A Padawan Scorned

A Padawan Scorned

Notes: Sometimes anti-gay people just get to me. The person in question who got to me this time was my father. *cough* *choke* Sexuality, damnit, can't be counseled or "channeled" away!

I take a deep breath and reach out my hand to you, stopping just short of your shoulder. My fingers are trembling, but I will not draw them back.

"I love you," I whisper, urgency in my words. "I've always loved you, since before I knew what love really was."

You look up at me from your seat at the desk, eyes meeting mine, and I can tell you are puzzled. "Padawan..." you say, softly, that tone which means go on, I'm listening.

I shake my head. "Mas -- Qui-Gon," I say. "This isn't something that's going to go away."

Your eyes are soft and blue, but I feel as though I've been slapped across the face. I stare numbly at you as you turn around and begin to explain.

"Love between a padawan and a master is simply not appropriate," you say. "It almost never works out. The potential for abuse is simply overwhelming, the more so because the padawan feels the need to keep the relationship hidden. The Council does not approve of such relationships."

"It's not that a few haven't worked," you say. "It's that the relationship is against the Code, and very rare among the Jedi."

"But you follow the Living Force," I say. "You feel free to ignore the Code where you think it is wrong."

"Padawan, it's not that the feelings are wrong," you continue. "Every padawan wants to experiment with his or her master sometime in the apprenticeship. What you are feeling is natural, but I can assure you that it will also, naturally, fade."

You turn back to the desk. "Obi-Wan, I suggest you try channeling what you feel into the Force. Purge it during your meditations, give it over to the Force's capable hands, and you'll see, it will all settle right into place."

There's a look of shock and horror on my face, I know, and I slowly back out of the common room into my bedroom, devastated.

I love you! It's not the crush of someone who doesn't know what he is doing -- I've been with plenty of people, had sex with several, and nothing satisfies like just being with you. I'd rather live the rest of my life in quiet celibacy, if you loved me like I love you, than "channel my feelings" into yet another person who only wants my body.

I don't know what to do! You've just kindly, firmly, until-my-knighthood-permanently, slammed the lid down on any chance I might have had with you. It would have been better if you'd simply said "sorry, Padawan of mine, I love you dearly, but not like that," instead of this mumbo-jumbo about a Padawan's usual crush on his or her master.

That, I could have laughed away. That, I could have still had hope maybe one day you'd see me in a different light. This...I'm lost for words.

I sit down on my bed and cover my face with my hands. Love doesn't change, I whisper to myself. Love stays strong through the most crushing of defeats.

And already I can feel love slipping through my fingers like soft sand. Was it really love, then, or just a crush? Or would even real true love be destroyed in a conversation like that?

What is love if it isn't returned? Is it worth holding on to, or should I just let it go, and sigh for what might have been?

I've never loved anyone else. Not really, not with heart and soul, body and mind all joining together in a joyful chorus like they do when you walk into the room. You strike something in me that I never knew I had, it's not just your looks I love. And we work so well together, on the battlefield and off -- is it too much to think we might work well in a more deeply committed relationship?

Or are you using that speech because you really don't love me and it's a good excuse? I'm not sure, I see the way you look at me sometimes, and I wonder. If you're not in love with me, will you please stop being such a tease?

Or is it that you're afraid of the Council? If that's your excuse, find another, because it isn't worth two dactares to me. You stand up to the Council on far smaller matters.

You know, you make me think you really do love me, and are simply afraid that you'll end up abusing me -- as if I would allow such a thing to happen -- and that I can't take care of myself, or won't "become my own person" or some such nonsense.

I love you. I know I love you and I at least am not afraid of the fact. I know the Council disapproves, and I, in this, don't care. And, if that's what it takes to bring you around, I am perfectly willing to wait until I'm knighted.

But then, O master of mine, I suggest you beware, because these feelings that I have aren't going anywhere, and they're not going to be "channeled" out of me. I'll be the one with the oil in one hand and braid in the other, on the day of my Knighting ceremony -- just you wait and see.