Phantom Days

by auldays

Summary:

He used to be who people were asking for when they said ‘Anakin’. It’d been his life, every day, before time left him standing still, and the universe kept spinning on without him.

Now he was just stuck, frozen in place. Watching life play out with decisions he hadn’t made, and acting the part to not mess it up for anyone else.

Because it did belong to someone else. Maybe even multiple selves.

Just not him.

Notes:

i’m not sure how well this works as a standalone, but i did try my best to keep it coherent-ish. the main thing to know is that i don’t retread too much here explaining terms like ‘void’ or ‘headspaces’. hopefully it’s not too confusing.

happy reading ~

It was happening again.

That ink-like feeling in his chest, the sneaking suspicion Anakin got whenever he paused long enough to actually process anything that was happening around him.

Nothing felt real.

Days blurred. Passed. Anakin felt like a rudimentary droid just going through the motions for all of them. The same thing, day in and day out.

Wake up. Check in with Rex, then the Council. Insert whatever blur of a mission he was sent on—because Anakin rarely recalled any of them in any spectacular detail. Even had to read his own mission reports sometimes to try and jog something loose from his memory.

Then debriefings, talking to the same rounds of people again—that time in reverse order—sleep. Wake up—

It was just an endless cycle. Only worse. The days weren’t even consecutive.

He couldn’t quite describe it as looping necessarily. Just a constant sense of ‘coming to’ followed by a horrid wave of déjà vu. That realization of ‘Oh, he was really here again. Still doing the same things. And it wasn’t a dream somehow’, and then having to reconcile that time had actually passed during that fog of everything.

A few weeks of that, and then more pieces of the illusion would start chipping away.

Maybe it wasn’t the world that wasn’t real, maybe it was just him. Just Anakin.

Everything around him was carrying on just fine. Like people were actually experiencing the progressing of days—yesterdays, todays, tomorrows—all in sequential order. Terms like last week and next month seemed to hold real tangible meaning for everyone else. They weren’t worrying about whether their past or future would disappear without prior warning.

Anakin couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

‘I’ll speak with you tomorrow’, Obi-Wan had said that tonight, at the end of their call. Anakin had numbly parrotted back the same phrase, because that was what he was supposed to say in response. Not shake the holoprojector in frustration. Shout back questions at his Master that he shouldn’t even need to ask.

What does that mean? Do you really close your eyes at night not terrified how much time will pass before they open again? Do you really not fear that every time you blink you’ll be in the exact same spot, and yet months have somehow gone by?

He hadn’t asked Obi-Wan those things, of course. There was no reason to; they’d already gone over his time loss. Found answers.

(They were still finding answers, in all actuality. It was a work in progress.)

But still, Anakin was spiraling. Knowing that the days were being lost to different versions of himself didn’t change the fact that his own life was narrowing down to little isolated pockets of time. Just disconnected, scattered islands—all surrounded by the black sea that was void.

And so, it continued to snowball and compound in silence. All within the privacy of his own mind. The illusion of reality kept fracturing, falling away piece by piece, as with his increasingly tenuous grasp on it.

Maybe it wasn’t Anakin that wasn’t real, maybe it was just him—this ghost among ghosts in Anakin’s body. Piloting it around. A puppeteer in possession of too many strings.

It’d… make sense, really, if that were the case. That was what he felt like most days anyway—a ghost—ever since he’d woken up with his arm missing and his braid not brushing his neck. Ever since he’d stopped being able to look at himself in the mirror. 

Nothing felt real, because nothing felt like his. Because none of it was his. This wasn’t his body, his life, his timeline, even if he did still answer to—

“Anakin?”

He blinked. Then turned when he realized he was simply staring at the floor.

Obi-Wan’s room, the Negotiator, writing joint mission reports, sharing dinner. The present came flooding back.

Here. Again.

Anakin sighed quietly.

Still.

“Yeah?” he answered. He tried to sound as casual about it as possible, less like he was currently having an existential crisis of the highest order.

Obi-Wan eyed him warily for several seconds from where he sat hunched over his desk, datapad now forgotten.

“Are you alright?” his Master asked tentatively. He offered nothing more in the way of context. Just wore that curious stare.

