Silent Legacy
by Black Rose (lenoirrose@yahoo.com)
Characters-Rating: Q/O, O/m - NC-17
Category: Angst, H/C, Song-fic, Crossover, Challenge (whew!)
Summary: Somebody challenged us to write vampires and Jedis and
the darn plot bunny bit.
Archive: m_a, SWAL, WWOMB - pretty much anybody who wants it
can keep it.
Feedback: YES! It keeps my plot bunnies fed and healthy. Though
after this you might want to starve them to make them shut
up...
WARNING: AU AU AU AU AU AU AU and I don't mean like jaoa AU!
Really REALLY out there AU! Oh yeah, and a nice big warning for
violence, because it just sort of comes with the territory.
[This is telepathy] and /these are thoughts/.
George and Anne are the gods who own everything... I'm just
messing around. The music belongs to Melissa Etheridge and
Island Records.
Note on how this came about: AH!!! Get the plot bunny off! Get
it off!!... So there I was, blissfully typing along on the next
part of JAOA. And on the other side of my computer screen I was
writing away on a VampChron spec. Then I remembered that m_a
challenge about vampires and Jedis... and the plot bunnies
started to gather with evil glints in their beady little red
eyes. And then this song came on and the lyrics clicked and
I've totally lost my sanity! It's not VtM - I write VC, but
hey, VtM was based on VC so it kinda counts... Don't worry, no
prior knowledge of anything vamp related is required. ;P
Silent Legacy
SW/VC crossover
Black Rose, 1999
lenoirrose@yahoo.com
You've heard it on the street
Craving the affection
Your blood is full of heat
They don't listen to your reasons
As original as sin
Deny all that you feel
And they will bring you home again
And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy
Rain sluiced down between the tall towers in endless
waterfalls, gathering on balcony and platform in pools and
drips until what might have been a light shower at the highest
level drained into a cold, heavy downpour in the shadows of the
lower regions. It sent the denizens scurrying to their dim
dwellings and bolt holes as the bone chilling water cascaded
down, splashing in grease rimmed puddles and falling away into
drains that lead to even lower, darker levels.
The puddles splashed beneath his boots as he walked, ripples
skating out across their surface to merge with the ripples of
raindrops in iridescent waves. He kept his head down, hood
pulled forward to shield his face from the rain. The running
lights of a passing shuttle struck the water slick walkway but
he resolutely turned his eyes away from the enticing glitter of
it, closing them until the shuttle had passed to block out the
hypnotic dance of light streams.
When the darkness returned he sighed, slowly opening his eyes
again. The rain had seeped beneath the edge of his cloak,
trickling cold and wet down his back. A shake of his head
tossed back the hood, letting the rain run free across the
planes of upturned face and throat. It was cold, but no colder
than the chill which gnawed, hungrily, at his frozen bones.
Reaching up, he slicked back the sharp spikes of his hair,
wringing water from the longer queue at the nape of his neck.
Around him the lower levels had fallen nearly silent, still and
quiet beneath the heavy hand of the falling rain. It was always
dim, sunlight trickling only feebly past the long shadows of
the towers even on the brightest of days. Now, in the evening
hours, the darkness that engulfed the lower levels was thick
and absolute, an enclosing night that stretched its velvet
fingers over everything within reach. The lights that broke it,
glowing fitfully along the walkways and platforms, sizzled
sullenly as water splashed down on them.
Still and silent. . . but if he opened his mind the whole of
the level, the whole of all of wet and darkened Coruscant for
leagues in any direction across its entertwined surface, would
resound with the whispered voices of a million beings. The
soft, incessant breath of countless thoughts, pressing against
his own, a tidal wave of individual drops merged into a
fearsome tsunami that drove down upon him with numbing force.
And even if he did not, if he raised every shield and barrier,
locked them safe and seamless around himself. . . even then,
the city spoke with a thousand voices.
A thousand million lives, given voice in the wet, lush beat of
countless hearts; a rhythm that thrummed and throbbed through
the air around him, beckoning with sweet promises of warmth and
comfort.
He moaned softly, arms crossed tight across his chest. The
empty ache inside coiled like sharp splintered knives in his
guts, slashing and rending in agonizing slow motion.
Swallowing, he pressed the tip of his tongue tight to the
closed barrier of his teeth. /The night is early,/ the ache
cried, hunger drawing at his flesh and bone.
"The night is long," he whispered to himself. His voice bounced
off the surrounding walls, a sharp and staccato sound that made
him flinch and half raise his hands to his ears. Pressing his
lips firmly together, he hugged himself tighter and shivered.
The nights were long, and the hunger that gnawed at him only
made them a thousand times longer. "Strength," he breathed, the
sound too soft to echo.
Another shuttle passed, lights flaring in the darkness. He
jerked, blinded - lights danced on the puddles, on the splash
and play of water, refracted in each falling drop. Light all
around him, dancing and weaving, rainbow prisms of beautiful
brilliance that stole the very breath from his lungs.
Darkness reclaimed the walkway as the shuttle continued on, but
he never noticed.
It wasn't until the spoon was forcibly taken from his hand and
a large palm connected, none too gently, with his cheek that
Qui-Gon recovered enough of himself to slowly blink eyes gone
dry from staring.
Mace Windu's face swam partially into focus, a concerned frown
creasing the Jedi Master's forehead as he leaned over the other
man. His hand was raised to strike again but Qui-Gon sluggishly
shook his head, holding up his own arm to forestall the action.
His eyes felt as though they were covered in a layer of glue,
his temples throbbing as the ache at the center of his skull
took shape, another smaller ache centered over his jaw
attesting to Windu's strength.
Senses came back slowly, a checklist that he went down and
catalogued. Touch and sight - sound, the muted flow of
conversation in the dining hall; taste, the dry feel of his
tongue and a hint of coppery sharpness where he had bitten the
inside of his cheek. The smell of foods, warm bread and a fish
based stew, pungent and subtly sweet; reminding him that he
hadn't had more than a bite at the same time that it provoked a
stomach churning nausea.
Windu gripped his shoulder, giving him a rough shake.
"Qui-Gon?"
"I'm here," he muttered, the words coming out slurred.
Swallowing painfully, he tried again. "I'm here, Mace."
The other Master relaxed, dropping down to the seat beside
Qui-Gon. Rubbing at his eyes, Qui-Gon leaned one elbow against
the edge of the table as the room wavered around him dizzily.
Windu's hand was at his back instantly, a solid point of
reality. [FOCUS.] The command echoed through his already
pounding head and Qui-Gon winced, glaring muzzily at the other
man.
"You were out for ten minutes or more," Windu told him by way
of apology. Startled, Qui-Gon glanced around the room. The
table immediately around them had been cleared but the people
closest at the surrounding tables were making a studious effort
to be engaged in conversation, their eyes turned away. Qui-Gon
breathed a sigh, thankful for small blessings, and rubbed
ruefully at the ache in his cheek.
"I'd only just sat down," he recalled haltingly, frowning in an
effort to recall the previous moments. "I was starting to eat
when. . ." He shook his head, spreading his hands to indicate
his helplessness in the face of the sudden assault.
Windu nodded slightly, sighing. "What was it this time?"
Qui-Gon winced, pinching the bridge of his nose where the ache
had settled in and throbbed with the tempo of his pulse.
"Lights," he said slowly, gingerly calling forth the image that
had blotted out all else. "Rainbows in light. . . spectrums of
colors, more than I knew I could see. A web of them, dancing
and rippling in different patterns."
The other Jedi Master frowned, tipping his head back in
thought. "Rainbows. . . Crystals? A prism would produce a
spectrum. . ."
Qui-Gon heard his voice continue dimly, as though from a
distance. Above it, drowning it out, was a deep steady
throbbing. Rhythmic, it pulsed with a regular beat, each one
almost a physical thing that swept across his skin and vibrated
through the bones of his body. How could Windu keep talking as
though he heard nothing? Why did no one else react to the
sound? Qui-Gon opened his mouth, started to speak - and
stopped, cold, as his eyes fell on Windu.
There, in the long lines of the Jedi Master's throat, the pulse
fluttered beneath his dark skin in exactly the same rhythm as
the throbbing.
Qui-Gon tried to swallow and found that he couldn't. Closing
his eyes tightly he tried again, hearing the distant rush in
his ears as the blood dropped away from his head, lurid red
splashes streaking across the inside of his eyelids. "Mace."
His voice was a thready whisper, but it cut the other Master
short in mid sentence. "Mace, I'm going to be ill."
Windu was on his feet at once, hands cupping the other man's
head. The Force rolled over Qui-Gon in a wave, warm and
soothing, beating back the nausea that threatened. In one
moment of perfect clarity Qui-Gon heard Windu's call for a
Healer, heard the commotion of the room around them. In the
next the dark well caught him, dropping sight and sound away
too fast for him to grasp, and he knew nothing more.
It was the wet, at last, that drew him from the maze of lights.
Seeping under his cloak and into his clothes, plastering
trousers and tunic to chilled skin, it eventually became
unpleasant enough to notice. Shaking his head slowly to clear
it of the lingering visions, he glanced out at the walkways. He
had no idea how long he had stood there, entranced by the
flickering raindrops. Long enough to be soaked through, cold
and wet.
The hunger beat in him, fiercer than ever. He whimpered softly,
pressing his elbows tight against his ribs as though he might
capture the hunger there and somehow contain it.
The rain was letting up, the drops smaller and fewer between
then they had been. Farther along the walkway, just short of
the junction to the next, was the flickering light of a tavern
of some sort. The door opened, and even from where he stood he
could smell the sharp scents of alcohol and bodies, feel the
warmth of the interior drifting out to tantalize him.
Two beings emerged out onto the walkway. One chirruped in
outrage as raindrops hit its feathered crest, shaking its head
and ducking back beneath the awning to rearrange its wrappings.
The other humanoid laughed softly, a sound laced with the fumes
of cheap brandy.
The man shivered harder, pressing back into the shadows of the
walkway. The pair walked by, never glancing at him. He followed
them with his eyes, biting his lip until he tasted the sharp
tang of his own blood, using the taste and pain to distract
himself from the scents and sounds of the two.
The walkway seemed all the colder and darker for their passage,
the very surface of the walls beating with the pulse that
tormented him. He hesitated, then sucked in a sharp breath and
walked with quick steps towards the tavern. It was light and
warmth, sounds other than his own voice and a chance to be dry.
It was reckless and foolish, but it beckoned with a familiar
hand and he no longer felt capable of denying it.
Qui-Gon rolled his head back against the pillow, working the
tension from the base of his neck. "I'm sorry," he said again,
knowing it was foolish but unable to help himself.
Windu shook his head but the ghost of a smile hovered on his
lips. "There's nothing to be sorry for," he assured the Jedi
Master. The smile peeked into existence, shared between the two
friends. "Though it was quite a sight. It's not every day a
Master falls like a felled tree in the middle of the dining
hall. I'm sure you've supplied the initiates with gossip for
the next few weeks."
Qui-Gon sighed and Windu laughed softly. The laughter dropped
away as he put a hand on his friend's shoulder, squeezing
softly. "The Healers couldn't find anything. . ."
"Again," Qui-Gon finished, the word bitten off sharply.
"Again," Windu allowed with a sigh. "The only defining factor
is that it began after. . ." He trailed off awkwardly and
Qui-Gon winced, closing his eyes.
"Say it," he said harshly, tensing as though against a blow.
Windu's hand pressed comfortingly against his shoulder. "After
Kenobi died," the other Master finished softly. Qui-Gon
flinched, letting his breath out in a slow hiss.
"You felt his death," Windu continued gently.
"Too late," Qui-Gon snarled, struggling up. Windu's
hands tightened, pressing him back against the sleeping couch.
"You felt it," Windu repeated, eyeing him steadily.
Qui-Gon relented, falling back to the couch but turning his
gaze away from the other Master's, the loosened strands of his
greying hair falling forward across his eyes. "You felt it and
you followed it, Qui-Gon. We thought we might loose you, you
had passed so far into the Force. The Healers think you damaged
something, doing that." Dry fingertips passed lightly across
the other man's brow, brushing back the loose hair. "Your
shields are fine. . . here. But on some level they have fallen.
The things you see are real, but distorted. Where you're
getting them from - whether something is projecting or you are
tapping into something unconsciously - the Healers don't know."
Qui-Gon clasped his hands across his chest, his gaze turned
resolutely towards the ceiling. "Then the flaw is in me," he
said flatly.
"Injury, not flaw," Windu chided. "The Healers can't pinpoint
it, so the diagnosis isn't exact. It may heal on its own, given
time."
"Or it may not," Qui-Gon finished dryly. Exhaling, he closed
his eyes. "Does it matter?"
There was silence for a moment, then Windu sighed heavily.
"You're a good man, Qui-Gon Jinn," he said evenly. "But you've
a stubborn streak to rival the greed in a Hutt." Iron fingers
gripped Qui-Gon's chin, turning his head around and forcing him
to look at the other Master. "It was not your fault. There was
nothing you could have done."
"Maybe," Qui-Gon allowed. "Maybe not. How can we judge? We
don't know what happened."
Windu regarded him for a moment, then let go. Qui-Gon turned
his face away again, arms crossed tight over his chest. "He was
in pain, Mace," he said fiercely, his deep voice cracking. "He
died in pain and fear. At the last, it felt as though liquid
fire were poured through our bond. He was my Padawan, and he
died alone. How is this not my fault?"
At a loss, Windu did not respond. The grief of the man on the
couch was palpable, a heaviness that darkened the shadows of
the room. Qui-Gon shook his head, glancing up. There was a
bitterness in his dark eyes to match the pain worn lines carved
deep around mouth and forehead. "I know," he said flatly. "I
know what you're thinking. 'There is no death, there is the
Force'. But reality is different, isn't it? There is no death,
but there is loss. And there is failure." He sighed, closing
his eyes again. "Go, Mace. Let me rest."
Windu hesitated. A hand brushed Qui-Gon's shoulder again,
silent comfort, and then he heard the soft steps and sharp hiss
of the door as the big man retreated, leaving him alone in the
dim light of the sleeping chamber.
