Master Apprentice
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(continued from part 12)
Xanatos walked slowly down the hall outside the smaller training salles, toward the one he had reserved. The analgesic spray had eased his pain, and now he had even more of it tucked away in his pack; he might need it when his time in the salle came to an end. Some hope remained that it would not be necessary, but beneath that pulsed the grim certainty that he would need something similar for a very long time.
The salle he had specifically reserved seemed to be occupied. He checked the schedule by the door; it clearly showed his reservation. He had passed at least three others of identical size that were empty and unreserved; to find another space would be simplicity itself, but that was not the point.
Who among the Jedi could be so careless and rude? The tall figure wore a training helmet with the shield down, covering his face. Too lithe of build to be his former Master, but almost as tall. Perhaps this was someone new to the Coruscant Temple; that would explain his ignorance of protocol.
The lights in the salle were programmed on the lowest setting; Xanatos considered raising them to announce his presence, but he felt certain any Jedi worth his 'saber would be aware of him by now. No sense in being deliberately rude himself.
He settled into a seat to watch the stranger complete a routine with six training droids, all of them set to their highest performance settings. The man's speed and agility proved truly impressive; Xanatos had never seen anyone move so smoothly, a thick somewhat haphazard braid whipping against his back. When the droids timed out, the Knight had not been grazed by a single bolt.
Much to Xanatos' annoyance, the interloper moved directly into an advanced 'saber kata without acknowledging his presence. He had not even removed his blast helmet. Arrogant prat.
Xanatos might have to put up with being off mission rotation for some time yet, but he did not have to tolerate being forced out of a salle he had reserved in advance. He strode up to the Knight, who stilled at his approach.
"Excuse me," Xanatos began. "I am Knight T'Crion-"
"You most certainly are," said a muffled but familiar voice from beneath the blast helmet. The rude Knight powered off his lightsaber and turned toward the equipment storage as he removed his helmet.
"-and I have reserved this salle for two hours." Xanatos let his irritation bleed into his voice, his control slipping. "Starting ten minutes ago."
The Knight hung up his helmet and recalled the training droids to their storage bins as if he were not being addressed by an equal. Something in his movements caught Xanatos' attention then - the delicate curve of his wrist, the grace of his fingers as they switched off the droids and secured them. Something familiar.
Xanatos strode over to the storage area, following the Knight. "Have you nothing to say to me?"
"You want me to speak to you?" The Knights voice sounded dusky and strange, as if choked with emotion.
"That would be the polite thing to do, yes," Xanatos said, his ill temper fading without warning. "Do I know you, Knight...?"
The Knight turned to face him as he supplied the name Xanatos asked of him. "Chun-al-Leem."
Xanatos lost his breath suddenly, as if he had been kicked in the chest. His vision blurred; as it cleared, he began to see Bruck in the Knight before him. Bruck made tall and even more lithe; Bruck with long, wild hair in place of the fine heavy silk of the Padawan braid Xanatos had once worn around his wrist. Bruck with the same pale eyes and bronze skin, now marked with tiny, dark striae - as thin as hairs like the lenticels of a birch.
Or a Lentrebi.
Xanatos recovered himself quickly and went straight to the point. "You poached my reservation on purpose."
"Yes." The pale eyes lowered, hidden by a veil of lashes thick and white as lace. "I need to speak with you."
Xanatos snorted and turned away. Better not to see Bruck, better not to wonder how the young Knight would feel in his arms, knowing that part of his life was over.
"I don't need to speak with you." Xanatos placed his pack on the bench and stripped down to his under tunic. Without looking back, he walked to the center of the salle floor and began his first forms, eyes closed.
Blocking out the presence of his former lover, a presence even more changed in the Force than in his body, Xanatos found his way through the simplest of the Jedi forms. His body knew the motions well, but he felt off balance with his manufactured arm; a true grasp of the Force proved elusive.
Still, it felt good to move again, good to feel his muscles pull and stretch as he directed them. When he finished his tunic felt damp with sweat. He scowled to himself; these forms should not have been challenging enough to tire him so, even after a few tens of inactivity.
"It will go more smoothly as your connection to the Force returns," Bruck said softly, still planted firmly by the equipment shelves.
"There is nothing wrong with my connection to the Force," Xanatos said as he snatched a towel from his pack.
"They didn't tell you?" Bruck spoke softly, the timbre of his voice more calming than Xanatos remembered it. He didn't quite feel up to responding sharply.
"Tell me what?"
Bruck looked down, creasing his brow as if considering his words; rather unlike the rash lover Xanatos had known, who would speak his mind and to hells with the consequences.
"Your captors poisoned your midichlorians," he said at last. "A paralytic derived from Kleranom venom. They sent you a copy of the medical report, but I thought they would have mentioned it as well."
Xanatos wiped the sweat from his face with the towel, effectively hiding his outward reaction, hoping his shields would conceal the sudden rush of anger inside him.
"The effects are expected to wear off completely, in time," Bruck added softly, but without undue sympathy. Xanatos felt grateful for that; he did not believe he could bear to be pitied by someone who'd recently changed into some sort of human-Lentrebi hybrid. If the Universe had any sensible priorities, he should be the one to pity Bruck.
