I'll Pretend Being With You Doesn't Feel Like Drowning
Anakin Skywalker x female reader
You love Anakin Skywalker more than life itself. But lately as he distances himself from you, loving him feels like losing yourself.
Warnings: ANGST, heartbreak, kind of manipulation?? (let me know if there is anything else).
Word Count: 3.4k
Masterlist
You didn’t notice when the drowning began.
Not really.
Not in a way that felt obvious or nameable.
At first, it was just a ripple, a faint tremor beneath the surface of what used to be beautiful. Barely there. The kind of thing you tell yourself is just your imagination. Just the weight of a long day. Just the shadow of war creeping in where love once lived.
It was the way Anakin’s smile no longer reached his eyes, how the brightness behind them flickered out, like a dying star, leaving something hollow in its place. It was the way his hands, once so steady and sure when they cupped your face, now trembled when he thought you weren’t looking. It was the silence that settled between you where laughter used to live, thick and suffocating, as if words had become too heavy to carry.
It was how he stopped asking how your day was.
How he started leaving earlier. Coming home later.
How he kissed you like he was apologizing.
How he held you like you were already slipping through his fingers.
You told yourself it was fine. Just a phase.
The galaxy was burning, of course it would take its toll.
Of course it would bleed into the spaces between you.
You told yourself he still loved you.
That he was just tired. Overworked. Overburdened.
That if you just held on a little tighter, stayed a little quieter, waited a little longer, it would pass.
You told yourself this wasn’t drowning.
That you weren’t gasping for air every time he looked at you like a stranger.
You told yourself the man who loved you still lived somewhere beneath the surface of those storm-dark eyes.
You told yourself all of this, every day, like a prayer.
And still, he came home reeking of smoke and secrets.
He kissed you without meaning it.
He touched you like he was trying to remember something already lost.
And still you stayed, still loved him.
Even as it pulled you under.
Even as the water rose.
Even as you realized too late that the tide had already taken you, quietly, mercilessly, the moment you stopped asking him where he went at night.
The moment you stopped asking who he was becoming.
You didn’t notice when the drowning began.
But you feel it now.
In your lungs. In your bones. In your silence.
And the worst part?
You don’t even fight it.
You let it happen.
Because pretending not to drown still hurts less than admitting he's the one holding you under.
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He used to hold you like he was afraid you’d disappear.
Like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the light.
Like letting go of you meant falling into something he couldn’t come back from.
There were nights when he’d press his forehead to yours and whisper that you were the reason he kept breathing. That without you, he’d be lost. You believed him. Because back then, it felt like the galaxy shrank down to the space between your lips, your hands, your hearts, beating as one.
He used to kiss you like it meant something.
Like it was sacred.
Like you were.
But now?
Now, sometimes, he forgets to say goodnight.
Sometimes you lie there beside him, wide awake in the dark, listening to the sound of his breath, shallow, uneven, and you wonder if he even knows you’re still here. If he remembers that you're not just another ghost haunting his bed.
He still touches you, yes.
A hand drifting to your hip when you pass each other in the kitchen.
A fleeting kiss to your shoulder before sleep, more routine than desire.
A desperate tangle of limbs on the rare nights when his nightmares crack him open and he reaches for you like you’re salvation, clutching you until his breathing slows.
But even then, even when he’s wrapped around you like a drowning man clinging to driftwood, it feels like he’s not really with you. Like he’s somewhere else entirely, holding onto the memory of what you were, not the reality of what’s left.
It feels like muscle memory.
Not love.
Not anymore.
You’re the warmth he returns to out of habit, not the fire he used to burn for.
And you feel it.
Every second.
Every touch that used to make you feel wanted now makes you feel hollow.
But you love him.
Force help you, you love him so much it hurts, not like a blade to the chest, but like a slow bleed. A quiet ache you carry through every moment, pretending not to notice when he pulls away too quickly, or when his eyes linger too long on something you can’t see.
You love him like it’s the only thing you know how to do.
Even as he stops choosing you.
Even as he chooses silence. Shadows. Power.
Anything but you.
So you stay.
Because leaving would be admitting the truth you’re not ready to face.
That you’re not the one he’s reaching for anymore.
That maybe, you never were.
And staying, even like this, hurts less than the thought of a life without him in it.
So you pretend.
You lie still when he turns away in the night.
You smile when he kisses your temple like an afterthought.
