Reclassified

by Briony ( Hippediva@aol.com )

Disclaimers: George owns 'em. I'm just playing. No money involved.

Archive: M_A, my page http://www.ravenswing.com/crowscroft/, any others just ask

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Qui/Obi (sort of)

Warnings: Possible spew factors

Spoilers: Minor for Ep. 2---nothing really important at all. Only the most rabid spoiler-free folks should be warned.

Feedback: Always treasured

Obi-Wan approached the docking pad shrouded in the depths of his cloak. He could hide from the world, but not from himself. He was trembling, his shaking hands wrapped bruisingly around his wrists, hidden in his sleeves. Tonight, under cover of darkness, he would see the result of his greatest sin, his most treacherous, devious, damnable deed. Tonight, the Kaminoans would deliver the fruit of his obsession.

He leaned back into the shadows, instinctively hiding from any light. Shame flooded him with memories of the lies he told to get a ship, to reconnect with the water-torn planet, delivering the precious few hairs gleaned from the kinked length of his padawan braid. Oh, this was wrong, so very, very wrong! He shrank into the folds of the cloak, almost paralysed with self-loathing. How could he have fallen so low? Lonliness and desperate passion had conspired within him, had made him impatient. When the cloners told him that they had the means to accelerate the growth rate to a mere two years, he jumped at the chance. Jumped at the possibility that the object of his passion was that much closer.

The slender ship, somehow reminiscent of the planet's inhabitants landed in a small puff of exhaust. He could hardly breathe, watching the hatch open. The humanoid pilot strode down the ramp, when a raucous noise split the silent night air.

"The pale mooooon was risin' above th' green mountain. Th' shun waaass declinin' beennnneeeeeeeth th' blue sea. * belch* When I stray'd wi' my loooove to th' pure crystal fountain. Oi!! C'mon lads, sing! Tha' stands i' the beauoooooooootiful vale of Traleeeeeeee....."

The pilot turned and waved to the men still shadowed by the darkness of the hatch and they rolled out an anti-grav cart. He was strapped to it, all six feet and five inches of him, bellowing offkey, very loudly and very obviously drunk.

" 'ello!!" The blue eyes were glassy and the blast of whiskey-drenched breath nearly made the shocked young Knight pass out then and there.

"Qui-Gon?"

" Yup!!! You know 'The Rose o' Tralee' lad?"

And the singing started again.

The pilot pushed the manifest at Obi-Wan who took it into nerveless hands.

"He's been reclassified as luggage."

Obi-Wan never could remember how he got his newly-created nightmare home. He hastily erected a Force-shield around his quarters, breathing a silent prayer that Anakin wouldn't wake up. Of course, Anakin did wake up. In a way, a good thing, since the first thing the cloned Qui wanted to do was find another bar. It took both of them to get him to lay down, his size fourteen feet dangling absurdly over the end of Obi-Wan's standard-length bed. While undressing him, they discovered no less than twenty-five transport-size bottles of whiskey, four packs of death-sticks and a small black book with a hundred and twenty seven different commline addresses, all attached to obviously feminine names.

Anakin left his Master sitting in the common room, staring out at the dawn traffic in a complete state of shock. He pocketed the pack of marked sabaac cards he'd discovered in the clone's bag with a snicker.

"Aw, c'mon Obi-Wan!! Ya have t'live a little. Have a drink." Qui-Gon didn't take his eyes off the cards as Anakin dealt them.

"Two cards, Padawan. An' doan try tha' again!!" He grinned. "Yer gettin' better tho'!"

Obi-Wan grabbed the bottle and filled a large tumbler. "Stop it!! Stop teaching him how to cheat!"

"How th' hell else do ya expect him t'win? Besides, " Qui-Gon belched loudly and swallowed the rest of his whiskey. "Oi, don't go bein' stingy wi' that. Besides, I taught you."

Obi-Wan hoped the whiskey would relieve the chronic dry-mouth he'd been suffering for the last three days. During that three days, he had watched Qui-Gon teach Anakin cardsharping with all the diligence and painstaking patience he had once taught diplomacy and logic to his former Padawan. He had run out of booze within hours of the first day and had convinced Obi-Wan to lay in a good stock with a black eye and a considerable amount of broken furniture. It was only a matter of time before he would cease to be amused with card tricks. Already he was hollaring to go out on the town. Worse still, he clearly had, intact, his genesis' memories of the various sublevels on Coruscant, which he had proceeded to describe in lurid and, Obi-Wan thought, entirely unnecessary detail to young Anakin. Obi-Wan did not just have a bad feeling about this. He had a migraine.

"I'm goin' out an' that's all there is to it. 'Sides, " Obi-Wan suffered through a rib-crushing elbow in his side. "You could use some loosenin' up."

Obi-Wan looked up at his cloned prize. He was exactly the same: the same long silvering mane of hair, the sparkling blue eyes, the haughty broken-nosed profile. But the hair was mussed and tangled, the beard creeping up his cheeks for want of care. The blue eyes never warmed with that soft, loving look that had been for his Padawan alone, although they certainly got a light in them when Anakin and he were pouring over that Twi'lek girlie magazine. The cloned Qui-Gon was a walking disaster. He disappeared into the sublevels for days at a time, only to be found in a cheap hotel with several females of various species in a state of inebriated satiety, owing rent for the girls and the room as well as sundry gambling debts. He staggered into Obi-Wan's quarters at all hours, hopelessly drunk and singing at the top of his lungs. He even took a party of "five o' the nicshesst l'il girliesh on th' pl'nt" for a skinny-dipping orgy in the hot spring meditation garden of the Temple. The young knight was beyond terror. He was beyond despair. He was nearly catatonic and only his clever padawan's lies were keeping him out of the Council's eye.

Obi-Wan tried to keep up with him and wound up at the Healer's with alcohol poisoning. He tried to reason with him and got challenged to a fist-fight. And lost. He even stooped so low as to try to seduce Qui-Gon and got another black eye and a slurred lecture on the delights of women. Anakin was in a continued state of hilarity when he wasn't accompanying the unnatural monster in four-day bar crawls or card games with a host of very questionable characters. Obi-Wan was gulping down antacids by the handful. He had to do something before he lost what little mind he had left to him.

Obi-Wan carefully trimmed Qui-Gon's beard and dressed his hair neatly. For once, the big clone was being quiet, mostly out of curiousity.

"So who're these buggers?"

"Holo-vid producers. They really need actors and I think you'll do just fine. They may give you a new name. Would that bother you?"

Qui-Gon shrugged. "Hell nah....y'think I might get t' meet some o' those stars? 'Sides, I don't care wha' they call me. An' y'say there's money in this?"

Obi-Wan smiled. "Lots of it. And lots of beautiful ladies."

"Right. So what're we waitin' for?"

Obi-Wan sighed with pleasure. The last month had been blessedly quiet: a nice little diplomatic mission to Antari had relieved him of his worries on Coruscant. Anakin had become a little more tractable. At least he had stopped chortling and kept his newly-learned bad habits out of his Master's way. They returned to the Temple just in time to see the posters for Metropolis Goddarn Maybe's newest adventure vid, 'Captain Bloodthirsty' plastered all over the public thoroughfares. Its star sported a clean-shaven but very familiar face.

Qui-Gon Jinn had become Erroll Flynn.