Rating: NC-17 for a little foolin' around at the end. Otherwise,
mostly PG.
Warnings: Explicit sex between two hot guys. If it's not your cup
of tea, leave the pot for the rest of us. No spoilers.
Disclaimer: The characters are George Lucas's, bless him for having
such a fevered imagination, even if it's not as fevered as mine. I should
be so lucky as to make any money from writing stuff that's this much
fun to write. Unfortunately, I'm not.
Note: Alas, this seems to be turning into a series, though with
no formal title to it. Since I'm not keen on serials, I promise to keep
the stories complete in themselves, sans cliffhangers. If you want to
read them in chronological story order, as opposed to the order I wrote
them in, "Crime and Punishment" comes first (no pun intended); then "The
Anger Exercises"; then "Master & Apprentice." A couple of characters
from the YA Jedi Apprentice series (great stuff!) appear or are
mentioned here: Bruck Chun, Obi-Wan's tormentor, and Qui-Gon's failed
apprentice, Xanatos. I don't own them, either. However, if anybody'd
like to sell me Qui-Gon, slightly used or otherwise, I have a platinum
card waiting to be broken in. A trussed-up Obi-Wan wouldn't be amiss
either. Home delivery requested.
Beta kudos to KirbyCrowe and Analise. Yes, Masters! Thank you, Masters!
Further mistakes are mine own, Masters.
Telepathy in //.
Summary: Obi-Wan takes his punishment like a Jedi--up to a point.
Feedback: The more I gets, the more I writes, so if you like what
you read, please feed the writer. Warning: Proportion of writing to feedback
may increase exponentially, unless I go up in flames shortly. E-mail
only, please.
Qui-Gon ripped the covers from his apprentice's bed, leaving the
young man beneath them naked and shivering in the sudden draft. "Up,
Obi-Wan. Time for morning meditation."
Barely in time, Obi-Wan repressed a half-awake moan. Voicing it
would get him 50 push-ups and morning meditation without his clothes.
In the snow. By the Sith, he was paying for breaking Bruck Chun's collarbone
tenfold and it was only the third day of a fortnight's worth of "Pick
on the Padawan," as he called the anger exercises Master Qui-Gon had
set him. He was torn between being glad it was only a collarbone he'd
damaged and wishing he'd gotten in more for his own pains, like maybe
a good, solid beating of Bruck.
Evidently, he was a little too slow in getting up, because his master
rolled him out of bed and onto the floor, onto knees already bruised
from hours of sitting meditation on the hearthstones, contemplating his
own fears. Obi-Wan bit his lip to stifle the cry of pain.
"Yes, Master," he said instead, still sounding sleepy. "Thank you,
Master."
"Get a move on, Padawan. Days are short here."
Not bloody short enough, he thought grimly. Sleep was the
only respite from Qui-Gon's torture, and he could see he was going to
get precious little of that. It was still dark out, and it had been long
past dark when he'd gone to bed.
"Yes, Master. Thank you, Master." From prior experience, he knew
those words were the only safe response, and everything depended on their
tone. And on his facial expression. And his body language. And the fine
emotional nuances only a Jedi Master could sense. In short, everything
depended on his own state of unprovoked calm, his control of which was
never very good in the morning.
"Outside. No shirt, no boots," Qui-Gon added, sensing his internal
grumbling.
Obi-Wan mercilessly suppressed his automatic response to this further
punishment. "Outside" meant on the wooden porch, which was at least softer
than the hearthstones that were battering his knees. It also meant cold.
Snow lay a meter deep beyond the porch and the temperature had yet to
rise above freezing after three days on this wretched iceball. He drew
in a deep breath, closed his eyes, exhaled slowly.
"Half an hour."
"Yes, Master. Thank you, Master." Obi-Wan murmured with what he
hoped was genuine serenity and acceptance. Or at least genuine warmth.
It was the last of that he'd see for a while, internal or external. He
got up, rubbing his swollen and painful knees, and limped to the fresher.
"You're hobbling like a weakling, Padawan. Walk like a real Jedi."
Ow. On target, that was. "Yes, Master. Thank you, Master."
He straightened up, forced himself not to limp.
"Don't be long, Padawan."
"No, Master."
Belying his harsh words, Qui-Gon was waiting to towel him down when
he got out of the blessedly steamy water.
"Sit, idiot Padawan," he ordered and Obi-Wan obeyed, swallowing
a sigh as his master's large and calloused hands rubbed soothing ointment
into his battered knees. "You might want to sit meditation on that lazy
ass of yours today, fool, instead of ruining a perfectly good pair of
knees."
"Then you'll join me directly afterwards in the Gildhall. The Commission
is going into the field again."
"Yes, Master." That meant no breakfast, and more digging. "Master,
may I speak?"
"Yes, Obi-Wan. What do you want now?" As though he were a tiresome
child.
"Why did the War Crimes Commission wait until mid-winter to excavate
like this?"
"They moved as soon as the location of the graves was discovered,
stupid Padawan. The ground may be harder now, but the bodies will at
least be preserved as they wouldn't be in midsummer. And you should be
thankful you won't have to endure the stink you would in warm weather,
since you'll be in the trench with them, observing."
"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan acknowledged, thankful indeed for even the
smallest of favors on this mission. If the last he and Qui-Gon had been
on had depressed him--a fact-finding mission to the Rim Territories that
uncovered a thriving slave trade--this one was a magnitude or two worse.
