Heated

27

Vader's POV

Panic pulses through me like poison in my veins.

Every alarm bell in my body is screaming at me to get out of here.

"No wonder you're lonely," she spits at me, "When you push people away or kill them, do you call that freedom?"

Her words wash over me like a cold tsunami.

My lungs involuntarily breathe in a breath of oxygen I don't want. Agony burns in me like fire, igniting me from the inside out.

Leave, leave, leave, leave. My body yells at me.

With glossy eyes, she storms away leaving me alone full of regret.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I have to fight every single nerve in my body to go back to the bedroom and kiss her. Or kill her.

No- I need to leave, now. This internal war in my head, takes every ounce of me, leaving me an exhausted mess.

No, no, no, no.

My control is slowly shattering. I need to pull myself together before it slips through my fingers completely.

Anger and fear begin morphing together creating a new emotion that causes my breath to stutter. The venomous feeling of panic starts suffocating me. I have to grab my chest to make sure I'm actually breathing.

I shouldn't have kissed her.

Walking on shaky legs, I don't think twice about grabbing my robe from the table and grabbing the whiskey bottle and escaping the situation. I slam the door behind me so she knows I left.

If I didn't leave now, something bad was going to happen. I am mere seconds away from breaking and destroying anything in my way.

My heart pounds against my tight chest, making breathing near impossible. Navigating the hallways, I reach the elevator and click the roof access button.

The sweetness from her mouth is still present on my tongue so I take a sip from my bottle of whiskey, allowing the bitter taste to hit my taste buds and wash away the flavor of her.

I chug and chug and chug and chug. Washing away my meeting with Palpatine, washing away the kiss, and washing away the craving to go back in there and kiss her until she can't breathe.

I wash away everything.

Her words hit me like a whip. Mostly because she was right. I am lonely. You have to be lonely when you are a man in my power. Anyone who gets too close gets hurt.

When the cold crisp air greets me on the roof, the warmth of the whiskey takes effect, leaving me alone, drunk, and numb.

–

Half a bottle of whiskey later, a faint glow of orange paints the city skyline.

I don't even remember how long I was up here.

All the alcohol I drank in my panicked rage made time cease to exist up here. Anything to keep me from going back there and partaking in more regrettable actions.

I meet Palpatine in four hours, so I should be sober enough by then to face him. 

After another sleepless night, without stopping at my place first, I leave to grab food at the first restaurant I can find. I will just waste time there until I need to go to the Imperial Palace.

–

The four hours went by irritatingly slowly, as the memory of her lips is all I could think about as I sat alone eating god knows what.