terriblymisguided | (no subject)

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obi-wan

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If pressed, Klaus couldn't really say why he has been so resistant to learning true meditation. He does have his reasons, the biggest being that he does not want to be alone with his thoughts in such a way, but that's not a good enough reason. The spirits still haunt him at night, no matter what he does.

Mostly, he's just scared. Both of what will happen in his own head, and of failing miserably at the whole thing.

The more time he spends with Obi-Wan, the more intrigued he becomes with the idea. It obviously helps Obi-Wan, and that only becomes more clear after everything with Anakin regaining his memories. It's obviously a traumatic thing for Obi-Wan, and Klaus was worried for him the entire time he was out meditating in the woods. At first, Klaus had thought the idea was kind of crazy, but he didn't protest. Of course he didn't, because Obi-Wan knows himself.

When Obi-Wan came back, he seemed better. A lot better, actually. And then he had his body taken from him and replaced with an entirely new one, and he seemed okay with that, too. Klaus knows that it isn't that things don't bother Obi-Wan. It's that he knows how to handle these awful things when they come. He meditates on them, and always seems at peace afterward. Klaus wants to know if he might be able to achieve something similar, if he were go ahead and actually face his fears and try.

He thinks on it, but the decision is made for him after he wakes up screaming from another nightmare, struggling against ghostly hands around his throat. Vanya comes in and helps him calm down, and Klaus holds onto her so that he doesn't head straight for the stash of pills in his underwear drawer. He doesn't want to keep numbing himself forever, he realizes. He wants to learn how to handle it.

After his sister makes him have some breakfast, he kisses her head and leaves the house to head towards Obi-Wan's place, exhausted and trembling, but sure of himself. He wants to try. He has to try.

When he makes it to Obi-Wan's apartment, he knocks a few times before letting himself in with his key, unsurprised to find Obi-Wan sitting on his meditation cushions. It's that time of day, after all. He stays quiet, not wanting to interrupt, and goes to make himself some coffee. He'll need it for this conversation, and for whatever comes after.

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A part of Klaus wants to stop, but that's the part of him that is always so ready to give up on something as soon as it gets a little hard. If he were to demand to put a stop to this, Obi-Wan would respect that, but Klaus worries that he might be a little disappointed, even though he claims that he won't. But it isn't just the fear of letting Obi-Wan down that makes Klaus wants to keep going. He wants to do it for himself.

Klaus grits his teeth and looks at his hand on Obi-Wan's chest, feeling each deep inhale and exhale and making himself match it. Slow in, slow out, over and over again.

Obi-Wan is still watching him, looking at him encouragingly, but Klaus's gaze drifts up over his shoulder to the woman standing behind him. She belongs to the voice he heard in his head, and he winces slightly at the bullet wound in her chest, spilling blood out into her neon pink micro dress. She looks like a junkie, bottomed out in a way even he had only reached a few times in his life.

"You think you get to just get better?" She asks, sneering at him with rotted teeth and sunken eyes, and Klaus swallows hard before closing his eyes again. "Look at me, Klaus!"

"You can't hurt me," he says quietly, shakily, because perhaps that's the mantra he needs right now. "You can't hurt me."

"Good," Obi-Wan says in that same soft tone. That Klaus has perhaps picked a different mantra, one that will work for this scenario, it makes Obi-Wan proud. It's clear he's trying, that he's dedicated himself to this, that he wants it to work.

Klaus looks at something behind him, then closes his eyes again. Obi-Wan breathes with him, inhaling and exhaling, keeping Klaus's hand pressed to his chest. "They can't hurt you. Whoever is here, let them go. Let them drift away. They're nothing more than energy, which is everywhere, Klaus. It surrounds us, this energy, and they're part of it, but they don't need to be here."

He breathes slowly, hand pressed to Klaus's.

"They can't hurt you," he says softly.

It's just one word, good, but Klaus clings to it. Never before has he received any sort of praise when trying to get a handle on his powers. Nothing he did was ever enough, he was always too weak, too scared, too much of a disappointment. He's so used to being berated that one single bit of positive reinforcement buoys him enough to take another deep breath.

