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ohgodmyeyes · 2 years

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So Long As You Enjoyed Them

Unable to see the stars through Mustafar's thick atmosphere, you confess to Darth Vader that you miss the view you once had from aboard the Executor.

Vader, in his infinite kindness, indulges you...

"Is there a problem?"

Vader's voice came to you suddenly from the entrance to your quarters, but it didn't make you jump: You'd known since early morning that he was finally on his way back to you. He'd been gone too long this time, you thought; it was late in the evening by now, and you'd spent practically the entire day anticipating his arrival.

Nonetheless, you were too absorbed in your own musings at that moment, gazing out your window, to so much as look back in his direction when you answered his query, "It's nothing new, Sir."

"Tell me," he insisted— never having been one to mince words. He didn't move from his spot in the doorway, although you could sense that he very much wanted to.

You heaved a sigh.

You truly didn't want to talk about it; at the same time, you knew he wasn't going to let it go.

"...It's that I can't see the stars from here, m'Lord," you admitted, before it could turn into an argument you were certain to lose. "I'm still not used to it."

To that, Vader fell predictably silent: It wasn't the first time you'd complained to him about the smoke in the sky here on Mustafar; he never did seem to know what to say about it. His present haplessness was a large part of why you now hotly regretted having been caught gazing out at it again— Vader liked to try to please you; when he couldn't manage it, he tended to grow frustrated quickly.

"Don't trouble yourself with it, Sir," you went on, hoping you sounded convincing enough to quell his typically-overzealous concern. "It's a fruitless lament; you and I both know there's nothing to be done about it."

"...Perhaps not," he slowly confessed, "but if you are suffering for it—"

"I'm not suffering," you promised him, finally managing to peel away from the large, heat-resistant windowpane through which you'd been caught skygazing in favour of looking at Vader himself. "I haven't 'suffered' even a moment since arriving, Sir, I can assure you."

"We've discussed honourifics, Captain," he reminded you, finally striding over to join you at the glass. "You are no longer required to make use of them. Additionally, I would strongly advise you to refrain from lying to me— particularly about your thoughts and feelings. Dishonesty serves no purpose here."

You still use them, you thought belligerently to yourself, of the honourifics. Then, aloud, "I'm not lying." You almost added yet another Sir to the end of your sentence, but managed to stop yourself... at least that time.

"Yes you are," he countered plainly, tilting his head to stare down at you through his mask. "I could feel your pain practically from the docking bay."

You paused. "...I apologize," you conceded, because he was right: There really was no point in lying to him, about your feelings or anything else. "My time on the Executor must simply have spoiled me." There were countless stars visible from Darth Vader's ship twenty-four hours a cycle; all you'd ever had to do to see them was peer out any one of a number of view ports. You'd grown rather accustomed to the privilege over the course of your assignment there— not realizing, of course, how very much you would miss it until it was taken from you.

Vader fell silent again, as if considering what to say.

You didn't dare interrupt him.

"The stars aren't visible from Coruscant, either," he seemed to settle on. "The city lights pollute the sky there as thoroughly as the smoke does here."

"That's true," you acknowledged. You, too, had spent time on Coruscant as a child; Vader knew of your shared experience, often seeming to latch onto it when he perceived too much distance between you. "Being assigned to your vessel was a surreal experience; for months, I could hardly pass by a port without stopping to stare."

"I know," he said, seeming to have gathered himself. "I observed you. Understand that when I first arrived on Coruscant as a child, I was also accustomed to being able to see the stars— on Tatooine, the sky was clear, and I used to admire them; even dream of exploring them. The irony, of course, being that finally reaching them largely meant losing sight of what made them so intriguing to begin with."

"...I'm sorry," you said, more than a little taken aback by his honesty. "I didn't realize."

"My intent is not to elicit pity, but to engender understanding."

"Thank you, Sir." You appreciated his sympathy, even if you hadn't expected it; you also winced upon realizing you'd called him the wrong thing again— although graciously, he didn't chide you for it this time.

Another long, admittedly tense moment of silence passed as you stood together, there at the window. Vader turned his gaze from you, and you turned yours from him; simultaneously, you each stared out at the sprawling homogeneity of the landscape.

