Love Lessons IV - Bedtime Story

by Augusta Pembrooke ( a_pembrooke@yahoo.com )

Category: Angst, chan, BDSM

Pairing: Q/O, Q/Xanatos

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Qui-Gon tells Obi-Wan about his experiences giving the Love Lessons to Xanatos.

Archive: MA and https://www.squidge.org/~pumpkin/augusta/augusta.htm

Warnings: Dysfunctional relationships! Sexual incompatibilities! This tale is set in a universe and Jedi Order in which it is expected that Masters train their Apprentices in appropriate sexual behaviors. While such training takes place within a loving trust-relationship, it also begins earlier than many readers may feel comfortable with, at the onset of puberty. This means that this story will involve sexual relations between a young teen and his adult mentor. If this bothers you, or offends you, you are advised to read no further.

Author's note: I took considerable liberties with the account of one particular scene in JA#2 (The Dark Rival).

This is the fourth and last (I hope) of the Love Lessons series, and is considerably darker than the previous three. You may find it useful to have read the first three to set the context before reading this one, but please be prepared for something quite different here.

Standard Boilerplate: don't own 'em, don't ask, don't tell

Feedback: feel free

Additional Warning: This story deals with sex between young teen Obi-Wan and his fifty year old Master, and young teen Xanatos and his forty-year-old master. You have been warned. Any further damage to your sensitivities is at your own risk.

One More Warning: Underage Obi-Wan, Underage Xanatos!

Obi-Wan was lying in his master's arms, with his head on his shoulder, idly running his hand over his master's chest. The two had just enjoyed a rather complete review of all the lessons Obi-Wan had been given to date, and they were both feeling unusually mellow.

"Master?" Obi-Wan checked on Qui-Gon's state of consciousness.

"Mmm? what is it, Padawan." Not asleep, but tending in that direction.

"Master Windu was your first padawan, right?" Obi-Wan asked.

"That's right; I hadn't been a knight more than a few years when I felt drawn to attach him." Qui-Gon stirred a bit, indicating a willingness to engage in some bedtime conversation. "They thought I was too young to train a padawan, but he proved them all wrong - made knight younger than any padawan before or since. He'll be on the council before he's forty," he boasted gently.

"He still loves you, doesn't he? I can sort of tell from his voice when he talks to you." Obi-Wan probed.

"He'd better still love me," Qui-Gon said indignantly. "Padawans usually stay emotionally close to their old masters. When g’Rell died, I felt a piece of my soul die as well..." Qui-Gon sighed.

"There is no death, there is the Force," Obi-Wan told him, but something in his intonation made it a question.

"Well, yes, of course, but it isn't the same, really." Qui-Gon tightened his arms around his padawan briefly.

"After Master Windu wasn't your padawan anymore, did he ever want to... did you ever... I mean, I don't see how you just go from this" Obi-Wan's wave encompassed the two of them in bed "to not, all at once."

Qui-Gon smiled fondly. "Well, let's just say we did have a few repeat farewell celebrations during his early knighthood. Until..." Qui-Gon fell silent, brooding.

"Until... Xanatos?" Obi-Wan asked. Qui-Gon just nodded. "He tried to kill you, twice! That I know of," Obi-Wan's voice expressed outrage and disbelief. "I don't understand how anyone could try to kill someone they'd been... well, HERE with." Once again he indicated the venue from which they were speaking.

Qui-Gon pulled himself up against the headboard of the bed, dragging Obi-Wan with him. "Well, Padawan, Xanatos and I weren't at *quite* the same place that you and I are currently. Oh, it may have been the same location, but there the similarities end..."

Qui-Gon Jinn and Mace Windu were in the shower facilities off the 'saber-courts, after more than an hour of light-hearted attempts to kill one another. Now, as the two of them steamed themselves gently under the hot water, and updating each other on their news, Mace was trying to avoid noticeably staring at the marks on Qui-Gon's chest, neck and back. Scratches and bites, mostly - it looked like he'd tangled with a jungle cat and lost.

The knight in the next cube was less tactful. "Hey, Jinn! Looks like that hot apprentice is too much for you. You need some help holding him down?"

At that, Qui-Gon was on the man; one shove took him to the wall, and Qui-Gon's forearm was crushing his adam's apple. "If I find you sniffing around my padawan again, Brill, you may find yourself wishing I hadn't." His voice was icy, his intentions clear.

Mace grabbed Qui-Gon's shoulder, and hauled - Force, it was like trying to dislodge a building from its foundation. He tapped a little bit of Force-strength to make Qui-Gon step back, ashamed at having to use the Force against a fellow Jedi, and most of all cringing at having to against his old Master.

Brill coughed and choked a few seconds, then looked up into Qui-Gon's glare. "Tsk, tsk," his teasing voice was further incentive to mayhem. Mace wondered if the man had a death wish. "Possessive! How completely Counter-Code! So totally un-Masterly. What WOULD the council say?" He waited to see if Qui-Gon was going to take up his challenge, and when he didn't, Brill draped a towel over his shoulder and swaggered away.

Qui-Gon looked an apology at Mace. "That damned creche-robber has targeted Xanatos for his next conquest," he explained. "And the kid's too young to be anything but flattered."

"But not too young to begin the lessons?" Mace prodded gently at what looked to be a tooth-abrasion on Qui-Gon's neck.

"If I'd waited another DAY, he'd have been out trolling for it on the streets," Qui-Gon said ruefully. "That is one hungry padawan." He couldn't hide a rather propietary smile. "And he's just so damned beautiful that he attracts predators like ... like blood attracts gerrettes. I'd make him wear a hood when he went out in public, if I thought it would help, but that sexy walk would have them following him with their mouths hanging open if he were in a BAG. And he doesn't even know he's doing it."

Yeah, right, Mace thought. Mace was familiar with Qui-Gon's new apprentice, and had little doubt that the young man knew exactly what he was doing every minute. But he loved his former master, and hoped Xanatos wouldn't disgrace him too much when he turned into the little courtesan he was apparently born to be.

In point of fact, Xanatos was considerably more innocent that Mace would have believed. Oh, he knew he could draw an admiring glance, or get someone to trail hopefully after him just by looking at them a certain way; he just wasn't sure why. He also was completely sexually inexperienced until Qui-Gon had undertaken his duties as Xanatos' master to teach him the ways of love.

Now it seemed like he just couldn't get enough. He wanted his master constantly, and felt a strange hunger when his master made love to him. It was this hunger that made him bite. He tried to get Qui-Gon to bite him back, but when he did, he was too gentle. Xanatos wanted ... but what it was he wanted, he couldn't yet articulate. But he knew he'd figure it out soon, maybe tonight.