The world they were on now, Graffias, populated by competing human colonies
and indigenous inhabitants who, with the coming of the colonists,
had been catapulted to a much higher technological level before they
were ready, had only recently implemented a peace agreement between colonists
and "indigs" after nearly a decade of guerilla war. The impetus for the
treaty was an offer of admission to the Senate and Republic aid in rebuilding
a war-ravaged world. But with that admission and aid came a War Crimes
Commission investigation in which Obi-Wan's master had been asked to
participate as a neutral observer.
Both sides had committed their share of atrocities over the decade-
long war, but part of the aid package was tagged specifically for the
indigs and its proportion depended on proving just how gross the atrocities
against them had been, since the colonists had settled their world uninvited.
Just before their arrival, a group of Republic volunteers had stumbled
on what appeared to be a fairly new mass grave that was now being excavated.
Qui-Gon watched with the commissioners from the top of the trench and
sent his apprentice into it with the digger droids and forensics team
to assure there was no tampering with the evidence.
If there was were no physical stink, thanks to the cold, there was
certainly a psychic one. As the droids excavated, it was becoming clear
that the pit was full of the bodies of the very young and the very old.
The bones were small, sometimes tiny, or heavily knobbed and calcified
at the joints, the skulls missing teeth from old age or small and full
of milk teeth coming out one by one. Many bore marks of violence: fractures,
energy burns, carbon scoring, and worse. If Obi-Wan's shielding slipped
for even a moment, he could hear their voices and feel their last moments
of terror. After only two days of it, he was already beginning to have
nightmares.
He'd awoken last night, sweating and shivering, thinking he was
being buried alive, to find himself held firmly in Qui-Gon's arms. The
images of the faces--human faces--crying out in horror stuck to him like
the damp sheets.
"Hush, Padawan," his master murmured, kissing the back of his neck.
"It's a dream. Just a dream."
To anyone else, they would have been comforting words. But Jedi
did not dream. They saw the dead past, the possible future, the living
present in their sleep, but they did not dream. Qui-Gon, not gifted with
seeing the future, called it nonsense, assured him that everyone, even
Jedi, dreamed sometimes, but Obi-Wan held his own opinion, one that agreed
with Master Yoda's. And this had felt like a vision. Whether it was past
or future, he was unsure. He hoped it was the past, though it was not
a human gravesite they were uncovering.
"Some of them were still alive, Master," he whispered into the dark.
"Hurt, but still alive."
Qui-Gon sighed and rubbed the gooseflesh on his apprentice's arms
with large, warm, kind hands. "No doubt they were, Padawan. It wouldn't
be the first time. Nor will it be the last. That's the past. Let it go
and go back to sleep, love. We've a long day ahead of us tomorrow."
One that started with a half hour's meditation in the cold.
Afterwards, he was almost glad Qui-Gon had made him do it. He felt
scrubbed and clean in a way he hadn't since arriving, the cold scouring
out his soul as he took it in with the Force and made it part of himself.
Still, he made sure he warmed himself thoroughly before putting on his
boots and wrapping himself up in his cold weather cloak to meet his master.
"Padawan, you're late," were the first words he heard, arriving
at the Gildhall. He wasn't and he knew it, but he took it anyway, without
smarting.
"Yes, Master. My apologies, Master. It won't happen again, Master."
"You've said that before, Obi-Wan. I haven't seen any improvement,"
he snapped. "Do or do not."
"Yes, Master." Obi-Wan felt his face flaming, despite himself.
It's a game. It's not what he really thinks of you. Still, he was
chagrined to find it took most of the trip to the gravesite to cleanse
himself of resentment. That surprised him. Even the first time through
these exercises some years ago, he'd known Qui-Gon was only goading him,
that it was not a reflection of his master's personal feelings, no matter
what he said or did. All of a sudden Obi-Wan seemed less sure of that
than ever before. Sleeping with his master had changed so much in
their relationship, at least to his mind. Qui-Gon, ever the Master and
teacher, didn't seem much affected by it and didn't let up when they
arrived at their destination.
"All right, into the trench with you so they can resume the digging.
Off with you. Everyone's waiting." Qui-Gon cuffed the side of his head
as though he were a child and sent him down the four meters of ladder
into the wide trench the droids had excavated over the past three days.
Bones and fragments of skulls stuck out of the frozen dirt with bits
of cloth and leather, a child's toy, pieces of lives buried as though
in a sudden avalanche. Obi-Wan suppressed a shudder and walked over
to stand by Rue Dariat, a young woman acting as attache to one of
the commissioners, whom he'd first known as a Temple initiate when they
were children. Unchosen as a Padawan, but a gifted and sensitive telepath,
she had joined the Diplomatic Corps a few years before Obi-Wan had become
an apprentice.
"Morning, Padawan Kenobi," she said, smiling, the words coming
out in a fog of frozen air. There was no jealousy in her emphasis on
the word; Rue liked her job and herself. Seeing her again was a great
pleasure and her smile made things considerably more bearable.
"Morning, yourself, Attache Dariat. How long until it's Ambassador
Dariat?" he teased.
"A good long time, I should think," she snorted. "Never, if this
is the kind of duty I keep getting stuck with." She had a lovely smile,
Obi-Wan thought, and skin the color of lightly burnished bronze, black
eyes, black hair worn short over her ears, a heavy-worlder's figure,
solid and, well, voluptuous, even under her layers of cold weather clothing.
Even though she was a couple of years older than he, she was just as
new-minted and young enough, like him, to be given the worst scut jobs.
Like standing in a grave, watching others open it.
"I notice you left off the adjective in the greeting," he said.
"Nothing good about it, is there, when you have to stand around
in the middle of this all day." She made a face. "What's with Master
Jinn? Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"
Obi-Wan smiled, felt his ears reddening, a little embarrassed that
she'd seen the exchange between himself and Qui-Gon. "No, actually, it's
training."
