fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

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!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

There were chairs and tables set up all across the lawn; some were by the bonfire, for the people who wanted to be warm and central to everything else at the picnic, and some were set farther away from the action, for the people who wanted more peace and quiet.

There was no escaping the glitter though. Sorry, but not really.

[OCD is up! This is the picnic post for general mingling. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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For a brief moment-- well, a moment of indeterminable length, as he hadn't the faintest how long it was-- Obi-Wan considered reaching for his lightsaber.

But there was no malice and hatred emanating from Anakin now. That, in and of itself, knocked him off balance. Was this a vision? He knew with sudden, perfect clarity that this was why Qui-Gon had guided him here.

It would have been helpful had Qui-Gon given him even the faintest idea of what to do when he got to... here. Staring at Anakin, with Anakin staring at him like twin gaping fish.

His chest hurt.

He let this feeling pass into the Force.

The tenseness in the limb that had wanted to go for his lightsaber vanished, but his stance did not relax. With that, sense returned. He could not stand here indefinitely, and he would not run.

With those options stricken from consideration, there was only one path left to him: the steady walk towards where Anakin - vision or otherwise - stood.

Anakin planted his feet, anticipating a fight, but his hand didn't twitch toward his lightsaber hilt. He bit his lower lip when he felt Obi-Wan's emotions before schooling himself into a neutral expression that would fool almost anyone else.

So much for the hope that he was coming in before Order 66...

His eyes stayed locked on Obi-Wan's face, half stubbornness and half a starved need to see these features again.

Anakin had never been good at letting things go.

It was a remarkably short walk, considering. Obi-Wan had half-expected it to stretch on like much of the past few minutes.

He stopped within speaking distance, but no closer. He looked entirely at ease now; a talent he had picked up a long time ago. He only wished it brought the serenity he was supposed to feel - that he thought he had finally embraced. Instead there was pain, confusion, sorrow and caution, spiraling and feeding into each other, disorienting him. Tucked away behind shields, surely, but he held no illusions about how well they would work if this was Anakin in the flesh.

"Anakin," he said evenly, "Now this is a surprise."

To put it mildly.

Anakin let out a choked laugh that was closer to a sob than he was entirely comfortable with and rubbed his hand over his eyes. "You always have a way with words," he said.

Speaking in the present tense was harder than he'd expected.

"No wonder the front office got evasive about me seeing the new teaching roster."

None of that made any sense at all.

Then again, neither did Anakin being here in one piece and, clearly, not languishing in dark side energy. It felt like a piece of wishful thinking at best - wishful thinking he shouldn't even be entertaining. Or wishing.

It didn't help that that laugh still made some part of him ache to soothe some of the hurt.

And here Obi-Wan had thought the days of being at odds with himself were over. He'd been blind to Anakin's descent before; whatever old instincts raised their heads, caution was a better counsel. "What is this place?" he asked, as he wrapped his thoughts in tighter shields. "And what are you doing here?"

Anakin wrapped his cloak around himself more tightly, needing a bit of comfort from it. "This is Fandom," he said after a slightly awkward pause spent reacquainting himself with the lines around Obi-Wan's eyes. "An interdimensional nexus and high school for mostly troubled and sometimes superpowered teenagers. I'm the Dean of Students. Sometimes I teach ethics."

And he waited for Obi-Wan to lose it.

"You're an ethics teacher."

Anakin Skywalker, nascent Sith Lord only what felt like yesterday, was an ethics teacher.

Anakin.

(Who would, admittedly, know something about troubled teenagers.)

( ... who had murdered so many of them, at the Temple.)

The sheer absurdity of the situation caught up with him in a flash, passed through him, and then into the earth under his feet.

"They let you near their younglings," he said, and immediately regretted it. "You must have made some grave leaps in your understanding of ethics indeed."

The younglings comment was a direct gut shot, and pain flashed in Anakin's eyes for a moment before he shoved it aside.

"Maybe some," he replied, staring at his boots. "I've been teaching almost a decade now. I think I have more patience than I did when Ahsoka was my Padawan."

As much as Obi-Wan still maintained he shouldn't let their past inspire undue comfort, he now cautioned himself against letting hurt speak for him.

If only this conversation were less surreal. If only anything Anakin was saying made any sense at all.

He reached into the Force for a measure of calm. "And you have been here for a decade. Of course you have," he said. "Strange, then, that in my recollection it has scarcely been a year since you murdered your way to Mustafar."

(So much for calm.)

That verbal foray sent Anakin reeling back a step. "Different multiverses," he murmured, not tacking on the almost instinctive "old friend."

"I'm not who you remember any longer," he said, eyes sad. "Hopefully you'll stick around a while to realize that."

Obi-Wan's mouth maintained a thin line, his brow furrowed in a frown, for a few moments more.

"You were not who I remembered the last time I saw you," he said. The expression faded, and he stroked his beard in an idle, unconscious gesture as he looked at Anakin. "Different multiverses, then. But you do recall the same events I do."

Anakin's emotions surged behind tight shields. "Probably," he said. "Big events tend to echo across the multiverse."

"I see," Obi-Wan said.

(Between the two of them, in the Force, they had to resemble a set of armadillos by now.)

He dropped his hand by his side and fell quiet, studying Anakin's face.

It was... a relief... to see a version of it not twisted by hate, but now he was at a loss.

Anakin's eyes met Obi-Wan's again, stubbornly refusing to show fear or shame. "What brings you here?"

"A conversation with an old friend," Obi-Wan said vaguely, "who insisted my coming here would be important for reasons he refused to divulge."

Qui-Gon must have known this was who he'd find. Or perhaps there were other things in store for him yet.

"So a Jedi," Anakin surmised wryly. "No one else is that unhelpful and vague."

The instinct to return that comment with a sarcastic one of his own was strong, but it also felt... inappropriate, under the circumstances.

Obi-Wan fixed him with a mild look, instead. "All was revealed in time, with patience," he said.

Anakin rolled his eyes--old habits hadn't died. "Of course it was, Master."

Now there was something Obi-Wan hadn't seen... in some time, yes.

He folded his hands into his sleeves again. "That is all I have to say on the matter," he said mildly. "Perhaps we should resume this conversation somewhere less crowded. Later."

This island did stir his curiosity, and he needed time to calm his feelings.

Never mind not wanting to be put in an emotionally compromised position in front of a herd of teenagers.

Half of Anakin was just as eager to disengage, to retreat and tend to reopened wounds.

The other half wanted to crush Obi-Wan in a hug and beg forgiveness.

He went with the less humiliating option: retreat. "Perhaps," he agreed, nodding. "There are plenty of others who need my attention today. The hotel is adequate lodging if you need a place to stay."

"Then I will go there, for the time being," Obi-Wan said.

He wondered privately if perhaps he should find some way to care for his eopies overnight. Then again, he had left them plenty of feed. "You will find me there. Tomorrow."

He did not trust this Anakin enough to meet him anywhere but on his own chosen ground.

Anakin rubbed the back of his neck, nodding. "I'll be there."

And if he sounded both a little too eager and a little too defensive, well, he was.

Anakin still wore his emotions on his sleeve, in his way. Obi-Wan wasn't certain whether or not that was a comfort.

"May the Force be with you," he said formally, and took one more look at Anakin's face before turning his back.

May the Force be with me.

Anakin closed his eyes and reached out in the Force for one more brush against Obi-Wan's steady presence.

He'd missed it more than he'd ever allowed himself to realize.

Blowing out a frustrated breath of air, he tucked his hands up under his cloak and stalked off in search of more coffee.

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Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

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