The suite was too quiet. The silence, what once would have been
softened by the quiet noises of another occupant in the
adjoining room, was oppressive in its stillness now. Qui-Gon
raked a hand through his hair, twisting the strands around his
fist until it pulled painfully, a sharp pain to match the one
that still throbbed behind his eye.
Damaged shields and strange, debilitating visions. It didn't
seem nearly enough of a price to pay for the magnitude of his
failure. The pain of it haunted him behind his closed eyes,
lurked in the shadows of the room to prey upon his dreams. He
could feel the memory of it vibrate across his nerves, the call
that had jerked him weeks before from a fitfull sleep into a
waking nightmare.
[MASTER!]
Searing pain through every vein and cell, and knowing that it
was only a pale phantom of what Obi-Wan had felt in those last
moments. And then the moment when it had stopped, cut like a
string, leaving him with only the dark silence. Alone.
The worst was that no one knew how, or why. Obi-Wan had left
their shared quarters in the evening with a smile in his grey
eyes and an impudent laugh, taking advantage of a rare day of
rest to leave the Temple and explore some of Coruscant's
attractions. Qui-Gon had watched the young man go with a smile
of his own, assured that, all teasing aside, his apprentice was
in search of nothing more exotic than something more indulgent
to the palate then the dining hall usually provided.
It had been the last time any of them had seen him. Qui-Gon had
sought his own bed at an early hour, determined to take
advantage of the chance to rest. The cry had come in the
earliest hours of the morning. What had happened between one
point and the other was unknown. Even Master Yoda, eyes
downcast and small face troubled, could say no more than that
he had felt the point when Obi-Wan had been cut from the living
Force.
/Cut from it./ It was the one turn of phrase that troubled
Qui-Gon. Cut from it, not passed into it. Cut from it cleanly,
like a knife slicing through flesh. Yoda would say nothing else
on the subject, but Qui-Gon had called it vividly to mind the
first time the visions struck.
They came without warning, a thunderclap that struck through
his shields as though they were non-existent, ringing through
his mind and leaving him dazed in its wake. The first had come
as he tried to meditate, seeking a peace for an aching spirit
that nothing could soothe. Sound, all encompassing and complex,
had enveloped him. It brought a peace that no amount of
meditation had achieved, a child-like wonder and delight. He
had listened, caught up in the natural pattern of the noise,
soothed by its flow. It had seemed only a moment, a brief
respite, but when he had opened his eyes it was to find that
most of the hours of the day had passed, his body grown cold
and stiff upon the floor.
The second had caught him as he sat with several other Masters,
only half listening to their conversation but needing the
reassurance of others around him. From them he had learned how
the visions took him externally - open eyed and staring,
motionless, unmoving and unmoved by anything around him. The
second had been sensation, the caress of a thousand feathery
fingers against skin and face, countless soft touches that
lifted his hair and brushed his cheeks. With it, dimly, had
been the sound, muted now, but no less captivating.
As strange as the visions were, the two together allowed
Qui-Gon to puzzle out the substance of them. The sound and
feeling were nothing more than wind, the brush of it on an
upturned face, but magnified to such a degree that it became
alien, a thing so different it was as though he had never felt
it before.
There had been endless session with the Healers and the
Council, but through it all the visions continued - now sight,
now sound, now touch, one alone or several together; each one
of a different thing, some recognizable, some not. He never
said it, but in truth he almost welcomed them. The time spent
lost in a vision was time spent free of the pain of loss, time
submerged in the simple pleasure of sensation without thought
or memory. There were times, lost within that state, when he
could forget the ragged empty silence of the bond he had shared
with his apprentice, when he could almost imagine he felt the
familiar presence once again. It was nothing more than an
illusion of the mind, but it brought a comfort nothing else
could and sometimes, aching for that comfort, he wondered at a
turn of phrase and tried to find a non-existent glimmer of hope
for the impossible. It remained impossible, but the delusion
was a momentary comfort.
Throwing back the covers of the sleeping couch, Qui-Gon reached
to dim the room lights. Illumination spilled coolly through the
window, bright and sparkling from the lights of the city.
Padding on bare feet to the center of the chamber, Qui-Gon slid
easily to the floor, legs curled beneath him. Letting his body
relax as it would, he closed his eyes, calling up the memory of
the lights that had danced in his mind, trying vainly to call
up the unthinking peace that accompanied them.
Words could not have described it. There were colors no human
eye had ever seen, bright and sparkling, shimmering in the
patterns. And there were patterns, there beneath the random
splashes of light. Rippling patterns, waving outward in
concentric circles that met and joined, overlapping in waves.
He played them out against the theater of his mind's eye,
trying to find a sense or familiarity to the sight.
Waves of concentric circles, journeying ever outward from the
heart of the splashes of iridescent light. Windu had suggested
crystals, the refraction of a spectrum through a prism. It had
been nothing that structured, too fluid and flowing.
Opening his eyes slowly, Qui-Gon looked out to the distant city
lights. The sky had cleared, giving a breathtaking view down.
Earlier in the evening a storm had passed, boiling darkly
through the caverns of the towers, its fury cracking down with
rumbles of lightning upon the lower levels. "Water," Qui-Gon
whispered softly, wonderingly. "Raindrops in water puddles."
Your body is alive
But no one told you what you'd feel
The empty aching hours
Trying to conceal
The natural progression
Is the coming of your age
But they cover it with shame
And turn it into rage
And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy
The tavern had become a haven and a hell. Each night he went to
it, drawn to the sounds of voices, the laughter and yells and
music. To the warmth and press of other bodies, reminding him
of the familiar interaction of people. Letting him forget, for
a time, that he no longer belonged. He could loose himself for
hours in the music alone, sitting quiet against one dark
corner, swaying softly to the sound as he closed his eyes and
forgot. It was a painless way to pass the long hours of the
nights.
But it was also a hell that enclosed and trapped him, pressing
tight around him. He used to, he thought dimly, enjoy teasing.
Friendly and innocent, a play of words and thought that did no
harm. But there were degrees, the point at which teasing became
temptation, temptation became longing, longing became desire
and desire became madness. He had, he knew, passed beyond the
point of madness long before. Each night only deepened it and
if ever he had wondered what it felt like to be chained to the
addiction of a drug, now he knew. It coursed through him like
fire, making his hands shake, his thoughts hazy. It ate in his
guts, a desire so strong that it hurt, a physical pain that
made him hunch in his seat, hands clasped around his chest,
rocking with the waves of the pain as he rode it out.
The people in the tavern asked no questions of newcomers if
they were asked no questions in turn. Lower level workers, they
were used to pale faces and the rough, loud sort that sought a
night's entertainment in the bottom of a cup or a willing body.
He sought neither, but so long as he purchased drinks he could
do with them as he would - the waiter would collect the
untouched cups at regular intervals and bring back fresh ones.
It made no difference to them. Pressed into his favored corner,
the man watched listlessly as one cup of bitter smelling orange
liquid was changed for another on the small table before him.
Glancing up briefly at the humanoid who was serving, he
wondered idylly what she saw when she looked at him.
No, better not to wonder. He knew. Sickly pale face that the
flesh had melted away from, framed beneath dirt covered hair.
His hands, on the table before, him, were skeletal - he had
punctured a new hole in his belt, over four finger widths from
where the last hole had fallen, in order to hold them on the
bare bones of his hips that evening. His clothes were stained
more grey than any other color. He hated it, but neither was
there anything to be done about it. He had never been overly
vain but he knew that now he looked one step away from death -
the thought made him laugh quietly to himself.
The waiter said nothing about either his appearance or his
laughter - she took the credit bit he put on the table and
left, leaving him in peace for another measured bit of time.
Sighing, he pressed his trembling fingers to the worn surface
of the table. The pain of the hunger had become such a constant
pulse within him that he could almost ignore it - loose himself
in the notes of the music, pretending that the trembling
physical shell on the seat belonged to someone else. It was
like a form of meditation to drift on the sounds, lost in a
complexity of tones that his ear alone could hear.
But even that was denied to him when a man, dressed in the
motley of clothes that seemed to pass as fashion for the lower
levels, dropped down into the seat across from him. The
stranger's smile was inviting in the same way a predator's
toothy grin might be as it contemplated its next meal - the man
shivered to see it and deliberately looking away.
Undeterred, the stranger put his elbows on the table and leaned
in, voice a smooth ripple between them that dragged the man's
attention unwillingly away from the music. "What are you
looking for?"
Vaguely irritated, the man glanced back at him and sighed.
"Nothing. Go away, please."
The stranger grinned, shaking his head. "Now don't be like that
- I'm being friendly." His measuring look took in the thin and
unsteady hands, the haggard face. "You obviously need something
bad. The others pass by and you never even nod their way, so it
must be something special." He spread his hands, inviting.
"Name it. Spice to XT - I have it. Or I can get it. Anything
for the right price." His smile, the man decided, was oily - it
made his long face entirely too rat-like, and the man had seen
more of the pale eyed rats of the lower levels in the last
weeks then he had ever wanted to.
"You don't have what I need," the man said firmly. It was a
bald faced lie, a quiet portion of his mind whispered, but he
shrugged it away. Far far better the guilt of a lie to the
horror of the truth.
"Now how do you know without asking?" the stranger asked
reasonably. "Give it a try. What's the worst I can do besides
say no?"
Pointless to argue with such a one track mind. The stranger was
leaning forward, nose flared as though he could almost smell a
profit. The man tried for the truth, one which the rat-faced
stranger might understand. "I can't afford it." Not in a
millennia, not in all the years since time began. He could
never afford the price of the demon that dragged at his veins.
"Ah." Mocking regret in that tone. The eyes traveled over him
once more, and then the stranger cocked his head. "We maybe
could work something out. A fair deal."
Would the fool not take 'no' for an answer? Frowning, the man
glanced back, a sharp retort on his lips - and in the moment
when their eyes met he knew. Heard it as clearly as if the
stranger had spoken, the thoughts ringing crystal clear in his
ears. /Young. . . he'd clean up. Get him on a regular fix and
he'd flesh out some. Good bones, and there were those that
liked them thin and pale. Radun might give him a fair
commission for the boy. . . and if not, one more addict
wouldn't be missed./
The rage caught him unprepared, like so many things did now.
Emotions teetering on an uneasy edge tipped and spilled forth,
giving a rushing strength to the ache inside. /Peace. Peace. .
./ But something cold sank its talons into his soul, a cool
burning anger that licked and crackled inside, and a singularly
unpleasant smile spread itself across his lips. "What sort of
deal?"
There had been a time, the man thought dimly, when the subtle
pressure of his own question would have spilled forth every
sordid detail of the man's plan, every scrap of information the
man might care to hear. It still might, sometimes, though he'd
no control over it any longer - but their eyes had slipped away
from one another and the man knew the moment was past. Instead,
the stranger was too blind to see that he no longer held the
position of predator. Smiling ingratiatingly, he jerked his
chin towards the door. "Care to discuss it outside of other
ears?"
A pause, a heartbeat - not his own but the stranger's, heavy
and dark, promising secrets and whispered fantasies. The man
let the tip of his tongue lick out across his lips, tasting the
rich scent that hung in the air. "Of course," he agreed mildly,
as the demons howled in triumph. "Lead the way."
When the door to his suite opened without a knock Qui-Gon did
not bother to look up. If Windu's presence hadn't announced
itself through the Force, his distinctive resonance rippling
across the edges of the other Master's thoughts, Qui-Gon still
would have known the identity simply through the manner of
entrance. Only Windu still walked in unasked, just as he had
when they were initiates.
Sighing, Qui-Gon thumbed off the data pad and tossed it onto
the table beside a long cold cup of tea. He hadn't been reading
it - couldn't even recall how many pages he had scrolled
through without seeing a single printed word or what the
subject had been. It had been an idyll occupation only -
something for his hands to do, a familiar gesture that let him
keep some attachment to his body even as his mind ranged far
away.
Windu pulled out another chair from the table, seating himself.
His fingers flicked out towards the pad, gesturing. "Anything?"
"Whispers." Qui-Gon pulled his cloak tighter about his
shoulders. He had taken to wearing it even in his own chambers,
reassurance against a chill that would not leave even when he
had warmed himself to the point of sweating. "Hints, glimpses,
and then it's gone."
Windu sat back, nodding softly to himself. The visions in the
last week had tapered away from encompassing trances to quiet
day dreams and then to naught but shadows, easily brushed away.
The Healers had pronounced themselves pleased, saying that
Qui-Gon's natural defenses against what was, essentially, an
attack were rebuilding themselves. Qui-Gon himself had been the
only one displeased, though he had held his tongue before the
Council. Only to Windu, in private, when they ceased to be Jedi
Master and Council Member, had he voiced his concern.
"I'm no different," he had said, agitated. "Whatever is sending
them to me has changed. It's growing weaker."
Windu had raised the hairless ridge of one brow. "It still
works to your advantage."
"No," Qui-Gon had protested. Sighing, he had tried to find
words that would convince without discrediting what he said.
"It's not malicious. It's. . . sharing. All of the visions are
something the sender is taking pleasure in, something it finds
fascinating. Nothing harmful or negative. Only simple things -
the feel of the wind, the look of light on water, the sound of
instruments."
Frowning, Windu had considered. "You think it's a
communication?" he had asked at last.
"It might be," Qui-Gon had admitted. "But whatever is sending
it is growing weaker."
Windu had looked understandably reluctant. "What do you want to
do?"
Qui-Gon had raised his hands placatingly. "Listen for it.
Nothing more. Just cease shielding against it."
It had taken more than one conversation but in the end Windu
had agreed. And, more importantly, agreed not to bring it
before the Council. So Qui-Gon had begun to listen, and even to
cast his mind forth, seeking the touch of the vision. The loss
of it disturbed him on a personal level, though he said nothing
of that to anyone. The visions had been a comfort, and to loose
them now only reminded him all the more painfully of all else
he had lost. Fixing upon them, seeking them out, was avoidance
of a great many things that churned inside of him - but if it
was, he convinced himself that perhaps he had earned some small
respite, in whatever form.
"Music," Qui-Gon mused softly, more to himself than to Windu.