"Training?" She looked puzzled. "Humiliating you in front of others
is training you?"
"To hold my temper. It's a standard set of exercises. I needed a
refresher course, so now I'm doomed to a fortnight's worth of it."
Rue looked horrified. "You're kidding. Poor thing. You're making
me glad I left the Temple now."
"I'll survive it," he said, shrugging. "I've been through worse."
"Really? Like what? I've always wondered what kind of training the
padawans get. They're very vague when they tell the initiates about it,
aren't they? Tell me what you've been doing and what Master Jinn's like.
And who's sleeping with whom from our classes."
They passed the morning, watching the forensics team move among
the digger droids, tagging pieces of skeletons and mapping schematics
of their placement prior to removing and sorting through them, and talking
about Obi-Wan's training and life with Qui-Gon and her schooling and
training as a "political brain- picker," as she called it. When the midday
break arrived, Qui-Gon left him in the trench to "guard" and had a
meager meal sent down to him. Rue seemed outraged and returned from
her own break with a couple pieces of fruit for him, which she persuaded
him to scarf down when Qui-Gon wasn't watching, even though he tried
to convince her he'd pay for it later.
"He can't be that cruel," she insisted. "You have to eat."
"It's not cruelty, really," he told her, licking juice from his
fingers. "He's pushing me physically and mentally so I know where my
limits are. So we both do. Working together in the situations we do,
he needs to know how far he can count on me, and I need to know the same
thing about myself."
"What about his limits?"
"Well, he's the Jedi Master," Obi-Wan said, pragmatically. "And
I'm his third apprentice. I don't think I've ever seen his limits." At
least not those kinds of limits. On the other hand, there were things
he could do to Qui-Gon in bed that sent his master right over the edge.
Not that there'd been any of that since the exercises started, or any
fun at all. And there wouldn't be until they were done. Obi- Wan stifled
a sigh. Yes, Master. Thank you, Master.
When work stopped for the day, Rue invited him to her quarters later
for a small party she was hosting for the other younger members of the
Commission's entourage.
"Don't count on me," he replied, thanking her for the invitation.
"I doubt I'll be allowed to go. I'll probably be sitting meditation or
doing katas or something menial like polishing boots half the night.
But I'll ask."
Qui-Gon surprised him. "Go," he said. "I suppose your knees are
still useless for anything, which makes you even more useless than usual
to me. Don't be late. I'll expect you up early in the morning, outside
and doing katas before I get up."
"Yes, Master. Thank you, Master."
"That's the first time in days you've said it with any sort of sincerity,
Obi-Wan."
"Yes, Master," he grinned. Qui-Gon smiled, the "Evil Master" facade
cracking briefly and his more familiar master looking out. "Go, before
I change my mind, Padawan. Enjoy yourself."
And he did. It was good being with people more or less his own age
and not apprentices. Not that he didn't have friends his own age at the
Temple, and outside at the University where he sometimes took classes
as part of his training, but he saw any of them so seldom, and was with
Qui-Gon so much, always in a new place, always learning something--suddenly
his master seemed, well, old. Stodgy. He'd been stodgy since they arrived
here, playing the rigid, humorless, unaffectionate, cool, controlled,
perfect Jedi Master saddled with a stupid apprentice. He'd never felt
so distanced from Qui-Gon before, certainly not since they'd become lovers.
Having had a taste of Qui-Gon's love, he was hungrier now for his master's
affections than before, and it was hard to think of his sudden aloofness
as anything but rejection, though he knew it was not.
Being here with peers felt a little like coming up from a mine shaft
and finding the sun golden and warm over a pleasant land. Although he
was the youngest one there, he felt older than all of them and it took
him a while and the consumption of a drink pressed into his hand by an
aspiring young diplomat to loosen him up. "You're too serious, kid,"
he was told. "Live a little." He enjoyed the food, having been on short
rations for the last three days, the company, the conversations, and
the laughter, and he especially enjoyed Rue's wit and intelligence.
It was over too soon. With long days facing all of them, they made
it an early night; Obi- Wan lingered--to help Rue clean up, he told himself.
She offered him another drink and he accepted, though the first had been
strong enough to make him a little tipsy.
"Thank you for inviting me," he told her when they had whisked the
last of the debris into appropriate containers. "I had a wonderful time."
"Then we'll do it again," she said, smiling. "I'm glad you could
come." She leaned up and kissed him, smack on the mouth, lingering a
little. Startled, he half returned it. "Want to stay?" she asked. He
liked that about her too, her forthrightness.
"I'm sorry," he said, feeling a fool. "I think I may have led you
on, Rue. I like you very much and under other circumstance I'd say yes."
"Don't tell me this is some Jedi thing," she said, crossing her
arms and giving him a hard look. "I know for a fact padawans aren't expected
to be celibate."
Obi-Wan laughed. "We're not. Not always, at least."
"Oh, it's Master Jinn again, isn't it. The exercises."
"Well, yes. And other things. I've got a lover." That they were
one and the same reason was an unnecessary bit of information he chose
not to share.
"Anyone I know?" she asked slyly.
Obi-Wan grinned. "Possibly." And said nothing more.
"I see. Faithful and discreet. Admirable. Good Jedi qualities, Padawan."
She stepped back and turned away. He could feel her disappointment, but
also the truth of her words, and her respect for him. "Well, go home
then, Obi-Wan, before we both do something stupid. I'll see you in the
morning."
"Good night, Rue. Thank you. It's good to see you again."
"Good night, Obi-Wan. Sleep well."