Not that he didn't carry the look quite well; in fact, Bruck remained one of the most stunning beings Xanatos had ever seen.
"How do you know what my healers expect, when they didn't even bother to tell me to my face?" Xanatos did not feel anger, exactly, though he believed he should be upset. Despite himself, he found Bruck's company rather calming. "I suppose it's all over the Temple now?"
"No," Bruck answered. "It is known that you were badly injured on your last mission, but the details have been kept private by the Council. I only know because I read the report on your com unit."
If Xanatos had felt unusually mellow, that bit of information shattered his calm. "What the hells were you doing in my quarters?"
Not flinching at his sudden rage, Bruck blinked slowly before answering. "You know I have your access codes."
"And you know that does not give you the right to intrude into my private matters! What business could you possibly have with my com unit?"
Bruck swallowed before he spoke, the one sign that betrayed some measure of discomfort with the conversation. "I went to see if there was a relay set up on your com. There was."
"What?" Xanatos pulled his over tunic on, suddenly feeling cold; it scratched almost painfully as it settled across his arms. He would need the spray soon, but he would not use it where others could see. "Why would there be a relay on my private com?"
"Because I put it there." Breath coming quickly, calm façade shattered, Bruck rushed ahead. "I put a relay on your com, and uploaded the details of your mission to a com dump. I was not myself - I was not aware that I had done it. The Sith-"
"Qui-Gon told me about the Sith and your Master's graft." Xanatos closed up his pack, shaking his head dismissively. "What the hells does any of that have to do with my com?"
"I betrayed you." Bruck's voice came to him in little more than a whisper. "The Sith used me. That is why Durante knew you were coming."
Xanatos shook his head once, a single, firm gesture of denial. "It was Kenobi."
"It was not Kenobi. It was me."
Xanatos turned on Bruck swiftly, facing him. "You remember this? You remember doing it?"
Bruck's pale brows quirked, and lines of puzzlement appeared above his nose. "The Sith showed me what he had done with my body. I saw it."
"But you don't remember doing it." Xanatos saw the confusion in Bruck's eyes. "You don't remember doing it because you didn't - Kenobi did."
"No! I remember seeing it happen." Bruck shook his head. "He didn't have access to your com, or even Qui-Gon's. Kenobi couldn't have done this."
"Why are you defending that... whore?" Xanatos could scarcely believe the rage twisting inside him. Durante's bastard had been the one to set him up - he felt certain of that. "Don't tell me he fucked you, too?"
Xanatos had meant it as a joke - a cruel and perhaps not terribly funny jibe at Qui-Gon for falling under the spell of Kenobi's charms - but Bruck blinked and dropped his gaze, pressing his lips together.
"Sweet Force, he did, didn't he?"
Bruck swallowed hard. "I was very sick - he was trying to help me-"
"And you were so grateful you just had to spread your legs for him?" Xanatos had to clench his fists to keep from grabbing the younger Knight's tunics and shaking him.
"Actually, no," Bruck answered, his cool aplomb returning. "Lentrebi pollen has a surprising effect on humanoids. Qui-Gon was half mad with it. Kenobi... helped me."
"I see," Xanatos said, his rage cooling to a ball of nausea in his gut. "Did you like being serviced by that filthy..."
Xanatos stepped back, letting his anger fall away. Why was he angry? Bruck could fuck whomever he wished, and Xanatos should be glad that the Knight's affections had fallen elsewhere.
"You know how to pick them, don't you, Bruck?" Xanatos barked out a laugh that tasted like bile in the back of his throat. "Kenobi has Qui-Gon now, and he doesn't want you any more than I do."
The pale eyes that met Xanatos' own did not flinch in pain at his words, and showed not the slightest trace of moisture. Why should he want to hurt Bruck, anyway? Did he think that causing his sometime lover pain would ease his own? Surely he knew better than that.
Xanatos shouldered his pack and turned to leave.
"You are the only being I have ever loved, Xanatos T'Crion."
"Oh, lucky me," Xanatos said. He glanced at Bruck over his shoulder. "The man you loved is dead."
"Not dead." Bruck reached out to touch him, but Xanatos moved away. "Only... different."
The corner of Bruck's mouth twitched on the last word, reminding Xanatos that fate had changed them both.
"Not different enough to love a tree-boy," Xanatos said, not bothering to disguise his venom. "Or are you just wanting a little wood?"
Bruck calmly scratched at the corner of his eye. "I have told you the truth," he said. "Somewhere inside, you know it to be true."
Xanatos stood, rooted to the spot in disbelief. The Bruck he had known would have been fuming, hurling cleverly disguised insults. The haughty, sharp-tongued boy had been replaced by a cool, earnest... whatever he was.
"I have come to beg your forgiveness," Bruck went on, kneeling before him in a formal posture of supplication. "And to offer my help in your fight against the darkness that seeks to overwhelm you."
"You have a very active imagination, Bruck." Xanatos shook his head once more. "Believe what you like, but you have no reason to plead for forgiveness."
He turned quickly and strode from the salle, his shoulder feeling like a raw wound where the pack rubbed it. This was insane; the entire Temple had lost all sense of reality while he was gone. It would all be over soon, and everything would go back to normal. It simply had to be over soon.