"It's usually music, instruments of some sort. Sound."
Windu nodded again, not answering. He tacitly looked the other
way on Qui-Gon's 'research', acknowledging it without
encouraging. "I came to fetch you for evening meal," he said
instead, changing the subject. "The Healers seem to think you
aren't eating enough."
"I ate," Qui-Gon replied automatically. When Windu's expression
invited elaboration, he paused, thinking. There had been the
meal at mid-day. . . no, he hadn't actually eaten anything on
that plate, finding that it made his stomach roil
uncomfortably. Morning meal, then. . . no. Qui-Gon frowned
absently, finding himself trying to recall the last time he had
taken anything but endless cups of tea and juice. His stomach
clenched, reminding him that it was quite hungry, his throat
reminding him that he was parched, and a perfectly good cup of
tea had been allowed to grow cold. Picking it up, he drank it
down anyways. It did nothing for the thirst, but it felt good
against his throat. "All right," he heard his voice agreeing.
Windu stood, offering him a hand up which he took.
It was an hour and more before he managed to clear enough of a
plate of food to satisfy Windu and be allowed, like a
recalcitrant initiate, to return to the quiet of his suite.
Palming the rarely used lock on the door as he leaned against
the frame, he took a deep breath through closed teeth. It
didn't help. Gathering his hair up as he went, he walked with
long hurried steps to the facilities in the dressing chamber.
He had just enough time to shed the cloak into a brown puddle
on the tiled floor and brush his sleeves back, hair caught
tight against the nape of his neck in one hand, before his will
lost the battle with his body and the wracking heaves caught
him.
Kneeling on the cool tiles afterwards, he sighed. His throat
and chest burned, his eyes watering. Forcing himself to his
feet, he leaned over the sink and washed the taste from his
mouth, splashing water across his face. Gathering the cloak up,
he walked back through the darkened rooms to his sleeping
couch. He had enough energy left to pull his boots off before
collapsing back on the couch, arms flung up over his face to
block out even the cool lights from the window.
The silence descended on him as it always did but now there
were no intrusions, no visions to transport him from the
creeping shadows. Nothing to distract him from the emptiness.
Shivering with the chill that had settled into his bones,
Qui-Gon pressed his face into the folds of his sleeves,
blotting the silent tears that escaped into the darkness.
There was a narrow side walkway to the back of the tavern,
dimly lit and quiet. The two men entered it, moving away from
the brighter lights of the main walk.
The man could feel himself as though at a great distance, his
focus at once intensely sharp and blunted as though from the
warm glow of the alcohol he hadn't touched. He could feel each
step, feel the easy graceful slide of a body he hadn't felt
comfortable in for some time, but it was as though someone else
directed the movement. It wasn't him, some part of his mind
whispered, but it no longer mattered.
It was desire and it was madness and the demons, once released,
would not be contained again. The abyss gaped before him but
the throbbing rhythm would not let him go.
The drug seller was turning towards him and he let the boneless
grace flow through him, licking slowly across the beckoning
smile that curved his lips. Letting the throat of the loose
tunic fall slightly away, baring pale skin. "What sort of deal
did you have in mind?" he asked softly, his voice throbbing on
the low tones. All the while his steps took him closer, one
casual step at a time.
/Run!/ the small, thinking portion of his brain urged.
/Runrunrunrunrunrun. . ./ But then the other man met his eyes
and he knew they were both lost.
The desire poured out of him. Caught by the fire in a dark grey
gaze, the drug seller could only smile, glassy eyed, reaching
out to run his fingers over the edge of the tunic opening.
"Well now. . . Wasn't quite like this, but we maybe could
renegotiate. . ."
"Of course we could," the man whispered. His breath caught in
his throat as he reached out, warming the chill of his fingers
against the flesh of a flushed cheek. Soft, so incredibly soft,
and beneath it he could feel the rushing pulse.
The seller had his hands around the curve of a thin waist,
descending to grope across buttock and thigh. The man allowed
it, taking the one final step that would bring their bodies
together. Reaching up, he twined his arms around the other
man's neck, working his hands beneath the other's tunic and
pressing his palms to the warmth of skin. Everywhere the pulse
throbbed, humming through his very bones. In the flesh beneath
his palms, in the hands on his body, in the chest pressed to
his and the swelling erection against his thigh. The rhythm of
it made him moan, closing his eyes, awash on a wave of
bittersweet pulsing promise.
Close enough to touch, to smell and taste. He pushed the other
man back easily, thrusting him back against the wall. He heard
the startled gasp, felt the spell of the desire slipping. The
seller stiffened in his grasp but it didn't matter any longer.
None of it did.
There was no trembling in his hands now; only tight, tense
strength that curled around the other man's dark hair and drew
his head back. The scent was all over him, rich and sweet, the
scent of every good thing he had ever tasted, beckoning to a
hunger that would no longer be denied. With a last soft cry, he
let the abyss take him.
The moment the blood flooded his mouth and washed across his
tongue all thought ceased entirely, washed away in the precious
warm glow of life.
There were lips beneath his own, soft and warm. Qui-Gon licked
slowly across them, teasing, rewarded with a faint husky moan.
Fingers tangled in his hair, plucking at the tie and freeing
it, threading through the strands.
Clothes had melted away and the body beneath his was silk over
the rippling cord of muscle, heat and warmth. His fingers
trailed across the strong curve of thigh, into the hollow of
the hip and up, over the smooth dip of muscles at the waist to
the even ridges of ribs slicked with sweat. Blunt fingernails
dragged slowly down his back, making him gasp and arch. A low
chuckle, rich and soft, breathed across his ear. Growling, he
reached back to grasp the wandering hands and draw them
forward, pinning them to the pillow.
Grey eyes smiled into his, darkened to steel with desire.
"Qui-Gon. . ." his name was syrup on that tongue and he was
helplessly caught, watching the pink tip lick out and over the
flushed lips.
Hard thighs slipped around his waist and with a twisting flip
their positions were reversed. He let himself sink back into
the cushions, arching up to bring their groins together. His
lover moaned again, hips moving against his in a hard, unsteady
rhythm.
Chest and stomach and groin, pushing him down into the cushions
with a firm weight that made him shudder, gasping. A wet tongue
traced the line of his throat, making him tilt his head back,
wordlessly asking for more. Teeth nipped, gently marking, but
it was the long, slow suction against his pulse that nearly
undid him, drawing forth an inarticulate moan from deep in his
chest.
The mouth drew away, teeth nipping at his ear. "Look at me."
Husky delicious voice, low and ragged with desire, so utterly
loved. He forced his eyes open, meeting a gaze of grey so
bright it seemed to glow, captivating. His lover met his eyes,
hard and implacable, command in that voice. "Look at
me."
And he did. Watched as that head bent, felt the lips brush his
throat. Felt the gentle touch of a tongue and then the brief
pain. Felt the suction start, the draw on vein and heart, all
rushing wetly towards that one throbbing point.
Felt the heated pleasure rush through him from groin to throat
and heard his own cry dim in his ears, his lover's name
screamed in voice and mind as orgasm swept over him.
It thrust him from sleep in a gruesome parody of another cry,
dragging him from dream to waking in a dizzying wrench. His
heart and breath were racing, body trembling in the aftershocks
of pleasure. Gasping, he curled on the sleeping couch, covers
fisted beneath his hand.
Dream. It had only been a dream.
But somewhere deep inside he felt the echo of it, the warm echo
of fulfillment, of a bond he had reached out to countless times
over the weeks only to draw back in pain at the emptiness of
it. An echo, still warm to the touch of his grasping mind, real
and almost tangible, slipping away only as he tried to hold it.
Real.
REAL.
His breath caught, choking. Closing his eyes, he pressed his
forehead to his trembling hands.
[Obi-Wan. . .]
You are digging for the answers
Until your fingers bleed
To satisfy the hunger
To satiate the need
He woke with the coming of the dusk, an instantaneous change of
state from nightmare ridden sleep to fully awake. His own gasps
were loud in the oppressive darkness of the tiny bolthole,
ringing wetly from the damp walls. Shivering, he drew his knees
up against his chest, hugging them tight. Dusk, and a night of
waking nightmares in place of the sleeping ones.
Pressing his forehead to his knees, he listened to the echoes
of his breathing, consciously willing himself to become lost in
it. Anything, if it would only erase the memories and the
dreams. If it would banish the present and the future.
A scrabbling sound in the darkness drew him out. The scratch of
claws on bare floor - a sound he'd grown to loathe, even as he
listened for it. The rat, body easily the length of his
forearm, sleek and slim, was easy to catch. It hissed and
chattered at him angrily, tail lashing, pale luminous eyes
baleful in the darkness.
A simple twist broke the neck, the eyes dimming in limp death.
The thick pelt of fur had given him pause at first, before the
chilling hunger had overcome lingering scruples. The blood was
thick and heavy - he had learned to drain the things quickly,
before they congealed. /Hunting,/ he had told himself firmly.
/It's no different then when you've hunted for your dinner./
Cold, wet, forsaken planets, food cooked across fires and a bed
on the hard earth. He had always hated those assignments. The
laughter bubbled up, tinged with hysteria. Sitting in the cold,
damp darkness, the body of the rat cooling at his feet, he
clasped his hands around his knees and rocked back and forth,
laughing until the tears ran hot down his chilled cheeks.
Laughed louder, until the sound bounced jaggedly from the
walls, filling the small room. Laughed until the noise hurt,
stinging his ears and falling roughly from his throat.
When the laughter died away it was the very absence of sound
which caught him. The soft, whispered sound of his breaths,
sliding through the silence. Smiling madly, he let the silence
take him, listening to the heaviness of it as all else faded
away.
Qui-Gon stepped to the side of the walkway, letting a group of
beings pass him. They continued on, heads bent in conversation,
not looking up as they brushed by. Pedestrian traffic was
heavier at the lower levels, fewer beings waiting at the taxi
shuttle platforms.
He forced his hands to stay loose at his sides, not reaching up
to check the plait of the braid at his neck or tug at the lines
of the blue tunic he wore. The clothes felt constricting, tight
and heavy in a way Jedi robes never were, and his fingers kept
straying to the bare place on his belt where his lightsaber
should have hung. But it was no Jedi Master who walked the
corridors of the lower levels and if the clothing did make the
man then he had remade himself, a tall, lean faced man who
walked without notice among people who would not look twice at
him.
He had felt incredibly garish, looking at himself in the tiny
mirror of his chambers, but the more he had looked about him in
the lower levels the more he had realized that he was, if
anything, very drabbly dressed. Bright, multi-colored and
layered ensembles surrounded the walkways, the colors
apparently picked at random rather than for any overall effect.
It gave a bright, floral effect to the otherwise dark grey of
the corridors and shadowed walkways, which seemed as sound a
reason for the clothing choices as any.
Dim and cool, heavy and quiet - the more one descended into the
depths of Coruscant the more it felt as though one had stepped
into another world.
Qui-Gon shook his head slightly, wishing his coat were heavier.
The chill that had settled into his bones would not leave, and
the crisp evening air had set his back teeth to clenching to
keep the shivering chatter from his jaw. No amount of warmth or
layers would banish it, and he could not push it away or
control it. His hands, tucked deep into the relative warmth of
his pockets, were so chilled that he could feel them like ice
against his body even through the layers of cloth.
The cold was beyond his control, the city around him out of his
normal range or ken. He felt dropped into a dream, unprepared
and unknowning, the world around him shifting while he stood
still.
Another man brushed by him from behind, forcing him momentarily
against the rail of the walkway. Qui-Gon paused, sucking in a
deep breath and releasing it slowly. His thoughts were slipping
through him like flashes of random light, seen and then lost,
his attention to the world around him disjointed and unreal.
Dreams to drag him out to these darkened walkways, echoes to
guide his steps. In the stark light of morning it had not gone
unthought by him that the dreams of the night might be only
dreams... but the acheing ragged edges of his grief clutched to
the dream as the last hope of a drowning man. Dreams, at least,
offered the ability to lose oneself in them.
He passed a hand across his face, rubbing at eyes and temples,
then stepped away from the railing. His focus was scattered to
the winds that whispered through the deep chasms of the lower
levels, even as that soft sound drew him on like the sweet
promise of a mirage in the distance.
It sang to him softly, the breath of distorted memory, of a
sound that had been so much more than just one sensory image.
He felt as though he could put his hand out across the railing,
hold it over the depths below and somehow catch that fleeting
echo. Clasp it to his chest, hold it tight, a tangible line to
lead him on.
The jolt, when the even that ghost of a sound vanished, rang
through him like a great, bone jarring reverberation. It made
his breath catch in his lungs, his hand grasping nervelessly
for the railing.
He knew the touch of the vision as it swept across him, knew it
and could not hold to it or push it away. Helpless in the grasp
of it, Qui-Gon felt the silence descend across his mind like
the heavy folds of a muffling cloak, still and encompassing,
endless in its nothingness.
It was the last thing he felt as the world dropped from under
him and he felt himself falling.
Pain jerked him from the silence like the shocking jab of a
blade through his ribs, choking a cry from his dry throat. The
world rushed back upon him, darkness and the rasping sound of
his own breath solidifying about him where he knelt.
He moaned, leaning down to press his forehead to the chill
surface of the smooth floor. The pain throbbed in his ribs,
arcing down his arm to pulse in his wrist. He whimpered softly,
cradling it across his knees.
Nothing. Nothing in the tiny room, no one to touch him, nothing
to cause it. He licked his lips slowly, forcing his protesting
muscles to flex the fingers of his hand. He knew what a
break felt like, could feel it shatter in the bones of his
wrist, but nothing was broken.
He drew in a long breath, shuddering. Phantom pain, echoing in
flesh and bone. Pushing himself, he stretched the limb out,
flinching as his fingers came into contact with cold, still
fur.
Death, and the smell of death, and the touch of it. It drove
him as no will of his own could have, forcing him to his feet
to stumble away from the limp rodent body. His hand trembled
against the wall but determination moved him away from it,
thrust him towards the door of the bolthole and through it.