“… Yes?” Anakin replied hesitantly. He didn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but his unease raised the inflection for him. The uncertain tone wasn’t lost on the elder Jedi.

“You say that like you’re not sure it’s correct, dear one.”

Anakin blanched. “I, um…” Well, he didn’t really have a response for that.

“Why do you ask?” he deflected instead. Stalling, buying time—fishing for context so he could answer how he was supposed to.

Obi-Wan merely glanced down at Anakin’s lap, then back up to make eye contact again.

“You’re eating left-handed.”

Anakin peered down at the bowl held in his right hand—gloved, covered, out of sight. Then he looked at the spoon in his left. His knuckles were white from how hard he was gripping the utensil in an attempt to hold it steady.

(He was failing. Miserably. He was very much right-handed.)

“Oh,” Anakin said lamely. An ‘I hadn’t noticed’ tried to follow, but he couldn’t bring himself to utter such a boldfaced lie for some reason.

Maybe Obi-Wan would let it go and write it off as spacey. Maybe it wasn’t written so blatantly on his face that he was in a waking dream right now.

Anakin’s gaze stayed locked timidly on the bowl in his lap. He forced his grip to relax and returned the spoon to it, idly stirring the stew and its contents. Nervous fidgeting. The silence between them stretched uncomfortably before his Master deigned to break it once more.

“Am I perhaps… joined by my Padawan this evening?” Obi-Wan posited carefully. His tone was even and calm, a tacit way of telling Anakin he didn’t expect any specific response out of him.

Okay if no, okay if yes—up to him whether to out himself or not.

It was a type of question his Master only asked when he thought he might be in the presence of someone else. Someone identifiable.

Anakin’s hand stilled. His eyes all but bored a hole through the ground as those two words kept repeating over one another in his head.

My Padawan, my Padawan, my Padawan—

And yet. His gloved hand, his bare neck, the curls brushing his nape. The hilt he hadn’t designed clipped to his belt.

So long since he’d heard those words, and far too much passed time.

My Padawan, my Padawan, my Padawan, my Padawan—

His eyes stung.

Anakin blinked rapidly and sniffled a bit, turning his face away towards the other side of the room, enough so that his Master’s silhouette wasn’t in his periphery anymore. A childish move maybe, but he couldn’t handle the knowledge that he was being looked at for the moment. Being seen and perceived. Not like this.

Teeth dug harshly into his bottom lip as he bit at the inside of it; Anakin willed the pathetic thing to not start quivering.

Pull it together for Force’s sake.

His voice was gruff when he spoke.

“Joined by the ghost of him, maybe,” Anakin croaked. The response was little more than a hoarse rasp.

(They were damning words though, regardless of their volume. It was admitting he wasn’t who he was supposed to be, separate from the baseline. Another headspace.)

Something prodded gently at his shields—familiar, benevolent. Asking to be let in. It retreated without angst when Anakin instinctively wrapped each protection tighter around himself. 

“Do you feel like a ghost?” Obi-Wan prompted after a moment, equal parts as soft-spoken as before.

Not startled, not overreacting. Just listening.

(Or, trying to—as long as he was willing to talk.)

Anakin struggled to swallow around the lump forming in his throat.

“I don’t feel like I exist,” he whispered reluctantly.

A longer pause then.

“May I ask how so?”

It wasn’t judgmental, but it didn’t need to be. Anakin was doing plenty of that for himself, and he flinched accordingly.

“I… feel like I keep getting dropped further ahead into a timeline that isn’t mine,” he said slowly. “I feel like… like I’m wearing another man’s skin and acting out life for him, because it’s not supposed to be me in here.”

He was talking about his body like it was some mech suit to be worn and taken off. He wondered if his supposed ‘others’ felt as insane when articulating any of this.

Headspaces, he reminded himself chidingly. Not others, but headspaces. That was the term they’d decided on.

(Because others was othering. And alters was just… insulting. As if they weren’t pieces making up one whole, but alternatives to some ‘original Anakin’. As if there’d ever been an original in the first place.)

A voice pulled his attention back to center.

“Has it always felt like that?” Obi-Wan asked. “Like you’re not supposed to be here?”

Anakin laughed humorlessly to himself. The sound was horribly bitter. Sharp. Closer to a scoff.

