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It wasn’t so bad, Luke told himself. Even being a Sith Lord’s prisoner - and son - was better than dying in the flaming wreckage of a downed x-wing. If Vader hadn’t been there, hadn’t so desperately wanted him alive…
Luke shuddered and rubbed a damp washcloth over his face. He needed to stop dwelling on what had almost happened, stop dwelling on what hadn’t yet happened, and focus on the here and now. Because his here and now, he had to admit, wasn’t so bad.
A little weird, but not so bad.
A lot weird, actually, because instead of being in a cell on his way to the Emperor, he was in a ‘fresher with real running water in the taps, adjacent to a comfortably-furnished bedroom within Vader’s quarters. And yes, the bedroom was nothing more than a finely outfitted prison cell, but at least he’d been able to stand under a hot shower until the smell of smoke and charred electrical wiring was no longer clinging to his skin. A droid had brought him food and clean clothes, and he’d dressed and eaten and then gone back into the ‘fresher and vomited and now he was rubbing his face raw with a washcloth to stop himself from thinking.
Because as much as he tried to focus on anything but reality, the fact remained that he was locked in Vader’s quarters, on Vader’s ship, at Vader’s mercy. And for all that Luke desperately wanted things to be different, Vader had already shown that Luke would only be granted mercy in exchange for cooperation - he had the prosthetic hand to prove it.
Luke dropped the washcloth into the basin and stared at his reflection in the glass. Red-rimmed eyes stared back at him, dark circles underneath, faint yellow marks from where the bacta had taken care of bruising from the crash, angry red patches from where he’d rubbed too hard with the washcloth.
He looked like hell.
He knew he ought to sleep - take advantage of what looked like the most comfortable bed he’d ever had access to - but he couldn’t. He was on a ship surrounded by millions of people, being kept close at hand by his only living blood relative, but had never felt so isolated. How could he sleep here, with the strange antiseptic smell in the air, engine noises so unlike anything he’d ever heard, a chill in the air so much deeper than space had ever been, with his only options for company his own racing thoughts or…
Well. Even his racing thoughts weren’t that bad.
His bedroom door slid open. Luke froze, hunched over the basin with a white-knuckled grip on its sides, and watched the panic bloom in his eyes. The rasp of a respirator echoed in the silence behind them.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
“Are you alright?” Vader said at last. The question was stilted, like he hadn’t said those words in that order for many, many years.
“I’m fine,” Luke said to his reflection, trying to see if it looked like he believed himself.
It didn’t.
“Turn around.”
Luke squeezed his eyes closed. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to look at Vader, didn’t want Vader to look at him, didn’t want to agree to anything Vader asked him to do. But he could feel Vader’s presence rummaging around him, prodding at his shields and curling around his limbs, and he did not want to be turned around by force.
He turned.
Vader strode across the room and caught Luke’s chin in his hand. His fingers were rough against the raw patches of skin on Luke’s face.
“What has happened?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” Luke mumbled against the grip on his jaw. He was almost 22 years old and had been fighting in a war for years, and now was being made to feel like a child by someone who had no right to make him feel anything.
But when had Vader ever cared about rights, or what other people felt?
Vader dropped his chin and stepped back. “There is a medical kit in the wardrobe. It contains antiseptic wipes and bacta patches should you wish to treat…nothing.”
“Ok,” Luke muttered and rubbed his jaw gingerly where Vader’s fingers had been. His skin tingled and he wasn’t sure if it was from his aggressive scrubbing or from the sparks that seemed to trail from Vader’s touch into his nerve ends. “Anything else?”
“I might ask what you are doing awake at this hour.”
“I might ask why you care,” Luke shot back and instantly regretted it. Vader moved back into his personal space, anger crackling around him as the temperature plummeted. He loomed over Luke and gripped the sides of the basin in his hands, boxing Luke in between Vader’s immovable bulk and the front edge of the basin digging into the small of his back.
“You dare–” Vader started and Luke found himself interrupting before he had even thought about it. He could tolerate Vader ordering him around, threatening him, even trying to force him into a future he had no interest in. But he would not tolerate Vader being offended by Luke being skeptical of his attempts at kindness.
“Of course I dare,” he snapped. “You’re not going to kill me - we both know that. So what are you going to do? Cut my other hand off because I was disrespectful? Keep that up and pretty soon there won’t be anything left for you to take from me.”