Lying in bed, watching his master move around the room, he was struck again by his sheer beauty. The size of the man! Xanatos loved lying underneath him, feeling helpless, knowing Qui-Gon could crush him if he chose. His Master. He loved saying that. "Master," he said aloud. "My Master." It was a purr.

When Qui-Gon turned to look at him, lying naked in his bed, he just held out his arms. And with a groan, Qui-Gon was on him, kissing his hungry mouth, pulling him up into his arms and devouring his passion. "Take me tonight, Master," Xanatos begged. "Come inside me. Make me yours."

Now Qui-Gon was taking his erection in his mouth, suckling and licking. But Xanatos squirmed away. "Inside me," he insisted. "I want YOU, inside me."

Qui-Gon raised himself on an elbow and stroked his padawan's avid face. "You're too young, Zan. You're not ready."

"Oh, I am. Please. I want to feel all of you." And it was those eyes that did it. Qui-Gon had discovered that when Xanatos asked with his eyes, there was very little he could deny him.

"Well, we can try," Qui-Gon said doubtfully. "But if I'm hurting you, tell me and I'll stop." He reached within the drawer beside the bed for the vial of oil used for these purposes. Oiling one hand rather lavishly, he slid the other hand under Xanatos' neck and drew him up into a kiss, while thrusting between his legs with the oil.

Xanatos moaned into his mouth and hissed "More!"

"There's a variety of ways to do this, love," Qui-Gon looked down into his apprentice's eager face and sliding an oil-slicked finger into his rectum. "Face to face, your knees up and me between them is one of my favorites. Probably not best for your first time, though, since you're essentially helpless that way. On all fours gives you control; if I go too deep or too fast, you can just move away. Or ... "

"Face to face," Xanatos insisted. "I don't want control, I want *contact*. I *like* helpless. And I want to be able to see your face. I need to watch your face when you love me. I love your eyes."

Qui-Gon briefly toyed with the fancy that Xanatos used his own eyes to hypnotize his master into doing whatever he wanted. But he knew he was kidding himself - if it wasn't his eyes, it would be his voice... that lush, velvet voice begging him... He was pretty much powerless against the voice, too. And the lips... he fell into another kiss, while continuing his manual stretching of his padawan's anus.

"Pleeease, Master," the young man begged. "I want to feel you inside me... All of you, all the way. Do it!"

At this, Qui-Gon released Xanatos' mouth to reach again for the oil, drenching his penis in his eagerness to comply, then positioned himself between his padawan's legs and gently moved his knees back towards his chest, elevating and exposing his opening to be penetrated. Placing the tip of his swollen erection at the virgin entry, he gently pressed forward, met resistance, held very still.

"Push against me, love," he instructed, "try to push me out like an annoying turd."

Xanatos giggled, but complied. Qui-Gon felt the muscles inside his padawan ripple, and pressed forward, gaining entry through the tight outer ring and gasping in shock at the sensation. "Ooh, Zan... you gorgeous thing... you're so tight!" he groaned. "I don't know if I'm going to be able to stand more than a few seconds of this."

"Control, Jedi Master," Xanatos said laughingly. "Exert some of that mind control."

Qui-Gon closed his eyes and breathed deeply for a few moments, then pressed forward again, gaining another inch or so before the tightness around him told him he was very close to damaging the boy. "Relax, love," he soothed his bow-taut padawan, stroking his abdomen and chest. "Sshhh. Let go. Let me in, darling."

But Xanatos didn't want to relax - he wanted to be fucked. He hooked his heels behind Qui-Gon's buttocks and yanked Qui-Gon closer to him with his legs, and felt the huge obstruction invading his body sink deep within him. "Oh YES!" he cried out. Sith, it hurt, like an iron spike had been hammered into him, and it was wonderful! He reached up to twine his hands in Qui-Gon's hair, pulling him down to him, and arching up his torso met Qui-Gon between his knees and kissed him. "Master," he hissed between kisses. "Fuck me. Fuck me now!"

At this, Qui-Gon's caution was defeated; he pistoned into the pinioned body below him, his hands on either side of Xanatos' head, his eyes never leaving the beautiful face, watching as the eyes went wild with lust. Xanatos was practically screaming his ecstasy now; it was shocking, but so very erotic... the very moment Xanatos lost control and Qui-Gon felt the rippling contraction of his sphincter muscles around his cock, that was too much stimulation; he let out his own shout as he shot his juices deep into his padawan's bowels, in thrust after thrust after thrust of never-ending orgasm.

"Ah, love," Qui-Gon sighed as the spasms at last subsided, and he sank down onto the body beneath him. "What the Force was THAT?"

Xanatos' arms were around him, his face nuzzling his hair. "That, my wonderful, masterful Master, was paradise."

The two lay inert for quite some time, Xanatos murmuring foolish endearments and stroking his master's hair, and Qui-Gon mouthing blindly at his apprentice's chest and neck like a newborn. Finally, a sigh and Qui-Gon rolled over on his back.

And immediately sat up in alarm and guilt when he caught sight of his depleted member, bright red with blood.

He turned to his apprentice, saying "I've hurt you!", but Xanatos just tried to pull him down to lay on his chest. "No, stop it - I've hurt you! Why didn't you tell me?" He tried to get Xanatos to roll onto his side so he could assess the extent of the injuries, but his apprentice just sat up and pushed him down onto his back.

"Stop babying me, Master," he instructed, and slid down to take Qui-Gon's penis into his mouth, licking away the blood and semen. Qui-Gon could only watch him in stunned disbelief. When Xanatos had cleaned his master off to his satisfaction, he returned to his side and lay his head down on his shoulder and sighed contentedly.

"Xanatos," Qui-Gon began again. "How could you have let me do that to you? That had to have hurt you. Don't try to make me believe it didn't."

"I won't," Xanatos said in a voice blurred with satiety. "It hurt."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" Qui-Gon felt tears backing up in his voice. "Why didn't you stop me?"

Xanatos leaned his head back on his master's arm so he could see his face. "Because it hurt sooo goood," he purred.

Obi-Wan's voice was small and frightened. "He wanted to be hurt?"

"He needed to be hurt, Padawan," Qui-Gon said, anguish in his eyes. "And he needed to be hurt by me."

At first, Xanatos thought it was just the pain he wanted. He tried cutting or burning himself, even tried it while masturbating, but that wasn't it. It needed to be painful sex, not pain with sex. And his master was hardly cooperative.

