SW Fic: "Permeation," part six (Luke/Vader)
It's only been three years or so since I last posted a chapter of this. *facepalm* I've had this chapter in progress on my computer for ages, then finished it a few months ago and wimped out on posting. But, as a belated birthday present to myself, I decided to POST SOME FANNISH CONTENT, darnit. *g*
Title: Permeation
Pairing: Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker (...kind of? It's gen so far.)
Rating: Overall rating is Adult, this chapter is PG
Notes: Continued from Part Five. Be warned that this WIP has been in progress for three years and may never be finished. I'd like to finish it someday, but I can't make any promises. I hated to let this chapter "go to waste," though.
Summary: After the duel on Bespin, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader will come to know one another more closely than either could ever have imagined...by becoming trapped in one another's bodies. Response to a challenge on the Luke_Vader Yahoo!Group. Post-ESB/RotJ AU.
There had been some strange moments in Luke's life. The first time he'd used the Force on purpose, for one. Before that, the first time he'd flown a speeder, the way it felt like he'd done it a thousand times before. On Bespin, when--well, that one didn't count. That went beyond strange. But despite all the odd things he'd experienced, he still never--never--would have expected to be here. Sitting on Darth Vader's couch, in Vader's body, and having Vader himself rubbing cream onto his head.
Maybe the strangest part of all, Luke thought, was that he was almost enjoying it. For one thing, it felt incredible. The cream had a cooling effect on his scalp, which had been itching and burning so much that Luke wondered it his skin was actually cracked and bleeding, up there. The cream soothed all that, and feeling Vader's fingers massage the stuff in felt strange and wonderful, too, as if his head were so sensitive that even the barest touch was amplified.
And, Luke realized, it probably was. Like he'd thought before, in the 'fresher, it had probably been a very long time since anything but droids or Vader's own hands or helmet had touched this skin. And now that someone finally was touching him, it seemed unbelievably sad that it was Luke in this body and not his father. Despite everything, for the moment, Luke could only feel sorry for him. He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, at a loss.
Vader stopped his massaging at once. "Does that hurt?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"What? Oh." Luke shook his head again but didn't explain why he'd winced. "No," he said. He looked up and tried to smile. "It feels nice."
Vader gave him a curt nod and retrieved the lid for the cream. "That should do, for now," he said as he screwed it on. "If you perceive this sensation again, alert me to it."
"All right."
Vader nodded again and began to head back to the medical room. As he was crossing in front of the couch, though, Luke couldn't help reaching out to grasp his father's--actually, his own--right, artificial hand. With all this thinking about skin, or lack of it, he had to know. Vader turned, obviously surprised, but held the hand still and didn't say anything while Luke examined it.
"Well," Luke said at last, "it looks real. That's something, I guess."
"It is a highly advanced prosthesis," Vader replied. "One of the most natural-looking varieties made."
Luke glanced up warily. "And does it--I mean, what does it feel like?" he asked, almost afraid to know. Vader frowned slightly and moved to touch his right hand with his left, but Luke shook his head. "No, I mean, on your wrist. Does it feel different than the other one?"
Vader tilted his head and seemed to consider Luke's questions seriously. "It is slightly heavier," he said at last, "and not...present...in the sense that your left hand is. But those are things that this body will become accustomed to, in time."
Luke nodded, feeling his heart twist again as it occurred to him that he'd just asked the foremost first-hand expert on prosthetic limbs in the galaxy how his lone artificial hand felt. The thought made him ashamed. "I'm sorry," he said, quietly, to the floor.
He wasn't sure Vader heard him, since he just went ahead and returned the salve to the medical room without a word. But once Vader had come back and seated himself on the opposite end of the couch, he held the hand up again and looked over at Luke. "Your curiosity is understandable," he said. "I could look up the schematics for this model, if you like."
"No," Luke said, "I meant, I'm sorry you had to get used to all this."
Vader went very still, his expression unreadable, and for a minute, Luke was afraid of what he might do. "I neither wish nor require your pity," Vader spat at last.
"I didn't mean it like that," Luke protested, even though he had, a little. More than a little. "I just--what happened?" he asked, almost a whisper.
Vader's lips thinned, and for a minute, he tensed like he was going to get up and walk away. To Luke's surprise, he didn't, but Vader didn't look at him, either. "I was burned," he said. "Badly. I do not wish to discuss the matter further, at this time."