The walkway beyond was dark and deserted, the lights along its
path long gone. The towers of Coruscant arched overhead,
dizzying in their sweep, gigantic spikes of blackness that
blotted out all hint of stars but glittered with their own
lights far above. He leaned his shoulder against the closed
door behind him, still cradling his arm against his chest.
The pain would not fade, no matter how he twisted wrist and
fingers and felt them to be whole. It spiked through it all,
regardless of movement or careful stillness. Nothing he did
would relieve it.
Laughter welled in his throat again like black oil, pouring
forth in small fits and starts that were nearly sobs. His teeth
bit down into his lip, a pain he knew and could pinpoint, blood
spilling across his tongue. He spit it out savagely, pulling in
a breath through clenched teeth that chilled his mouth and
burned his lungs.
Spectral pain, insubstantial but all too real to the ache in
his flesh. He cursed through the laughter, knowing his reason
was slipping away and laughing all the more. The hunger still
gnawed at him, vying with the throb of arm and ribs for his
attention.
One had nothing to do with the other... as far as he knew. He
could readily admit that he knew nothing, and the rising
hysterics were threatening to drop him to his knees, the
laughter echoing crazily back from the empty walkways and
caverns of the levels below. He struggled to swallow it, to
breath it in and quell it, but his body was no longer his own
to control.
Pain to anger, anger to laughter, laughter to tears. The
emotions dipped and swerved through him crazily, a blind drop
through darkness that had no bottom and no direction. Shaking,
he clutched his arms tight around his chest, trying to draw in
even breaths.
He dashed the tears away angrily, unable to bear them. The
breaths were uneven, shakey, but he drew them in and pushed
them out with single minded intensity. It centered him, gave
him a point to concentrate upon. The pain was lessening slowly,
leaving his body trembling but undamaged. He flexed his wrist
again, almost savagely, feeling the pain shoot up his arm with
renewed vigor as his mind dwelt on it.
Wordless, frustrated, the cry trembled on his lips. His fist
sank into the metal of the wall behind him, the blow ringing
fiercely through the quiet, echoes thundering dimly below. He
slammed it down again, feeling the metal buckle beneath his
knuckles. There was no pain in it, no more then he might have
once felt for throwing his fist into a wall, and the imprint of
his hand was plain in the heavy steel. And still the unknown
pain pulsed in his bones, without source or meaning.
Interior pain. He snarled, swore, turning to rest his head
against the cold wall. His fingers crept into the loosened hair
at the nape of his neck, pulling on the strands.
It hurt to turn inside, to close his eyes and shift his
thoughts inward to the realms of his own mind, where once he
had lived and known and been. There was only emptiness there
now and the hunger that throbbed through his body and defined
his being. Whispers of countless pulses and other people's
thoughts, no room at all for his own. No warmth, no life, no
ability to reach out - only the frightening descent into the
blackness within.
The pain gave him a focus, a point to start from. He grabbed at
it, fleeting and insubstantial, trying to find a cause. The
ability slipped away from him, sliding through his grasping
fingers, a fitfully weak ghost before the jaws of the hunger, a
phantom of something long dead. Sobbing, he let his fingers dig
deep into his scalp, let the flesh part and blood well up
beneath his nails as though he might physically tear the
ability forth from his unwilling mind.
It was deep, deeper then he wanted to go, and it had a
resonance to it that he shied from, hating to feel. It felt
like reaching his hand into fire, the flames licking at him, to
push himself after that feeling and track its source. The pain
in rib and arm throbbed anew, biting and jagged, phantom breaks
that he could all but feel crack through the bones.
Not his bones, he knew of a sudden. Not his pain.
A moan slid from his throat, choking him. Not his. Nothing to
do with him. It surged through him in waves, born on a tie he
had tried to bury, to push away and break from. It vibrated in
his mind and soul, relentlessly tugging at him, though he tried
to force it down.
Both fists pounded against the steel, nails raking ragged
furrows in it. He cried aloud, an inarticulate sound that gave
voice to the layers of pain. Bowing his head, he did not dare
to breath sound into the word that formed on his lips.
"...Master..."
Qui-Gon had found a scratch in the wall - a tiny hairline
imperfection, trailing like the tributaries of a microscopic
river across the smooth surface. He had focused on it, mapped
it, until he could look away and, looking back, find it easily.
It had provided an excuse to turn his face to the wall, one he
stubbornly clung to as Windu's voice droned on.
"...you'll be allowed up in three days. But, Qui-Gon, you must
understand - the Healers don't want to let you leave these
rooms. And right now, the Council must agree with them." Windu
paused for breath, and a reaction. Finding none in the still
figure on the couch, he sighed. "If you could explain -
anything - this would be easier."
Qui-Gon pressed his lips tight across his teeth, tracing a
subsidiary crack along the length of the scratch. The set of
his jaw said that it was possibly one of the most engrossing
things he had ever done.
Windu drew in a slow breath. Qui-Gon could hear him shift in
his chair, could picture in his mind's eye the exasperated set
of his friend's face.
"Qui-Gon," Windu began again, then sighed. His deep voice held
a regretful tone that the prone Jedi Master found he resented.
"My friend, you are not helping your own position."
The crack diverged into two paths and Qui-Gon let his eyes
follow the one leading down to the right. It intersected a band
of late afternoon sun that streamed in from the window, the
light warming the surface of the wall to a golden glow.
Squinting, he found that the tiny reflections of light from the
imperfections of the crack sparkled before his eyes.
"Why don't you feel you can speak of what troubles you?" Windu
was asking. "The Healers are there to help you - we all are.
But if you won't talk of it..."
"Close the window," Qui-Gon breathed quietly.
There was a pause. When he could not hear Windu's movement,
Qui-Gon repeated the words. "Close the window." Another pause,
until he sighed and added, "The light hurts."
That provoked a response. Windu rose, wordlessly, and crossed
to the window, dimming the surface. Qui-Gon watched the light
fade from golden to a deep honey glow. "More," he said quietly,
and the honey faded to a dim brown. The other Jedi Master
quietly resumed his seat.
The dim light still picked out stars of highlights along the
edge of the crack, but the shine no longer made him squint. His
eyes traced back along the path of the tiny thing, as though by
memorizing its shape he might find within it the secrets to all
questions.
After a time Windu tried once more. "Will you say nothing at
all?" he asked quietly. "Or would you prefer to let us think
the worst?"
"And what is that?" It took too much effort to raise his voice
above that whisper, but he knew, as the words fell into the
silence of the room, that Windu could hear him. "That I have
gone insane?"
"I didn't say that," Windu replied sharply.
"You don't need to," Qui-Gon answered. There was no feeling in
the words - no defense, no explanation. They left his lips and
it was as though in that moment he could forget that they had
been said at all, so distant from them and their implication
that it did not matter in the slightest.
"You're a stubborn man," Windu said quietly. "But I don't think
you're insane."
Qui-Gon did not reply. He could feel Windu's eyes upon him, but
eventually the man sighed. There was the sound of the chair
upon the floor as the Jedi Master rose to his feet. A hand
brushed Qui-Gon's shoulder briefly, making him flinch, and then
footsteps trailed away and the door hissed shut, leaving the
room in perfect silence.
He wasn't supposed to leave the couch but they hadn't actively
restrained him to it yet either. Apparently they still trusted
him that far, Qui-Gon reflected bitterly. More fool they. He
sat up slowly, supporting himself on his good arm, moving to
keep from jarring his ribs. A flare of pain in the room
monitors would bring a Healer faster than Qui-Gon cared for.
Swinging his legs carefully to the floor, he silently
apologized for every uncharitable thought he had entertained
about the other Master as he reached for the chair which Windu
had left beside the couch. Using the arm of it for leverage, he
rose unsteadily to his feet. The room swayed around him for a
moment, forcing him to close his eyes until it steadied.
The ache in his ribs kept him from drawing enough breath in. He
made himself breath slowly, timing each inhale and exhale with
a step across the floor of the room.
His good hand was trembling by the time he reached for the
window controls, but the relief of the artificially illuminated
darkness when he dialed them all the way down was more than
worth the tiny warning flashes his body was bombarding him
with. Sighing softly, he caught himself against the edge of the
window, leaning against it.
It took twice as much strength to return to the couch as it had
to leave it, the heavy leaden feeling of his limbs making each
step a tiny eternity. He had lowered himself to the edge of the
couch when the rising ache in his bones gave him away - a man
in the tunic of a Healer entered the room unannounced, took one
look at him and shook his head.
"Master Jinn," the man sighed, coming to his side and pressing
him firmly but gently back down to the couch. "If you need to
get up you have only to call one of us. Do you need something
for the pain? Something to make you sleep?"
Qui-Gon shook his head, letting the man settle him back on the
couch, ribs and arm cradeled carefully. "I'll sleep," he
whispered hoarsely. The Healer hovered for a bit more, but when
the Jedi Master firmly closed his eyes and turned away the man
quietly left again, dimming the lights on his way out. The
darkness gave the lethargy in his body the edge that it needed
to pull him towards true sleep, turning the evasion into truth.
It was night when he woke. He knew it without glancing at the
dimmed window, without help of the chronometer readout. He knew
it in his very bones, the heavy fatigue lifted as though it had
never been, infusing a cool sort of energy that diffused the
pain of his flesh and roused him from sleep as though a bell,
somewhere, had sounded within his mind.
It was easier to rise to his feet than it had been, easier by
far to walk across the room. The sparse medical chamber held
none of his things - tunic and cloak he could do without, but
the cool floor beneath his feet reminded him regretfully of the
lack of boots. His hair tie, as well, was missing; he shook his
head, irritated at the fall of hair around his face,
remembering that he had forgotten to ask Windu for it.
The door was closed, the controls placed on the other side.
Passing a hand before it told him all that he needed to know -
the lock was in place. No, there was only so far they would
trust him.
Pressing his hand against the wall, he let the Force play
through his fingers, sinking into the steel and the circuitry
behind it. A silent spark arced beneath his palm, circuit
connecting to circuit. The door opened with a hiss, startling
the Healer who sat at the bank of monitors to the left hallway.
Qui-Gon had crossed the distance between them in three long
strides, his hand outstretched and pressing hard to the man's
forehead before the Healer could even rise from his chair. The
Force flooded over the man, silent and implacable. [SLEEP]
The Healer slumped as though felled by a blow. Qui-Gon caught
him, easing him back into the chair, his head cradled against
the monitors. Sighing softly, the Jedi Master straightened,
raking back the strands of his hair from his forehead.
The quiet echo in his mind that had woken him rang softly,
insistently, tugging him on. He could not pause to question it,
reaching out to it as the tie that bound his heart to hope. The
Force flowed easily to his call, wrapping silence about his
steps, bringing to him the soft ripples of the others in the
Temple like a map sketched out upon his nerves. It was child's
play to slip through the corridors and lifts that were
unoccupied, a game initiates played amongst each other.
It was not until he reached the true outside, until the cool
night wind touched face and chest, the ground chilled beneath
his feet, that some sembalance of thought returned. Shaking his
head, Qui-Gon cradled his broken wrist against his other arm,
looking out across the empty platform and steps of the Temple.
Nothing. Below and beyond, the lights of Coruscant glimmered in
the indigo night. And still the call tugged at him, like an
itch that could not be scratched, a longing that made him
shiver. He might have called it hope, but some portion of his
mind wondered if it might not, after all, be insanity.
"Chasing ghosts," he whispered to himself. Closing his eyes, he
drew a deep breath, shuddering; unable to help but reach out to
the emptiness. [Obi-Wan...]
And there, so faint it was the phantom of a figment, hovering
at the very edge of his mind, was an answer. [...master...]
His eyes snapped open, the breath leaving his lungs in a gasp.
He hadn't imagined it. His mind scrabbled, clutching at the
tiny echo, but it faded away like mist. Prayers and curses
mixed on his tongue, the shiver catching him hard. He glanced
up at the towers of the Temple, the lights that gleamed against
the panorama of stars. Tightening his jaw, he turned his back
to them, bare feet soundless as he descended the steps.
The wind was colder at the height of the Temple but the lower
levels had a damp chill to them that sank immediately into his
bones and made him regret, thrice over, the lack of tunic or
boots. He walked quickly, eyes only half upon the walkways
around him, following the faint echo that spurred him on. If
those beings whom he passed paused to stare at the tall, bare
chested man, hair a loose mane about his tight face, he did not
care.
He knew when the source of the faint echo was near, could feel
it throb in his bones like a counterpoint to his pulse, setting
his wrist and ribs to throbbing once more. Gritting his teeth,
he lengthened his stride, ignoring the jarring pain. The stab
of it almost seemed to make the echo more real, as though the
pain called it forth, strengthening it.
His thoughts grabbed the idea, clutched to it. He paused
beneath one of the lights of the walkway, catching his breath.
Considering. The echo skittered through the edges of his mind,
like a small wild creature just outside the circle of light.
Qui-Gon wet his lips, drawing in a deeper breath, and then very
deliberately coughed it out again.
The pain stabbed through his ribs like knives, sharp and
ripping from the inside. It arced across the trail of the echo,
illuminating it for one brief moment in stark color within his
mind, an answering pain leaping back through it to him.
He was in motion before the thought had even solidified, the
surface of the walkway flying beneath his feet, every step
jarring pain from his bones and sending the waves of that
echoed pain out before him like a path of ripples to guide him.
Fear in those ripples, fear and pain and something very near to
panic. It drove him as nothing else could, mindless and
determined, racing against the nightmare that hovered, shadowed
talons outstretched.
From lit walkway to shadowed corridor, leaving the evening
pedestrians behind and plunging into the little used dead
spaces, empty and silent. The only sound was his footsteps, the
labored rasp of his breath. Darkened paths, but the ripples
that lead him cared nothing for the light and he followed them
blindly, trusting.
Finding.
It came at a junction, one corridor to the next, and only Force
driven reflexes brought him to a halt and kept his feet beneath
him.
Luminous in the darkness, the ghost gathered the tiny scraps of
light to it as it rose from the shadows, gleaming and pale.
Qui-Gon felt his breath give way, lungs emptied and straining.
The corridor wall behind him kept him upright, the metal solid
and firm beneath his flailing hand.
