Disclaimer: George owns the universe. I have delusions of
grandeur.
Notes: I've been trying to wrap my brain around the Jedi Code;
this came of my thoughts. Comments, criticism welcomed and
responded to. Thanks to Joy for the patience and the beta.
Summary: One bed, two Jedi, and the third precept of the Code.
* * *
Obi-Wan lay on the bed, supine and lazy, his muscles still
stretched and warmed by his morning workout, body still bare
after his shower. He turned his head and contemplated the
equally bare man sitting propped against the headboard, legs
folded and databook in hand.
"Somehow, I never really pictured this when I was little."
Qui-Gon lowered his 'book, moving it beyond the range of the
lingering droplets that threatened to fall from his own damp
hair. His attention shifted smoothly from text to Padawan,
though his gaze was focused a couple feet lower than Obi-Wan's
face. "I seem to remember experiencing initial surprise at its
proportions, myself."
Delivered so dryly, it took a long moment before Obi-Wan
self-consciously shifted his hips. "You know that's not what
I'm talking about."
A distracting hand worked to survey the formerly neutral
territory of the young man's bicep and forearm. "Then perhaps
you could be a little more precise."
He wished he could be more precise. But it was difficult to
express, even to a man long the closest of his lovers, and even
longer his respected Master, what he could not even define for
himself. Just a vague unease. The thinnest sliver of guilt.
Problem was, there wasn't a Darkened thing for him to feel
guilty about. After these last two months, so voraciously
consumed by diplomatic staring contests and balancing acts, he
and his Master had earned every right to take a quiet moment
alone, displacing concentrated intensity with equally
concentrated contemplation. Yet this siege of peace did nothing
to dissolve this odd stain of tension that lay in his mind.
His struggles for clarity only further muddled his thoughts,
and he lifted a hand from his chest to wave vaguely at the air.
"I meant 'this' as a whole. All of this..." Not able to find
adequate words, Obi-Wan fell silent, seeking a calm center.
Qui-Gon's exploring fingers stilled and retreated. He waited in
silence until the younger man's body shifted restlessly. "What
were you expecting?" he gently prompted.
Obi-Wan shook his head. "I don't know, exactly. Something
peaceful. Deliberate." A smile threatened the edge of his
serious contemplation. "Austere."
Qui-Gon prefaced his reply with an overly-heavy sigh. "This is
what happens when children are raised with formal Temple
rituals," he said, leavening with mock disapproval.
"Eventually, they expect everything to be neat and clean. Even
sex."
Obi-Wan's felt somewhat sheepish. "You get these ideas, when
you're a child. Thoughts that stay with you." Thoughts that
stayed, at the very least, until they were displaced by new
liturgy, one forged over the low heat of another's body.
"Besides," Obi-Wan said, smile full-blown, "I rather like
rituals. Provided I don't have to sit still for too many hours
at a time."
"Mmm. I'd noticed."
"I thought you might have," Obi-Wan said, and stretched slowly,
until his shoulders eased and his ankles cracked. "But
whoever's to blame for my preconceptions, this still isn't the
sort of thing I expected. Passion, yes. But not to this degree.
Not for a Jedi."
The 'book abandoned, Qui-Gon shifted to lie on his side,
parallel to his student. "We're not trained to be automatons,
Padawan. We're intented to be something more than good little
drones that simply plug into the Force whenever something needs
fixing."
"But sometimes it feels like that. Like when you listen to the
words of the Code. Really listen, like you're hearing it for
the first time. 'There is no Passion; there is Serenity.'"
"It's a maxim, Obi-Wan. A convenient philosophical
abbreviation. Which is one reason it's so limited. And so open
to interpretation."
"Which you delight in." For when it came down to thoughtful
interpretation, he couldn't have asked for a better Master, or
one more willing to analyze the Code to the point of blasphemy.
"Of course! A well-trained mind should thrill to the debate,
don't you think? Just as the well-trained body thrills to the
sparring circle?" Qui-Gon warmed to his subject, and, if he
were only wearing a bit more than Obi-Wan's shadow, he would
not have looked out of place before a dozen attentive students,
scribbling on a holoboard. "Discipline and denial are not the
same thing. One leads to balance, the other to turmoil.