You say “I love you” and pretend you don’t notice when he doesn’t say it back.
Because this is what it means to love Anakin Skywalker now.
To stay.
To suffer.
To drown quietly beside him, and call it devotion.
-----------
“You’re quiet tonight,” you say softly.
The words leave your mouth before you can stop them, hesitant, barely above a whisper, as if saying them any louder might shatter whatever fragile thing still exists between you.
Anakin stands with his back to you, still in his Jedi robes, the edges singed and stained with blood, not all of it his. You can see it from here, smeared across his knuckles like war paint. His shoulders are tense, rigid with something unspoken, and his presence feels… distant.
Like he never truly came home at all.
For a moment, he doesn’t respond.
Just stands there in the half-lit room, bathed in shadows, his head bowed like he’s listening to something only he can hear. You watch the rise and fall of his chest. Too shallow. Too fast.
Finally, “I’m tired,” he says, and that’s it.
No explanation. No warmth. Not even a glance in your direction.
He says it like it’s supposed to be enough.
Like “tired” can explain the blood.
The silence.
The way he hasn’t touched you in days.
You wait. Just long enough to see if he’ll turn around.
He doesn’t.
So you nod. Swallowing the lump in your throat.
“Okay.”
You fold your arms around yourself, not for comfort, but to keep yourself from reaching for him again.
Because you’ve learned, by now, that reaching doesn’t work.
That love doesn’t work.
Not with him. Not anymore.
The silence stretches, thick and stifling. You can’t remember the last time he really looked at you, really saw you. The last time his voice softened when he said your name. The last time he let you in.
You used to talk. Gods, you used to talk for hours. About everything, the war, the Council, the stars, your dreams, what scared you, what saved you. You used to fall asleep to the sound of his voice, tangled in each other, with the whole galaxy slipping away.
Now, all you have is silence.
And the space between you that keeps growing wider.
You look at his back, still turned to you, and feel something collapse in your chest. A quiet, mournful implosion.
Because he’s not tired.
He’s vanishing.
And you don’t know how to stop it.
So you sit down, slowly, on the edge of the bed you once shared like a refuge. You rest your hands in your lap and keep your eyes on the floor.
You say nothing else.
And you pretend, with every ounce of strength you have left, that you’re not sinking.
That the weight pressing down on your chest isn’t real.
That you don’t feel the water rising every time he walks through the door and looks right past you.
You pretend the silence doesn’t drown you.
Because if you don’t…
You’ll break.
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Time twists strangely around Anakin.
He comes and goes like a storm, violent, unpredictable, always leaving destruction in his wake. You’ll go days without seeing him. Days without a single word, a single message, not even a whisper through the Force. The silence gnaws at you, chews through your ribs, settles into your chest like rot.
And just when the ache becomes unbearable, when you start wondering if this time, he’s really gone, he appears.
Always at night.
Always at your door.
Always looking like hell.
He never knocks. Just stumbles inside like he’s being chased by ghosts, eyes wide and wild, his breath ragged as if he’s been running for miles. There’s blood on his collar. Dirt on his knees. The kind of darkness clinging to him that no amount of light can chase away.
He never speaks right away.
Instead, his trembling fingers tear at his gloves, his tunic, frantic, uncoordinated, like he’s trying to crawl out of his own skin. Like he’s desperate to feel something, to remind himself he’s still made of flesh and bone and not myth or memory or some cursed thing the war created.
You try to help him undress, to slow him down, but he flinches at your touch. Not from fear. From shame. Like even your tenderness is too much.
But when he finally touches you, it's with a hunger that borders on panic.
His hands are everywhere, gripping, clutching, trembling. His mouth finds your neck, your shoulder, your lips. His body folds around yours like you’re the only thing keeping him from shattering. Like you’re not a person, but a lifeline. The only steady ground in a galaxy that keeps crumbling beneath his feet.
And he needs you, not softly, not gently, but with a desperation that steals the breath from your lungs.
He whispers things, voice cracking, the words tumbling out between frantic kisses and shuddering gasps:
“I can’t lose you.”“You’re the only thing that makes sense.”“Don’t leave me.”
Each plea burrows into your chest like a blade.
And you answer them the only way you know how, with your body, with your silence, with the quiet promise in your touch that says I’m still here.
Because you always are.
You never leave.
Not when he disappears without warning.
Not when he returns like a ghost crawling home to the only place he remembers how to find.