Qui-Gon was horrified at what he'd done. Compounding his guilt was the knowledge that he had hurt Xanatos in the commission of the most exhilarating sex he'd ever experienced. But he was determined not to hurt the boy, however much Xanatos himself may want it. Xanatos begged, Xanatos pleaded, but Qui-Gon was unmovable. He regularly loved his padawan with hands and mouth, he allowed Xanatos to penetrate him, but he had no intention of losing his own control inside another's body again.

Xanatos appeared to forget all about it. He was an exemplary student, bright, willing and unusually compliant. At night, he and Qui-Gon experienced almost the full range of sexual expression, and Qui-Gon became persuaded it was a strange one-time aberration.

Then came the night when Qui-Gon was lying naked on their bed, eyes half-closed as he passively watched his Padawan roaming greedily over his Master's body with lips and tongue. When his mouth fastened on Qui-Gon's erection, he groaned in anticipation - Xanatos had recently learned to control his gag reflexes enough to take Qui-Gon deep into his throat, and loved the reaction it elicited from his master. Qui-Gon closed his eyes as he felt his already stiff penis grow rock-hard with tension. Xanatos had gone to some effort to lull him into a false sense of security. He was unprepared, therefore, when the hot mouth withdrew, and his apprentice suddenly was straddling his body, and impaling himself on his master's rampant erection.

His eyes snapped opened and he tried to sit up and throw the boy off of him, but he was forestalled. Not by superior strength, but incredible beauty. The sight of Xanatos, his head thrown back and his eyes cat-like slits, straddling him and forcing his body viciously down onto his master's penis held him thrall-bound.

He surely couldn't enjoy this - he ought to feel his erection wilting immediately at the thought of what Xanatos was using him for. But ... the incredible tightness around his penis, the heat and clenching, his padawan's animal moans... once again, he was lost to the sensation, shame and guilt forgotten as he allowed Xanatos to take his painful pleasure from his body. And once again, he felt the awful spiral of desire that ended in a crushing climax as Xanatos found his own satisfaction and collapsed sated on his Master's chest.

The two reached some sort of accommodation after that. They enjoyed gentle, loving sexual relations predominantly, but Qui-Gon came to allow Xanatos to use him for the kind of pain he wanted periodically. He tried to tell himself that since he wasn't the initiator, he wasn't to blame, and that if Xanatos wanted it, it wasn't the same as hurting someone who didn't want to be hurt, but he still felt an enormous amount of guilt over the situation.

Sometimes Qui-Gon tried to talk to Xanatos about it, to figure out where the dark desire for pain was coming from. He thought if he knew that, he could at least understand it, if not 'cure' it, perhaps accept it without guilt. But Xanatos wasn't interesting in knowing or in understanding. "Not everything has a reason, Master," he would say dismissively. "Some things just are."

In all other respects, the two were a perfect Master/Padawan pair. Qui-Gon was genuinely proud of the boy's skills and intellect, and loved him dearly, and Xanatos clearly reciprocated. If they had been able to maintain the status quo, Qui-Gon later thought, everything would have been different.

But after almost a year, it was no longer enough for Xanatos that Qui-Gon allowed him to abuse himself upon his master's body. He wanted Qui-Gon to want to hurt him.

Xanatos tried interesting Qui-Gon in role-playing games with aspects of domination, thinking perhaps that would overcome his reluctance. And although his master was willing to indulge him to a certain extent, he still couldn't be made to enter into any role sufficiently to forget himself and do what Xanatos wanted him to do.

Sometimes it made Xanatos angry, and sometimes it made him sad, but it always left him frustrated. Why wouldn't he just play along? He'd be perfect if he would just stop being so ... so perfect.

Things came to a head one day after their saber drills. Qui-Gon could find no fault with his exercises, and the sparring was exhilariating. When his master called a halt, they were both winded, sweaty and pleased with themselves.

Just looking at his master made Xanatos feel giddy and foolish. The sweat-drenched tunic covering the luscious body just begged to be explored. He found himself closing in on Qui-Gon, drawing him to himself with one arm while slipping a hand inside the front of his tunic, leaning in and licking the sweat off his throat.

Qui-Gon laughed at his forward apprentice. "Don't you have any propriety, my young one?" he asked, ruffling the short dark hair and stroking his neck.

"None," Xanatos told him. "None at all. You make me forget everything."

Qui-Gon leaned down and kissed his padawan, growling low as the young man ran his hands over his back and buttocks.

"Take me here, Master," Xanatos pleaded. "Bend me over the sword-stand and take me hard!"

Qui-Gon stepped back as though he'd been shocked. "I will not!"

"Take me, Master," the young man threatened, "or I'll find someone who will."

Qui-Gon was suddenly quite still, feeling a strange sensation flowing through him, almost as if it were invading from outside himself. Ugly and dark; jealousy, possessiveness, ownership. Looking at Xanatos' face, he saw that passion and need had been turned to challenge and threat. It was too much; he twisted his hand into the front of the young man's tunic and forced him back against the arena wall.

"You will do no such thing, you little brat," he hissed, his face an inch from his padawan's. "I'm still your Master."

"Then act like it," the insolent boy retorted.

Qui-Gon saw red. Then he saw his own hand draw back and strike the mocking face of his apprentice. He saw the mockery on Xanatos' face change back to lust in an instant, and he thought, 'he's winning', but he couldn't stop.

Spinning the boy away from him and forcing him to his knees, he followed him down to the floor, one hand on the nape of Xanatos' neck, bending him forward until his forehead touched the ground.

A tiny little part of his mind knew he was being manipulated, wondered if Xanatos was intuitively using mind control on him, but it wasn't the part that was in control. The part of his mind that was already justifying his behavior - he wants it, why not give it to him - was the only one he paid attention to, as he yanked the boy's leggings down exposing his buttocks with one hand, and liberated his straining cock from his own trousers with the other. Separating Xanatos' cheeks with both hands, he plunged his erection deep into the unprepared opening, gasping at the raw feeling of unlubricated flesh enclosing him, clenching him.

Xanatos met his entry by thrusting backwards onto him and crying out; it wasn't a cry of pain, but of triumph. Frustrated at his inability to punish his padawan, Qui-Gon withdrew and rammed in again, hoping he could find a level of pain that was beyond what Xanatos wanted, but nothing was too hard, too fast, too raw or painful. All he was succeeding in doing was giving Xanatos the fucking he'd been begging for. He skinned the boy's tunic towards his head, exposing his back, and curved his body down to lie along it, digging his teeth into his padawan's shoulderblade as he strained to fill his body. An outside observer might have thought he was watching the mating of two wolves.