Sublimating desire is just as destructive as sublimating anger
or fear."
An unexpected frission flared and smouldered, and Obi-Wan
wasn't sure whether to laugh or gasp. He settled for a mixture
of the two. "Are you suggesting we discipline my passion?"
"Such a chore," Qui-Gon smiled, and set a hand to caressing
Obi-Wan's pale skin. A shiver sketched down his body at the
contact. "But first you need to feel your passion without
fear."
So easy to say, and so much harder to accomplish. "But don't
you ever feel a moment's guilt? For catering to a feeling? For
ignoring the proscriptions of the Code?"
"You're skilled at the art of logic. And that's your asset, not
mine. But your conclusions shouldn't always be so rigorous."
Fingertips echoed his words, painting his punctuation onto a
willing canvas. "You're in need of a lesson, my Padawan."
"A lesson?"
Qui-Gon nodded. "Close your eyes."
Obi-Wan complied readily enough, though he was more than a
little curious. Closing his eyes would hardly hinder his
perceptions. He didn't need his eyes to feel the mattress dip
at his right side, to hear rustle of skin against fabric, or to
sense his Master's Force-bright presence kneeling beside him.
With the barest effort, he anticipated Qui-Gon's touch before
it landed on his forehead, blurring away the crease at his
brow.
"Relax. You act like you're expecting an attack," the other man
said in mild rebuke.
"Overtraining," Obi-Wan murmured.
"Wasn't there something in your training about trusting my
judgement?"
Still voluntarily blind, he smiled. "I'm sorry, Master."
"Don't apologize, Obi-Wan. Just lay still and breathe, slow and
deep. No meditative formalities; no reaching for the Force.
Just breathe." The patient voice that had calmed the energy of
a hyperactive teenager hadn't lost its efficiency in the
intervening years, and Obi-Wan's breath deepened. He heard the
call of the Force, soft but siren-clear, and left it resonating
around the edges of his mind, his focus instead on the coolness
of the air he inhaled, on the warmth of its release, and the
pattern of the exchange.
Then the touches came.
At first it was a bare, skimming contact, hardly worth calling
a touch. It brushed over the fine hairs on his arms, going
against the grain in a way that brought goosepimples to the
surface as his skin reflexively begged for more.
Obi-Wan couldn't help but look for the pattern, to try and find
the path that Qui-Gon was following, but there was little rhyme
and less reason to where his hands chose to linger. The fingers
that dragged curiously slow over the hollow of his throat,
until he couldn't have swallowed even if his mouth hadn't been
desert dry, seemed to care little for lingering on the planes
of his chest. The irregular interlock of muscle and rib bones
held some fascination for his Master that Obi-Wan couldn't
begin to guess at. He should have been laughing, shaking as
over-ticklish nerves were deliberately triggered; instead, he
counted along as fingers delineated ribs down his right side,
up his left. His hands were lifted from the sheets so Qui-Gon
could trace bracelets over the thin skin of his wrists, parting
his fingers to expose the skin in between. Direct touches laid
at the center of his palms made Obi-Wan's hands curl and clutch
like a newborn's.
It was haphazard; it followed no known precedent, and Obi-Wan
didn't like it. Maybe his body liked it. His body might take
each stroke to heart, like a clean, tight-stretched canvas
drinking in wet brushwork. But that didn't mean his diligently
trained mind had to like the strengthening call, the one that
came not from the Force around him, but from the living Force
inside him. He didn't even have to acknowledge it. He could
listen instead to the sounds drifting through the open window,
to the muted wash of seawater on rock, and the swish-skitter of
the flying creatures crying their hunger to the waves. He could
feel the fresh air filtering in and chilling the last
shower-damp strands of hair, and that same air could carry
these feelings away in its intangible arms. He would let them
go, will them to go, and be left pure and empty and Jedi.
But he wasn't a Jedi.
Not yet.