Not when he trembles in your arms and clings to you like a dying star.
You never leave.
But sometimes, when he finally falls asleep beside you, breath warm against your throat, fingers still curled in the fabric of your nightshirt like a child afraid of the dark, you lie awake staring at the ceiling and wonder if he’s already left you.
If the man you fell in love with is already gone.
If he’s just a shadow now, flickering across your bed, your lips, your life, and you’re holding onto someone who’s already slipped beneath the surface.
And you wonder…
When he says “Don’t leave me.” Does he know he’s the one who’s fading?
-----------
There’s a moment you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
It doesn’t arrive with a scream. Not with a battle, or a betrayal, or the sound of something breaking.
It comes with silence.
You wake in the middle of the night to a cold chill against your spine, the kind of empty cold that sinks into your skin and tells you something is wrong before your mind fully catches up. The bed beside you is half-empty, the sheets still warm where his body once lay, but cooling quickly. Your fingers reach for him instinctively, searching, aching, but they close around nothing.
You rise slowly, heart already tight in your chest.
The room is dark, save for the faint silver glow bleeding through the curtains, city lights flickering far below like dying stars. You pad toward the balcony with bare feet and trembling hands, already knowing where he is. Where he always goes when he can’t sleep. When something inside him threatens to snap.
He’s standing there, barefoot and shirtless, arms braced on the edge of the railing. Wind tugs gently at his hair. His chest rises and falls in shallow, uneven breaths, as if even breathing has become a chore.
He doesn’t turn when you step outside. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t acknowledge you.
He just stares out at Coruscant, all that light, all that noise, with eyes that look completely empty.
Like he’s already somewhere else.
“Ani?” you whisper, stepping closer.
Still, he doesn’t look at you. Doesn’t blink.
The silence between you hums with something dangerous. Fragile.
You wait for him to speak, to lie, to smile, to say something that will reassure you that he’s still here, still real.
But instead, he says. “You ever wonder what it would feel like to fall?”
Your heart stutters.
The words are so soft, so quiet, they nearly vanish into the wind. But they land inside you like a stone sinking into deep water.
He doesn’t wait for your answer. Just keeps staring down at the world below, a thousand feet of sky between him and the surface, the darkness yawning like a promise.
“Just… to let go,” he murmurs.
Your breath catches.
“Don’t say that,” you whisper, too quickly. Too afraid.
Your voice trembles, and not from the cold.
His jaw tightens. You can see it, the clench of muscle, the storm gathering behind his eyes. He’s not crying. He never cries. But there’s something in his silence that feels like grief. Something heavy. Cracking.
“Sometimes I think about it,” he says, barely more than breath. “I think about falling. Letting everything go. The war. The lies. The pain. Just… surrendering to it. Letting it swallow me whole.”
Finally, he turns.
And when his eyes meet yours, they are haunted. Drenched in ghosts. His face is drawn, pale, etched with something you don’t have a name for. Something beyond sorrow. Beyond exhaustion.
“But then I think of you,” he says. His voice is raw now. Bare. Unshielded. “And I wonder if you’d jump after me.”
The words hit you like a wave. You reel from them, the quiet despair, the plea beneath the question, the way he says it like he needs to believe you'd follow him anywhere just to survive.
And still, you don’t answer.
Because the truth fills your lungs like water.
You wouldn’t jump.
Not because you don’t love him.
But because you’re already falling.
You’ve been falling since the first time he shut you out. Since he started disappearing into himself, retreating into shadows you couldn’t reach. Since you started pretending love was enough.
You’re already plummeting, silently, breathlessly, endlessly,
Watching him get smaller and smaller in your grasp.
And the worst part?
He doesn’t even realize you’re falling.
He just thinks you’re standing on solid ground, someone he can come back to when the darkness recedes.
But it never really does.
And now you’re both on the edge.
Him, looking down.
You, looking at him.
Both of you seconds away from something you won’t come back from.
-----------
He gets worse after that.
Not all at once, not in a way you can name immediately. It’s gradual. Creeping. The kind of change that steals in through the cracks, silent and slow, until one day you look at him and realize you barely recognize the man you love.
He grows colder. Quieter.
Not the quiet of peace, but the quiet of pressure. Of something boiling just beneath the surface, blistering and dangerous and barely contained.
