He needs the straightforwardness of the collar. He needs the betrayal and hurt and confusion to all disappear. To be replaced with a single minded focus he can use.
As Anakin hears the blade slicing through skin in the quiet room, Obi-Wan answers.
“I love you too.” The confession is whispered sorrowfully.
It only reaches his ears a second before the first drop of blood hits the crystal and the world fades away.
This time there is no pain. The pathway has already been driven open, the crystal does not have to fight him. Anakin is already bowing to its power. The Dark hooks in, filling every crevice and gap it can until Anakin can feel nothing beyond it. It’s almost meditative, without the pain and the fight. He just waits.
Once the Dark is everywhere and in him and just him, the thought begins to once again take shape.
That familiar feeling. Gravity aligning to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and not any planet core or star. Anakin’s Master is brighter, more awe-inspiring than any star in the entire galaxy. He means more, matters more than everything else combined. He is the centre of the universe. He is Anakin’s gravity well.
The pattern of thought is like an old friend, one he’s dearly missed. It’s so good to sink back into it without any struggle. Like in his dream, the entire thing is a kind of bliss.
The bliss of knowing how things will be. Of knowing he won’t have to carry the burden anymore, because Obi-Wan will be there.
Obi-Wan.
Anakin jerks as he comes back to himself. His eyes open to Obi-Wan’s face looking down at him sadly. His hair flopping forward as he leans down over Anakin.
He’s lying cradled in Obi-Wan’s arms, he quickly realises.
“You collapsed again.” Obi-Wan frowns, always worrying.
“It didn’t hurt this time.” Anakin replies, quick to reassure him.
He stares up at Obi-Wan and catalogues every detail of his face. He vaguely registers the collar splitting and his crystal shattering with a sharp cry in the Force. But he’s mostly focused on the wonder above him.
Obi-Wan even… looks different. He hadn’t quite realised, because it’s subtle.
There’s an almost glow, to him. Maybe Anakin’s perception is just warped, or he’s Seeing with the Force in a way he usually can’t. But it’s like a physical manifestation of just how important Obi-Wan is. How otherworldly and above their surroundings he is.
“I wish you hadn’t done this Anakin.” Obi-Wan says, and sighs terribly sadly.
And Anakin feels that itch, that swift need to fix it. It’s comforting. An uncomplicated and clear goal to follow through to.
There’s no uncertainty. No fear or anxiety anymore.
“I trust you, you’ll take care of me.” Anakin smiles.
It’s a small thing, but honest. Honest within the parameters of the collar which Anakin is finally accepting is good enough to just be honest, now.
The sadness doesn’t leave Obi-Wan’s face, but he attempts a shaky smile in return.
“Of course I will Anakin. Of course I will.” He says as he pulls Anakin’s face to his chest and just hugs him for a while.
Anakin doesn’t say anything else. He just lets Obi-Wan sublimate for a bit. He’ll have plenty of words of encouragement and comfort later, when his Master needs them.
“Master.” He sighs softly in relief.
He’s missed the way it feels on his tongue. The throb that accompanies it each time he says it or thinks it and all that it means between them like this.
Obi-Wan makes a quiet sound of hurt above him, and Anakin finally pulls away and up onto his knees. He crowds right back into Obi-Wan’s space and kisses him.
He does it without asking, without checking, because he knows Obi-Wan needs it like this. That he’s out of practice now. That the way things have been will have turned him scared to act the way he should.
Anakin aches for things to be how they were just before the collar’s influence was stolen from him. How comfortable and confident his Master was in giving him orders. But Obi-Wan won’t be like that, not yet. It’ll take time to get back to where they were, Anakin knows.
But they’ll manage it. Since Anakin has done this willingly, knowing fully what it entails, Obi-Wan will have an easier time reconciling it. At least eventually, anyway.
Obi-Wan kisses back for one long, wonderful second. And then he pulls back.
“We shouldn’t.” He mutters.
“You know that I love you. And I didn’t mean it in a kriffing platonic way.” Anakin snorts.
Obi-Wan scowls at him.
“None of this is right Anakin! None of it! How am I supposed to- you could barely stand me, before. And then you did this, what am I supposed to think?” He snaps.