He was surprised to see it raining when he left the diplomatic compound,
and pulled his cloak closely around him. The air had gotten much warmer
and the ground was slippery with mud under his feet, heavily puddled
and slushy with melting snow. He was a little less steady on his feet
than he thought he was, too, and had to walk carefully. Even so, in the
short trip from Rue's quarters to his own, he grew filthy from the knees
down. Seven assorted sithspawn hells, he thought. I'm going
to have to clean my boots and cloak before I go to bed. That should
take half the night and it's already late.
While it didn't take half the night, it took a good deal longer
than he would have liked, as did cleaning up the mud he had tracked in.
He slipped quietly in beside Qui-Gon, whom he felt sure was trying to
torture him by letting them share a bed and not making love with him
until the exercises were over. Tonight it didn't much matter. A little
drunk and very tired, he was asleep within a few moments. Still, he was
grateful for the presence of his master's warm body when he woke again
sometime later from the same nightmare of living burial, sweating and
choked, hearing someone cry out, someone he thought he knew, whose
identity slipped from him as he woke. There were others, too, some of
them the golden-furred indigs who were watching the excavation with luminous
nocturnal eyes.
Qui-Gon's arms slipped around him, hushing him, stroking his hair,
rocking him gently. "It's all right, love. Hush. Just another dream."
His master's kind words and warm touch gentled him out of the nightmare.
It stayed with him, feeling far too real, for a long time before he fell
back into an uneasy sleep, from which he woke much later than he'd intended.
"Worthless Padawan. Get up." Qui-Gon's voice was coldly severe.
It was light out, not the pre-dawn darkness he'd expected to rise
in. His internal clock had failed him. Shit, was Obi-Wan's first
conscious thought. I've overslept. I'll never hear the end of it.
Before his master could tear the covers off him again, Obi-Wan was awake
and on his feet. Well, on his feet, struggling to be awake. His head
was pounding and his mouth tasted like a Gammorean boar had died in it.
I can't be hung over after one drink. Two. All evidence indicated
it, however.
"If you're going to debauch yourself, Obi-Wan, have the grace to
carry it out on your own time when you have no duties to attend to."
Face flaming, he stood there and took it, though it hurt. Qui-Gon
knew he wasn't the sort of student who binged and carried on when his
master wasn't looking. Which is why it shouldn't bother you. You know
he knows it. It's just the exercises. "Yes, Master. I'm sorry, Master."
He understood now why Qui-Gon had let him go the night before: to give
him fresh material to torture his apprentice with.
"How many did you have?"
"Just two, Master."
"On an empty stomach."
"No, Master. With dinner and more, Master."
Qui-Gon arched an eyebrow at him. "I never suspected you were such
a lightweight, Obi-Wan." Obi-Wan wondered whether the humor he detected
in Qui-Gon's voice was genuine or put on for the benefit of the exercise,
decided to be on the safe side and assume it was the latter.
"Yes, Master. I'm sorry, Master."
The older Jedi sighed heavily, as though burdened with the worst
of all possible padawans, one for whom he had no hope. "We've no time
for exercise or meditation this morning, thanks to you. Get dressed."
"Yes, Master. Thank you, Master."
"Don't thank me yet, Padawan. You've no idea what I've got in store
for you."
As far as Obi-Wan could tell, what his master had in store was more
of the same tedium, without Rue's company to break it up. They met the
Commission and returned to the gravesite. He was sent off to a new section
of the trench to observe alone, where the forensics team had found something
particularly interesting. Rue gave him a wave which he dared not return
with more than a nod, standing under Qui-Gon's severe and watchful
eye.
The trench was a different place today, and he was surprised they
were doing any work in it at all. Water had filled it during the night
and only recently drained away, leaving the bottom muddy and slick, still
pooled with puddles, the sides weeping like some enormous wound. Today
it felt more like a grave than the hole in the ground he had deluded
himself into thinking it was. A smell of rot--more vegetable than of
putrefaction, thankfully--rose from it, roiling Obi-Wan's empty stomach.
For once, he was glad he'd missed breakfast. His mouth no longer tasted
so foul, and his headache had been reduced to a stabbing pain over one
eye that only appeared if he moved too quickly, but he felt muzzy yet
and not himself. Obi-Wan looked around uneasily, nerves stretched taut
for no apparent reason. Just the hangover, he thought. At the
other end of the trench, not far from Rue, two digger droids were excavating
with pick and shovel arms, a hundred cubic centimeters at a time,
supervised by part of the forensics team.
Three more members of the team huddled nearby on his end, carefully
uncovering something by hand that the digger droids had chanced on the
day before, something they wanted to remove from the saturated soil before
it was further damaged. Obi-Wan watched them with interest, fascinated
by the painstaking nature of the work, and the care with which they performed
it. He was fully absorbed in it when a shout from behind him coupled
with a jolt of fear reaching him through the Force snapped his attention
to the other end of trench.
It seemed to happen in slow motion, but it was only later that Obi-
Wan pieced together the sequence of events. He looked up from the scene
he was watching to see water pouring into the other end of the trench,
as though someone had turned on a hose. One of the digger droids toppled
over first under the cascade, then the second and then Rue was running
toward him, terror etched on her face. The wall of the trench beside
her started to buckle, sliding inward from the bottom while the top
curved over precariously, like a breaking wave. Outside the trench,
the tailings from the excavation started to slide toward the trench as
the ground in front of them collapsed. One of the forensics team members
working at that end was buried almost instantly.