White and beautiful beyond belief, beyond hope or dream or
prayer. A face he knew as well as his own, framed in the
darkness, shining grey eyes wide. A sob tore its way through
his chest, and as the pain wracked his ribs he saw those eyes
wince, the movement betraying life. His voice cracked thinly in
the silence, an insubstantial whisper, breathed out on what
might have been his dying breath. "Obi-Wan..."
The whole being of the ghost flinched as though struck, an
inarticulate cry piercing the air between them. Fear pounded at
Qui-Gon, battering through mind and heart, waves of it making
him gasp and fall back. In a heartbeat, blurred in the
darkness, the vision of his padawan was gone.
And they feed you on the guilt
To keep you humble, keep you low
With some myth they made up a thousand year ago
And as you pray in your darkness
For wings to set you free
You are bound to your silent legacy
The corridors swept past him in a rushing blur, his feet barely
touching the paving as he ran. Headlong, full out, the breath
hissing in his lungs and body nearly alight in the wind of his
own passage. Farther and faster, as though his life depended on
it. His, or someone else's.
Idiocy, blind insane idiocy. His breath caught in his lungs,
sobbing, and there across his side he could still feel the
throbbing phantom pain of broken ribs. Could feel it stronger,
even, than he had before. It gave speed to his flying feet,
made him heedless as he caught his shoulder against one corner,
slipping, nearly falling before reflex saved him and sent him
pelting once more on his way.
And still the phantom ache twinged through ribs and wrist,
reminding him, with every pain, of the man he ran from.
Reminding him of what he had lost. Cruel beyond torture, to
feel the bond it trickled through, to feel the brush of it
breath life across parts of himself withered to dust. The
paltry physical pain it echoed was nothing to the pain within
him.
If he ran far enough, could he outrun that pain? Outrun
thought, outrun memory, outrun the tears that threatened his
eyes as he blinked them back?
Could he outrun that echo of pain? Could he outrun the
trickling connection that was forcing its way into his mind,
reawakening nerves and thoughts long dead? Outrun thought,
outrun memory, outrun the tears that threatened his eyes as he
blinked them back?
Blind, foolish idiocy. Self indulgent stupidity. The pain had
haunted him, driven him to it. No matter how he tried, he could
not entirely shut it out. It echoed through his nightmare
ridden dreams and plagued his waking hours. Unwilling sharer of
the other man's pain, he had found himself desperate. Desperate
to see, to feel, to know the Jedi Master was well and would
recover. To know what had happened. Desperate to assauge the
guilt that clawed at him, to reassure himself that whatever it
was would have happened whether he had been at his rightful
place or no.
Padawan, at his Master's side.
"NO!" The denial ripped from him, a howl of grief and
loss, lost in the rush of his passing.
It had been too much, to see the man there. As wild eyed and
harried as he himself felt, dressed as though he had been
pulled, will or nay, from his bed. If it hadn't been for the
face tinged grey in pain he might have thought it a dream - an
idyll fancy, spun from too much thought, garbed in glorious
flesh to dance before his eyes. But a dream would have woven a
fantasy, a Master in health, one with warmth in its blue eyes
and a low voice that beckoned with husky allure. Not the
nightmare vision of the man, dragged from Temple in the depths
of night by a will not his own, pain pinching the corners of
mouth and eyes and despair ragged in a whisper that burned over
the syllables of his name.
Nightmare horror. His desperation had reached out along the
same bond that echoed the pain, reached out and sunk its talons
in, pulling forth the very substance of all of his despair and
desire. And the man had seen, had witnessed the depths of his
personel hell with his own eyes. He knew.
Degrees of pain he hadn't ever imagined, mingled with shame and
a loss that opened before him like an abyss with no end. It had
been real. The Jedi Master knew.
/You can't go back,/ they had whispered when he first ran. /You
can't ever go back.../ The piercing memory of their mocking
laughter echoed in his ears.
The pavement disappeared beneath his feet. He ran farther,
faster, always down, always deeper, to where the lights of the
city so far above were the only stars. Inpersonal and
shrouding, the darkness fell around him like the welcome folds
of a cloak. The silence was thick, broken only by the clatter
of his feet and the curses that flowed from his tongue,
interspersed with broken sobs. When he slowed at last it was
not with fatigue, but simply because there was no where else to
go. Only more of the same, stretching ever downward to the
depths of the planet itself, each one darker and colder than
the next.
Silent of all, save the frantic beat of his own heart.
He moaned, his fingers finding the door to one of countless
boltholes, sliding it back and slipping inside. Only when the
door slid shut behind him did he allow himself to sink to the
floor, arms wrapped tight around raised knees. The walls of the
empty room shut around him with blessed familiarity, black and
close. The whisper of the echo trailed its nails across nerves
worn raw and bleeding. Shivering, he dropped his forehead to
his arms, curling into the chill of the bare floor as the tears
found their way free at last, spilling hot across his cheeks.
There was a timeless quality to the lower levels, a surreal
absence of the laws of dawn and dusk where the light could not
penetrate the depths between the towers. Within the dead
spaces, empty places that grew larger with each successive
level down, the dark was nearly absolute.
The bare soles of his feet were wet and numb from the chill of
the damp paving. Qui-Gon had long since forsaken the use of his
eyes in the darkness, letting the Force guide his steps as the
fingertips of his good hand trailed along the surfaces of the
walls.
The distant hum of the transport lanes had been left behind,
the deeper into the interior he journeyed. The silence around
him was broken now only by his own steps and the sound of his
breath - the soft splashing drip of water and the scrabble of
claw across metal greeted his ear at times, as his approach
startled some scavenging creature. He welcomed them for the
bright pinpoints of living Force that they were, briefly
illuminating the emptiness around him.
He could feel the echoes within, ringing softly through the
thin ragged threads of bond that fluttered at the edge of his
mind. The faint connection lead him like a burning trail
through the night, firm and inexorable. Ghost, dream, phantom -
it meant nothing. He could barely feel the pain and fatigue of
his own flesh. All that mattered were the cries he could feel,
faintly, like a claxon in the stillness. They echoed back
through the link, like the distantly heard cries of a child,
drawing him as nothing else could.
[Obi-Wan.... Padawan....] He sent it out with every step, a cry
of his own in a steady rhythm, aching to hear the faint answer.
Only the sobs came back to him and so he continued as swiftly
as he dared, heart pounding until he could feel the pulse of it
in his fingertips and beneath his hurting ribs.
There was no answer but the cries, and though he could not draw
enough breath he kept moving, following them. Ghost or reality,
he would not abandon those cries. Not again.
"Ghost," he whispered, his voice startlingly loud in the
silence. But even a passing spirit carried some hint of the
Force about it, rippling in its wake. At the end of his
questing he could sense nothing at all - an absense that spoke
as loudly as any presence, a cold chill within the Force that
guided him, marked only by the heavy pain that drew him on.
[Obi-Wan...] But there was no answer except for the cries that
made his heart contract.
He might have walked for hours and never known it. Qui-Gon let
the silence fill him, permeating mind and body, letting the
dull ache of his bones seep away into the silence so that his
mind might listen without distraction to the path of the echo.
And then his trailing fingertips touched it, so cold that it
burned flesh even through the heavy wall. Absence. Nothingness.
Silence.
The cries had dimmed to muffled pain some time before, and they
echoed around him still, distant and faint. Qui-Gon frowned,
hesitating in his steps. He could not pinpoint the cries, could
only follow them, a tracker upon a trail that lead he knew not
where. But there, beneath his hand... /...cut from the
Force.../ He pressed his palm to the coldness, feeling the
minute lines of the door within the steel.
The Force rippled beneath his palm, triggering lock and catch,
forcing the ancient mechanism to slide back.
Silence in the darkness, and he could feel nothing at all from
what lay beyond the door.
The attack came without warning, no touch of the Force
betraying it. It brushed past him, forced him back. Caught by
surprise, the Jedi Master stumbled, falling heavily to one knee
with a breathless cry of pain as his unthinking automatic
defense jammed his injured arm against the attack, bone
grinding against bone.
An answering cry sounded in the silence, the pain exploding
across the Jedi Master's mind as the echo suddenly closed into
a tight, personal sphere that amplified and rebounded. Qui-Gon
tried to gasp, lungs tight and burning, body curled
protectively around the blazing pain of his arm.
An eternity of just trying to draw a breath, only dimly
realizing that the small droning moan came from his own throat.
There was nothing but silence around him, no sense at all.
And then the hands appeared in the darkness, hesitantly,
hovering without touching. He raised his face to them slowly,
forcing muscles to unbend though each movement sent pain
shivering through his body.
There, in the darkness, a breath matched his own small gasp.
Qui-Gon swallowed, closing his eyes as the fingertips barely
brushed against his cheek. Deathly cold to the touch, smooth
and hard, not flesh at all.
But solid. Real.
And the whisper, ragged and harsh, breathed on a voice he had
thought never to hear against his ears again. "Master..."
The sob forced its way through the pain, his ribs spasming
until the sound was more than half moan. "Obi-Wan."
The hands withdrew as though stung, vanishing into the
darkness. Qui-Gon cried, reaching out, but his fingertips
brushed nothing. "Obi-Wan!"
"Stop it!" The words rent the silence, ringing. Qui-Gon gasped,
the sound an almost physical slap of force that set his ears
throbbing. The silence resumed, the Jedi Master trying to
breath slowly through clenched teeth to quiet himself. Nothing,
not a whisper, not a footstep. But he could feel it, a creeping
pressure against his shoulderblades and back. It was nothing of
the living Force, a coldness that moved against him, circling.
It raised the hair at the nape of his neck, shivers trembling
through his skin.
A breath caught in the darkness, part sob. The word slipped
forth before he could stop himself, a reaction as automatic as
breath to the pain in that sound. "Padawan..."
A hand as cold and hard as ice fisted into the loose strands of
his hair, jerking his head back with effortless strength.
Qui-Gon could not suppress a cry as pain flashed through him, a
cry cut short as the second hand materialized across his
throat, the pressure firm and unmistakable. "Be quiet."
The Jedi Master swallowed slowly, then pressed his lips shut.
His eyes could find nothing in the darkness and so he closed
them, tightly, willing his body to be pliant beneath the grip
of the cold hands. [Padawan]
The hand about his throat tightened and released spasmodically,
making him jerk despite himself. Silence fell between them, a
frozen tableau in which Qui-Gon could hear nothing but the hard
beat of his own heart against his ribs, crying the lie to his
stillness and steady breaths.
Something dropped against his face, startling him. Hot and wet,
it slid slowly across the plane of his forehead. The breath
that was slowly expelled brushed his closed eyes, cool and
scentless. "Damn you." The voice was low, rough and broken, but
he ached for the sound of it.
Another drop, and now he knew what it was. It echoed in the
ragged voice, the throb of the bond between them. Tears,
burning bright against his skin. Obi-Wan was crying.
Qui-Gon reached up stiffly, wrapping the fingers of his good
hand around the wrist of the hand at his throat. It was like
holding living stone, hard and smooth but fluid, the tendons
and muscles leaping beneath his touch. "Obi-Wan," he breathed.
Slowly, the fingers slid away from his throat. He could feel
the outline of where they had rested against his skin, cold and
aching. "Damn you," the voice whispered again, but there was no
anger in it. Only a bitter, biting pain.
He opened his eyes, and there, at last, was the sight he had
longed for. It was no less beautiful than before, luminous and
shining. Dark stains streaked the white cheeks, black on ivory,
welling from equally dark eyes. Qui-Gon reached up, breath held
tight, to brush one pale cheekbone. Heat on ice, spilling
across his fingertips. The image of his padawan flinched from
the touch, an inarticulate noise on his lips.
"Let me..."
"Don't"
Fear, not anger, in that voice. Qui-Gon's breath hissed through
his teeth, his hand trembling. "Obi-Wan... please..."
Flesh touched to reluctant stone, but though the feel was
nothing he was familiar with the shape was the same. The planes
of jaw beneath his palm, cheek curved beneath his fingers. It
was the shape he knew, and it brought all of the hopes and
dreams and fears crashing in upon him, mingled and intermixed,
given solid shape and form that he could reach out and touch.
The sobs caught him about the chest in a vice of pain but he
was helpless to hold them back. He felt the face beneath his
hand flinch in answering pain, reverberating through their
link. Then the hand in his hair released him, and in the next
instant face and hands both dissolved into the darkness,
reappearing as he was lifted, pulled into an embrace at once
tight and gentle, the arms around him achingly familiar.
Qui-Gon buried his hand in cropped strands of hair, shaken with
tears, feeling the answering shudders run through the body that
held him. [Padawan... my Obi-Wan... I thought I had lost you.]
The other body jerked, withdrawing. Qui-Gon tightened his hold
but Obi-Wan broke away easily, brushing the Jedi Master away.
In the space of a blink the darkness enveloped him; when
Qui-Gon looked again the pale blur of face and hands had
retreated several steps. "You have lost me," he whispered, the
tone flat. Eyes black in the dimness caught and held him,
gleaming brightly, voice a sibilant caress of sound. "This...
this is nothing that you know."
It wasn't the Force that reached out to him; it was something
primal and chill that twined itself about his thoughts. Almost,
for a bare second, he would have turned away - he knew, in his
heart, that the moment he did the ghost would fade, and with
it, all recollection of what had happened. But the tiny
rippling bond between them would not be denied and he clung to
it desperately, refusing to be turned aside.
Deadlocked silence, gazes fixed, unblinking. At last the ghost
dropped his head, breaking the contact. A soft, choked chuckle
rang out into the darkness, gaining strength. The sound
crackled from the walls around them, bouncing crazily, harsh
and painful to the ear. Qui-Gon stood firm before it, though a
shiver ran down his spine and through his bones. Obi-Wan
quieted at last, and the dark humorless smile on his lips broke
Qui-Gon's heart with its vicious, bitter edge.
"Bound and broken," the shade whispered. "You would tie me to
life, and I... I am death, Qui-Gon. Yours, if you won't let me
go."
"Then so be it." His voice was overly loud in the stillness,
the words ringing. Sitting up, breath coming shallow and fast,
Qui-Gon held out his hand. "I won't loose you again. I can't."