He shifts, and then rises from his knees so he can pace away from the Knight. Anakin slowly and gracefully rises as well, just standing and watching his Master’s agitated steps. The way Obi-Wan clenches and unclenches his fists at his sides before reaching up to run a hand through his hair, utterly musing it. Obi-Wan cuts him a sharp, piercing gaze as his pacing freezes. That look begs for explanation, so Anakin gives it.
“You’re supposed to think I didn’t know how to reconcile missing it. You’re supposed to think that I hated myself for being disappointed when I woke in the Halls, free of it. That I couldn’t keep drowning in my self-disgust, and that it wouldn’t go until I finally admitted that I preferred me when you were in control. When you decided what the best version of Anakin Skywalker is. That I want that.” Anakin swallows, and lets saliva collect in his too-dry mouth.
“You’re supposed to believe that even without the collar’s influence, I hated seeing you miserable and guilty. And you were. But I didn’t know what words would fix it, not while I was trying to fight myself and what I wanted. You’re supposed to believe that I wanted both of us to be happy again, the way we were.” It’s easier to admit and say now the collar has taken his grief and self-hatred and shame away. Now that it has cleared his mind.
He’s not suffering anymore. He feels light. He feels good.
This is better than the pale imitation of freedom. Because that came with an endless deluge of pain he could not hold back. It came with nothing but doubt and fear. Anakin has always been ruled by his fear, for his entire life. Until the collar came along and took it away. Until the collar fixed that for him.
Obi-Wan steps up and searches his face. Like Anakin can hide the truth from him.
Well perhaps that is not fair, Anakin knows how to manipulate his state well enough to omit truths. He’s done that masterfully.
But he doesn’t need to anymore. Because he’s finally let himself know himself completely. And thanks to the collar, there is no shame to it. Just plain satisfaction and conviction.
Anakin Skywalker is not free. And he does not want to be. He didn’t want to be before, either. He hasn’t wanted to be a single day in the last seven years. And losing the collar’s influence didn’t give it back in the way he always assumed it would.
“You really wanted this, you really missed this.” Obi-Wan repeats, like he can’t believe Anakin’s words.
“Yes.” Anakin answers steadily.
Obi-Wan’s face spasms as he shakily raises a hand to the side of Anakin’s head, petting it through his hair. And Anakin realises he asked because he knows Anakin cannot be lying, now.
It seems Anakin is not the only one who has learnt to manipulate their circumstances, over the years. He doesn’t grin outwardly, but internally he’s smug.
Of course Obi-Wan is missing the key detail that the collar distorts the truth. That it did so years ago.
Something truly self-loathing crosses Obi-Wan’s face for a moment before a kind of ashamed relief overtakes his expression.
“Oh Anakin.” His Master sighs, and then pulls him into a deep kiss.
Anakin goes, utterly pliant. They slide back to their knees as they kiss and kiss and kiss.
They stay on the floor together for a long while, until Anakin’s knees ache from the uncomfortable angle he’s sitting at, and his stomach growls.
Obi-Wan slowly extricates himself and stands. He offers Anakin a hand. Anakin stares at it, and then up at him. He takes it and lets Obi-Wan pull him to his feet.
“Let’s go eat.” Obi-Wan says softly.
They make their way to the refectory side by side. No words pass between them, but in a sense none are needed.
Anakin actually sees Luminara give him a bright smile as she sits at another table with a Master Anakin can’t name at a glance. He smiles back at her, before looking back at his food.
While they eat quietly, with a new weight hanging over them, Anakin updates his entry on the mission roster from his com. Obi-Wan’s eyes flick to his own a few moments later when it pings. He stops, putting his utensils down as he draws it closer to the eye and studies the information he’s just received.
An update confirming that Anakin wishes to partner on missions with him, with priority for their placement together. Slowly his eyes raise to Anakin.
Anakin waits. He just waits to see his Master’s reaction.
Ever so slowly, like a flower Anakin remembers watching one icy morning on a mission when he was a Padawan, Obi-Wan smiles and warms in the Force. Unfurling with a gentle joy. It is still tinged with guilt, but it’s already less than it was.
Obi-Wan fills out his response and a minute later Anakin is being notified by the automated system that his appeal has been agreed to by the other Jedi he requested to partner.
They don’t say anything, just softly smiling at each other as they eat.
It’s a fragile peace, but Anakin can cultivate it, given time.