“No. Or—maybe some days, but… i-it wasn’t all the time. Nothing like now.”

He made some vague gesturing motion at his right arm, face twisting up into a disgusted sneer as he did so. “It wasn’t like that before—this. Days didn’t use to have gaps between them.”

(They had. It just hadn’t been as noticeable for him back then—not as severe, not as constant—but he didn’t remember that.)

The rest of the words Anakin wanted to say sat on the tip of his tongue, burning, but remained unsaid. They were too hard. Too personal.

He used to be who people were asking for when they said ‘Anakin’. It’d been his life, every day, before time left him standing still, and the universe kept spinning on without him.

Now he was just stuck, frozen in place. Watching life play out with decisions he hadn’t made, and acting the part to not mess it up for anyone else.

Because it did belong to someone else. Maybe even multiple selves.

Just not him.

His Master didn’t speak for quite some time. The lack of feedback or reaction to bounce off of was eating Anakin alive. He nearly gave in and faced the other once more when a voice halted him.

“When did the gaps start? Or, when did time turn wrong?” Obi-Wan pondered aloud. “I’d assume you’re not over nineteen.”

What Padawan am I speaking to right now? Where did you and I last leave off? How old are you?

A fair question to ask when they all used the same name. It was one of the few clean cut differences between them. Anakin fell silent as he contemplated.

Nothing felt right after nineteen. After his arm. But birthdays had stopped registering as his well before that. Recalling his physical age took reaching for memories he didn’t have after a certain point.

“Seventeen?” Anakin ventured. It came out again as an unintended question. “I remember flashes of eighteen, but… i-it never quite…”

Reality had already started tearing by then; dismemberment was just the final nail in the coffin. Then he couldn’t handle daily life anymore.

Anakin sighed and shook his head. 

“I’m seventeen,” he asserted.

Damning and freeing. A pit settled in his stomach at the same time a small weight lifted from his chest.

Seventeen.

It didn’t feel wrong. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

The couch dipped. Anakin startled and whirled back around, only to be stopped by a cup being held out to him. Steam rose from it in semi-opaque swirls up towards the ceiling, and an achingly familiar scent hit his nose. Anakin faltered.

“Tea?” he said, confused. Obi-Wan hummed affirmingly.

“Jasmine leaf, yes.”

Anakin felt numb as he set down his bowl of half-eaten dinner, accepting the prepared drink from his Master instead. He purposely held it with his left. Felt the heat radiating off of polished ceramic.

It was fresh. He hadn’t even heard Obi-Wan get up to make it.

“Not caf?” Anakin found himself asking, bewildered. His Master hadn’t bothered to offer him tea in so long. Certainly didn’t go through all the trouble of steeping it anymore, not when he knew it was going to be declined almost invariably.

(Caf, juice, water, milk, anything carbonated, alcohol, dehydration, then tea—in that order. That was Anakin’s hierarchy of drink preferences.)

Obi-Wan settled into the opposite side of the couch with his own mug, datapad now propped neatly on the armrest. A calculated amount of distance remained between them, intent on leaving Anakin his own space.

“If I recall correctly, you didn’t swear off tea until after you were Knighted,” Obi-Wan mused amicably, a fond smile pulling at his lips. “And it’d hardly be responsible of me to give my Padawan caf at this hour.”

He nodded briefly at the cup in Anakin’s hand then, undeterred by the doe-eyed stare he was beginning to be fixed with. “There is still caffeine in that. Just not as much.”

Of course not. Because this was their ‘compromise’ tea.

Not necessarily Obi-Wan’s favorite, but far from his least, and one of the few kinds Anakin had ever been able to stomach without gagging.

His Master really kept it stocked in his room, aboard a warship, when they hadn’t shared said drink together in years.

Anakin hesitantly brought the cup to his lips and took a small sip, bracing himself for the worst lest he retch. It sat just short of scalding on his tongue. Flowery, but light—every bit as unremarkably bland as he’d remembered.

Dirt, but nostalgia was doing wonders for the taste.

Force, he’d actually managed to be nostalgic over tea. Of all the stupid things.

His eyes threatened to sting again, and Anakin set his jaw. Stubbornly ignored the phantom brush of the braid at his neck. He was not going to cry over wet leaves.

