Ben's temper was fast, hot, and faded out quickly--
but in this case it flared right back up in response to Anakin's words, and he actually had to give himself a second for that fresh flare of anger to fade out.
He also needed the second to try to figure out how to navigate this to avoid upsetting Anakin further, and to make sure that he was not going to resent feeling the need to do that while still pretty hurt himself.
The last thing he'd said to Anakin was 'I love you, if you need to talk I'm here'. The previous misunderstanding had definitely set that up to be unlikely, he knew that now, but he hadn't then.
it really was just a second of frustrated anger, before he faded into just feeling inadequate, somewhat helpless and old.
"I don't know, Anakin. Because you do need -and deserve - to be able to talk about your memories from your own perspective." he absolutely meant that. "but you said something about being able to separate ourselves from our memories and I'm not entirely sure I can do that, at least not all the time and with all of them. Your feelings are valid and real and you - again - deserve to be able to talk them out, but I don't think I trust myself not to be hurt and poised to back away when what you need to talk out is not being wanted and what I am remembering is mostly loving you fiercely, if incredibly incompetently. I don't think my flinch response is particularly fair to you, either."
Re: Traveling Bar
but in this case it flared right back up in response to Anakin's words, and he actually had to give himself a second for that fresh flare of anger to fade out.
He also needed the second to try to figure out how to navigate this to avoid upsetting Anakin further, and to make sure that he was not going to resent feeling the need to do that while still pretty hurt himself.
The last thing he'd said to Anakin was 'I love you, if you need to talk I'm here'. The previous misunderstanding had definitely set that up to be unlikely, he knew that now, but he hadn't then.
it really was just a second of frustrated anger, before he faded into just feeling inadequate, somewhat helpless and old.
"I don't know, Anakin. Because you do need -and deserve - to be able to talk about your memories from your own perspective." he absolutely meant that. "but you said something about being able to separate ourselves from our memories and I'm not entirely sure I can do that, at least not all the time and with all of them. Your feelings are valid and real and you - again - deserve to be able to talk them out, but I don't think I trust myself not to be hurt and poised to back away when what you need to talk out is not being wanted and what I am remembering is mostly loving you fiercely, if incredibly incompetently. I don't think my flinch response is particularly fair to you, either."