Xanatos quickly came in screaming ecstasy, an experience Qui-Gon could never withstand without following. He plunged deeper into his apprentice's body as he felt his orgasm approaching, and bit down even harder on the soft skin of his back as he came.

He lay stunned on the body beneath him for several minutes, before shame moved him. Anyone could walk in here, and if they thought they saw a master who had just raped his padawan, well, they'd be right.

Qui-Gon sat back on his heels, looking with disgust at the blood on his penis. Xanatos sat up and reached his arms out to him, with a whispered "Master," but Qui-Gon couldn't bear it, not now. He stood up and rearranged his clothing, and said, without looking at him, "Get cleaned up, Padawan," before walking unsteadily out of the arena.

"Master, does that explain...?" Obi-Wan stopped, not sure if he really wanted to know.

"Explain what, love?" Qui-Gon tightened his hold on his apprentice, stroking one hand up and down his arm.

"After the first time you ever... loved me like that. I always wondered why..." Obi-Wan stopped again.

"Why I cried?" Obi-Wan nodded, remembering the strange wild night he'd cradled his master's head in his arms and stroking his hair while he sobbed against his padawan's chest. He'd never seen his master cry before.

"I was just so afraid," Qui-Gon now whispered.

"Afraid that you'd hurt me?"

"More. Afraid that I'd want to." Qui-Gon couldn't meet Obi-Wan's eyes.

"And did you?" Obi-Wan sounded more curious than frightened, so Qui-Gon risked glancing at his upturned face, saw nothing but love and pity there.

"Not in the slightest," he said, kissing the parted lips so conveniently close. "All I wanted was to make you feel loved and desired."

"You succeeded, Master," Obi-Wan told him.

Qui-Gon sat alone in their shared living area, still in his stained and sweaty workout clothes, sunk into self-loathing. He wondered what he must of looked like, stalking from the arena like this; perhaps his tunic was long enough to have covered the blood-stains on his trousers, but he didn't much care. He briefly considered surrendering his sword to the Council, but discarded the notion. They'd want to know why, and if he confessed to raping his Padawan, they'd talk to Xanatos, and he'd deny it.

He was still wondering how to live with his lost of control when Xanatos returned, some half-hour after he'd left him on the arena floor. He'd obviously taken the time to shower and change, and when he came through the door, the look he gave to Qui-Gon was so full of molten love that he could hardly bear it.

"I suppose it would be futile to beg your forgiveness for what I did back there," he said in a tired voice.

"Completely futile, Master," Xanatos replied, as he approached his master and sank down beside him. He twined his hands in Qui-Gon's hair and buried his face in his neck. "You don't ever have to worry about what I said, you know... I just said that to make you mad."

"What you said?" Qui-Gon was lost.

"About finding someone else. There is no one else like you; there couldn't be." Xanatos was kissing his lips now, gently, almost ghost-touches.

"Oh, Zan," Qui-Gon's arms went around him. "Why does it have to be this way?"

"I love you, Master," Xanatos sighed into his mouth. "Only you."

And Qui-Gon gave in again to his Padawan's kisses.

That night, as they lay in each other's arms, Qui-Gon said, "I know you think you learned a new way to manipulate me today, Zan."

Xanatos just murmured an unintelligible interrogatory.

"You think if you make me angry, I'll give you what you want, because of the way I acted in the arena." Qui-Gon's voice was pensive. "But I was very wrong to get angry at your silly taunt; I don't own you... " here Xanatos murmured 'you do' "... and I ought to be encouraging you to develop other relationships."

This woke Xanatos up; he stirred and said, "You want me to cheat on you?"

"It isn't cheating if you want to find friends, lovers, in your peer group, Zan. I'm your Master, not your lover; I'm supposed to teach you how to love, and then you're allowed to use the skills and information in finding loving relationships elsewhere."

"You're not my lover?" Xanatos propped himself on one elbow, smiling fondly.

"Well, I'm not *supposed* to be your lover," Qui-Gon qualified. "We've both gotten in perhaps a little too deep, dear. You need to be able to separate yourself from me, and I haven't actually been very conscientious about seeing that you understood that. You're just so ... irresistible, Padawan."

Xanatos wasn't quite sure what he was hearing from his Master, and couldn't decide yet whether or not to have hurt feelings. Qui-Gon could sense his ambivalence, and cuddled his apprentice closer. "It's not a rejection, love. It's my job... what I'm supposed to be doing. What you're making me forget to do. Please don't think it means I love you less."

"I'm supposed to go out and take other lovers?" Xanatos wasn't sure what he felt about this.

"Not 'supposed to', love, just that it's alright to." Qui-Gon tried desperately to remember how he'd explained this to Mace. "There's things you shouldn't do, for your own self, of course. Like take someone as a lover just because you think you ought to, or because you feel sorry for them, or afraid of them. But at your age, it's considered natural for you to want to sample different experiences, and if you're drawn to someone in your age cohort as they are drawn to you, no one would blame you for seeing where the feelings led you."

"I can't picture wanting anyone but you, Master," Xanatos complained. "You're perfect!"

"Think about it, Zan. Don't feel like you have to go out and try all your friends tomorrow, but look around you.. You're not bound to me, and I've been seriously negligent not to make this clearer to you before."

"Does that mean you don't want to sleep with me?" Xanatos felt the basis of his security slipping.

"Never, Padawan," Qui-Gon was emphatic on that point. "You must never feel like you can't come to me for love. I'll always be available to you - I'm your Master."

"But not my lover," Xanatos pointed out with a touch of humor in his voice.

"Not your lover," Qui-Gon agreed, as he proceeded to prove how unloverly he was by making slow, tender love to his apprentice.

"Well, Master," Xanatos said much later, "It's a fairly fine distinction, and I'm not perfectly sure I get the difference. I think you'll have to show me again."

"Well, I must say I agree with him," Obi-Wan said at this point in the narrative. "The distinction isn't clear to me at all."

"I'll show you later, love," Qui-Gon told him with a kiss.

For a few weeks, it appeared that Xanatos was going to ignore Qui-Gon's injunction; it wasn't until perhaps a month or more had gone by that Qui-Gon noticed that some of their routines had unobtrusively changed. Xanatos was spending more of his free time away from Qui-Gon, but the change had been so gradual that his Master didn't notice right away that he was spending more of his own time alone.

Once it dawned on him, however, he started noticing that Xanatos was often at the knights' tables at lunch, a meal they had rarely shared together anyway, and even sometimes at dinner. Qui-Gon was somewhat disturbed that Xanatos was not making more friends and acquaintances within the Padawan class, but he felt disinclined to chastise him, so relieved did he feel that Xanatos was looking outside the master-apprentice pairbond for companionship. He knew they had been close to being called before the Training Review Board, and he really didn't want to suffer too close a scrutiny of their relationship; he was still very uncomfortable about the degree to which he had allowed Xanatos to manipulate him.