Luke nodded, but if anything, having his suspicions confirmed only made him more curious than before. "Would you mind if I asked what the result was, then?" he pressed. "What did it do to your--I mean, to this body? I just figure, if I'm in it for who knows how long, I should know what…" he trailed off, very conscious of the fact that he was probably the only person, anywhere, ever, who had asked Darth Vader point-blank what exactly was wrong with him.
In the awful silence that followed, Luke could almost hear the dark side energy crackle as the reading lamp flew off the side table and across the room. It crashed into the far wall and shattered into a thousand pieces. Vader slammed one fist against his thigh, looking furious, but didn't say anything.
Luke wanted to run away. Wanted to take back the question. But since he knew the latter was impossible and had a feeling the former might be, too, he settled for doing the only thing he could. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Father." It wasn't an afterthought, not really. Just another apology to the man who, Luke had to admit, had been nothing but kind--in his own way--since this whole mess started.
---
Vader closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then cursed himself for being so pathetically grateful for the ability to do so. He had wondered, as he rubbed the salve into Luke's scalp, if he would have time to stop savoring oxygen and the feeling of full lungs, drawing air in like drinking, before they returned to their own bodies. Wondered if any amount of time would be enough, for that. He doubted it. It still felt wrong to inhale and exhale off-time with the sound of the respirator. It still felt strange to speak naturally.
It also, and more importantly, felt odd to sense the Force like this again. To be almost as strong in it as he had been when he was Luke's age. The increased power was intoxicating, but also occasionally annoying. Obviously, Vader thought with a glance at the shattered remains of the lamp, he would have to remember to exercise more control.
And, much as the thought of it irritated him, he would have to remember to be more patient with his son. It was all too easy to recall what it had been like to be a young man like Luke, a little older, and then to find himself trapped in that durasteel and leather prison. Vader typically made an effort not to dwell on that time, but he did remember.
The mask had been lowered onto his face. He had been terrified and confused. Drowning in a sea of air. He did not realize the extent of his injuries; didn't understand why his eyes could not bring the red lenses into focus as they drew closer. His last true glimpse of the world, his last seconds of natural sight, were spent straining to see the interior of the mask better.
Deprived of oxygen for the few moments between the removal of the tracheal tube and the activation of the suit's life-support system, he had almost lost consciousness. Then, with a deafening whoosh, air was forced into his nose and mouth. Though he did not make any conscious effort to inhale, he had sensed his lungs expand. Then contract, several seconds later, and he felt air being expelled from his nose. He felt the need to cough but could not.
Truly panicked, he had tried to speak, which made his throat burn and produced a garble of static that was lost beneath the gasps of his mechanical breathing. Tried again, on a hunch, taking care to shape the words carefully with lips and teeth and tongue. He had been rewarded for his effort that time, though the voice that emerged from the mask was deep, mechanical, and not his own. It had felt vile to speak her name with that voice, and yet he had, desperate to know.
A little later, after he had discovered that he was incapable of both sobbing and vomiting, though not immune to nausea, he had spoken again.
"What…is wrong…with me?"
"Why can't-t-t…I schp--shhh--sk--fuck!--speak?"
"When will I…be well?"
Vader closed his eyes briefly and drew another deep breath, then forced himself to unclench his fists. "Very well. What do you wish to know?"
"Um." Vader had no idea how his son could make just one syllable sound so profoundly uncomfortable. "Anything you want to tell me?" Luke's lips flattened at once, as if he realized the stupidity of the request the moment the words left him, and he shook his head. "Or, I guess, whatever I need to know in order not to, uh, hurt anything."
"I suppose suggesting that you refrain from touching anything would be futile."
After a pause, Luke blinked. "Did you just--are you kidding?"
Vader stared back for a moment before giving his son a small, grave nod. "Indeed."
The slow smile that spread across Luke's face was almost not repulsive. "Huh," he murmured, sounding so shocked that Vader felt an answering smile tug at his lips.
"As I told you last night, those are the vocoder's master controls," he said abruptly, gesturing to Luke's midsection. "On, off, and volume control. You can also control the volume and tone, to an extent, by the way you form the words with your mouth. The respirator's controls are here," he continued. "You should refrain from touching them, and I'm not joking now. You can only remove the mask in a pressurized environment--here, or in the hyperbaric chamber in my quarters on the Executor."