(And yet it was still an emotion. Wistful, sentimental, homesick—grateful. It was the closest thing to human he’d felt in months. Years, technically. He was actually being seen.)

Corporeal. Existing.

He could almost imagine it for a moment: coming home from evening sparring, freshly showered, standing elbow-to-elbow in the kitchen. Both bickering about what to cook, because they liked having inconsequential things to banter over—

Warmth. Damp cheeks.

He was crying over wet leaves.

A hand met his shoulder, another easing the cup from his hands and setting it safely off to the side. Anakin hiccuped wetly and didn’t resist as he was pulled into an all too familiar protective bear-hug. Then the floodgates were open.

“Damn you,” Anakin cursed, hoarse, pressing closer to his Master all the same because the words held no heat; he just hated crying. “I don’t even like tea,” he sobbed miserably. “Tastes kriffing awful—”

“Shh, I know,” Obi-Wan soothed, murmuring quietly. “It tastes like dirt and wet leaves. You’d rather eat sand. There are speeder fumes with better aftertastes—I know, Padawan. I know.” He rested his cheek atop bronze curls as the younger all but burrowed into his chest, gently rocking them both back and forth. Anakin continued to shake and sob, that numbing veil of void cracking just enough for repressed grief to start spilling over.

He mourned things: the stolen days gifted to everyone else, the lost timeline that wasn’t coming back, his shrinking windows of consciousness, his static sense of age, his non-amputated arm. He shed tears for all of it until there were none left to give.

(Not resolved or processed, not by a long shot, but it was a start. It was finally putting names to inexplicable hurts.)

If asked, Anakin would never admit he’d proceeded to cry for a humiliating length of time—regardless of Obi-Wan’s numerous assurances that it was okay, that it wasn’t embarrassing, that he didn’t need to apologize for being upset. Not for things like this.

‘No, I’m not disappointed with you’, ‘No, I don’t think any less of you’, ‘No, I don’t think you’re pathetic’—the responses blended together eventually. Because Anakin was scarcely uttering more than thinly veiled rewordings of please don’t leave me.

He could only assume Obi-Wan picked up on that, and rather quickly too, despite humoring him with answers for as long as he did. They lapsed into the final stretch of his sobbing when Obi-Wan simply bookended a statement with ‘I’m sorry you were alone so long, young one’.

Which Anakin didn’t have a response for. So he just silently cried until his lungs stopped heaving.

He didn’t move once he was finished, and Obi-Wan didn’t force him to. Lowering his shields just barely saw Anakin met with unwavering patience, and so he took the opportunity to stay huddled close, hiding his face in his Master’s robes like he used to when he was an actual youngling. Childish. But comforting.

So comforting, in fact, that Anakin remembered little else after that. There was a pulsing behind his eyes—separate from the headache he’d given himself crying—and it made them grow heavy-lidded, gradually drooping shut with glacially slow blinks. Fatigue set in, and then he started feeling small.

But that last part wasn’t his.

Void swept in quickly after, and Anakin would later assume that he’d fallen asleep, crashing overnight on his Master’s couch while another headspace took over the next morning and beyond. He’d be half-right and half-wrong.

Any whisper-soft murmurings of little one or Moondrop were in one ear and out the other. Disembodied, echoing, without context—that was just how so many things were while drifting in void. They weren’t memories that were going to stick with him anyhow.

What did matter was that the next time Anakin came to enough to be conscious of it—weeks later—he had words to articulate what was happening. And once he worked up the courage to say something, discreetly pulled Obi-Wan off to the side after mission debriefings. A nearly emptied cup of jasmine tea was being nursed in his hands not an hour later.

(He still thought it tasted like dirt, frankly. But he wanted it to, because that was what was familiar.)

It was something uniquely his. Not anyone else’s. His absence would be noticed should he not surface again for whatever reason. That was enough of an anchor in reality for now. Enough to feel like he existed with permanence.

It was a starting point; they would work on it.

Notes:

these are actually pretty therapeutic to write i’ve realized, so i think i’ll add oneshots here and there as the inspiration strikes me. it’s interesting to think about how certain traits would manifest with Anakin.

thank you for reading! ♡

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 3 of That Black Sea, Void