Eventually came the night that he had gone to bed before Xanatos had returned from wherever he was spending his time, only to be awakened hours later by a padawan trying to make a surreptitious entry into his bed.

He stirred, and gently said, "Zan, I would be failing in my duties as your teacher if I didn't tell you this..." Xanatos froze in place. "... but it is usually not a good idea to come to someone's bed when you still wear the scent of a sexual encounter with another."

Xanatos considered this carefully, and then said diffidently, yet with unabated good humor, "Are you telling me to sleep in my own bed, or to shower?"

Qui-Gon couldn't help but laugh a little at his brazen apprentice. "While another bedmate might have an entirely different take on the etiquette of the situation, I will leave that question, in this instance, entirely up to you."

He rolled over to try to regain his lost sleep, yet his ears were on the alert; only when he heard the hiss of the shower being turned on could he relax and close his eyes.

Obi-Wan had grown ominously still in his arms, and finally Qui-Gon stopped his narration and looked down into his pensive face. "I know the tale is more than a little troubling, Padawan, and doesn't put me in a very favorable light... would you like to leave the rest of it for another day?"

"No..." Obi-Wan hesitated. "I'm just... I never thought I'd find myself in sympathy with Xanatos, but I'm afraid I do."

"In sympathy?" Qui-Gon was mildly alarmed.

"I'm not exactly looking forward to the 'go out and find yourself new friends' lecture myself," Obi-Wan said, his voice muffled in Qui-Gon's chest.

Qui-Gon tightened his hold on his apprentice involuntarily. "I don't appear to be very adept at conveying that part of the curriculum," he mused. "Mace was saying something to that effect some time ago... Look, no one would suggest that you do anything more than you would be otherwise inclined to do, my Obi-Wan. It's just... "

"I know, you're my master and that's all you can be," Obi-Wan quoted, a little bitterly, Qui-Gon thought.

Qui-Gon stroked one hand gently up and down his padawan's tense side, trying to locate the correct words to say, knowing that if he parrotted the prescribed words, Obi-Wan would recognize the lie.

Obi-Wan forestalled him. "When I find myself in love with another, Master," he mused, "and am deliriously happy, and spending every second I can with him or her, will you be glad? Feel your training was a success?"

Qui-Gon had been sitting with his back against the bed's headboard, with Obi-Wan reclining back into his arms, but now he turned toward his padawan and slid down so that his head rested on Obi-Wan's chest. "Of course I would," he murmured, as his surprised apprentice encircled him with his arms. "All masters want their padawans to find happiness."

"Do you really mean that," Obi-Wan asked suspiciously, "or are you just saying that because you're supposed to?"

Qui-Gon found himself unable to answer. He buried his face in Obi-Wan's neck and gently bit him.

"Master?" Obi-Wan was not distractable, not this time.

"Don't make me answer that, please," Qui-Gon said in a thread of a whisper, and Obi-Wan felt the faintest backwash of his master's conflicted emotions escaping his shields.

"That's alright," he spoke in a whisper as well, nuzzling his face into his master's unbound hair. "You don't have to." And as he tightened his arms around his master, he felt an inappropriately fierce possessiveness; padawans were supposed to feel respectful admiring love for their masters, not this wild all-encompassing passion. But Obi-Wan decided he didn't care much anymore what was or wasn't appropriate.

Mace stood outside the door of the apartments he used to inhabit, trying to work up the courage to buzz for admittance. He was reluctant to face this meeting, but he was very much a man of duty, however frivolous his private life, and he knew what he had to do. He couldn't help but feel like a kid going to rat on his brother. Mace had maintained ties with his birth-family, and was therefore more familiar with family dynamics than most temple-raised Jedi, and he recognized them when he saw them played out all the time in Jedi-relationships. The Jedi had other names for sibling rivalry, but it was essentially the same thing.

Before he could find the nerve to buzz, though, the door opened, and he found himself being studied by his old master.

"You've been hovering in the hallway for ten minutes," Qui-Gon told him. "Wouldn't you rather hover in here?" He stood aside and gestured Mace towards the interior.

Settling himself on the divan and declining refreshment, Mace finally steeled himself and started in. "Qui-Gon... Master. You really need to do something about Xanatos."

"Why? What's he done?" Qui-Gon looked genuinely puzzled.

"It's what he's DOING," Mace exclaimed. "Making fools out of all the knights ... making himself the talk of the barracks... he's going to get hurt if someone doesn't do something - his behavior is completely shameless."

"Oh, that," Qui-Gon said, and was silent for long enough that Mace felt impelled to say something.

"You know how he's been carrying on?"

"Mace, what can I do about it? He's old enough, and he's had the lessons, and I as good as told him to go out and have fun with the other boys and girls..." Qui-Gon briefly covered his eyes with one hand. "If I say something now, it cancels out everything I've tried to tell him about what is appropriate between a master and his apprentice."

Mace considered this - it was fairly common knowledge that the attachment between Qui-Gon and his beautiful padawan was a little closer and more involved than was usually considered wise. Or it had been...

"Well.." Mace suddenly felt foolish. "I thought you needed to know, but if you already do, then what am I doing here?" He started to get up, but Qui-Gon motioned him to stay seated.

"You could visit with your old master," he half-chided, half-joked. "I seem to be alone a lot these days."

So Mace settled in for a long talk, knowing it would be hours before Xanatos got home, if what he'd seen earlier that evening was anything to go by.

He'd gone out with some of his wilder friends; their intention was to find the most scandalous gathering they could, or create one if necessary. Mace had leaped into knighthood with a vengeance, going through lover after lover, trying the most extreme physical challenges available, and in general behaving like nine out of ten newly knighted former padawans. He wasn't exactly proud of his behavior, but he wasn't exactly ashamed of it either. He knew it was just something that the temple-raised went through when they first found themselves under no control but their own, and he managed to avoid the more damaging excesses of many of his friends.

It was at a dive in one of the lower levels that Mace had gotten shocked to his senses. Corvelli's had become a gathering place for the more sybaritic of the younger knights, and Mace knew there was no telling what you would find going on in the backrooms there on any given night. But when his friend Chars told him that they were entertaining 'the hottest padawan on Coruscant', he still didn't have a clue.

Chars urged him back to one of the private rooms, and Mace went willingly enough, only to halt on the threshold in shock. Hottest padawan on Coruscant... he should have known.