Obi-Wan flinched, shaking his head. "You can't follow me in
this," he said harshly. "And I can't come back to you. We can't
ever go back." Another bitter burst of laughter, the sound like
oil. "They were right."
"Who were?" Qui-Gon leaped at the words, grabbing at them, but
the pale face shook back and forth, denying him.
"Better you don't know. Better you walk away, forget all of
this. Go."
It pushed at him, hard and firm, but he would not yield. He
gathered the Force to him, pushed back through the bond they
shared, refusing to be manipulated... and as the Force leapt
from him he saw the pale face gasp, stumble back, hands half
raised in defense from something they could not touch.
He was up on his feet despite the pain, crossing the steps that
separated them and reaching for one dimly seen shoulder.
"Obi-Wan...." [Padawan, let me help...]
"Stop it!" Pale hands flew to temples, pressing hard. The voice
he knew so well echoed with a desperate pain that he would have
done anything to ease. Qui-Gon reached out, the Force gathering
beneath his hand to soothe and heal.
Obi-Wan cried out, jerking away, falling back against the wall.
"Stop it!" he gasped. Black tears ran wet down his cheeks, and
as Qui-Gon watched, horrified, thin trickles of black seeped
from under his fingernails as his hands clutched at his head.
"It hurts!"
/...cut from the Force.../ Yoda had said. Qui-Gon released his
grasp on the Force, letting it swirl away. The ghost of his
padawn drew a low breath, some of the tension draining from the
fingers that dug so violently at his temples, as though he
might physically claw the pain forth.
Cut from it. Not passed into it, but cut from it. Existing in
an absence of it, a cold well of nothingness, hurt unbearably
by the touch of the very thing he had once reached for with
every breath.
Nerveless, the Jedi Master sank back to his knees, the paving
unfelt beneath him. He could not tear his eyes away from the
figure before him. "My Obi-Wan," he whispered, voice breaking.
"What happened? What was done to you?" He could still feel the
press of those cold hands. A physical being, animate,
conscious... and without the living Force. Qui-Gon's mind
reeled, searching for an answer he did not posess.
The figure crouched against the wall did not answer, dark eyes
peering from a pale face, still and unmoving as a statue.
Qui-Gon did not dare to move. They stayed there, as the cold
seeped up through calves and knees to chill him and muscles
protested the stillness, falling at last to prickling numbness.
There was no time but fatigue began to set in, falling over him
heavily. And still they sat, barely breathing, unwilling and
unable to move. Qui-Gon started when the thin whisper reached
him, sliding through the silence.
"You won't go, will you?"
He wet dry lips, voice cracking. "You know me better than
that."
Obi-Wan dropped his head, shaking it slowly. "You'll kill us
both," he whispered, but the words held no strength to them.
"And Force help me, I'll let you. I love you too dearly to let
go."
"Then don't let go," Qui-Gon answered softly.
Pale lids closed across dark eyes. "I don't have a choice."
Hear my cry
In my hungering search for you
Taste my breath on the wind
See the sky
As it mirrors my colors
Hints and whispers begin
The quiet of the room was almost a physical thing, a cold
pressure that closed around him. Qui-Gon opened his eyes
slowly, looking out into a blackness that was only dimly
resolved into shapes by eyes that had adjusted as much as they
could to the lack of light.
His bare shoulders, where they pressed against the wall, had
developed an small itch that he could neither banish nor
relieve. His ankles and calves had long since progressed from
numb to the agony of prickling needles, and then back to heavy
numbness.
He let out a shallow breath, daring to slowly shift his weight
from one hip to the other. The needles returned, driving
mercilessly into his flesh. He bit his lip, waiting for them to
subside.
Across the room the still figure who curled upon the floor
never moved. Qui-Gon let out his breath, shifting into a
position slightly more comfortable and then falling still
again.
It had been hours - he had tried to count the time and failed,
slipping into light bouts of sleep and then waking again.
Through it all Obi-Wan's still body had never stirred. Qui-Gon
watched it with a dismayed fascination, not daring to move
himself.
Not since the first time.
Dawn had come with a faint reverberation in the Jedi Master's
bones, something he had sensed dimly without knowing it.
Obi-Wan had felt it strongly, something that made him wince and
stagger to his feet. He had said nothing - had turned his back
to Qui-Gon, lips pressed tight. Words between them had failed,
trailing off into a silence that neither could break.
The door Qui-Gon had opened had lead to a tiny set of rooms,
bare and empty. Obi-Wan had looked at him once as he stepped
through the doorway, a hooded glance that said quite firmly
that he could stay on one side of the door or the other, but he
would have to decide now. Not understanding, Qui-Gon had none
the less struggled to his feet and followed after, letting the
door hiss shut behind them.
"Lock it," Obi-Wan's whisper had instructed. Raw, bitter
amusement had trickled through their bond. "It won't matter,
but lock it anyways."
Qui-Gon had done as instructed, reaching hesitantly to the
Force to activate the locking mechanism in the door. It had
taken him only moments, hearing the rustle of movement behind
him, and when he had turned it had been to find a sight that
had nearly stilled his heart in his chest.
The body curled on the floor was the perfect picture of death,
and he had seen that state enough times to recognize it. Pale
and still, not with watching but with closed eyed limpness, the
limbs heavy in a way that sleep alone could not bring. Slipped,
from one breath to the next, into the death that had haunted
Qui-Gon for weeks. His own breath had caught, choking him.
No motion had stirred the chest that he could dimly see in the
darkness. Assumption and guess had abandoned him, leaving him
floundering. In the end, forcing himself to motion, the Jedi
Master had slowly dropped down beside the still body, hand
reaching out to seek a pulse or any sign of life.
Reflexes honed in decades of being a Jedi were the only thing
that saved him. One pale hand lashed out faster than the eye
could follow, fingers brushing his own with bruising strength
even as he had thrown himself back and away.
[Obi-Wan!] But there was nothing there, not even the faintest
hint of a presence. The single motion of the hand ceased as he
moved beyond range, the body collapsing once more into the
stillness of a corpse. Heart pounding slightly, Qui-Gon had
moved back further, pressing himself against the far wall.
Hours passed but the body had never moved again. Qui-Gon,
settling himself against the wall, had not dared to. The tiny
room provided barely two arms lengths between them, forcing him
to draw his knees in, pressing his large frame into as small a
space as possible.
He would not have thought it possible but sleep caught him up
with pressing urgency, the heavy lethargy pulling at mind and
body. Nerves ragged and alert, he slipped in and out of
restless dozes, aware of the need even in sleep to remain where
he was. It had left aches in yet more places and a headache
throbbing quietly behind his eyes.
All of the little aches and dimly throbbing pains of his body
pounded through him in time with the beat of his pulse. Tilting
his head back to the wall, he sought comfort in the chill of it
against his skin.
Even regulating the breath that hissed silently between his
lips was almost more concentration than he could muster. His
thoughts skittered blearily from one point to another, never
staying still long enough. He hardly dared to open himself to
the Force for fear of a reaction from the body so close to his.
A thin thread trickled into him, warming him somewhat and
keeping the throb within his head from becoming blinding.
Sighing noiselessly, he eased another ache with a small shift
of position.
He was not sure how much later it was when the first breath
echoed into the silence, loud and startling in its slow
inhalation. His eyes flared open, centering first upon the body
before him. A breath swelled the chest, released in a soft
sigh, the first such in countless hours. Only when the motion
was repeated thrice more, with no sign of ceasing, did Qui-Gon
dare to release his own breath.
His throat was dry, mobility coming only grudgingly to tongue
and lips. "Obi-Wan." The whisper was only a breath, cracked and
trailing. Swallowing, he tried again. "Obi-Wan."
The response was immediate. The body surged up before the black
eyes had even sprang open. Qui-Gon braced himself against the
wall, holding his breath.
One of those pale hands was a hairs breadth away from his
throat before focus came back to the dark eyes that hovered
over him. Even then the hand did not immediately draw away,
fingertips brushing across the surface of his throat. Obi-Wan's
nostrils flared, lips peeling back for a second across teeth
that gleamed unaturally white and sharp.
Qui-Gon drew in a sharp gasp, unable to quell the piercing
shiver that streaked down his spine, primal and fierce, a
flight reaction that tensed his muscles and took his breath
away as knife edged fangs flashed in the darkness. In a
heartbeat Obi-Wan was gone, dissolved into the shadows and
reappearing pressed tight to the far wall.
They stayed there for several heartbeats, eyes locked, bodies
frozen. Obi-Wan slid slowly down the wall until he came to rest
against the floor, body still tensed as though he might flee.
"You stayed," he whispered softly, voice wondering.
Qui-Gon tried to slow the furious pounding of his heart. At a
distance the illusion of an ethereal beauty resumed, pale and
wane, as perfect as flawless crystal for all the dark smears of
tears and dirt upon cheeks and eyes. Swallowing, he pushed the
flash of fear down, releasing it. His nerves, strung tight to
breaking, vibrated with an alarm he couldn't entirely dismiss.
Moving brought back the furious needling pain of limbs left in
one position too long, drawing a hissed breath through his
teeth. Clumsy with the numbness, he leaned carefully forward
onto his knees, letting the blood rush back to his feet.
Obi-Wan watched him, still and silent, the tip of his tongue
just touching his upper lip. A minute shiver went through him,
felt more through their bond than seen. "You shouldn't have,"
he sighed.
"Obi-Wan..." Qui-Gon broke off, shivering. He could not tear
his gaze from the form of the other man, little tremors working
their way down his spine. Words spilled out, desperately
searching. "What happened to you? We thought you were
dead. I heard... I felt you die."
Obi-Wan flinched, his pale face turning away. "I called for
you," he said at last, reluctantly.
Screaming through his nightmares, the death knell of his own
heart. [MASTER!] Qui-Gon closed his eyes, shuddering. "I
heard you," he replied softly.
Dark eyes hardened, black upon black in the darkness. "Then you
should have left it alone," Obi-Wan hissed softly. "Why look
for the dead?"
The Jedi Master jerked his chin up, jaw tightening. "Because
you aren't dead," he answered sharply. "The dead do not
talk. The dead do not walk and move and touch. A dead man would
not try to frighten me away." [Tell me what happened!]
Obi-Wan stiffened, face tense and still. "There is no death,"
he intoned, sarcasm stabbing visciously through his tone.
"There is the Force. But there isn't even that any
more... why does it matter what happened?"
Qui-Gon swallowed, stung by the bitterness that flowed across
his mind, biting and sharp. "I don't even know what you are any
more," he admitted quietly. "I felt you die, Obi-Wan. I lived
that death with you. Yet here you are and here I am... you say
you are death. I would almost believe it. Are we both dead,
then? Ghosts together?"
He did not think it possible for that face and those eyes to be
any harder. Ice and darkness, dirt streaked and pared down to
the bareness of bone and hollow, sharp edged and tight, turning
on him with burning intensity.
He never saw or felt the movement. A brush, a breath of passing
wind in the darkness - cold hard hands clamped about his
shoulders, his back scraping across the wall as he was hauled
effortlessly to his feet. A cry burst from him at the jostling.
In the next heartbeat the white mask of a face appeared a hairs
breadth from his own and a mouth, hard and bruising, crushed
down against his lips.
It stole his breath. There was nothing of the lover in that
kiss, only hunger, a burning desperation that took, consuming.
Qui-Gon gasped as Obi-Wan pulled away, hand grasping for the
sleeve of one of the arms that held him. The other man's breath
brushed his cheek, cool and sibilant. "Is that the touch of a
ghost?"
Qui-Gon looked into dark eyes, breath rasping. Obi-Wan dipped
his head, cold lips brushing the Jedi Master's cheek, trailing
down across his jaw. "Do you know," he whispered, breath
caressing, "how much I want you? Waking to your smell, your
heartbeat, the sound of your breath... do you know what this
hunger is like? Do you have any idea?"
Qui-Gon closed his eyes, shivering helplessly as those lips
brushed feather light against his throat. A dream, it had been
a dream... but he knew, feeling that soft touch, that it was
anything but. [I don't understand...]
"No." Obi-Wan moved back, breathing the word against his lips.
The pull of that empty nothingness forced his head back, pushed
until his eyes opened, meeting the dark ones above him. "No,
you don't." Soft, almost dreamy, a throaty whisper. "But you
can."
Lips pulled back from teeth and he was helpless to pull away,
to do more than shiver with a captivated terror that spoke to
something deep within him. Watching, breath held, as the sharp
tip of incisors bit down into the softness of flesh, blood
welling black to stream down the pale lines of chin and throat.
He tried, at the last, to turn his head away - to move, to run.
Harder than stone, the hands held him, fingers digging bruises
into his flesh. He could only stiffen, hand shoving futily
against the body that pinned him, as wet lips closed across his
own and forced his mouth open.
When the blood touched his tongue the universe imploded.
The taste of colors and the scent of touch exploded across his
senses, burning through his veins and searing his flesh. Sound
and sight and fire roared through the emptiness, filling it,
filling him. He moaned against the lips pressed to his, tasted
the pain in the timbre of his own voice. /...you want to
know.../ the colors whispered against his skin. /...taste
it...feel it.../
/PAIN. Pain and fear, blind stifling panic. It flared through
him, consuming him. Hands on him, hard and colder than the
grave, ripping, tearing. He fought them, twisting, struggling,
but there were too many of them and the hands where everywhere.
With it, echoing and frantic, came the laughter that pierced
and fell like shards of glass all around him./
/Crying out, trying to push them away, to run, to escape. They
laughed, the emptiness of them engulfing him, a nothingness
that swallowed him whole and spat him forth, drained and
stumbling. Hands in the tail of his hair, wrenching his head
back, the scream ripping from him wetly as claws raked deep
across his throat, flesh parting and blood spilling forth with
every beat of his heart. Life draining away, over chest and
hands and floor until everything was slick with it and his
heart was ragged in fear./
/At the last breath, as the darkness swelled around him, he
screamed. Clawing for the bond, the only link he could reach,
he screamed out his dying heartbeat in a single word, knowing
it was his last, begging that it would not go unheard.