A star or two in the sky would have at least done something to break up the monotony of the smoke and magma, you thought.

...Even in your head, you didn't mean to sound bitter.

"You must understand by now that your presence on Mustafar is in your own best interest," Vader said. It was less a question, coming from him, than it was a blunt statement of fact.

It was easy to forget how very simple it was for Darth Vader to peer into your mind.

"Your personal safety is of paramount concern to me," he went on, "and we've already established that I refuse to entertain any arguments to the contrary. Your place is here, at least for the time being— the condition of the sky notwithstanding."

"Yes— yes, I do understand," you said, venturing (perhaps unwisely) to peer back up at him as you spoke. "However, Sir... 'understanding' doesn't make me miss the stars any less."

Vader didn't return your gaze (he never truly did, when necessity dictated that he wear his mask)— but, if he could have, you suspected he might have sighed.

"I'm sorry," you began, "I shouldn't have—"

"How badly do you want to see them?" he interrupted you, as brusquely as ever.

"See what? You can't possibly mean—"

"The stars." He might as well have added 'you idiot' to the end of his statement, for the way he seemed to spit it out at you.

"Lord Vader, you yourself just said it wasn't safe for me to—"

"It isn't," he agreed, again before you had a chance to finish. "I am not suggesting that you leave the planet, Captain— or even my fortress, for that matter."

You shook your head. "I don't understand. Telescopes don't work; only the sensors can penetrate—"

"Quiet," he commanded. "I am not referencing a telescope."

"Then what—"

"Do you wish to view them or not?"

"Y— yes!" you stammered. "Yes, I do! I very much do wish to view them, Sir, but—"

"Then you shall."

He raised his hand— his right one, specifically— before the window: A grand-looking gesture, at least when somebody like Darth Vader did it. The hot, orange glow of the lava outside reflected off the dull sheen of his glove; his mask and the front of his armour took on warped hints of its hue as well. If nothing and no one else, you thought, this planet at least suited him; if you took any pleasure at all in its overbearing climate, it was that Vader seemed to glean some measure of comfort in its warmth.

Presently, he almost seemed to be drawing from it— even without looking, you'd have been able to feel the intensity of his determination as his mechanized fingers trembled under their leather sheath, and his chest heaved despite his suit.

You knew the Force well enough to know that it flowed through everything, but from Vader it rushed; as if bursting a dam, it bellowed out of him and into your consciousness, absolutely penetrating every inch of the room around you. It thrummed beneath your feet and bore down from the ceiling, closing in like a set of walls as he cultivated its strength; you half-expected your throat to tighten, or for your knees to buckle, but neither of those things happened.

All you could feel were heat and life: Raw life, coarse and frenzied; the sheer power of the living, breathing, melting stone that ebbed and flowed all around you.

"...What are you doing?" you murmured under your breath, as transfixed by Vader's appearance in that moment as you were by his essence merging with what he'd harvested from the planet to flood your senses. You always had been able to detect the subtle flicker of his eyes from behind his visor, but right now, they didn't 'flicker' at all.

He couldn't have answered you with words, even if he'd tried; nonetheless, your attention was then drawn outward, to the space beyond your window. It was, at first, only the barest hint of movement amongst the clouds that caught your eye; you turned your head anyhow, because again— save for the catatonic whirling of the infinite seas of smoke and lava— the landscape here didn't tend to change very much.

Right now, though, the sky almost appeared to dance, its typically-predictable movements having turned haphazard in a way that was both peculiar and mesmerizing. Under different circumstances, you might have believed you were witnessing the formation of a particularly violent storm; alas, you understood Vader and the breadth of his power well enough to know that what you were witnessing had nothing at all to do with the weather.

"Sir!" you exclaimed, stepping back from the glass in awe as the blackened halves of the sky finally tore apart from one another to reveal to you the long-withheld majesty of space itself. Your eyes filled with tears, and you felt yourself gape; it had been so long since you'd last seen it that you could scarcely believe it was really there— but what else could possibly have been hiding, behind all of those ugly, ash-laden clouds?

You glanced in Vader's direction. You knew he could feel you looking, but he still didn't speak; his hand continued to tremble faintly, and he dug his boots sharply into the floor.