Luke looked confused for a moment before his eyes widened. "Ohh, is that what that big black sphere is?"
Vader nodded and continued to explain the other gauges, buttons, and switches on the control panel. When he was finished, he looked up at his son. "Do you have any further questions?"
"Well...a few," Luke replied. "Are your--my--uh. Are these feet real? Because they itch, but--" he broke off when Vader shook his head.
"It's a phantom sensation," he said shortly. "Try to ignore it. Your hand alternately itches and throbs, too," he added, though he was unsure why he felt compelled to tell Luke that their experience was shared.
Luke looked at the new prosthetic with renewed interest. "Really?"
"It's very common."
"All right, well, what about showering?
"We'll deal with that when and if it becomes necessary," Vader said. He could think of few things he would dislike more than having Luke see his naked body. Again, and still puzzlingly, he felt he owed his son an explanation. "Your skin doesn't sweat or produce the same amount of natural oils that normal skin does. That's also why the salve is needed."
Luke nodded, then checked the motion and frowned at Vader. "If you wouldn't let me rub the cream on myself...who rubs it on you, normally? Droids again?"
"Yes."
"Oh." Again, there was more in one syllable than Vader would have thought possible, and he tilted his head in inquiry.
"What is it?"
"I just..." Luke's shoulders rose and fell in a small shrug. "Do you ever talk to anyone, like this, without the mask? Has anyone ever--"
"I fail to see what that has to do with the matter of how you are to function in my body," Vader said, stiffening.
"I know." He shrugged again and looked down at his lap. "I guess I was really just wondering what--what you look like. What Anakin Skywalker looks like," Luke added, barely above a whisper.
"That man is long dead, Luke," Vader snapped. Strange how he could find the sound of Luke's natural voice dripping uncharacteristic venom distasteful despite the anger flaring inside him. He never regretted the vocoder's harsh tone, but he regretted this. Equally strange how Luke's stricken expression could affect him. Still, those things were trifling matters. "You have seen the face I wish you to see."
For a moment, it seemed that Luke would accept this. But when he raised his eyes to Vader's, a fire smoldered there that startled Vader all the more because it was so unexpected. He never would have dreamed that his own ruined features could form an expression so like Padme's.
"My father," Luke said levelly, "was human, wasn't he? With eyes and hair and a mouth that could smile, not a blank mask that tells me nothing. How would you like it if someone you wanted to care about hid themselves from you?" He paused. "Or did my mother like it that she couldn't see your face?"
"Be silent!" Vader roared, jumping to his feet and whirling in one smooth motion to jab a warning finger at his son. "Do not dare to speak of her that way!"
To his utter astonishment, Luke smiled thinly. "So, you did care for her."
He would not have thought it possible for him to feel so ashamed that his own son--their son--had felt the need to resort to trickery to ask about his mother. He found that he did not want to consider what Luke's childhood must have been like, growing up without a mother or a father. Without knowing anything about either of them. He resumed his seat on the couch and found that he could not look at Luke while he spoke. "More than 'cared,'" he said quietly. "We were married."
"You loved her?"
Vader fought the temptation to close his eyes and almost wished for the mask. After twenty years behind it, he had forgotten how difficult it was to keep his face from betraying him. "My eyes were--are--blue," he said, instead of answering. Though in a way, it was an answer itself. He doubted he could deny their son anything, at this moment. "My hair was a similar color to yours. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
Luke was silent a moment, looking straight ahead, at the far wall, at nothing. "It's a start," he said at last, still not turning. His next words seemed almost dragged from him, hoarser than usual. "But, do I--did you look like me?"
He was a man who rarely found himself speechless, but Vader found that he had no words for his son. Had no idea what answer Luke might desire. Would a denial be received with relief, or seen as a rejection? He made himself exhale; quirked the corner of his lips into a smile. It felt distinctly odd. "At the moment," he said slowly, "you resemble me greatly."
At first, he thought with alarm that Luke was gasping for breath before he realized what the strange sounds and expressions his son was making really were. Luke was laughing. It occurred to him that he hadn't laughed like that...ever, in this lifetime.