Pleading, crying, for one last touch... and with that touch,
willing to sink down into the embrace of the Force./
/But there was no Force, nothing but dark emptiness that
threatened to snuff thought and life like the pinched wick of a
candle. And then it came. It poured across his tongue, down his
throat. It bound him, trapped him, tying him to the fading
flesh that had once been his body. And to that flesh it brought
life, a heart that beat, lungs that pulled in breath, muscles
that surged against the hands that held him... anything,
anything at all, to reach the source of that life giving
fount./
/And when it was done, when they pulled him away as the life
raced through his veins... he fought them. Unknowning,
uncaring, he fought them, hand and nail and tooth. And they, a
ragged court of white faced fiends, let him go. Laughing and
laughing, possessed, their laughter chasing him out into the
unknown depths of Coruscant. Laughter and taunting mockery,
biting at his heels, stabbing at his heart as he ran the
darkened corridors and walkways./
The images faded, drawing away. Qui-Gon sucked in a breath,
only then aware that he could. Blood across his lips, tingling
flashfire across his tongue, explosions flaring white at the
corners of his eyes. A moan dragged its way from his lips,
shivering in the still air.
Cold hands released him, letting his body drop limply to the
floor. Even that could not jolt him, the swirling incandescence
of sensation drowning the pain.
Obi-Wan sank slowly to his knees beside Qui-Gon, the fingers of
one hand sliding into loose silver hair to cradle the base of
his neck and lift him. "You wanted to know," he whispered
heavily.
A cough forced its way through Qui-Gon's chest, but the pain
was a dim thing, easily forgotten. His hand clutched at the arm
that held him, fingers knotting into the fabric of sleeve.
[Obi-Wan...] It slipped between them, a benediction, a prayer.
[Obi...]
Obi-Wan closed his eyes, breath exhaling softly through blood
stained lips. Leaning down, his brushed the memory of a kiss
across the Jedi Master's mouth. "This is death," he breathed.
"If the Force is life, then this is death. You can not follow
me here."
Words found their way like a long forgotten fragment of dream
to Qui-Gon's lips. "I can't leave you."
Obi-Wan shook his head slowly. Qui-Gon reached up, cupping
cheek and jaw. His fingers brushed cropped hair, slid into it.
Bare flesh beneath his fingertips behind one ear set his hand
to trembling, combing softly through the hair around it.
A grim smile touched Obi-Wan's lips. "They tore it off," he
breathed, letting the Jedi Master's fingers twine into the
loosened tail at his nape. A small inarticulate sound whispered
between them as Qui-Gon touched the smooth scar where hair and
flesh had been torn away. Eyes still closed, Obi-Wan tilted his
head, rubbing his cheek gently against Qui-Gon's palm. His
breath exhaled, the words a soft moan. "Ah, my Master..."
Qui-Gon closed his own eyes, the small shudders of reaction
still twitching along his spine. "I can't loose you again," he
repeated, the words thick on his tongue. "I can't. I won't."
[I don't want to be lost.] Pain and despair, crushingly heavy.
Qui-Gon reached out, drawing them together, tucking the
bristled hair beneath his chin as he held the other man close.
Obi-Wan stiffened, drawing away, then slowly settled back.
Stiff, unyielding, but allowing himself to be held.
Stroking that short hair, Qui-Gon bowed his head, pressing his
cheek to the head against his chest. "This isn't death," he
breathed, his voice rumbling through his chest. "This is...
nothingness. Change. This is loss."
ObiWan tensed, pulling back. Qui-Gon held to him, knew that it
was only willingness on Obi-Wan's part that allowed him to halt
that hard flesh from doing whatever it wished. "This is
hunger," Obi-Wan spat bitterly, face twisted. "This is
hell, Qui-Gon. This is a nightmare I can not leave."
The Jedi Master reached out, pressing a tentative finger to the
pale lips of the other man. "Maybe," he admitted softly. "And
maybe I can't follow you into it. But I would follow you into
death, Obi-Wan..." He hesitated, throat tight, then jerked his
head slightly. "And if this is not death, then perhaps that is
still where we might be together.."
Every finger is touching and searching
Until your secrets come out
In the dance, as it endlessly circles
I linger close to your mouth
Obi-Wan moved his head back. The light pressure of the Jedi
Master's fingertip against his lips burned them with its heat.
His breath rasped in his throat, caught in jaws clenched tight
and hard. "Do you never listen?" he hissed.
Qui-Gon drew back, brows furrowing. For a moment the mask of
the Jedi Master outweighed the man, the frown one of familiar
irritation for a Padawan's quick tongue. Obi-Wan bit back a
laugh, the soundless spasm shaking his chest. He had grown to
hate the feel of his own laughter.
The older man sat up slowly, broken wrist cradled to ribs
mottled black and green as he leaned against his good arm.
Obi-Wan swallowed, looking away. He could all but feel the beat
of the other man's heart, like a patter of soft caresses
stroking across his own skin. Qui-Gon licked his lips. "I am
listening, Obi-Wan," he said softly.
The laughter escaped, little chuckles that slid like bitter oil
across his tongue and through his teeth. The sound of it was
harsh in the small room, pain and predatory pleasure mixing
through his heart as Qui-gon flinched from it.
"No, you aren't," he said, each syllable a separate entity in
his mouth. "It's a fault of yours, Qui-Gon. You don't listen.
You aren't listening right now."
The movement came so frighteningly easy to him, thought
translated into the motion of muscle driven on violent emotion.
The flesh of Qui-Gon's chest seared the palm of his hand, heat
and life and the rush of blood where he could feel it, just
beneath the skin. He pushed, hearing the small muffled cry as
the Jedi Master fell back, moving to pin the larger man.
Qui-Gon's breath hissed out, a sound of pain. Obi-Wan shivered,
feeling the brush of the air. "You aren't hearing what I'm
saying," he ground out. "This is nothing to do with you any
longer. This is nothing you can join me in or should want to."
The Jedi Master winced as Obi-Wan's hand drove down, an
inarticulate cry of pain as bone ground against bone in his
broad ribcage. Obi-Wan felt the pain ring through his own
chest, flinched, but held his ground. One heartbeat ringing
between them, echoing from chest to pressing palm and back
again. Another. Only then did he relent, drawing away.
The bruise blossomed as he watched, broken capillaries beneath
the skin spilling their blood forth in a brilliant dark color
to match the shape and pattern of his fingers. Qui-Gon did not
move, breath barely leaving his lips, the briefest shudder
running through him.
Obi-Wan met his Master's eyes, letting the morass of his own
emotions spill through the trickle of their link, watching as
the Jedi flinched from it. "That is what this is, Qui-Gon. It
is pain and darkness. It is a hunger for that pain."
"Is that what you need of me, then?" Qui-Gon breathed softly.
His dark eyes were glassy with pain but focused none the less,
his face pale and lips set tight. "You think I would not face
that for you?"
Obi-Wan leapt to his feet, his fist crashing an indentation
into the wall. The blow rang through the room, deafening.
Turning, he pressed his back to it, tight, needing to feel the
cold steel. "What makes you think I would let you?" he cried.
The teetering dip and swell of emotion caught him, anger
flowing to pain, the pain shuddering through him like a
physical sensation. "You are all I have left," he whispered,
the words dropping like ice into the silence. "They took
everything else. Would you let them take you from me as well?"
"Would you leave me?"
Obi-Wan flinched from the Jedi Master, nails scraping across
the wall. The shudders worked through his chest, small sobs
begging to be released, voice rasping harshly. "Why can't you
let. it. BE."
Qui-Gon struggled up slowly, breath catching in small hitches
as he sat, curled around the pain of his body. "Because you
wouldn't," he gasped, teeth clenched but words firm. "You and
the visions you sent to me."
Obi-Wan jerked as though struck. "I didn't..."
"Wind," Qui-Gon's voice cut over his, rising in a pained shout.
"The sound of wind, the feel of it. Light playing on water.
Music, every note perfect, every sound a physical thing. They
were yours, weren't they? Things you were feeling."
Brittle silence trembled between them. "Things you
experienced," Qui-Gon continued slowly, each word dropping into
the quiet like stones thrown with deadly accuracy against
Obi-Wan's body. "I can't even begin to describe them. The
beauty of it... is that your nightmare, Obi-Wan? Is that why
you sent them to me, made me share them?"
"I didn't send them," Obi-Wan pushed the words out, biting them
off sharply. "I didn't..." he sucked in a sharp breath. "I
didn't want you here. I don't. Qui-Gon... you don't belong
here."
"And you do?" Qui-Gon asked softly. "Why?"
"I didn't say I did," Obi-Wan snapped. "But I am here. I
can't change that. But I won't bring you down with me." He
could feel the tears stinging in his eyes and he brushed them
away quickly. Wet on his fingertips, and he thrust it out to
the other man, taking refuge in anger. "You say its beautiful,
but I showed you what they did... you have no idea what
this is. Look at it. Look. This is what I've
become. This isn't the Dark side of the Force... this isn't the
Force at all. This is death. Nothingness."
Red tinged tears of blood streaked across his fingers. Qui-Gon
reached out unsteadily, taking Obi-Wan's wrist in his hand. The
younger man watched, breath catching, as the kneeling man
leaned forward, eyes open and unwavering as he took one wet
fingertip into his mouth.
The cry was wrenched from both of them, one in horror, one in
deep trembling wonder. Qui-Gon shuddered, fingers closing with
desperate strength around Obi-Wan's wrist, breath exploding
from his lungs as the droplets of blood burned through his
consciousness. "No," Obi-Wan whispered, nerveless.
Qui-Gon's breath was hot against his palm, the edge of his
beard scratching sharp against skin that jumped and shivered at
the touch. His eyes, when he opened them, were black ringed
thinly by the darkest blue, unfocused and bright.
"Is this what it is?" he whispered brokenly, and Obi-Wan could
not suppress a shiver as the other man's breath moved across
his wrist, caressing. "You called it hunger... is this it,
then?"
"No," Obi-Wan breathed, but he could not force feeling into the
word. Could not draw his hand away, for all that he knew he had
the strength to do it, to thrust Qui-Gon away from him. The
warmth of that breath across his skin left his hand nerveless,
his body shivering. "I've killed, Qui-Gon. I've murdered for
the hunger. Drank the last beat from a heart and still craved
it."
Qui-Gon pulled, drawing the younger man's hand down. Obi-Wan
closed his eyes, breath failing him as the wet warmth of that
tongue slid across another finger, teeth closing on the tip as
the answering shudder wracked through the Jedi Master, his low
moan reverberating through Obi-Wan's palm.
"Don't," Obi-Wan whispered, but his voice cracked and the word
trailed into the silence.
The older man pressed a lingering kiss to the palm of his hand.
"Then crave me," he whispered, the words burning through
Obi-Wan like a physical bolt. "I won't leave you. Drain my
heart... I died when you did. All that remains is to finish
it."
Obi-Wan's knees failed him, dropping him heavily to the ground,
a moan rising hoarsely from his throat. He could feel the
hunger, bittersweet, twining his nerves in pain. Scent and
touch and sound... the beat of the Jedi Master's heart, heavy
and wet, the sweet scent of the blood that rushed through it.
"I won't," he whispered to it, breathless. "I can't." Teeth
grazed the heel of his hand and he gasped, breath strangling in
his throat. "My Master... don't..."
Qui-Gon's lips closed across the pulse that fluttered in his
wrist. The cry jerked from Obi-Wan's chest as fire blazed
through his veins, hot and bright, tearing at him.
Blunt teeth scraping hard across the tiny veins so near to the
surface of the skin, unable to break it. Obi-Wan gasped,
shuddering, a spasm twisting his wrist away from Qui-Gon's
grasp.
Qui-Gon swayed. Obi-Wan caught his shoulder in a bruising grip,
holding the other man upright. Overwrought nerves trembled
through him, the fire catching his breath and setting it free
in gasped pants. "You think this is what you want?" he
demanded.
"You," Qui-Gon gasped dimly. "I want us. I will
not loose you again. Whatever that means," the Jedi
Master whispered. "In death, in nightmare, in hunger, in
hell... I will not loose you."
Obi-Wan hesitated, fighting, the fire coiled in his guts and
streaking in starbursts through his veins. Closing his eyes
tight, he shook his head, knowing the battle already lost on
the breath of his Master's whisper. "Damn you," he whispered
fiercely. "Damn you..."
It hurt, flashing icy stabs of pain up his arm as flesh and
vein and tendon severed beneath the cut of his teeth. Blood
welled out in a gush, hot and wet across his lips, spilling
over chin and down. It steamed in the cold darkness, splashing
in droplets across the floor.
It hurt a thousand times more to hold that dripping wound out,
a pain of defeat that lodged in his soul and gave a harsh bite
to his voice. "Do you want it? Then take it."
Never had Obi-Wan seen his Master so firm, so utterly
unmoveably entrenched in the tightness of lip and jaw, the set
of shoulders and spine. The Jedi Master reached out his good
hand, taking Obi-Wan's in a tight grip. Their eyes met,
unbreaking, and then Qui-Gon leaned forward to press his lips
to the gash.
The moan began in Qui-Gon's chest, drawn from the depths of his
body and passed, trembling, through the flesh of mouth and
tongue to shiver through Obi-Wan's arm and burst from his lips.
He could feel the slow draw in every vein, surging through him,
culminating in one wet gush that slipped from the corner of his
Master's mouth, streaking chin and cheek.
Hot rushing heat as Qui-Gon drew the blood forth. Obi-Wan
moaned again, the sound rattling through his bones. Leaning
forward, he let his lips press to flesh, let his tongue slide
across thin skin, tasting the salt of sweat and the tantalizing
promise of heat beneath the surface. "Master..." he whispered.
[Padawan...] It slid between them, binding even as it tore,
caressing with sharp shivers of heat and slivers of cold pain.
Qui-Gon tore his mouth away reluctantly, a groan shaking him.
His hair was tangled in Obi-Wan's fingers, his hand pressed
tight to the nape of the younger man's neck. Leaning back, he
arched up, the fluttering pulse of his throat touching
Obi-Wan's lips.
