(no subject)

[forgivememaster]

[So here's an ambiguously canon scarred-up child with a mechanical arm and severe Stockholm's Syndrome.]

Um. You're not Master Vader. I don't - I don't have to do what you say! [Clearly that idea delights him.] So I say I don't need a home. All I need is to be wherever Master wants me, doing whatever he wants me to do. He knows best. If I do everything right, he won't have to hurt me or anything!

- But he wants me to be secret. Master told me not to let anyone know... this... this isn't very secret. Why did you do this? He's not going to be happy!

Comments

[forgivememaster]

[Tao can't help it; he gasps when he's touched. He is afraid, but he's been afraid for years - it's not as important as that trembling worshipfulness, the desperate yearning for approval.]

No, Master! I'm not! I - I was, before, but you came. You saved me. [By killing everyone else. But you didn't kill Tao, and you took him with you, and made a replacement for the arm you almost cut off, so... trauma-logic.]

[Tao has a lightsaber scaled to his size - also made by you - but he hasn't reached for it.]

[chosen_to_fall]

[Tao is not a threat, Vader is certain. Much of his recovery has felt like an exercise in futility, the Force so frustratingly distant to him. It's nothing like it was before.

That he can still sense the truth in Tao's words is off-putting. He makes certain the sneer can be heard in his voice.]

And why would I save someone like you?

[With the slightest inclination of his head, indicating the lightsaber:]

Do you intend to use that against me, Tao? Do you know what I've done to the Jedi?

[forgivememaster]

[There's just this kind of twitch in Tao's sense, a sudden sickened plunge. The bizarre affection - even love - he feels for Vader is a defensive mechanism, but it still runs deep enough to completely derail the incredible wellspring of loss and rage and despair that Vader opened in him on that day.]

[The Dark Side is with him, and strongly. But he doesn't, cannot, hate Vader.]

You said - I had potential. When you came. I was the only one.

[And the moment seems to be over.]

No, no, never! Unless you wanted - unless - sometimes you tell me to defend myself, so I try, but I would never hurt you. You're so strong anyway, I couldn't, but I wouldn't if I could.

I...I don't mind. If you don't believe me, and you want to kill me. Master, there is no better way to die than at your will.

[...this? Is absolute truth as he knows it. Tao may love Vader as part of a basic survival instinct, but he sees that mostly one-sided bond as more important than his own life.]