For all his effort, the steady metronome of his breathing was the only sound you could hear.

Suddenly, one of his heels slipped on the polished stone; by then, though, the spectacle outside the window had reclaimed your attention, and you didn't register the struggle he put up to regain his footing. The clouds and smoke receded to the very edges of the landscape, replaced nearly as though you were back on the Executor with the stars, their dust, and everything else that circled them.

Nearby systems; far-flung constellations; and tiny, unidentifiable points of light of every imaginable variety infiltrated the blackness, all just as magnificent as you'd remembered.

Those tears in your eyes began to obscure your vision; you blinked them away in haste, because it was obvious that Vader couldn't maintain this (whatever 'this' was) for very much longer.

"Lord Vader," you began again, hoping to express something in the spirit of gratitude but instead only managing to stammer. "S-Sir, I... I...."

You noticed something that looked like a moon, then, as Vader's tinny breathing began to grow hoarse. It might not actually have been a moon, you thought to yourself; you didn't even know how many of those Mustafar had— but whatever it was, it was beautiful.

His foot slipped on the stone again, causing him to falter, but you didn't notice that.

What you did notice, from behind that distinctly lunar-looking object you'd already spotted, was the sight of a comet, or at least something like one: It zipped by too quickly for you to properly discern it, somewhere far away from the planet.

It was as quick as anything— but ten times as lovely, in spite of its smallness. No one had ever taught you to wish on shooting stars, because shooting stars couldn't be seen from Coruscant: The only thing you knew to do with them was look.

...It was in the midst of your 'looking' that the clouds and smoke finally swept in to converge again, the galaxy and everything in it disappearing behind them.

Quicker and far less graceful than their retreat, the clouds' knitting themselves together was jarring; you stumbled back from the window almost as if in fright, feeling dreadfully and suddenly empty.

Frozen in place, you stared out at the newly-restored landscape until a hard-sounding thwack rang from inside the room.

"Sir!"

Your knees were next to impact the tile, as you rushed across the floor and dropped to Vader's side. You couldn't see his face, but it wasn't safe to take off his mask here; unable to read the output on his chest box, you strained to scoop his upper half into your arms.

His suit was heavy— almost too heavy, at least for somebody like you.

Grace eluded you as you moved, but it didn't stop you from squinting through the red haze of his visor to try and catch a glimpse of his eyes. You could see that they were open; maybe only barely, but open all the same.

"Lord Vader," you pleaded, not about to let yourself feel relieved until you heard him speak to you.

"The... honourifics," he reminded you, in a voice that cracked and fizzed like a bad transmission. Was he being irreverent? Perhaps— but again, you didn't dare risk removing his mask.

"I— I'm sorry," you said, because what else was there? You loved him, but you hated yourself; how much additional damage had he just wrought against his own body, in the name of indulging your sad whims? "I never meant for you to—"

"Were they as beautiful as you remembered?" he interrupted, through a long, pneumatic hiss.

"Of course they were!" you promised, pulling him as close to your chest as you could manage. "They were magnificent! But—"

"'But' nothing," he insisted. "So long as you enjoyed them."

"What about you?" you begged— but, having fallen unconscious by then, Vader didn't answer you.

The lights on his chest began blinking next, with enough frenzy to frighten you. Incapable of reading their output, you grappled with the decision of whether to leave him to go for help, or cradle him in your arms in the hope that he would wake of his own accord; soon, though, your concern won out, and you found yourself lowering him as gently to the floor as you could.

A tender, futile kiss to the top of his helmet and a longing gaze over your shoulder were all you had to leave him with, as you broke into a run to fetch one of his servants. Briefly, the restored darkness of the sky outside your window commanded your attention; guilt and renewed bitterness gripped you at the sight of the smoke and ash, but you ignored them, because you feared there wasn't any time not to.

Just like Vader's had minutes before, your own boots slipped helplessly on the polished tile as you sped down the corridor. You fell— only to catch yourself with one elbow before scrambling desperately back to your feet, mired in fresh pain and blinded by your own tears.

The two of you would never talk about the stars again.

#darth vader #darth vader x reader #may the fourth be with you #that's not how the force works #poor anakin

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