His smile widened, and this time, it didn't feel quite so strange. "Come," Vader said, as he stood and extended a hand to his son. "We'll have a meal, and afterward, I will show you the rest of the castle."
Title: Permeation
Pairing: Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker (...kind of? It's gen so far.)
Rating: Overall rating is Adult, this chapter is PG
Notes: Continued from Part Five. Be warned that this WIP has been in progress for three years and may never be finished. I'd like to finish it someday, but I can't make any promises. I hated to let this chapter "go to waste," though.
Summary: After the duel on Bespin, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader will come to know one another more closely than either could ever have imagined...by becoming trapped in one another's bodies. Response to a challenge on the Luke_Vader Yahoo!Group. Post-ESB/RotJ AU.
There had been some strange moments in Luke's life. The first time he'd used the Force on purpose, for one. Before that, the first time he'd flown a speeder, the way it felt like he'd done it a thousand times before. On Bespin, when--well, that one didn't count. That went beyond strange. But despite all the odd things he'd experienced, he still never--never--would have expected to be here. Sitting on Darth Vader's couch, in Vader's body, and having Vader himself rubbing cream onto his head.
Maybe the strangest part of all, Luke thought, was that he was almost enjoying it. For one thing, it felt incredible. The cream had a cooling effect on his scalp, which had been itching and burning so much that Luke wondered it his skin was actually cracked and bleeding, up there. The cream soothed all that, and feeling Vader's fingers massage the stuff in felt strange and wonderful, too, as if his head were so sensitive that even the barest touch was amplified.
And, Luke realized, it probably was. Like he'd thought before, in the 'fresher, it had probably been a very long time since anything but droids or Vader's own hands or helmet had touched this skin. And now that someone finally was touching him, it seemed unbelievably sad that it was Luke in this body and not his father. Despite everything, for the moment, Luke could only feel sorry for him. He closed his eyes and shook his head slightly, at a loss.
Vader stopped his massaging at once. "Does that hurt?" he asked, sounding surprised.
"What? Oh." Luke shook his head again but didn't explain why he'd winced. "No," he said. He looked up and tried to smile. "It feels nice."
Vader gave him a curt nod and retrieved the lid for the cream. "That should do, for now," he said as he screwed it on. "If you perceive this sensation again, alert me to it."
"All right."
Vader nodded again and began to head back to the medical room. As he was crossing in front of the couch, though, Luke couldn't help reaching out to grasp his father's--actually, his own--right, artificial hand. With all this thinking about skin, or lack of it, he had to know. Vader turned, obviously surprised, but held the hand still and didn't say anything while Luke examined it.
"Well," Luke said at last, "it looks real. That's something, I guess."
"It is a highly advanced prosthesis," Vader replied. "One of the most natural-looking varieties made."
Luke glanced up warily. "And does it--I mean, what does it feel like?" he asked, almost afraid to know. Vader frowned slightly and moved to touch his right hand with his left, but Luke shook his head. "No, I mean, on your wrist. Does it feel different than the other one?"
Vader tilted his head and seemed to consider Luke's questions seriously. "It is slightly heavier," he said at last, "and not...present...in the sense that your left hand is. But those are things that this body will become accustomed to, in time."
Luke nodded, feeling his heart twist again as it occurred to him that he'd just asked the foremost first-hand expert on prosthetic limbs in the galaxy how his lone artificial hand felt. The thought made him ashamed. "I'm sorry," he said, quietly, to the floor.
He wasn't sure Vader heard him, since he just went ahead and returned the salve to the medical room without a word. But once Vader had come back and seated himself on the opposite end of the couch, he held the hand up again and looked over at Luke. "Your curiosity is understandable," he said. "I could look up the schematics for this model, if you like."
"No," Luke said, "I meant, I'm sorry you had to get used to all this."
Vader went very still, his expression unreadable, and for a minute, Luke was afraid of what he might do. "I neither wish nor require your pity," Vader spat at last.
"I didn't mean it like that," Luke protested, even though he had, a little. More than a little. "I just--what happened?" he asked, almost a whisper.
Vader's lips thinned, and for a minute, he tensed like he was going to get up and walk away. To Luke's surprise, he didn't, but Vader didn't look at him, either. "I was burned," he said. "Badly. I do not wish to discuss the matter further, at this time."
