Master Apprentice Archive Living Quick search:

Rating: hard R? Soft NC-17?

Archive: MA

Categories: Q/O, PWP, AU

Feedback: Dying for it, please. email above.

Summary: Obi-Wan finally gets a grasp on the Living Force

Disclaimers: Someday I intend to use my own beloved, beautiful characters to write for fame, fortune and glory. Today is not that day.

This is (gasp) not a first time! My master is currently looking for the pod. Actually, I think I was channeling Tem-ve. This thing just jumped out of my head: it is unbeta'd.

When the rain began, it wet the ground with light pats, scenting the air with the heavy musk of earth. Slowly the rain intensified until it was coming in close sheets: dense rows of big, fat drops. Qui-Gon was steeped in it, meditating in the rich, cold downpour, the Living Force swirling about him thickly. He was kneeling in mud, his toes sinking into it through the grass, and Obi-Wan knew his boots would be a mess. The lawn was rough from winter dormancy and was scraping the oil from the leather. Qui-Gon did not notice.

The former padawan watched him through the window, smiling indulgently, and put the teapot on. He could plainly feel the joy through the bond. Qui-Gon was so close with the Living Force because he took such delight in it. Obi-Wan wished he could find that in himself, that desire to be inextricably wound through everything. It was so easy for his master.

But Obi-Wan had known for some time how easy it was to be inextricably wound through him. Through him, the new-made knight found the Living Force unerringly. But he wanted to find it through himself. Not an unreasonable desire for a Jedi Knight, although Qui-Gon told him constantly, "We all have our gifts." Obi-Wan's was battle-- thankfully untested on this, their long-awaited and well-earned vacation.

Oh, sometimes he didn't want to go back. He thought that at least three times a day on that idyllic little planet Qui-Gon had suggested, dotted and half-empty with blissfully silent cottages. No blaster fire. No dining hall chatter. No bickering diplomats. Just sweet, soft silence, wind and weather-- and the sound of the teakettle demanding attention as he stared raptly out the window.

He pulled two earthenware mugs down from a shelf and opened the tea canister, spooning leaves into the bottom of the cups. The rain poured down and a white flash sizzled through the sky, followed by the growling rumble of thunder. Qui-Gon remained unmoving, soaking up the Force as readily and unthinkingly as the water soaked through his tunics. Obi-Wan added the thick honey he favored to the leaves and poured the water over, thinking to query through the bond but not wanting to interrupt. In the end he left the tea to cool and steep.

Obi-Wan stripped off his boots and tunics and went outside into the rain, a padawan's practicality still with him after months of knighthood. His master's boots and laundry were going to be bad enough; Obi-Wan didn't want to have to do his own as well.

Perhaps it was the call of the Living Force that caused him to kneel in front of his master without thinking. Obi-Wan's knees made a squelching sound in the thick mud and he winced at the cold that shot through the fabric to his skin. His leggings were quickly soaked and he sought his center, determined to find the draw, the desire to stay in this tense rain and meditate as one would in the perpetually temperate Gardens back home. He struggled to copy his master's easy pose, knees parted somewhat, hands resting comfortably on his thighs, back straight but relaxed. So easily, readily relaxed. Obi-Wan fought to ignore the cold, pounding rain, the soundless flash of lightning, the answering climactic noise of the thunder. He could not find his center. He shifted his weight, preparing to rise and give up this silly exercise of a little padawan desperately trying to copy his master's otherworldly serenity. It was not his gift. He made to stand.

Qui-Gon opened his eyes. /You try too hard, Padawan./

Obi-Wan stilled and met his gaze steadily. /I wanted to-- to find what you find. I can't./

/You can, but you fight it./ The words rolled so easily between them, even though Qui-Gon had long since spoken the ceremony that told the galaxy he had nothing left to teach his padawan.

Obi-Wan rebalanced his weight and settled onto his heels, waiting. He did not know where this patience was coming from. Qui-Gon Jinn's hotheaded, argumentative apprentice was somewhere back on Coruscant, balanced by constant temperateness and meteorological serenity. This patient, expectant man must, therefore, be balanced in the angry coldness of the storm.

He closed his eyes, allowing his master's mental caress, welcoming it, letting it envelop him.