"You can't hurt me," Klaus says again, wincing and pressing his fingertips into Obi-Wan's chest as the ghost starts to scream. It's a sharp, piercing sound that he can feel rattling around in his rib cage and he grits his teeth, reaching up to put his other hand over his ear as he begins to shake. "You can't hurt me."

"Klaus!" She screams it so loud that it seems to shake the trees, and Klaus's fingertips start to glow as he takes a deep breath and imagines himself pushing her away. "You can't do this!"

"You can't hurt me," he grits out, letting out a cry of his own as he shoves his power outward as best he can, feeling it snap outward like a dam exploding. Once it's done, Klaus's chest is heaving and he opens his eyes slowly, panting softly as he blinks against the sunlight to find themselves alone in the clearing once more. He sits there, stunned, fingertips still glowing slightly where they're pressed to Obi-Wan's chest.

Whoever is here with them must be quite strong indeed. Obi-Wan can sense their presence, the anger in it, the hurt, so much pain whirling around in this tumultuous sense of disconnect. They may only be energy, but energy counts for so much and Obi-Wan feels the dark side of the Force with the presence here, all the strong emotions that might lead someone to do something terrible.

He doesn't have the same power Klaus does. He can't communicate with whoever is here, but he closes his eyes regardless. Searching for the presence in the Force, he sends calm in its direction, he sends love and acceptance and peace, and it may have no difference at all in the situation, but it's everything he can do.

"Breathe," he encourages, eyes still closed. Something has changed, the presence is gone, and he can hear Klaus's shaking breath. "Slowly, Klaus. In and out. Centre yourself again."

A part of Klaus wants to stop, because he's trembling and tired and this is all so much, but instead he listens to Obi-Wan and takes a deep breath, letting it out shaky and slow and doing it again. He feels proud himself, which is rare. He thinks Obi-Wan might proud of him too, and that's enough for him to keep going.

"Serenity," he breathes out, keeping his eyes closed as he tries to clear his mind. It's a hard thing to do, and he moves his hand from Obi-Wan's chest to rest it over Obi's hand on his knee instead, wanting to keep that physical connection for now. He focuses on Obi-Wan's breathing and makes sure that his own matches, and then focuses on the trickling of the nearby stream, concentrating on it until it's all that he can hear.

And then it's quiet in his head in a way that's wholly unfamiliar to him, unreasonably quiet, and it reminds him of those last few seconds before he falls asleep. Instead of calming him, he ends up bracing himself, going tense as he waits for something else to intrude. Now he's thinking about it, he can hear the whir of helicopter blades and a far off scream, so he opens his eyes with a frustrated huff, tipping his head back to look up at the trees.

"How do I learn to trust the quiet?" Klaus says after a moment, swallowing hard and trying not to berate himself. "I've spent my whole life thinking that silence was dangerous. I don't know how to stop that and relax into it. I'm just waiting for something else to come."

"You practice," Obi-Wan says as he also opens his eyes. "You believe the silence to be dangerous because that's what practice and experience has taught you. Of course it's difficult to trust that it would be anything else. The only way to unlearn something of that nature, the trauma associated with it, is to practice the rest."

He smiles gently. "It won't come overnight. But you did exceptionally well already. I would only encourage you not to grow frustrated with yourself. Becoming distracted by our thoughts, by external distractions, by sounds or sensations, it's all human nature. You're not doing anything wrong with this happens."

Lifting his hand, Obi-Wan touches his temple. "We can't turn this off. We can only teach it with time, practice, and with empathy, to trust itself."

Klaus hangs on Obi-Wan's every word, and he finds himself unexpectedly tearing up as he wonders where he might be if he been given even a fraction of this encouragement and support when he was a child. Maybe he wouldn't have wasted so much of his life. Maybe he wouldn't have almost killed himself over and over just trying to quiet his own mind.

A tear rolls down his cheek and he reaches up to quickly wipe it away, blowing out a breath as he rolls his eyes upward and tips his head back to look up at the sky. Sniffling a bit, he wipes his nose and then looks at Obi-Wan again, nodding a bit and giving him a watery smile.

"Thank you, Obi," he says quietly, taking another deep breath. "For helping me."

