he exhales again, warm mist clings to his lips.
someone once asked him if he’s ever been happy. on kamino, he answered. back when i was a child, that’s the only time i was happy. it always rained there, you know? but my father was there too. and he’d tell me how much he loves me, how badly he wanted me to be, how proud of me he was, even though i was just a boy. he told me the galaxy will know my name and he’ll be there to witness it, he will hear my name echo on every planet, every star. but it wasn’t just pride, it was a simple reassurance. in every cell he gave me, there was a reassurance of being loved. the galaxy didn’t want me to exist, but my father did.
his head sways lightly, side to side, a soft friction between layers of metal and skin.
❛ but i could have been happy a long time ago. if only i’d let you. ❜
what he has now, he had many years ago. but he didn’t realize it. trapped inside his armor, boba would only give luke pieces of him like a bait, something to keep him by his side. only enough to make him stay. never more. sometimes, he’d slip. sometimes he’d pull off his helmet, sit by luke and tell him stories, legends of his own hunts with mute trophies sneering at them from the walls of his ship. he’d let him in and the next morning, he’d regret every single word he said.
a hunter who keeps looking back is a slow hunter. one that will never catch his prey. so he had to let them both of them go. it’s just business. it’s not personal. years came by and boba realized he was wrong. it was personal. luke slipped his warm fingers in-between the cold plates, left soft impressions in his battered skin. like footsteps in the sand. he’d touch them, move burnt fingertips over his ribs and feel like something’s missing. someone’s missing.
sloppy, he’d think. sitting on his bed, all alone. got trapped, he’d think, hand still clutching to his side. exposed. did he leave some of his armorplates by luke’s bed? maybe they’re still there, gathering dust. sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. trapped. slowed down. forget. kill that feeling. no distractions. get up, get armored. go hunt. leave those plates. luke can have them as a trophy.
and that was his problem. viewing every relationship in terms of unfair exchange, a bad trade. vulnerability and softness, every touch meant giving something up. pushing a gun into the other’s hand. he’s too old for that now. so he removes his main crutch, his biggest shield– just to show how much he can give up now. because he’s wiser now, he’s more than just a fleshed shadow of a man who died before the empire even came to be. he breaks away the touch, both hands lift to clasp at both sides of his helmet. he lifts it up, takes it off. moves slow enough to let his eyes get used to natural sunlight and leave the artificial glow of his HUD behind. he walks into the trap himself, because he knows it is not what he thought it to be.
❛ i’m not gonna leave without letting you see me. my face. ❜
not my father’s, say his eyes. it’s my face, i realize that now.
shouldn’t he have promised the same? just here, dreading sound and movement that hadn’t sprung from the island itself. watch the growing, day by day, breath bated for the interruption. too long, and too far a distance between himself and the man left behind. ( the man they all knew better, who wouldn’t have just vanished without reason; wouldn’t have hid somewhere unfindable to anyone but— ) just here, someone who would have to know him even better than that. he could count the names on one hand. and still.
still, the irony isn’t lost on him. harsh words had become practical here, a defense built at the back of his mind for all those imagined conversations. this was scripted. this was bitterness long-boiling, self-fulfilling towards himself. don’t let the question linger on. answer it with the easy lie: take that armor with you, and there’s no place for it here. lie and lie because the lie is preserved.
and always, in the end, he couldn’t go through with it. a lie has to be delivered, and luke’s breathlessness was just the truth undercutting. nothing exposed that hadn’t already been seen. so not imagined; here in flesh and bone and shadow underfoot, and this much is deserved. this, if not that happiness spoken of. his head turns before eyes can be drawn away, though they fall to steady ground regardless. and if humor can be found anywhere in the vertigo—
‘now you give me too much credit.’
maybe it’s laughter too quiet for an angry shore, and maybe ( definitely ) the alternative still goes considered. happiness was one more promise never kept. not because he saw the gleaming on the horizon, but because no promises were made to begin with. this was deliberate. even then, in gratitude overflowing as those precious glimpses were offered, the truth of this. he holds his breath as he meets those eyes again.
here, the gratitude. it tugs at the corners, a smile resuming — or had it stayed since then, like the peace offering intended? had it stayed, at least, in memory?
fingers curl into a fist only to punctuate, gently, his words against that metal. thank you against a heartbeat, somewhere deep. but in the turning away, in the returning — always returning — truth spoke for him in the silence too. now it speaks louder, with a purpose that paints it final.
‘if only you could see what i do now.’ he left so much of himself behind, but this was kept. this alone. ‘what i saw then.’
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