Hands framed his face, tilting and posing until Obi-Wan saw the
pinks and oranges of light through his eyelids. Fingers studied
him in minute, intense detail from eyelashes to jaw to mouth,
paying such attention to the lace of lines on his lips that he
wondered what secrets were written there. Which was a
ridiculous thought; it was just a face, just his face, and
there was nothing there that a bedside lamp or the rising sun
could illuminate, most certainly nothing that Qui-Gon hadn't
seen there for years.
Obi-Wan felt as skittish as a Throughbred, quivering with
frustrated energy his first time at the starting gate.
Something had to give, something had to break, and he'd lay
odds on it being his control. Point made and lesson learned, he
would concede the game to Qui-Gon. No, he'd have to go further
than simple admission. He would concede himself to Qui-Gon.
Expurgate this tension by turning it back on the source. He
reached up with open hands, looking for skin to touch, for hair
to snarl.
Qui-Gon abandoned his caresses and sat back on his heels,
intercepting the searching hands with his own. Mirror images of
nerve and callus met, fingers entwined, and Qui-Gon rocked
forward, driving Obi-Wan's elbows into the yielding mattress.
Held so securely in place, bearing his teacher's weight,
Obi-Wan didn't even think to try for his freedom.
"No," Qui-Gon said, and his breath broke the tableau. The
pressure on Obi-Wan's arms relented, and his hands were brought
to rest on the cool fabric above his head. "Put your hands
down. Keep them there."
Obi-Wan spoke instinctively, without the censor of thought. "I
can't."
"Of course you can." If the words were harsh, then Qui-Gon's
half-smile smoothed away their sting. "I wouldn't ask you for
something you couldn't do."
"Then help me. Bind me." Obi-Wan's fingers moved restlessly,
but hands remained obediently against the sheets.
Qui-Gon shook his head. "You're a Jedi. What bonds could hold
you?"
Frustration offered strength if Obi-Wan chose to rebel, but he
grappled for the headboard instead, his fingers making their
own anchor among the rails. Never let it be said that Qui-Gon
Jinn didn't choose his student's lessons wisely. Had Obi-Wan
been asked for his freedom once, he could have relinquished it
willingly, if not graciously. A single moment's choice, then he
would have been free to rail against his requested restraints
until his triceps burned from the exertion. But to lay still of
his own volition, to be faced with the same exact choice with
each passing minute... why did it take such energy to do
nothing?
Qui-Gon's fingers moved down Obi-Wan's sides, swept over the
angled rise of his hipbones, and burrowed in the heated tangle
of curls at the base of his cock. Only Obi-Wan's training,
designed to give him the patience of a diplomat and the
discipline of a general, allowed him to swallow his cries. Even
if it did require the prick of an incisor to remind his tongue
of silence.
Something was wrapped tight, deep inside. Now he needed
something wrapping him tight on the outside. Fingers settled
around his cock, holding him in the gentle grip of a man used
to modulating the strength of over-large hands. A far too
gentle grip; he wasn't made of porcelain. Hadn't he proven he
wouldn't crack under a heavy hand? He'd been hardened by the
glare of a hundred alien suns, he'd guarded his Master's back
from the fire of a hundred angry blasters, and he could take
more than this. Feet flat on the bed and knees raised, he
lifted his hips from the clinging cotton sheet and sought more
from those cautious fingertips.
Infuriatingly, they retreated. "All this impatience. There's no
need for you to strain so, Padawan."
"I need more," he insisted.
"No. You need exactly what I'm giving you."
Yes, of course. Of course, that was the point. Qui-Gon was
giving this lesson on passion, and Obi-Wan was supposed to be
learning. Wasn't this to be a simple lesson? There were only
two barriers. Two restrictions. He was forbidden to relegate
his emotions to the Force, and he was incapable of holding them
dormant inside. Qui-Gon's hand stroked up and Obi-Wan's blood
surged to follow, Qui-Gon's hand stroked down and the shielding
skin peeled further away from the wet crown. There was a third
option; there had to be. There was always another option. He
tried to ignore the rhythm of the hand, and focused his
thoughts on the puzzle before him, on the lesson itself.
Lips corralled the head of his cock, and a tongue stole a
taste. Then Qui-Gon pulled away, leaving cold air to dry the
mark left by his mouth.