"Of course, my darling," Obi-Wan answers, reaching with both hands to cup either side of Klaus's face. He leans in to kiss him, lingering for a long moment, chaste but sincere. He can taste the salt of Klaus's tears, but makes no effort to wipe them away. The emotion is true and real and Klaus needs to sit with them rather than try and chase them away, this is as much a part of meditation as all the rest.

"Now," he says when he pulls back. "How do you feel about writing down what you've experienced? We can sit here for as long as you like, but I think it might be good to record some of what you're feeling now. The good and the bad. There needn't be any structure to it, you can simply write whatever you feel, whatever comes out of you."

Obi-Wan has nothing to write in, but he can meditate more, to give Klaus the space and the privacy for this.

Edited 2021-04-27 19:54 (UTC)

For so long, Klaus would roll his eyes at couples calling each other pet names, but that was before he knew what it was like to be called darling by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Hearing it makes him shiver and feel warm all over at the same time, and he practically melts into the kiss, letting Obi-Wan's calm, steady affection wash over him.

When Obi-Wan pulls away, Klaus is relieved that he doesn't suggest that they continue. He feels a little drained after that burst of power, and he wants to take a break. He does have a lot of thoughts, and he nods before leaning forward to give Obi-Wan another kiss.

"Yeah, I can do that." Klaus pulls himself to his feet and stretches before picking his bag, tousling Obi-Wan's hair with his other hand as he passes behind him. He finds a soft spot in the grass nearby and stretches out on his belly, smiling softly over at Obi-Wan before opening the journal and reaching for a purple pen, tugging the cap off with his teeth and twirling the pen around so he can touch it to the paper.

He goes from wondering what he's even going to write to scribbling across the page, just scrawling out whatever comes to mind, every question and fear, and even about the pride he feels buried underneath it all.

Klaus is so willing to try and Obi-Wan's smile blooms as Klaus settles himself in the grass. For a moment he just watches, seeing the way Klaus falls into the writing, and something warm grows inside Obi-Wan for a moment before he closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing.

It's wonderfully peaceful. Whatever presence had been there earlier is long gone, due to what Klaus had done. It doesn't take much for Obi-Wan to slip into a relatively deep meditative state. He reflects on some things when his mind goes calm, thinking of Anakin, of how they're coming back from where they've been.

Mostly, though, he allows himself to think of nothing at all. To just breathe. To listen to the scratch of Klaus's pen on paper and to use that sound as his own personal mantra for the moment.

Klaus isn't sure how much time passes as he scrawls out his thoughts, but a few glances over at Obi-Wan shows that he's meditating pretty deeply, so Klaus doesn't feel like they're in a rush. Eventually he stops, mostly because his hand is cramping up, and he sits up as he looks at the journal with a bit of wonder.

When Obi-Wan suggested the exercise, Klaus had no idea what he was going to write. He thought that maybe he'd have to really think about it, but once he touched the pen to paper it just started flowing out of him. There is probably very little coherency to any of it, but that's okay. The point was to get it all out, not to write the next great novel.

After capping his pen and shaking out his hand, he moves over to Obi-Wan on his knees, settling in behind him and slowly wrapping his arms around him from behind. He moves slowly as not to startle him, even if he's sure that Obi-Wan is well aware of his presence. He isn't even really trying to draw Obi-Wan out of it if he isn't ready. He just wants to hold onto him, arms crossed over his belly as he hooks his chin over Obi-Wan's shoulder, closing his eyes as he matches his breathing to Obi-Wan's.

It's an incredibly peaceful moment, even with as quiet as it is. He feels more settled than he has in a long time and he's happy to sit here for as long as Obi-Wan would like, breathing in and out in the dappled sunlight.

When Obi-Wan feels Klaus's arms go around him, he doesn't immediately open his eyes. Instead, wanting to experiment just a little, he remains as he is, seated, breathing deeply and slowly, his mind clear but for the feel of Klaus pressed against his back, his chin over his shoulder. It takes mere moments before Klaus feels as if he's a part of Obi-Wan in this state, both peaceful, their presences within the Force close, mingling with each other, with the energy of all the living things around them, with the trees and the water and the earth beneath their bodies.

They stay this way for several minutes and when Obi-Wan finally opens his eyes and then lifts his arms to squeeze Klaus's against his belly, he asks, "While you had your arms around me, what were you thinking?"