Vader’s hand snapped out and closed tightly around Luke’s throat, but let go instantly and stepped away, as though Luke’s skin had burned him. Fear rushed through his veins like ice and for a moment he couldn’t breathe despite the fact that Vader had dropped him almost immediately. Finally his heartbeat started to slow and his body remembered how to breathe, and he stared up at Vader with a quiet fury building within him.
“You think this is how you win,” Luke said hoarsely, “but it’s not.”
Vader stared back at him, his fingers curling and flexing slowly, then without another word he spun away and left the room.
As soon as Luke heard the click of the door’s countless locking mechanisms engage, he sank to the floor. Something was building in his chest and he was sobbing before he realized what was happening, giant heaving sobs that pulled through his chest and left him empty.
If it was just Vader treating him this way…just a man, just an enemy, just his father’s murderer, he might be able to manage. But for all this - the cruelty, the unpredictable temper, the quicksilver mood swings, the sense that he was a thing to be owned - for all of it to come from his father? From someone Luke had always dreamed would love him, when in reality he so clearly didn’t? From someone Luke had always loved, and was terrified to realize he still might?
He didn’t know how he was going to get through this.
He tried to tell himself how unimaginably lucky he was, as far as Imperial prisoners went. He would live. He would, for the time being, not be tortured - not physically, at least. He was fed, clothed, comfortable.
Nonetheless, he was still miserable. Despair wrapped around him and pulled him down until he was curled up on the tile floor under the basin, shivering with cold as sobs continued to wrack his body. Eventually, he crawled over to the ‘fresher and vomited again.
At some point, his body finally had enough and he fell into an uneasy sleep on the floor, curled up tightly below the basin, as if he’d be safe there.
He woke up in the air, cradled against something solid and warm, blanketed in a sensation of surrender and sorrow and sanctuary.
He tried to say something, but he wasn’t quite awake and his words came out slurred and nonsensical. He tried to open his eyes, but they were heavy, bleary with exhaustion and sticky with tears.
Hush now, he heard in his head. Go back to sleep.
He was lowered carefully and settled onto something soft (bed, his brain supplied after a few seconds). Blankets were drawn up and over him, tucked firmly around his shoulders, but the arms carrying him had been warm and the sheets of the bed were cold and he whimpered softly.
The mattress dipped and Luke slid to the side. His arm and shoulder came to rest against a person sitting on the edge of the mattress, warm and solid, and he curled into them.
He knew who it was. But for now, in this liminal space halfway between sleep and waking, maybe he could pretend that he didn’t. Maybe he could pretend that he had a father who cared for him, that it was Anakin Skywalker who had carried him to bed and was now brushing his hair back from his forehead.
But when Anakin Skywalker spoke, it was Vader’s voice, modulated and harsh no matter how softly he tried to be. “What I did earlier…that is not how I think I win. Nor is it how I want to win. You are my son and I…I do not want to win at all.”
Luke curled tighter into Vader’s side and shook as another sob escaped him. He was exhausted, and so tired of feeling so much all the time, but Vader’s clumsy attempts at kindness were almost as overwhelming as his cruelty.
Vader took his hand from Luke’s forehead abruptly as the sobs sent shudders through his body, and stood up quickly. “I apologize,” he said stiffly. “I will leave you to rest.”
Luke reached out blindly, without thinking, and caught Vader’s wrist in his hand. “Could you stay a little longer?” he asked softly. “Please?”
Maybe things would be different tomorrow, under the cold light of daytime and duty and destiny. But for now, hidden under cover of darkness, would it be so bad if he just let himself pretend everything was fine?
Vader hesitated, and Luke wondered if he was asking himself the same question. Would it derail all of his grand plans for them to rule the galaxy together if he just…sat down and pretended to be Luke’s father for a few minutes? If he pretended, in the dark of night, to love his son?
Vader sat. The mattress dipped again and Luke let himself curl back up against Vader’s side.
After a moment, Vader rested a hesitant hand onto Luke’s head.
You think I am pretending?
Aren’t you? Luke sent back. He pressed his face against the side of Vader’s leg, already dreading the answer.
“You are my son,” was the only response he got.
But there was a hand carding softly through his hair and Vader’s leg was warm against his face, and as consciousness slipped away again Luke thought that pretending might be as good a place to start as any.
Luke slept soundly, without dreams, and his father sat beside him until he woke.