"Rue!" Obi-Wan shouted, leaping toward her, using the Force to propel
himself forward. He reached her in a fraction of a second and caught
her around the waist at the same time Qui-Gon shouted his name and Force-hurled
a looped rope at him. He drew the loop to him and around his wrist with
the Force, holding onto the rope above it, just as a torrent of mud and
water swept his feet and Rue's out from under them and dragged them
into the muck. He held her tightly as they went under, holding the
rope, holding his breath, hoping he could hold everything until Qui-Gon
and the others could pull them out. Mud and muck and water and debris
surged around them in the confined space, throwing them hard against
the ground, collapsing the walls all along the trench. He could feel
Rue clutching him, rigid with fear. //Hold on,// he tried to send to
her. All he felt from her was terror.
In the next moment, he was slammed hard into something that felt
like the foundation of the world, and she was torn out of his grasp.
He remembered nothing afterwards.
It was dark when he woke and he wondered when--and where--he had
fallen asleep. The room was dark too, and not the quarters he had been
sharing with his master. His head hurt and his shoulder ached and the
rest of his body felt as though Master Qui-Gon had been throwing him
repeatedly in combat drills. That wasn't all. Cataloguing the rest of
his hurts, he realized his throat was raw and there was a cough rattling
around in his chest, too, waiting to come out; he could hear it in his
wheezing breath.
Can't be hung over, he thought.
"No, love. I wish it were only that." Qui-Gon's voice was gentle
in the dark, without the snap and snarl it had had the last few days.
His master's large hand came to rest on his forehead, very lightly, then
brushed over several days growth of beard on his cheek. A light came
up gradually, revealing the room to be a medical cubicle and Qui-Gon
sitting beside him, looking tired.
"How do you feel, Padawan?"
"I don't know . . . Hurts," he said finally. "Everything."
"You took quite a beating. Do you remember anything?" Obi-Wan shook
his head, realized that wasn't a good idea, resolved not to do it again,
ever. "Can you tell me where we are?"
"Graffias?" his apprentice answered sleepily.
"Very good," Qui-Gon encouraged. "Why?"
"The War Crimes Commission . . . they're excavating--"
It came back then, in a rush as horrible as the wall of mud and
water bearing down on them. "Rue," he said in a choked voice. "I lost
her."
"You didn't let go of her, you know," Qui-Gon told him gently. "When
we pulled you out, you were clutching two things you wouldn't let go
of: the rope I threw you and her coat. The fastenings had burst. She
was pulled right out of it. You were very intrepid, Padawan. You did
everything you should have. You did everything you could."
"She's dead, isn't she?" he said dully, an emptiness opening up
inside him.
"Yes, love. I'm sorry. Quite a few people are."
"What happened?" he asked, just to say something. He didn't really
care. What mattered was that he had failed Rue, and she was dead. They
had been classmates, old friends becoming new ones, and now she was dead
in an accident he'd foreseen and done nothing to forestall.
"It was the rain, largely. It melted the ground frost too quickly
in some places, trapping pockets of water below the surface. One of the
digger droids hit a large one at the other end of the trench from you.
When it drained into the trench, it collapsed the saturated ground in
front of the tailings, which were also saturated. The whole of it came
down in a river of mud and buried the trench again. Most of the forensics
team died. You're the only person we got out alive." Qui-Gon leaned
down and kissed his forehead, his cheek, nuzzled his ear. "And we
almost lost you, my love," he added softly. Obi-wan could hear the worry
and relief in his master's voice. It wasn't comforting. "You've been
in a bacta tank for two days, asleep most of this one. We'll be going
back to Coruscant as soon as you're strong enough, since the Commission
has halted work. And you should go back to sleep now."
He acquiesced without argument, without really caring if he woke
again.
A few days later, after his release from the medical center and
just before they left, there was a memorial service which Qui-Gon told
him they would attend in their best blacks, the Jedi dress uniforms of
close-fitting, black, high-collared tunic over black pants, the latter
tucked into high black boots. Obi-Wan had worn his own blacks very seldom
since earning the right to them as an apprentice, mostly on Coruscant
at formal state dinners hosted by one planetary dignitary or another
which he attended with Qui-Gon, who seemed to know many of them. He wasn't
keen on wearing his dress uniform now, though Qui-Gon never failed to
admire him in it. He wasn't keen on the whole memorial service, because
he wasn't sure he could get through it without making an utter fool of
himself.
"Give me your boots, Padawan. I'll shine them when I'm finished
here," Qui-Gon offered, sitting in a chair polishing his own. "We'll
give your shoulder and arm a little more rest."
His master had been solicitous and gentle with him since the medics
had released him, the anger exercises and more strenuous katas put aside
for the time being. He was thankful for the respite. He was still sore,
his dislocated shoulder especially, still coughing up the remains of
an infection from the mud he'd inhaled, and still tired easily. He also
wasn't sleeping. Two, three, sometimes four times a night he woke to
Qui-Gon's soothing voice extricating him from the nightmare as his master
had pulled him from the reality it had become.
"Thank you, Master. Shall I braid your hair?"
"If you like, Padawan. It looks better when you do it and I'm still
vain enough to care."
"Liar," Obi-Wan smiled. "You haven't a vain bone in your body."
"I was vain enough to choose a handsome young apprentice, wasn't
I?" he said, snaring Obi-Wan by the waist and, careful of his healing
injuries, pulling him down on his lap and kissing him. "I love seeing
you in your blacks."
"I've looked better."
"Ah, now who's being vain? But yes, you are looking pale and a bit
thin. Have you decided to let the beard grow, then?"