Xanatos was on his back on the table in the center of the room, surrounded by at least a dozen knights in various states of undress, all trying to get close enough to touch, to lick, to bite or suck. As Mace stood there stunned, the knight between Xanatos' legs groaned loudly and moments later withdrew a dripping, depleted penis from the young man's anus, while another knight shoved him aside and took his place, plunging recklessly into the body beneath him.

"Harder, you wimp," Xanatos taunted him. "At least give me some indication that you're actually IN me." The knight thus admonished began to thrust with redoubled vigor, and Xanatos mocked him with a theatrical yawn.

Mace thought his friend Chars had to know that the padawan in question was Mace's old master's current apprentice, and decided at that moment that he needed to find new friends. It was at this point that Xanatos noticed Mace standing like a statue in the doorway.

"Ah, a fellow sufferer," he held out an arm appealingly to Mace. "The only other man in the whole damned Order who understands my dilemma. Tell me, Knight Windu, how many knights does it take to equal one master, when the master in question is Master Jinn? Do you think I've collected enough here?" He waved his arm to indicate his 'court'. "I'm really starting to doubt that enough knights exist."

Mace was trying to back out of the room, but his way was blocked by Chars, who was still behind him.

"Come and join with me, brother knight," Xanatos cajoled. "Maybe the two of us can console each other..."

But Mace didn't wait to hear any more, almost knocking Chars down in his haste to get out of the range of that mocking voice.

Qui-Gon thought back to the training all knights receive when they first undertake to attach an apprentice, and wondered why none of the lessons dealt with the real issues a master is faced with. He had just returned from the healers, where Brill had been taken following a suicide attempt, and was trying to get his apprentice to understand that he had actually hurt someone. And Xanatos continued to brush off his concern.

"I can't believe you really fell for his pitiful act, Master," Xanatos told him with some surprise, towelling off his freshly showered body. "I mean, seriously! You don't think he's dying of love for me, do you?"

Qui-Gon was troubled - he was actually feeling sorry for Brill, who he never before hesitated to characterize as low-life scum. "Zan, the knight tried to kill himself," Qui-Gon reached into the Force, looking for some patience and understanding. "Doesn't that give you some clue that he felt a little more than some transient lust for you? I'm not saying it was the healthiest form of love, but you can't deny the man's sincerity." He'd been surprised at how pathetic Brill had appeared to him; like a predator caught in a mangle-trap, looking at him with eyes filled with misery, asking for release.

Xanatos snorted. "Come on, Qui-Gon - he takes an overdose of sedative in the middle of the day, and then allows a vagrant thought of goodbye to transit his old training bond so his former master can come charging to his rescue. You expect anyone to take that for a serious attempt to kill himself?"

"You think it's just an act?" Qui-Gon asked.

"He's a Jedi; if he really wanted to die, all he'd have to do is put his saber hilt over his heart and power it up. Oh, but then he wouldn't leave an attractive corpse, would he?" Xanatos rolled his eyes.

"So what was his intention, then?" Qui-Gon was finding his padawan's thought processes fascinating, if disturbing.

"Oh, I would race back into his arms begging for forgiveness, of course," Xanatos suggested. "Then he could take me back so he could turn me out later - he can't stand being the one who got turned away first."

"He couldn't really love you in any way, then?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Huh. Brill? I don't think he knows what the word means." Xanatos had been drying his hair, and now he turned to Qui-Gon for help with his braid.

"Does anyone love you, Padawan?" Qui-Gon mused, as he combed through the long thin strand and began separating it into threes. "Or are you so completely unlovable?"

Xanatos laughed at that. "You're looking for some dark flaw in my heart, aren't you? An inability to believe in my own worthiness for love?"

"Well, are you?" Qui-Gon started the plait. "Who has really loved you, then?"

"You have, Master." Xanatos touched his forehead to Qui-Gon's chest, and felt his master drop a kiss in his short hair.

"I'm glad you recognize that, at least," Qui-Gon told him. "But all these others - does no one else love you?"

"My father loved me." Qui-Gon was startled. Now where had that come from? "He cried when you... Jedi came and took me from him. My mother didn't cry, but my father did."

Qui-Gon said, "When -I- came and took you from him." He had been the Jedi who had first identified the boy's potential, and alerted the Order; he had been the Jedi who had taken the boy from his home.

He could still remember the argument with the rest of the assessment team, who thought the boy was too old, at almost six, to adjust to life without his family. But the boy's mother was convinced - her boy should be a Jedi. He would be a great Jedi and bring much honor to their family.

And it was quite true, the mother had been clear-eyed as she led the boy out to the waiting Jedi, while a two-year-old girl clung to her skirts. It had been the boy's father who had protested, had been over-borne by his wife, and who had made the farewells almost unbearable with his tears. He had held the young Xanatos in his arms at the last, kissed his round cheeks and begged the boy to remember his daddy. The young boy had promised he would, smacking a little boy's kiss on his father's bearded face, and then left with the Jedi. And apparently forgot all about his family from that day until this.

Qui-Gon felt a disquiet that he couldn't quite pinpoint, like an echo in his mind. There was something here that required further thought.

Several days later, Qui-Gon experienced a strange feeling of synchronicity, that odd effect exemplified by learning a new word and then hearing it again and again over the next few days, or thinking of an old friend for the first time in years the day before you receive a letter from him. Yoda was sending the two of them to Telos - Telos, where Xanatos' father ruled as governor.

Yoda wasn't very forthcoming when Qui-Gon tried to get more information out of him; just gave him the standard mission briefing on the upcoming negotiations they were to oversee, that would see the renewal of a treaty between Telos and its sister world. Qui-Gon was fairly sure that Yoda had reservations about his apprentice, but Yoda had always kept his own council. This was no doubt in the nature of a last test for Xanatos, to see if he could look on his father's wealth and power and still be content with a Jedi's lot.

So now they were on the way to Telos, and Xanatos was being uncommunicative. Qui-Gon had tried to draw him out of the subject of his family, but had been quickly discouraged - Xanatos hadn't thought of his family in years, hadn't heard from them except to be notified of his mother and sister's deaths in an epidemic, hadn't wanted to hear from them. He was Jedi, and about to become a knight. What could he possibly care about a family of civilians on some backwater planet in the middle of nowhere?

They had been on Telos for two days now, and Qui-Gon's sense of disquiet had grown to tempest-like proportions. Xanatos' father Crion had met them at the spaceport, had lavished attention on the two of them, had overwhelmed them with hospitality. And all the time, his eyes devoured his grown son.