He suspects the answer is nothing in particular. Klaus had felt at peace. Settled. In a funny way, Obi-Wan thinks he may have achieved a restful meditative state without even meaning to.

When Obi-Wan shifts his body and starts to speak, Klaus's eyes flutter open and he lifts his head, brow furrowing slightly at the question as he moves to sit at Obi-Wan's side instead of behind him, keeping one hand on his back as he thinks about it.

"Huh. Nothing at all, really," he answers, and then looks over at Obi-Wan's face. Realization hits and he gasps, reaching up to put one hand on his cheek before shoving playfully at Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Oh my God! You tricked me with cuddles!"

Klaus laughs happily, feeling almost rested and a little less heavy after writing in his journal and sitting here quietly with Obi-Wan. He lets out another soft laugh, this one astonished and full of wonder, and then he's suddenly feeling so much positive emotion that he simply has to tackle Obi-Wan down into the grass and tickle his sides to let it all out.

"I did no such thing," Obi-Wan protests, though he's laughing, unable to help himself. He certainly hadn't meant to trick Klaus, it's just that he thinks Klaus is perhaps better as meditating than he believes himself to be and in the moment, wrapped around one another, they had both been able to achieve a level of peace.

"I'm being attacked!" he says, glad no one is likely close enough to hear him. Klaus knocks him into the grass and Obi-Wan goes willingly, although he tries to wriggle away from the fingers that want to tickle his sides. He grabs for Klaus's wrists, though doesn't make an attempt to hold them too tightly, knowing this is all for fun, knowing this act of wrestling is likely going to lead somewhere else.

Probably not here. They're alone for now, but this is hardly an undiscovered path. Obi-Wan has come across people picnicking here before and he doesn't want to be anyone's unpleasant surprise today.

They wrestle in the grass and it's all playful, because they would never hurt each other and if Obi-Wan wanted to, he could have tossed Klaus halfway across the forest by now. He laughs as Obi-Wan grabs at his wrists and then twists enough to yank them free and grab Obi-Wan's hands instead, lifting them up over Obi's head to pin them to the grass.

"You're a very good teacher," Klaus tells him, smiling down at him before leaning in to give him a soft kiss. He doesn't try to take it any further, both because there's a good chance that they would be seen and because the moment is perfect just as it is, the two of them rolling around in the grass like puppies.

It's probably that thought that makes him pull away from the kiss and lick the side of his face, laughing as he drags his tongue from Obi-Wan's cheek up to his forehead.

"Kriff!" Obi-Wan blurts out, though it's not the first time Klaus has licked his face. He laughs and leans in to rub his face against Klaus's shirt, wiping the saliva from his cheek, though mostly for show.

He flops back into the grass, looking up at the trees, the sky, then reaches over and rests his hand on Klaus's chest, simply holding it there for a moment. Under his palm, he can feel the beating of Klaus's heart and the atmosphere of the moment is wonderful, warm and light. They've done something really good here this afternoon. He's proud of Klaus for trying, for making such an effort, for achieving something Obi-Wan knows he had been frightened of.

Turning onto his side, he presses a kiss to Klaus's cheek.

"You did amazing today," he says, leaning his chin on his hand. "You really committed and gave it a real try. I think you surprised yourself, didn't you?"

Klaus lets out a bright laugh at the delightful curse and then flips onto his back once Obi-Wan is done using his shirt as a napkin. He settles into the grass and lets out a soft, happy sigh as Obi-Wan's hand settles on his chest. He feels lighter than air right now, like he might float up into the sky and it's only Obi-Wan's hand that's holding him to the earth. The kiss to his cheek only adds to it, and he thinks about how scared he was when he woke up this morning, how frustrated and exhausted.

Before Darrow, before Obi-Wan, he would have drugged himself until he couldn't think or buried himself in the nearest stranger, or perhaps both. But now he's here with his family, with this man he has fallen for so completely, and they all make him want to be better. It's not just for them, though. He wants to be better for himself.

He lifts his head to watch Obi-Wan as he speaks, reaching up to sweep Obi-Wan's hair back from his forehead with a fond smile. Sometimes Obi-Wan makes him feel like he could do anything. "You know, I think I did. I feel-- I feel good. Hopeful."

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