Obi-Wan shrugged, then worked his sore shoulder. He'd had four days
of growth by the time the medics let him out and hadn't bothered to shave
it again, more from disinterest than anything. Only Qui-Gon's wheedling
had gotten him into the shower and dressed every day since then. The
beard had at least gotten past the scruffy stage and was looking more
presentable now. "Less trouble," he said. "Perhaps until we get back
to Coruscant."
"Padawan," Qui-Gon began in a tone of voice Obi-Wan dreaded, rubbing
his back, "I know you're grieving--"
"I don't want to talk about it," he cut in, a tinge of panic in
his voice, standing up and walking behind his master. Silently, he combed
Qui-Gon's hair out until it was snapping with electricity, divided it
and began to braid it close to his master's skull.
"You'll have to sometime, love," Qui-Gon told him.
"No. I won't," he grated.
Qui-Gon said nothing for a few more moments, then: "Not so tight,
please. I'll have a headache by the time you're done."
"Sorry," Obi-Wan murmured, pulled out what he'd done and started
again, more gently this time. Halfway through, he stopped suddenly, letting
his hands fall to his master's shoulders.
Qui-Gon felt the boy's fingers digging into him and braced himself.
A moment later, Obi-Wan lay his forehead against the top of Qui- Gon's
head, shaking silently. "I had her," he said in a choked voice, finally.
"I really did."
"No one doubts that, Padawan. You did everything possible."
"Why couldn't I hold on to her?" There was such anguish in his voice
that Qui-Gon wanted to pull him close again. But there were lessons to
be taught.
"You were injured," he said reasonably, instead. "The force of the
mudslide that pulled her from your grasp also broke your arm, Padawan.
When we pulled you out--something it took three large men and some use
of the Force to do, and dislocated your shoulder in the process--you
were unconscious and you'd stopped breathing. Your lungs were full of
mud and water. One of your ribs was cracked. We cracked a second getting
the mud out of you and getting you breathing again. Thankfully, your
head is very hard, so you were only concussed and not suffering from
a skull fracture. Very little of you wasn't either bruised or abraded.
Why do you think you spent two days in a bacta tank on a respirator,
why you're so sore now, why you're still coughing and taking anti- infectives?
Did you think you were capable of saving her? You weren't." There was
sharp edge in Qui-Gon's voice as he finished, not of anger but exasperation.
He felt Obi-Wan rock back away from him, his body stiffening with
shock and hurt, and turned around to face his apprentice, still sitting.
He watched, keeping his own features impassive, as the expression on
Obi-Wan's face went from surprise to pain to sudden anger, the anger
Qui-Gon had been trying to provoke for days. It didn't surprise him to
see it arise here, but that didn't make it easier to watch.
"No," Obi-Wan cried, "maybe even you couldn't have saved her, Master,
but I could have prevented it, if I hadn't listened to you."
The words stung Qui-Gon, even though he'd known they were coming,
and that they were, perhaps, true. "Oh?" he responded with a hint of
not-quite put-on sarcasm. "You've become omnipotent now? Quite a feat
for a mere padawan."
"I knew it was going to happen," Obi-Wan shouted, furious. "I knew
that was more than just the dream you kept insisting it was."
Qui-Gon rose and leaned back against the wall, tall and imposing
in his blacks, arms and ankles crossed as though it were a more casual
conversation. "Then why didn't you act accordingly?"
"Because you--"
"No," Qui-Gon said evenly, stepping forward and poking Obi- Wan's
chest. "Because you failed to have the courage of your convictions,
Padawan. Lords know you've seen me defy the Council often enough to have
learned that much from me. If you were so certain, then the responsibility
was yours, to speak, to act, to do something and not just wait for it
to happen. I may be your master, but I am not always right, nor do I
know everything--a lesson you should also have learned some time
ago. This is your failure, not mine. And I must say, it's a rather high
price to pay for stupidity and cowardice. I expected better of you."
Obi-Wan reeled back as though Qui-Gon had struck him, then caught
himself and stood looking at his master defiantly, chin up, breathing
fast and deep, blue eyes on fire beneath the red-gold brows. "You made
me what I am," he spat, turned quickly and left their quarters.
Qui-Gon watched him go sadly, feeling inhumanly brutal, finished
braiding his hair and dressing, and went to the service alone. Obi- Wan
was not there. No one asked why, but it seemed generally assumed he still
wasn't feeling well. Qui-Gon was glad of that. He would not make excuses
for the young man, but neither did he want to shame him. There had been
enough hard words today.
Qui-Gon found him afterwards standing near the now cordoned-off
gravesite. It had snowed again two days ago, heavily, covering the raw
earth with a pristine blanket of white, leaving only gentle contours
of shadow and light in the late afternoon sun. From the footprints and
lack of a ground vehicle, it appeared his apprentice had walked the several
kilometers from their quarters. Now he stood near the cordon, wrapped
in his cloak. Even from a distance, Qui-Gon could tell he was shivering.
Close up, his lips were blue, his eyes feverishly bright.
"Come, Padawan. You'll make yourself ill."
"They've just left them here," he said faintly, teeth chattering.
"Yes. The ground is too soft to risk digging again. It will have
to wait until the spring when it dries."
"Why didn't they wait to begin with?"
"Foolishness. Political expediency. Impatience. Inexperience." Qui-Gon
shrugged. "Any of those things. All of them. None of them. The present
becomes the future in a series of choices, each one leading to another
sheaf of choices, until some final outcome is reached for each person,
Padawan. Many futures branch off from each moment and not even a Jedi
knows all the choices that lead to one outcome. The site engineers warned
them not to dig, but the forensics team insisted. Had they waited
a day or two, none of this might have happened, or it may only have happened
a day or two later. Fewer people may have died--or more. I grieve the
loss of life as you do, but I am glad that your life was spared, love."