Oh, another path, a third path. He was trying to think; he had
to figure this out on his own. It was coming and he knew it was
coming, but he didn't know what to do with it. He gripped the
rails of the headboard until sweat slickened the interface
between skin and wood and friction didn't exist. His hands
might have slipped, breaking his self-willed restraints. But
the only bonds that could hold Jedi were those made by Jedi,
and his hands held stubbornly, as they had to. As they were
expected to.
"Master, please..."
Qui-Gon worked a hand between Obi-Wan's thighs, though he spoke
with the calm voice of a Jedi briefing the Council. "You must
learn to use your passion as a tool. Use it to burn the clutter
from your mind. Just as a fire to burns the dead grass from a
prairie. Live in a single, clean moment, Padawan."
He latched onto Qui-Gon's words, wrapping himself in them like
they were swaddling cloth. They gave him something to hold on
to, they held onto him in return, and still Qui-Gon's fingers
moved on his body. With one hand on his cock and the other
dipping around and behind his balls, he hunted down and preyed
on the sweetest spots.
And Obi-Wan lived in the moment.
He could feel the bed under the soles of his feet and he felt
his toes curl into the mattress, but he couldn't avoid the
shift, the slip that carried him out of time's pervasive grasp.
This tension wasn't unusual, this desire wasn't an anomaly. It
was the norm. Like a mountaineer acclimating to the air above
the snow-line, this thin, sharp edge became safe as a child's
cradle. There was no beginning. This had always been. And so he
stopped expecting the end. Stopped anticipating the fall. He
cried out as fingers entered and opened his body. The future
was irrelevant, anxiety lost its definition, and life condensed
to fit in a single, quivering drop of rain.
With all time reduced to a single moment, to choose became
pointless. His hands fell from the headboard and he lay with
arms spread wide across the mattress, fingers cupped around
nothing. He was offering and he was sacrifice; he was tied down
with air, but could have been nailed through with iron.
The fingers left him, but he only concentrated on the curiously
satisfying ache of muscles shifting around the emptiness. His
heels were lifted to rest on Qui-Gon's shoulders, but he only
thought of how his Master's pulse felt through the thin skin of
his ankles. His hips were lifted to Qui-Gon's lap, but he only
relaxed at let himself be moved. And although he hadn't asked
for it this time, Qui-Gon's voice came again.
"Look at me, Obi-Wan."
He opened his eyes, and the view jumped in time with the pulse
of his heart.
He looked so calm, so utterly pleased with the moment, and
Obi-Wan wouldn't have thought there was a thing Qui-Gon wanted
if it wasn't for the thin trail of sweat making long hair cling
to his cheek, or for the vaguely unsettled look in his eyes. If
Qui-Gon's smile was a little distracted as his own hard cock
rubbed against Obi-Wan, his student forgave him immediately.
And with heat applied in the form of his Master, he flushed as
vividly as cherry-red steel, and bent with equal pliancy.
Qui-Gon pushed smoothly inside.
And rocked out.
And pushed in.
It was so odd, this mix of open bareness and covered shelter.
Not an uncomfortable odd, just a different take, a doubling of
his vision. A surge and retreat that left his mind stirred and
shaking and maybe this was the norm, now. Maybe this was how he
was supposed to exist, in these imperfect pulses that made this
perfect passion.
The end came up on him in a rush, and Obi-Wan felt twelve
again, when everything was startling and he was unable to
predict what his body was about to do. But when he'd been
twelve, there'd been no Master who would have him, no braid
trailing over his shoulder, no confidence that allowed him to
simply reach out and fall down and fall into...
And he came with light shimmering in his eyes. No gasp for air.
No time to wish. Just affirmation. Qui-Gon's own wet answer
echoed deep inside.
And he'd learned his lesson.
Eventually Qui-Gon lifted him away and he came to rest on his
side, with his Master settled down behind him. Strong and warm
and heavy, he couldn't muster the desire for anything beyond
the confines of the bed. He was thoroughly content, yet hummed
with an untapped vibrancy; he felt like a newly ignited
lightsaber, sublimely powerful but held carefully in check with
a warrior's calm. With a priest's peace.
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