Luke nodded, but if anything, having his suspicions confirmed only made him more curious than before. "Would you mind if I asked what the result was, then?" he pressed. "What did it do to your--I mean, to this body? I just figure, if I'm in it for who knows how long, I should know what…" he trailed off, very conscious of the fact that he was probably the only person, anywhere, ever, who had asked Darth Vader point-blank what exactly was wrong with him.
In the awful silence that followed, Luke could almost hear the dark side energy crackle as the reading lamp flew off the side table and across the room. It crashed into the far wall and shattered into a thousand pieces. Vader slammed one fist against his thigh, looking furious, but didn't say anything.
Luke wanted to run away. Wanted to take back the question. But since he knew the latter was impossible and had a feeling the former might be, too, he settled for doing the only thing he could. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Father." It wasn't an afterthought, not really. Just another apology to the man who, Luke had to admit, had been nothing but kind--in his own way--since this whole mess started.
---
Vader closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then cursed himself for being so pathetically grateful for the ability to do so. He had wondered, as he rubbed the salve into Luke's scalp, if he would have time to stop savoring oxygen and the feeling of full lungs, drawing air in like drinking, before they returned to their own bodies. Wondered if any amount of time would be enough, for that. He doubted it. It still felt wrong to inhale and exhale off-time with the sound of the respirator. It still felt strange to speak naturally.
It also, and more importantly, felt odd to sense the Force like this again. To be almost as strong in it as he had been when he was Luke's age. The increased power was intoxicating, but also occasionally annoying. Obviously, Vader thought with a glance at the shattered remains of the lamp, he would have to remember to exercise more control.
And, much as the thought of it irritated him, he would have to remember to be more patient with his son. It was all too easy to recall what it had been like to be a young man like Luke, a little older, and then to find himself trapped in that durasteel and leather prison. Vader typically made an effort not to dwell on that time, but he did remember.
The mask had been lowered onto his face. He had been terrified and confused. Drowning in a sea of air. He did not realize the extent of his injuries; didn't understand why his eyes could not bring the red lenses into focus as they drew closer. His last true glimpse of the world, his last seconds of natural sight, were spent straining to see the interior of the mask better.
Deprived of oxygen for the few moments between the removal of the tracheal tube and the activation of the suit's life-support system, he had almost lost consciousness. Then, with a deafening whoosh, air was forced into his nose and mouth. Though he did not make any conscious effort to inhale, he had sensed his lungs expand. Then contract, several seconds later, and he felt air being expelled from his nose. He felt the need to cough but could not.
Truly panicked, he had tried to speak, which made his throat burn and produced a garble of static that was lost beneath the gasps of his mechanical breathing. Tried again, on a hunch, taking care to shape the words carefully with lips and teeth and tongue. He had been rewarded for his effort that time, though the voice that emerged from the mask was deep, mechanical, and not his own. It had felt vile to speak her name with that voice, and yet he had, desperate to know.
A little later, after he had discovered that he was incapable of both sobbing and vomiting, though not immune to nausea, he had spoken again.
"What…is wrong…with me?"
"Why can't-t-t…I schp--shhh--sk--fuck!--speak?"
"When will I…be well?"
Vader closed his eyes briefly and drew another deep breath, then forced himself to unclench his fists. "Very well. What do you wish to know?"
"Um." Vader had no idea how his son could make just one syllable sound so profoundly uncomfortable. "Anything you want to tell me?" Luke's lips flattened at once, as if he realized the stupidity of the request the moment the words left him, and he shook his head. "Or, I guess, whatever I need to know in order not to, uh, hurt anything."
"I suppose suggesting that you refrain from touching anything would be futile."
After a pause, Luke blinked. "Did you just--are you kidding?"
Vader stared back for a moment before giving his son a small, grave nod. "Indeed."
The slow smile that spread across Luke's face was almost not repulsive. "Huh," he murmured, sounding so shocked that Vader felt an answering smile tug at his lips.
"As I told you last night, those are the vocoder's master controls," he said abruptly, gesturing to Luke's midsection. "On, off, and volume control. You can also control the volume and tone, to an extent, by the way you form the words with your mouth. The respirator's controls are here," he continued. "You should refrain from touching them, and I'm not joking now. You can only remove the mask in a pressurized environment--here, or in the hyperbaric chamber in my quarters on the Executor."