Qui- Gon took Obi-Wan's arm beneath the cloak. "Now come away. You need
some warm food and a hot bath."
He let Qui-Gon lead him to the speeder and settle him into the passenger
seat, let the kilometers he'd walked pass without notice on the return
journey, let himself be taken indoors to their quarters. Qui-Gon took
his cloak from his shoulders, made him sit so he could remove his boots,
and wrapped him in a blanket while he made tea and then soup and watched
him eat and drink it all. He felt better afterwards, a little less hollow,
a little more sure of himself, as though he were finally waking from
another dark dream.
"Master, what I said before," he began as Qui-Gon took the empty
bowl from him.
The older Jedi brushed his hand through Obi-Wan's hair. "Is that
what you really think, Padawan, that I made you what you are?"
"In part," he said truthfully.
"'As the Master, so the Apprentice,'" Qui-Gon quoted a Temple aphorism.
"An oversimplification, perhaps, but true to some extent."
"To some extent. I know you're right, that the responsibility was
mine to say something, to act."
"And if you had, what do you think would have happened?"
"Perhaps Rue and the others would still be alive."
"And perhaps not. You can't know. The only fixed time is the past
and the present moment. All you can know for certain is what has happened
and what is happening. That's an elementary lesson, Padawan. Have you
forgotten it?"
"I seem to have forgotten a great deal lately," he said softly,
looking away.
Qui-Gon cupped his padawan's cheek and chin in one hand, turned
him back to look into his face. "Not so much as you think, my love. You've
borne my needling and insults and abuse with very good graces these past
few days."
"And not so well today."
"Which only shows that you've got far beyond letting small things
trouble you. The death of a friend is no small thing, especially not
when two are together and one lives and one dies. It could have just
as easily been you, dead and buried in that trench. Had it been, well,
I'm not at all sure I'd have borne it any better, Padawan, the Force
or no. Absence is absence. You'd have left a great hole in my life."
"We weren't that close, Rue and I. Not so close as--"
"No, but you might have been, with time," Qui-Gon said. "You forget
I've seen you together every day. You were classmates, old friends. She
cared for you, or was coming to. And you for her."
Obi-Wan nodded. "Yes," he said. "I'm sorry, Master."
"For what? Do you think I don't know you, Obi-Wan? That I'm not
certain of your feelings for me?"
His apprentice was silent for a time. Qui-Gon endured it, though
what he really wanted was to shake the young self-indulgent idiot in
front of him until his teeth rattled. "That's it, really, isn't it? I
haven't been sure of yours for me."
"Because of the exercises."
"Yes. Stupid of me," Obi-Wan said, embarrassed at his backsliding.
"Unperceptive, perhaps. Hardly stupid. And only to be expected.
Do you remember what I told you when we first discussed this?"
"Yes, Master. That it, that loving each other makes us--me-- vulnerable.
I thought I understood that. I didn't, really. I see that now. I want
so much to please you, to be loved by you, that I've let it cloud my
own judgment."
"Yes. You should have trusted your own instincts and feelings, not
mine." Qui-Gon knelt in front of him and looked into his eyes, holding
his face between his palms. "We might disagree, Obi-Wan, we might even
quarrel about your actions, but you must know for yourself that I cannot
tell you what to feel or think or even, ultimately, what to do. I've
never understood this gift of sight you have. You're the only one of
my apprentices who's possessed it. Is the future really what you see
in your dreams, my Padawan?"
"Sometimes," he shrugged. "Sometimes it's only the past, sometimes
things that are happening now. Sometimes only things I wish to happen.
What do you see in yours, Master? It's the one thing we haven't shared,"
he said a little wistfully.
"I don't know that we can, since neither of us are dreamwalkers.
So I can only tell you that what I see is Life, the Living Force. I see
lives coming to be and growing and changing and giving more life and
aging and dying and becoming one again with the Force, the vast web of
it all. I see how closely connected we all are to each other, how much
we need each other to live in the light. Sometimes I hear it in my
sleep as well, when my mind is quiet enough, like a song. And I hear
your voice, your life singing in the middle of it." He leaned forward
and kissed Obi-Wan's mouth.
Qui-Gon's gesture seemed to break something open in him. Obi- Wan
took the kiss hungrily and gave it back more so, his tongue opening Qui-Gon's
lips, greedily drinking him in, searching for a connection of his own.
Rue was dead now and it was a loss he would have to live with, whether
the responsibility was ultimately his or not. At this moment, what he
wanted most was not his own gift that was sometimes a curse, but his
master's gift, his immersion in the Living Force. He needed to feel the
life coursing through both of them.
"Qui-Gon, show me," he said hoarsely, slipping from the chair onto
his knees, his hands fumbling with his master's clothing. "Please. I
need this. I need you."
"Tell me what you want, love," his master acquiesced, feeling Obi-
Wan's want as sharp as hunger pangs and cruel as grief. He nimbly loosened
fastenings and removed the offending articles of clothing, doing the
same for his apprentice, leaving them both naked from the waist up. Obi-Wan's
hands were like ice against his skin as he ran them over Qui-Gon's chest
and back, rocking against him for another hungry kiss. The older man
gave back what he was given, probing and tasting and biting with
equal intensity, until the two of them were panting into each other's
mouths, and Obi-Wan was clutching Qui-Gon's ass hard enough to leave
bruises, grinding against him, both their erections straining against
the other's.
"Stand up," he demanded of his master in a voice gone dark and rough.
Qui-Gon obeyed, guiding his lover's shaking hands through the motions
that would free his own aching cock from the confining clothing.