Sitting alone in the ostentatious apartments set aside for the visiting Jedi, Qui-Gon thought perhaps he should have been less ready to have removed the son from a father who had so clearly been unwilling to give him up. Yet there was some memory nagging at him. He gave himself up to meditate, knowing that Xanatos was in his father's company, being shown the wonders that his father commanded.

Every initiate the Jedi accepted came with the good will of their parents or guardians; any hint or rumor that children were snatched from unwilling parents and taken against their wishes to become students at the academy was ruthlessly quashed. The Jedi could only continue to acquire the best recruits with the good will of the populace of the Republic. Yet here, clearly, was a case in which one parent, at least, had been unwilling to yield up his son, and Qui-Gon had managed to forget all about that inconvenient detail. What overrode his sense of duty and rightness? Made him insist that the boy be brought back to Coruscant to train?

What had happened that day on Telos? He cast his mind back to the day of leave-taking, and saw again Crion protesting to his wife that he didn't want to lose the boy, his only son. Qui-Gon remember that he had started to say something... something to the effect that in that case, of course, the boy must remain with his family. But Xanatos' mother had turned and looked at him. He couldn't even remember her name, thus was the event so clouded in his mind, since he surely knew it. She had looked at him, and held his eyes with hers, those eyes that looked so much like Xanatos' eyes, Qui-Gon now realized, and said slowly, "My boy must be a Jedi. He must be taken away to Coruscant to be trained. You must take him with you so that he may become Jedi." Her voice... what was it about her voice?

In a flash, he remembered; he'd noticed at the time. She was clumsily using the Voice on him, to get him to bend to her will. And he saw the fear in her; fear for her son. So he, in some way acknowledging her fear, accepted her manipulation, and allowed her to overrule her husband, and cloud his own mind.

Qui-Gon came back to himself with a start. Almost twenty years ago, and it had been as clear as it had happened yesterday. And he hadn't thought a thing about it from that day to this. What a powerful Jedi Xanatos' mother would have made!

What had been behind her fear?

At dinner that night, Qui-Gon began to get an idea of what had driven Xanatos' mother to send away her son. Because he finally recognized that the way Crion was looking at Xanatos wasn't the way a proud father gazed at a fine, grown-up son, but the way the lacivious knights all looked at him... with a greedy kind of lust.

And Xanatos was clearly aware of it. Was he actually flirting with his own father? Bending close to catch his words, looking up into his eyes, smiling that particular smile that twisted Qui-Gon's heart.

Crion was trying to convince his son to forgo the Jedi life and join with him in ruling Telos. He hadn't even tried to hide this agenda; he had been very forthcoming to Qui-Gon on the subject. His wife and daughter were both gone, he'd never married again. He was a powerful man, with great accumulations of wealth and no one to share it with, no one to strive for. He had spoken with touching pathos of his loneliness, his great joy at being with his only son again. And yet there was that look, that hungry, covetous look.

That night, Xanatos had come to Qui-Gon's bed for the first time in weeks and taken him with a savage and desperate passion. And when he finally came, he had cried out, not "Master!" but "Qui-Gon!" Because he was already preparing to leave the Jedi order and the master-apprentice relationship? Or because he had started to cry out "Crion", and managed to correct himself in mid-syllable?

If Crion had only been content to regain his son, Qui-Gon thought, everything could have been quite different. He had, in the course of his diplomatic career, had to deal with cultures in which intergenerational sexual relations were quite common, and although Telos was not one of them, Qui-Gon could have grudgingly accepted a relationship between his soon-to-be-former Padawan and his own father... if Crion had been satisfied with that.

But Crion's ambitions were unbounded; now he had eyes on control of their sister planet, and was embarking on a course that would lead directly to war. Only the populace of Telos would have nothing of it, and rather than a war between neighboring planets, the Jedi soon found themselves watching the outbreak of civil war.

Qui-Gon returned from a hurried trip to the neighboring world, where he had been occupied in trying desperately to keep them from retaliating to the initial attacks from Telos, to discover that Crion had commissioned Xanatos to raise an army of mercenaries - they were even now forming up outside the palace grounds.

But his attempts to reason with Crion were hopeless. Crion was already well on his way to megalomania, and Qui-Gon's words were met with a hate-filled diatribe against the wizards who had stolen his only son, wrested from him just as he was finally old enough to appreciate a father's love.

And Qui-Gon suddenly realized what he had been refusing to face for so long - just where, and from whom, Xanatos had learned to equate love and pain.

"I hadn't expected him to be so totally irrational, you see," Qui-Gon explained to the stunned Obi-Wan. "He had done a very good job of hiding his insanity. I had taken him for an ordinary, power-hungry politician. It never occurred to me that he would actually try to attack a Jedi. If I'd been expecting it, I would have been able to react differently."

"Differently how?" Obi-Wan asked him.

"Apparently Xanatos had not told him everything Jedi are capable of. He came at me with a blaster." Qui-Gon was silent for a moment.

"So if you'd been expecting it?" Obi-Wan pursued.

"You know how we're trained, Padawan," Qui-Gon told him. "Go with your instincts, isn't that what you were told? What do you do automatically, when deflecting a blast?"

"Deflect it directly back at..."

"Directly back at the point of origin," Qui-Gon finished for him. "With more warning, I could have deflected it anywhere else. As it was, Crion took his own blast right in the chest."

"Oh." Obi-Wan winced.

This was the scene that Xanatos found as he entered his father's house - his father's crumpled body, blaster still in his clenched fist, at one end of the long audience hall, and his master, saber still engaged, in defense posture at the other. Anyone could read the scene and make a fairly accurate determination as to who the aggressor was; Xanatos wasn't foolish enough to believe Qui-Gon had done anything more than defend himself.

He walked over to his father's body and dropped to his knees beside him, his face impassive. Behind him, he heard the lightsaber hum suddenly cease, and Qui-Gon's voice, saying "Oh, Zan. I am so sorry."

Qui-Gon was at a loss, not knowing how to reach his stony-faced apprentice; he tried bespeaking him through their training bond, but Xanatos only reached out a hand and gently stroked his father's now-peaceful face.

Qui-Gon watched uneasily as Xanatos stood, and then turned to face him. Finally he spoke. "He loved me and you killed him." Qui-Gon could not deny either fact. It wasn't clear if Xanatos meant to imply that there was a corollary between them or not.

Now Xanatos' saber was in his hand, and powered, as he started walking the length of the hall.

"I'm not going to fight you, Padawan," Qui-Gon warned him.

"Don't call me that!" Xanatos snarled, and launched himself on offense, forcing Qui-Gon to power his own lightsaber to defend himself.

