Ignominy

by RD

Title - Ignominy
Author - RD (rainysrealm@hotmail.com
Archive - Master and Apprentice; anywhere else, just ask.
Category - Qui/Obi, Angst
Rating - PG-13
Warnings - None
Spoilers - None
Summary - "When he tried to empty his mind, all he felt was the pounding of blood rushing through his body, and the image of Qui-Gon's fingertips resting lightly on a small waist settled in his mind."
Feedback - Always welcome.

The woman was beautiful, he couldn't deny that. She was human, but in the way she held herself, the way her tar-black hair fell down to her elbows, the way her honey eyes focussed on nothing and everything; in that, there was something ethereal.

Obi-Wan bowed to her with all the embarrassment of his teenage years, and she averted her eyes. He stared at Qui-Gon's hand on her waist. The silence that surrounded them was awkward, though Qui-Gon looked calm. "Padawan," he said. His deep voice seemed to resonate around the uncluttered room. He said nothing more.

Obi-Wan backed into the training room, and locked the door. Then unlocked it. His hands were shaking and he bit the side of his tongue sharply to make it stop. He stood still and alone for a longer time than he cared to count, and felt very young.

Qui-Gon and the woman were silent, despite the thin wall, but it made no difference. Obi-Wan's bond with his master was wild and uncontrollable, even at this stage, and he could almost smell the arousal that pervaded through it. He leaned against the wall, feeling tight in his chest and unsure; he felt Qui-Gon through the Force, and, succeedently, the woman. It overwhelmed him, this new and unknown invasion of his senses, and puberty and the indirect stimulation made him hard, painfully fast. Obi-Wan brought himself off, slumped between the wall and the floor, hunched over his knees.

This wasn't an act to reflect on. He cleaned himself up briskly, then strode back to his own quarters - eyes down as he passed Qui-Gon's room. Obi-Wan sat on the edge of his bed, gripping it like a barrier between him and a fall, and muttered the mantra there is no passion, there is serenity until he heard footsteps, and the quiet click of a door being closed with care.

Still, he didn't let go.

The impact of a lightsaber blade against his own; heat burning the air near his face. Bare feet sliding against a wooden floor, and Qui-Gon's greater bulk pushing against him, without restraint, driving him back. Obi-Wan liked the grounding physicality of combat training. It distracted his mind and allowed him greater passage to the Force - he called on it now, felt it envelope him like a warm embrace, and leant down on the hilt of his saber, straining back at Qui-Gon, his weight not quite reciprocal.

Obi-Wan overestimated his lithe, nimble movements, barely rolling away from a great, sweeping blow from Qui-Gon's blade, then another, from behind. Qui-Gon's speed defied his build, as far as his mastery of Ataro allowed him, and he brought the tip of his saber down in a sharp, definite stroke, halting it before it bit into Obi-Wan's neck. His own was still a foot away from Qui-Gon's ankle; his aim was perfect, though it didn't console him.

Qui-Gon paused, then retracted his lightsaber. Obi-Wan sat up on his elbows, panting. Qui-Gon had barely broken a sweat. The difference between them was absolute, and Obi-Wan clenched his fist. He wasn't angry - it was natural, he was fourteen - but he didn't seem to be gaining any ground. He felt tired and frustrated, and when he looked at his Master's face, frowning, the feeling began to hurt.

"You are distracted, Padawan," Qui-Gon said in his low, steady voice. Obi-Wan did not look at him. Qui-Gon seemed to consider his words, but all he came out with was, "Meditate on your failings. Then we will go again."

It was something Obi-Wan had heard too much lately.

When he tried to empty his mind, all he felt was the pounding of blood rushing through his body, and the image of Qui-Gon's fingertips resting lightly on a small waist settled in his mind.

He did worse when they fought again. Obi-Wan was miserable for the rest of the evening, and thought of all the ways he was letting Qui-Gon down.

The next time the woman came, Qui-Gon did not touch her in front of Obi-Wan.

And Obi-Wan sat in the centre of the training room, a straw mat rough under his soles, and tried to remember every control exercise he had ever been taught.

Obi-Wan was half asleep by the time Qui-Gon came into his room. He didn't bother with formalities like knocking, and sat heavily on the end of the bed, next to his Padawan's feet, touching them through the thin summer covers.

"It bothers you," he said. A statement. "Would you like me not to bring her here again?"

Obi-Wan swallowed thickly, and tried to manage a smile. "You don't have to ask me for permission, Master."

Qui-Gon made a noise like a sigh, and an expression like a frown, though neither seemed to reveal his displeasure. Obi-Wan tentatively opened himself to the Force, trying to sense some emotion from him. Discomfort, only not as strong as that. Irritation, questioning; a sort of tension. Then, Qui-Gon stood up to leave, lingering around the head of Obi-Wan's bed. He put out his hand, palm down, as though to touch Obi-Wan's shoulder, but changed his mind, and left, taking his motion of reassurance with him.

As it was, Obi-Wan did not see the woman again. It relieved him, at first, though that thrust at him the question of why. It wasn't unheard of for Masters to take in a harlot, and if Qui-Gon had taken a particular interest in this one, then that was his own business.

Obi-Wan had been reading, absorbed in his studies in the main room of their apartment, when Qui-Gon brushed by the back of his chair. Obi-Wan looked at him, but he did not turn. "I'm going out," he said, his hand already hovering by the door's control panel. And, at once, as if a terrible sorrow had overcome him, Obi-Wan knew, instinctively, that there was an unspoken end to his words. I'm going out to see her.