/Do not close off the sensations. It is cold, is it not? Cold and wet, your knees are clammy; your skin is chilled. Don't meditate around the sensations, meditate with them. Welcome them. The rock digging into your left shin. The water dripping through your hair onto your scalp and over your temple. The way the thunder reminds you of how frightened you were as an infant. Don't think about how stained the knees of your leggings are. Think about how the mud feels under you. Put your hands in it. Smell it. It is the Living Force speaking to you. Do not ignore it./

Obi-Wan leaned forward and sank his hands into the ground easily, digging his fingers past the interwoven runners of grass and into the muck beneath. He extended his consciousness a little, taking in the smell of the rain and the wet ground. He took in its coldness and the way the wind, though strong, could no longer flutter the fabric of the leggings that were plastered to his skin. He felt the sand in the mud scraping the pads of his fingers. He felt the stiff, pale grass prickling the tops of his feet as he knelt. He sank himself into every perception he could find, remembering his past, reaching for the future, grounded in the Moment.

/Now. Stop thinking./

With the ease of years of very good training, Obi-Wan silenced his mind.

It wasn't abrupt or sudden, it simply was. The power around him seemed to amplify as he adjusted to take it in. He felt the shift and floated on it, in a place that wasn't a place. The Force swirled about him now as it did Qui-Gon, and he opened his eyes, looking at it. He could see the distinct difference, though it was immeasurable in color or shade or anything evident to an eye that was not of the Force. Qui-Gon's connection to the Living Force was dense and rich, flowing with a viscous, slow ease. Obi-Wan's was thinner, cooler, more fragile, but he knew now that he could attain the unrestrained ease that Qui-Gon had. Qui-Gon's mingled aura and Force danced around Obi-Wan's, and Obi-Wan felt the swell of elation he'd longed for. His body quickened with his Force-sense, growing taut and aroused.

He looked around at the world that had waited for his new eyes and could see it, smell it. He opened his mouth and felt the cold patter of rain on his tongue, centering himself on it. He allowed it to absorb him briefly: small, pounding splashes of rain that tasted like the air smelled-- earthy, metallic and mild-- each one pregnant with life and energy. The Force ran down his throat and soaked into the skin of his tongue with a bright blue chill, washing through his body, instantly warm inside him in spite of the wet wind around him. The front of his leggings draped around his hardness, clinging coldly to flesh that suddenly felt scorching. Lightning flashed and he quickened his consciousness, looking up at the sky as the bolt shot jaggedly across it, coming to ground in two places, instantaneous and yet so clearly vivid to him. The noise that followed was a deep, muttering vibration, rattling through the Force and the air and ground, stretched out long and low as it shook him through. Every impression swept into him, permeating him, brightening his desire.

Qui-Gon moved closer to him, brushing cold, wet fingertips against a cold, wet cheek. Obi-Wan gasped at the contact, throbbing. His master moved forward further, tugged him upright on his knees and pressed against him, chilled at first but warming through quickly. Obi-Wan closed his eyes and cried out at the intensity of the sensations, pounding into his wide-open awareness harder than the rain pounded his skin. He ground his hips forward, relishing the almost-painful spike of pleasure. Qui-Gon pressed their bodies together, unbearable heat pinned between them from knee to stomach as the fierce storm lashed around them.

When Qui-Gon brought his mouth down on Obi-Wan's, it was just enough. The heat in their mouths and shared breaths, the brush of Qui-Gon's moustache, the unbearable softness of tongue all combined. It darted into him like the raindrops had, like the coarse, chilled feel of his trousers had against the soft, hot skin of his shaft. Obi-Wan's eyes shot open as a startled orgasm ripped through him, yanking Qui-Gon into it with him. They shouted into the kiss, drowned out by the rain and wind, thrusting and gasping until there was nothing left but Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and the rain.

Obi-Wan laughed quietly, resting his forehead on Qui-Gon's sopping shoulder. The Living Force dissipated from around him, the brief penetration broken by release. Qui-Gon gathered him into strong arms and held him silently, smiling.

It would have been sweet and romantic had the storm slowly given way to breezy sunshine in the wake of what they'd shared, but the rain was having none of it. It continued to pour loudly. Qui-Gon smiled as Obi-Wan pulled back and gave him a questioning glance.

"No, we do not need to endure this any longer," the master said, amused, and rose with his padawan. Obi-Wan pulled him close for a moment, kissing him avidly, a last stolen moment in the rain.

When he released Qui-Gon, he grinned, "Enough. It's Sithly out here," and tugged his master by the hand back into the cottage for tea.

End.