Luke looked confused for a moment before his eyes widened. "Ohh, is that what that big black sphere is?"
Vader nodded and continued to explain the other gauges, buttons, and switches on the control panel. When he was finished, he looked up at his son. "Do you have any further questions?"
"Well...a few," Luke replied. "Are your--my--uh. Are these feet real? Because they itch, but--" he broke off when Vader shook his head.
"It's a phantom sensation," he said shortly. "Try to ignore it. Your hand alternately itches and throbs, too," he added, though he was unsure why he felt compelled to tell Luke that their experience was shared.
Luke looked at the new prosthetic with renewed interest. "Really?"
"It's very common."
"All right, well, what about showering?
"We'll deal with that when and if it becomes necessary," Vader said. He could think of few things he would dislike more than having Luke see his naked body. Again, and still puzzlingly, he felt he owed his son an explanation. "Your skin doesn't sweat or produce the same amount of natural oils that normal skin does. That's also why the salve is needed."
Luke nodded, then checked the motion and frowned at Vader. "If you wouldn't let me rub the cream on myself...who rubs it on you, normally? Droids again?"
"Yes."
"Oh." Again, there was more in one syllable than Vader would have thought possible, and he tilted his head in inquiry.
"What is it?"
"I just..." Luke's shoulders rose and fell in a small shrug. "Do you ever talk to anyone, like this, without the mask? Has anyone ever--"
"I fail to see what that has to do with the matter of how you are to function in my body," Vader said, stiffening.
"I know." He shrugged again and looked down at his lap. "I guess I was really just wondering what--what you look like. What Anakin Skywalker looks like," Luke added, barely above a whisper.
"That man is long dead, Luke," Vader snapped. Strange how he could find the sound of Luke's natural voice dripping uncharacteristic venom distasteful despite the anger flaring inside him. He never regretted the vocoder's harsh tone, but he regretted this. Equally strange how Luke's stricken expression could affect him. Still, those things were trifling matters. "You have seen the face I wish you to see."
For a moment, it seemed that Luke would accept this. But when he raised his eyes to Vader's, a fire smoldered there that startled Vader all the more because it was so unexpected. He never would have dreamed that his own ruined features could form an expression so like Padme's.
"My father," Luke said levelly, "was human, wasn't he? With eyes and hair and a mouth that could smile, not a blank mask that tells me nothing. How would you like it if someone you wanted to care about hid themselves from you?" He paused. "Or did my mother like it that she couldn't see your face?"
"Be silent!" Vader roared, jumping to his feet and whirling in one smooth motion to jab a warning finger at his son. "Do not dare to speak of her that way!"
To his utter astonishment, Luke smiled thinly. "So, you did care for her."
He would not have thought it possible for him to feel so ashamed that his own son--their son--had felt the need to resort to trickery to ask about his mother. He found that he did not want to consider what Luke's childhood must have been like, growing up without a mother or a father. Without knowing anything about either of them. He resumed his seat on the couch and found that he could not look at Luke while he spoke. "More than 'cared,'" he said quietly. "We were married."
"You loved her?"
Vader fought the temptation to close his eyes and almost wished for the mask. After twenty years behind it, he had forgotten how difficult it was to keep his face from betraying him. "My eyes were--are--blue," he said, instead of answering. Though in a way, it was an answer itself. He doubted he could deny their son anything, at this moment. "My hair was a similar color to yours. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
Luke was silent a moment, looking straight ahead, at the far wall, at nothing. "It's a start," he said at last, still not turning. His next words seemed almost dragged from him, hoarser than usual. "But, do I--did you look like me?"
He was a man who rarely found himself speechless, but Vader found that he had no words for his son. Had no idea what answer Luke might desire. Would a denial be received with relief, or seen as a rejection? He made himself exhale; quirked the corner of his lips into a smile. It felt distinctly odd. "At the moment," he said slowly, "you resemble me greatly."
At first, he thought with alarm that Luke was gasping for breath before he realized what the strange sounds and expressions his son was making really were. Luke was laughing. It occurred to him that he hadn't laughed like that...ever, in this lifetime.
His smile widened, and this time, it didn't feel quite so strange. "Come," Vader said, as he stood and extended a hand to his son. "We'll have a meal, and afterward, I will show you the rest of the castle."