Xanatos was intimately familiar with Qui-Gon's fighting style, and almost his equal, and he was powered by a surge of emotion that came from places the Jedi never allowed themselves to tap. Qui-Gon felt himself forced back; he would be backed to the wall if he didn't do something.

Feinting at Xanatos' head, he risked a Force-assisted leap directly over his apprentice, twisting in air so that he landed behind, and still facing him. He could easily have cut Xanatos down before the boy swivelled to renew his attack, if killing Xanatos had been his goal.

Now he had the whole hall at his back, and room to work in. He noticed now that Xanatos was keeping up a running monologue that he had thus far been blocking from his conscious attention. He began listening as he automatically parried the saber-strokes Xanatos was beating down on him; it was a litany of lust. Xanatos was reciting the names of everyone he had ever had sex with, wondering aloud when Qui-Gon was going to get around to killing them, too...

Did he actually believe Qui-Gon had killed Crion out of jealousy? A moment's lack of attention had left his entire right side exposed to attack, but somehow Xanatos hadn't noticed and didn't take advantage of it; he continued to rain blows on Qui-Gon's saber, while continuing to detail every act he had ever experienced with every knight he'd ever fucked.

Qui-Gon was genuinely puzzled by this point. If Xanatos meant to kill him, he'd had one chance already... to test the theory taking shape in his mind, he purposefully left yet another opening for a skilled saber to get through his defenses, and once again, Xanatos didn't take the opportunity.

Now Qui-Gon saw Xanatos' plan; the litany was meant to trigger his master's jealousy and cause him to react in anger. Qui-Gon slowed his defense, and wasn't surprised to see Xanatos slow his attack. Finally, he gave up the pretense, lowering his arm and powering off his saber.

"You're welcomed to kill me if you want, Xanatos," Qui-Gon told him quietly, "but you will not be able to force me to kill you."

Xanatos stood facing him in silence for some minutes, his face reflecting the turmoil in his mind. Then he turned and walked out of the room, and, Qui-Gon discovered later, out of the Palace altogether.

"You're saying that he wasn't trying to kill you?" Obi-Wan asked with surprise.

"He had no intention of killing me," Qui-Gon told him. "Then or ever. His purpose in attacking me was to get me to kill him."

"Why? If he wanted to die, he had the means and any amount of opportunity all along." Obi-Wan found the whole situation incomprehensible.

"Just dying wasn't his goal at all," Qui-Gon told him. "Dying by my hand... that was and is his intention. He realized after that first bout that a physical threat to me wasn't enough to get what he wanted. That's why he came after you on Bandomeer. He knew if you were threatened, I would kill him without hesitation."

"I still don't understand; what difference does it make how he dies?" Obi-Wan realized these were deep waters, but he also knew he needed to understand this.

"Because it's the last... the ultimate play in his game of manipulation." Qui-Gon's voice had softened to the barest whisper. "If he can force me to kill him, after what he meant to me, he knows it would destroy me. And then he'd own me. Do you see?"

At this, Obi-Wan sat up suddenly, displacing his master, who rolled over on his side to watch his apprentice with growing curiosity. Turning to look down at Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan said forcefully, "Well, he can't have you. That's simply out of the question. You're mine, Qui-Gon Jinn, and no run-away dark-side Jedi-reject better try to interfere with that."

Qui-Gon rolled onto his back and laughed at this, reaching out his arms to his incensed apprentice, and pulled him into a crushing embrace. Emerging from a lengthy kiss rather breathlessly, Obi-Wan went on, "Don't laugh; I mean it. I know you're suppose to say all those things about how I'm too young to make any commitments, and you're my master and not my lover, but it's all Sith-wash and we both know it." He leaned over his master's supine body, pinning him down and kissing him emphatically. "You're mine."

Qui-Gon fell into the kiss gratefully; he couldn't be expected to speak with a tongue in his mouth, could he?

"And another thing." Obi-Wan broke the kiss to glare down at his master. "I think when I'm knighted, you better retire from the business of training padawans. Because I'm not going to be able to stand watching you with some love-struck little teen apprentice tagging along after you... I'll do something drastic."

"I had no idea you were the possessive type, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said, but his attempt to affect a shocked tone failed miserably. His padawan was currently a 'little teen apprentice' himself, and Qui-Gon found his expectation of his future jealousy to be both amusing and hopelessly endearing.

"Well, I am and you love it," Obi-Wan stated, brooking no argument.

"I certainly love you," Qui-Gon agreed, "and since you're clearly the possessive type, I must love it."

Now Obi-Wan was rolling Qui-Gon onto his side and pushing his legs towards his chest, probing between his master's buttocks with his erect penis, searching for entry. After some fumbling, he found what he was looking for, and slid effortlessly into Qui-Gon's body, still semen-slick for their earlier love-play.

"You're MINE!" Obi-Wan growled, as he thrust deep into the body beneath him. "Say it. Admit it."

Years of training, years of discipline and denial, couldn't withstand the onslaught of one insistant and impassioned young padawan. Qui-Gon groaned as his body responded to his apprentice's fierce lovemaking.

"Say it," Obi-Wan insisted again. "You're mine."

"Oh, Gods, Obi-Wan," his master moaned, "It's true... oh, don't stop... I'm yours, Padawan. Only yours, always yours, forever yours..."

Obi-Wan was now chanting in time to his thrusts, "Mine, yes, you're mine. Oh Master, all mine..." and the two mind-shared their sensations as their orgasms swept over them both.

It was some minutes before either could summon the energy to do more than pant and exchange exhausted kisses, but eventually, Obi-Wan was once again snuggled up against his master's chest, while Qui-Gon ran his hands idly over his sweaty and elated apprentice.

Qui-Gon had not understood how much tension he had been living under, walking the fine line between caring for his apprentice, and caring too much for him, until he gave up the battle as lost. The relief was enormous; he realized that he hadn't felt this light-hearted since he was a padawan himself, with no responsibilities to speak of, and all the heartbreak still to come.

He brushed his lips lightly through Obi-Wan's hair, and whispered gently, "I'm all yours, my Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan stirred, and looked up at him and said, "And I'm yours, my Qui-Gon. Yours forever."

Qui-Gon thought his chest would explode, his heart felt so full. And he allowed himself a second to wonder whether they were going to try to explain or hide this from the Padawan Training Review Board, before he bent to kiss his padawan's parted lips, and finally allowed himself to say the words he had been longing to say for some time. "You're mine, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're mine now and you're mine forever. All and only mine."

"Yes, Master," his apprentice agreed.

Nothing more needed to be said.

-end-