Qui-Gon seemed to flinched, and Obi-Wan tried to hide his desperation. But Qui-Gon said, with an ease that stung his Padawan, "Expect me back late. Don't wait up."

And he left.

So it went, for some years.

Qui-Gon did not see her often, but enough that it always affected Obi-Wan's concentration the next day. If there was an upside to it at all, it was that he went far enough away that Obi-Wan couldn't feel what he did, though his vigorous self-discipline in the past months meant that he would no longer have been so affected by it.

This arrangement seemed to hurt more. Qui-Gon knew how Obi-Wan felt about it, even if he hadn't voiced his disquiet, yet still, he went to her. It was only on Coruscant, which seemed little comfort. Obi-Wan was perceptive, least of all a fool, and he knew where Qui-Gon went at night sometimes, on their off-world missions. He knew from tentative experience; Bant, of all people, had taken him, trembling and new on his sixteenth birthday, to one of the darker, more secret alleyways of the unending city.

He did not go again. It wasn't something he came to enjoy.

And yet, there was a strange kind of relief in knowing, in these times, Qui-Gon went to a stranger's embrace. The woman bothered him, and Qui-Gon's attachment to her - it wasn't right. Obi-Wan clung to his rules, to the Code, as if they were the last palisade between himself and a chaotic, uncaring world. He needed order like oxygen; it calmed him, and made him feel secure, like the inhalation of a deep, soothing breath.

Qui-Gon cared little for rules. It showed.

Only once was Obi-Wan still up when Qui-Gon returned from wherever he held his aberrant trysts with her. It was late, or rather, early, and Obi-Wan had lost himself in his text. In retrospect, he would not even recall its title. The quiet slide of the door, metal against air, and his eyes snapped up, his head a moment later, as though from a stupor.

They faced each other. Obi-Wan, sat cross-legged on the worn sofa; Qui-Gon, standing straight, his full height, still in the doorway. He stepped forward, once. The sole of his great boot seemed to linger before it fell with a soft thump against the floor. The door whirred shut.

Silence, again.

"Master--" said Obi-Wan, but he stopped, not knowing how to continue. A thousand excuses clamoured against the inside of his lips: i'm sorry. i should be in bed. i was just. it was only. this one time. And then the questions: is it always this late? did you wear your hair loose for her? did you sleep with her? or just fuck her?

Something stole across Qui-Gon's face, the silhouette of an expression, dampened by the dim lights and the night sky through the windows, and Obi-Wan tried to empty his mind. Sometimes it seemed like he and Qui-Gon could read each others' thoughts; he hoped this was not one of those times. He felt no reciprocal frustration. The sense of betrayal, at least, was, singularly, his own.

Qui-Gon came to him. Kept him sitting, with his down-faced palm, fingers stretched and straight, above Obi-Wan's head. He felt small, but the gesture was one of peace, propriation. Qui-Gon's hand hovered for a moment, then he patted Obi-Wan awkwardly, a few times on the side of his face. His fingers splayed out, brushing his jawline, neck, the bottom of his ear. The gesture was out of place, something given to a child, but it was rare and appreciated. Obi-Wan leaned into his Master's touch, barely, but noticably. His eyes opened and lips parted, sticking, neither wet nor dry, and he felt, for the first time, conscious of his own sensuality.

Qui-Gon broke their eye contact. He pulled his hand away and let the long sleeve of his cloak fall down to cover it. Some sort of barrier came between them; he was blocking Obi-Wan.

"It's too late. Go to sleep now."

Obi-Wan dropped his book, fumbled with it, nodded, and went to his room.

Meditation became a difficult task. It was never something he had excelled at; excitable, as a child, and now, as he began the fall into adulthood, his thoughts seemed capricious, unable to settle. The trance-like state his Master slipped into with such ease seemed elusive, and Obi-Wan spent awkward hours by his side, unable to focus on little but the man next to him and the aching in his calves from kneeling too long. Qui-Gon must have known, but said nothing. No breathing exercises, no questioning his state of mind, not one word of gentle encouragement.

Obi-Wan felt uneasy. He sought a resolution within himself, and, finding nothing, from the Force. He sensed it, like a steady, guiding hand at the base of his spine, leading him towards some unknown conclusion.

An almost-frown persisted about Qui-Gon's features. Obi-Wan hit the floor with his fist in frustration. He got up, stretched his stiff limbs, then left, ambivalent.

Qui-Gon brought the woman to him. Made him stand, look at her - almost as tall as her now, had it been that long? - his hands firmly on his shoulders, restraining, and said, "Obi-Wan. Face her. Tell her what you refuse to tell me."

Obi-Wan was weak. He was breathing erratic through his open mouth, his eyes wide and afraid. He had seen battle; he had stared death down and accepted it, but he could not do this. She was wearing white, and her hair fell across her face, eyes down. A picture of demurity. A lie. A lie! He saw her, in his mind, underneath Qui-Gon's bulk, so frail and brittle that she might break from it, and Qui-Gon's face as he came, for her. Tens and scores of times, he had been with her, been in her, touched her, and allowed her to touch him in return.

And then. Then, Qui-Gon's hand rested at the back of Obi-Wan's neck, and moved down, uncertainly, tracing the curve of his bones down to join with the Force, fingers denting in the small of his back.

"Please," he said, and dropped helplessly to the floor. The idiocy of the situation rang through him; he begged to the whore. "Please don't take him from me again."

She said nothing. No satisfaction of apology or regret. Simply, she left.

There was no more talk of her. Qui-Gon knelt behind his boy, his knees tight against Obi-Wan's thighs; wrapped his enveloping arms around him, and held him.