He stops pretending with you. Stops softening his edges when he walks through the door. Stops offering explanations for the blood, the bruises, the distance. He carries the war home with him now, on his skin, in his voice, in the way he paces the floor like a caged predator waiting for something to strike.
His moods shift like weather.
One minute, he’s distant. Detached. Unreachable.
The next, he’s pacing, muttering, trembling with fury, fury you don’t understand, fury he won’t explain.
You tread carefully. You learn to read the signs.
And even then, you still miss it sometimes.
You say something one night, something small, something meaningless. You don’t even remember the words, only the way he looked at you after, like the sound of your voice shattered whatever fragile calm he had left.
Then, suddenly “Why do you always do that?” he snaps.
His voice cuts through the air like a blade, sharp, loud, unfamiliar.
You flinch. Physically.
Your body pulls back before your brain even catches up. Your breath catches in your throat, and your eyes meet his, wide, startled, stinging.
And that’s when he freezes.
All the anger drains from his face in an instant.
His eyes go wide, horrified.
He sees what he’s done, not just the words, but your reaction. The way you flinched from him. Like you were afraid.
“No,” he breathes. “No, no, I didn’t mean- I’m sorry.”
He’s already stepping toward you, arms out, hands shaking. He gathers you into him like you’re something sacred, something fragile he’s terrified of breaking further. Like holding you might undo what just happened.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, voice cracking now. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just- I can’t- I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
His arms wrap around you like a vice. Desperate. Terrified. He buries his face in your neck, and for a moment, it feels like he’s the one coming undone.
Like he’s the one falling apart, and you’re the only thing keeping him upright.
You raise a trembling hand to his hair, run your fingers through it in soft, soothing strokes, like you used to. Like maybe you can still reach him that way.
You breathe him in.
Smoke. Sweat. Desperation.
He’s shaking.
And all the while, you pretend you don’t feel like a ghost in your own skin.
Like you haven’t been fading by degrees for months now.
Like he hasn’t been watching you disappear and calling it love.
“It’s okay,” you whisper.
The words come automatically. You don’t even think about them anymore. They’re muscle memory. A reflex. A lie you’ve grown used to telling.
“I’m here.”
And maybe that’s the cruelest part.
Because it’s not okay.
And even though your body is pressed against his, arms around him, voice soft, touch gentle, you’re not really here.
Not the way you used to be.
Not the way he wants to believe you are.
You lie because it’s easier than saying I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
You lie because you love him.
You lie because he’s falling apart, and you’re not ready to admit he might be taking you with him.
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The last time he kisses you, he doesn’t say goodbye.
You wake up alone, and something in the air feels wrong. Heavy. Like a storm pressing against your chest.
You hear whispers in the Temple corridors. Whispers of betrayal. Of darkness. Of a Chosen One lost.
You run.
-----------
When you find him, he’s not Anakin anymore.
His face is the same, but his eyes burn yellow. His mouth is curled in something like a smile, but it’s not one he’s ever given you before. His saber is ignited.
And there’s blood on his hands.
You stagger back.
“Anakin-”
“That name means nothing.”
Your heart shatters in your chest.
He looks at you, through you, and for a moment, you think maybe he doesn’t recognize you at all.
But then, his mouth twists. “You always said you loved me. Do you love me now?”
Your lips tremble. “Where is he?”
He doesn’t answer.
You whisper, “You said you’d never leave me.”
And something in him flickers. Just for a second. His breath catches. His saber lowers.
But it’s too late.
Because you’re already drowning.
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You survive the purge.
Barely.
You never see him again.
But sometimes you dream.
You see him in the ocean, surrounded by endless black water, reaching for you with bloody hands.
You never touch him.
You just watch him sink.
And every night, you pretend that’s not what you wanted.
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I was listening to this song and then the line came up and I was just thinking for like three days straight which character this would be the best with. Anyways as always tysm for all the love and support!!!!
YESSS, i diddd come prepared for absolution if you'd only ask, yes i DID actually take some offense when you said 'no regrets', yes it IS actually impossible to pass your test....and yes i lowkey am trying to forget about it. how'd you know?
natalie is so “once i took your medication to know what it’s like. and now i have to act like i can’t read your mind” to diana
and henry is so “i ask you how you’re doing and i let you lie. but we don’t have to talk about it, i can walk you home and practice method acting” to natalie
and dan is so “ill pretend being with you doesn’t feel like drowning. telling you it’s nice to see how good you’re doing, even though we know it isn’t true” to diana