There was no preamble, no foreplay, no teasing, none of their usual
love play. As soon as Qui-Gon's cock sprang free, Obi-Wan's mouth was
on him like a man with a consuming thirst, taking him in deeply, sucking
and moving intently, his fingers digging new bruises into his master's
thighs and ass. Qui-Gon cried out and clutched a fistful of Obi-Wan's
bristly hair, but there was no need to guide him in this. His hips thrust
against his apprentice almost of their own accord as his pleasure built
more quickly and explosively than he usually would have let it. It
was clear what Obi-Wan wanted, so he opened himself up to the Force and
through that to his apprentice, who moaned low as he felt that bond reinforced
and deepened between them--and let himself come, convulsively, copiously,
without reservation. The cry torn from him was like a wounded man's but
it was pleasure, a fiery ecstasy, rather than pain that caused it, pleasure
he fed back to his lover.
Obi-Wan shuddered and drank him in greedily, then got to his feet
and pulled Qui-Gon's mouth down to his own. //Open up.// As his lips
parted, his apprentice spilled the last mouthful of his own seed between
them. They tasted and drank it together, sharing it like wine. Qui-Gon
felt himself strangely moved by the gesture, the tenderness and gratitude
in it.
He stepped out of the last of his clothing, slid his hands down
Obi- Wan's body and unfastened his pants, easing them down his hips and
thighs and calves as he went to his knees before his lover. Obi- Wan's
cock was glistening and hard, already spilling fluid, freed from his
clothing. Qui-Gon kissed and licked the tip as he guided his apprentice
out of the pile of garments, still kneeling before him like an acolyte.
Stroking the trembling legs, he opened himself up once more to the
Force, let it flow through and around him, guided it around Obi-Wan
like blanket, wrapping him warmly. His apprentice sighed and sank his
hands into Qui-Gon's thick hair, stroking through it, giving himself
up to his master's touch with utter trust, like an offering.
Qui-Gon worked more slowly, sucking and licking, swirling his tongue
around the crown, rubbing the shaft lightly with his beard, tonguing
the glans, breathing warm currents of air over the tip until Obi-Wan
was trembling from head to foot. "Now--please!" he gasped after a very
short time, and Qui-Gon took him in hard and deep as Obi-Wan thrust against
him and came almost immediately, his hands against Qui-Gon's neck,
buried in his hair, almost weeping.
As though it were a ritual, Qui-Gon stood and kissed his lover,
repeating his gesture, sharing the last mouthful of his own seed, his
own life, tongues and lips coming together to taste it and each other,
meeting the way their bodies had in heat and eagerness. With that sharing,
Qui-Gon once again opened his perceptions to his apprentice, letting
him see through his senses the riot of life around them and inside them,
and feel his connection to and place in it. Even filtered through his
master, the sensation was almost as powerful as an orgasm, shook
him like one.
"Thank you," Obi-Wan said at last, gratefully leaning against Qui-
Gon, breathing heavily, muscles quivering, hardly able to hold himself
up.
"Come to bed, love. Let me hold you."
He let Qui-Gon pick him up, something that usually made him feel
silly and childish. This time, it was a relief to be carried. He felt
so tired suddenly, not just the usual post-sex drowsiness, but a deep
emotional exhaustion. He wanted to stop thinking, to stop feeling-- to
stop knowing--and just be for a time.
Qui-Gon put him down on the bed and lay down beside him, gathering
Obi-Wan into his arms, kissing his forehead, his eyes, and finally his
mouth. The hunger and need and fear were gone now, the fire banked down
to low coals of warmth, and they lay together quietly, Obi-Wan tucked
under his master's chin, breathing so evenly he might have been asleep,
though Qui-Gon knew he was not. But for the first time since the beginning
of the mission, he could feel peace enveloping the boy.
It had been a much harder mission than either of them anticipated,
a grim one made worse by fresh death and the irritants the anger exercises
inflicted on both of them. Hard as it was for Obi-Wan to endure his master's
needling, Qui-Gon had suddenly found it equally difficult to administer
the insults and abuse necessary to the exercise. The first time through
them, when the boy was much younger, their goal had been to teach him
to endure minor aggravations and hardships tranquilly, a lesson he'd
successfully completed. It hadn't been necessary to be so harsh with
him, nor had it been painful to play the part of stern teacher with him.
This time, the stakes had been higher, the test more severe, the success
harder won and more painful when it was finally achieved. Qui- Gon
wondered if he had overdone his role, but saw no other way he could have
accomplished the goals of the exercise. It had changed them both.
Qui-Gon supposed it would go on changing them. The lessons themselves
were so different now that they were lovers. If he found it harder to
be harsh with his apprentice, Obi-Wan had become correspondingly harder
on himself, wanting so much to please his master. They would both have
to be much more careful now that words cut more deeply and feelings ran
so high.
In his arms, Obi-Wan shifted, asleep now. In short order, he would
move out of Qui-Gon's embrace, flinging himself across the sheets restlessly
as he always did. At first it had bothered him, because it seemed as
though Obi-Wan were fleeing him in his sleep. Now he realized it was
only the young man's tamped-down energy coming out at night, for he just
as often twined himself around his master's body in sleep, tangling them
both inextricably in the sheets.
Obi-Wan shuddered a little, a small, fearful noise escaping him.
"Not tonight," Qui-Gon murmured, stroking his lover's hair. "You've had
enough pain today." He passed his long fingers over Obi-Wan's temples,
across his flickering eyes and turned the dream away, watched as his
padawan's face relaxed. "Sweet dreams, love," he whispered, and set himself
in vigil for the night.
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