A moan drawn from two throats. Sweat and the scent of the man,
driving straight through Obi-Wan's being, nerves consumed in
flame. So terribly easy to press that one bit closer, to draw
his lips back and feel the flesh part beneath his teeth, the
blood hitting him like a shockwave of raw sensation.
Qui-Gon cried out, shuddering. Obi-Wan pressed him back against
the floor, nails drawing welts over the bare flesh of back and
ribs, pulling him closer. The thunder of the Jedi Master's
heart pounded through him, hard and deep, echoing a
counterpoint to his own.
The whirlwind opened to him, bits and pieces of the other man
laid bare before him on the river of blood. /Padawan... My
Obi-Wan.../ Skittering across thought and feeling, memory,
touch and taste. Qui-Gon moaned softly, the sound vibrating
through Obi-Wan's lips.
Obi-Wan broke away, the wail of loss dragged from both of them.
Reaching up, he tore at his own throat with his nails,
desperation sinking them deep. Blood rushed across his
collarbone, it's heat nothing to the furnace that burned
beneath his skin.
Qui-Gon's fingers twined into the tail of his hair, tight and
painful. The spasm caught Obi-Wan as his Master's mouth found
the wound, choking his cry. His hands were rough, bruising, the
bite deep and vicious as he sank back into the pulse beneath
his lips.
Blood to blood, a circle pumped through two hearts, two bodies.
Burning through vein and mouth, a ring of fire that consumed
them, pleasure and pain. Love and life, as close as the brush
of a hand. It flooded Obi-Wan, washed through him, as tangible
as the taste on his tongue.
He ached for it, for the warmth, for the bright sparkling touch
he had lost, the life he could reach for and feel respond. Only
here, only in the blood, could he feel it. It flooded him now,
brighter than it had been since the darkness washed it away. He
reached for it, grasping it greedily.
Through it, linked with it, he could feel the bright
incandescent pulse of his Master's life, beating through him,
with him. But in that pulse was an echo, fading, dimming...
loss, darkness, and for one brief moment Obi-Wan saw it, spread
out before him in the map of their bodies.
Darkness, streaming nothingness that devoured in cold. Life,
bright and hot, burning. Mixed and intermingled, each taking
the other, his death in exchange for Qui-Gon's life.
It was agony to tear away, pushing, struggling. Loss and agony,
the blood link broken, ripping away. Throwing himself back,
shoulders slamming against the wall, screaming out the loss and
hearing it echoed in the bass cry of his Master. Pain,
reverberating endlessly through a bond that had once been their
entirety and now seemed dim and pale.
Darkness and the four cold walls of a small bare room that he
hated with passion, white flashes flying before his eyes,
throat choked with sobbing screams. He slammed his hands
against the wall, against the floor, the metal crumpling
beneath his fists, the sobs tearing free. Distantly he could
hear his own voice crying, a mantra of pain. "No. No. no. no.
nonono."
Electric blue sparks across the metal surfaces, bright and
crackling in the darkness. And then large hands caught his,
forcing them back, pinning him to the wall with frightening
strength, a deep hoarse cry in his ears. "Obi-Wan!"
He gasped, the breath jolted from him. Reaction was the stuff
of instinct, one drilled so often it came without thought.
Reaching out to the warmth, pushing with it, feeling the hands
fly away, the cry as the body hit the floor.
Obi-Wan paused, stunned, even as training completed the
movement and his hands reached to his belt for the saber that
wasn't there. His breath caught, the warmth tingling through
him, a touch as familiar and intimate as breath. Qui-Gon pushed
himself up, eyes wide.
Trembling, Obi-Wan looked at his hands, extending them to his
Master. The Force leapt out between them, familiar, catching
and holding, the trickling bond flaring to life with crystal
clarity. Obi-Wan shivered, unbelieving. "Master..."
Life is full of wonder
Love is never wrong
Remember how they taught you
How much of it was fear
Refuse to hand it down
The legacy stops here
"Obi-Wan..." Qui-Gon pushed himself to his feet, taking a step
forward, hands outstretched to catch his Padawan's. It was only
as he did so that he realized the ease of the motion and saw
the understanding reflected in the widening of bright grey
eyes.
[Master?] Instinctive and warm, that touch, sparkling through
mind and soul, rushing to fill all of the areas laid barren in
his heart. Qui-Gon could not suppress the grin that stretched
his lips, an expression of giddy delighted wonder. One deep
breath, filling his lungs as he had not been able to in days,
then another, and only the barest of sore tender twinges across
one side.
A tremulous smile brushed Obi-Wan's lips, the first truly
pleased expression that Qui-Gon had seen. "The bruises are
fading," he whispered, reaching out to press cool fingers to
the larger man's ribs. Qui-Gon caught his hand, pulling him
closer, and Obi-Wan did not resist. A small thoughtful frown
creased his brow, fingertips tracing lightly over the faded
bruises on chest and arms that he had inflicted.
"I never thought..." he paused, tongue touching his lip
thoughtfully. "The blood. Cuts, bruises, any injury... it heals
almost instantly. There must be something in the blood. I
didn't think it would work like this, though."
Qui-Gon caught his chin, lifting his gaze up. His thumb swept
across a dirt and tear stained cheek, caressing. "Thank you,"
he said softly.
Obi-Wan jerked back, eyes flashing. "Thank you?" he repeated,
disbelieving. "For what? Almost killing you?"
"I told you to," Qui-Gon replied mildly, bending to drop a
gentle kiss across the younger man's forehead. "I don't take
the words back now."
Shaking his head slowly, Obi-Wan closed his eyes. "I don't know
which of us is dreaming," he whispered.
"Maybe we both are," the Jedi Master whispered. [Padawan...]
The Force came to his call, warmth and strength surging through
a body already vibrating with a shivering vitality. Taking a
breath, he thrust it from him roughly in a concentrated burst.
Obi-Wan had already jerked back, hands half raised, a Force
shield blunting the thrust of the shove. Surprised anger
flashed through their bond, snarled words already leaping to
the younger man's lips, but Qui-Gon held up a placating hand.
"What did you just do?" he asked softly.
Surprise, then wonder all over again. Obi-Wan let the Force
shield bleed away, the shivers running through his body. Tears
glittered in his eyes. "I can feel it," he whispered brokenly.
"It's there. I can feel it, I can reach it."
"Maybe we are both dreaming," Qui-Gon said quietly, gathering
the younger man back into his arms. "But it needn't be a
nightmare."
Obi-Wan's arms came up around his chest, holding tight to the
point where lingering bruises began to ache. Qui-Gon said
nothing, pushing the pain away and returning the grasp, finding
all of the reassurance and completion needed in the feel of the
body in his arms.
A trembling shiver ran through the younger man, shaking him. He
tilted his head up and Qui-Gon bent to kiss him, a light touch.
Obi-Wan pressed up into it, his lips laced with the sharp tang
of blood. There was a desperation in the touch that Qui-Gon
answered willingly, broad hands slipping beneath a loose tunic
to caress achingly thin ribs.
Obi-Wan's fingers threaded into the loose fall of Qui-Gon's
hair and he breathed a softly pleased murmur against the older
man's lips. Qui-Gon let the Force linger in his hands,
smoothing it across the cool skin of back in a long sweep.
Obi-Wan's breath caught softly and he arched into the touch.
"Yes," he hissed softly, eyes closing. "Make this real.
Please..." He pulled Qui-Gon's head down roughly, his kiss
demanding.
[QUI-GON]
The Jedi Master jerked away with a cry, the collective call
ringing through his head with all the subtlety of a blaster
bolt. Obi-Wan winced as well, feeling the echos, a hand going
to his temple. "The Council," he muttered, shaking his head as
though to clear it. "They're looking for you."
"I know," Qui-Gon ground out through clenched teeth, even as it
came again, a focused call sent by several minds, forceful and
seeking. The Jedi Master swore, softly, a litany of words
picked up on planets the galaxy over. Obi-Wan stared, eyes
wide, then dissolved into quiet laughter against his chest, the
sound one of genuine amusement tinged with a warm hilarity that
rang out like balm to Qui-Gon's nerves and heart. He dropped a
kiss to short cropped hair. "Now we know it's not a dream," he
commented wryly.
Obi-Wan only laughed the harder, tears of overwhelmed emotion
spilling wetly down his cheeks. Holding the younger man close,
Qui-Gon shook his head softly. "I should answer them."
"Yes," Obi-Wan gasped, the laughter trailing away. "No... I
don't..." Hesitation and trepidation, another shiver sweeping
through him. He glanced up, seeking. "Can we..."
"Go back?" Qui-Gon finished the thought softly, reaching to
cradle the pale face between his palms. Doubt and fear and
anticipation of pain, swirling through their link until he
could not tell what were his own feeling and what had their
birth in the man before him.
"I can't..." Obi-Wan began, the darkness gathering in his eyes,
but Qui-Gon silenced the words with his mouth, roughly,
swallowing their bitterness into his own heart and letting it
bleed away into the darkness.
"You can," he hissed, willing the other man to believe it. "We
both can. We will."
Obi-Wan shook his head slightly but Qui-Gon held him firm.
"Trust me," he breathed. "My Obi-Wan... trust me. There is a
way, and I will find it."
The younger man sighed, brokenly, body sagging as the tension
in him finally snapped, worn past its holding point. "I can't
help but trust you," he whispered. "Damn you, Qui-Gon... I
can't ever say no to you."
Qui-Gon gathered the other man close, holding him tight to his
heart, intensely aware of the double throb of their pulses.
"Trust me," he repeated softly, dropping his cheek down against
the cropped hair even as he reached out to answer the insistent
call.
* * * Epilogue * * *
Familiar and not familiar, like a dream, dimly remembered,
stepped out into the light and made reality. I found myself
shivering with it at the oddest moments - beneath the decadent
spray of a hot shower, letting it wash dirt and memory away, or
at the brief glimpse of my own reflection in the mirror.
I forced myself to meet the eyes reflected back at me. Did I
know that shadow in the mirror? My hands raised hesitantly to
the sharp angles of bones, traced the hollows under eyes and in
cheeks. Skeletally thin, sickly pale, with only the faintest of
flushes in cheek and lip. Small wonder the Healers wanted so
badly to get their hands on me. /I look like death,/ I thought,
uncharitably.
No. Not quite like death. But only a step from it.
My skin was warm from the shower. My hair, clean at last, was
once again the color I remember instead of the dull mud that
swirled away into the drain. I feltl... better. Not whole, not
by half, but better.
The silence of the room weighed heavy on my nerves. I let my
ears tune outward, catching the whisper of voices in the next
room. Qui-Gon's bass rumble soothed me, the tones flowing over
me like warm comfort. The other voice was too smooth, too
cool... Master Windu. If I closed my eyes I could hear their
words.
"...finding you gone, like that... Force, Qui-Gon, what were
you thinking? Were you thinking?" Windu's voice was low,
controlled anger rushing the words into a tight stream.
"No." My Master's voice was flat and firm, fatigue only fraying
the edges of it. "No, Mace, I wasn't. Can this wait? I'll give
a report to the Council tomorrow..."
Windu sighed. "Is the boy in any danger? The Healers want..."
"The Healers will have to go through me first," Qui-Gon snaped,
the sound warming me from within.
"Don't think they don't want to," Windu warned sharply. "They
want both of you." He sighed again and I could picture the
shake of his dark head against my mind's eye. "You're just
lucky Master Yoda agrees with you. Now answer me straight - is
the boy in any danger?"
A pause, and in the end I could not fault my Master's honesty.
"I don't know," he replied heavily. Hugging my arms against
myself, I could only agree. I didn't know either.
The sound of fabric, weight shifting on a chair. "Yoda wouldn't
let us look for you," Windu said at last, voice falling. "Not
until tonight. Not until we all felt it - like a birth, or a
star imploding, rippling through the Force and every one of
them with your signature and Kenobi's." A pause, heavy. "You
won't tell me, will you?"
My Master sighed, a tired sound. "Please, Mace," he whispered.
"Not tonight. Not right now. I'm bone tired. Let it wait until
tomorrow."
I could hear Windu's intake of breath and my muscles tensed.
Another word, another sentence, and I might burst through that
door. Might take his throat between my hands, pulse beating
there, beneath my fingertips, just below the curve of the
jaw...
His next words were lost to me, drowned in the sudden vibrant
echo of his heartbeat; ta-thum, ta-thum, a sound I could almost
feel and taste. Shuddering, I cought myself against the sink,
holding to it, swallowing back the bitter bile in my throat.
Master Windu is no kind of fool - it was there in his voice,
the shadow behind the words. Not "Is the boy in any danger?"
but "Is the boy a danger to us?"... that was the real question
and I shivered, afraid that I knew the answer.
By the time I could catch my breath and stop the trembling of
my hands the voices in the next room had fallen silent. I
might, if I had listened, been able to tell if Windu was still
there or not merely by the heartbeats that teased at the
fringes of my mind. I might, but I wouldn't. I would
not.
Looking into the mirror again, I met the eyes of my reflection.
The pale ghost of death stared back at me, mocking. I pressed
my lips thin, glaring.
/You can't go back,/ they had called, laughing.
"Sith take all of you," I hissed, my voice breaking brittly
through the silence. "I will."
The lights were mercifully dimmed when I emerged from the bath,
the chambers quiet and devoid of any presence but that of
myself and my Master. I sighed in relief.
Qui-Gon was seated at the table, a cup of tea engulfed between
his large hands, steam rising gently from it. "Master," I
called softly. I couldn't help the tone I put in it - that
single word seemed like a lifeline, something to cling to
through the turmoil within me.
There was no answer. No movement in that still form, no verbal
reply or touch through our bond. Nothing.
The chill ripped through me before I could damp it down. I
berated myself, even as I crossed the room to the table. He had
fallen asleep, I had seen him do it before, chin resting
against his chest and eyes closed. "Master," I called again,
reaching out to touch his shoulder. "Master, wake up. Qui-Gon."
Nothing. His breath was there but shallow, skipping lightly
through his broad chest. His eyes, open, were soft and
unfocused, staring straight ahead of him. My heart wrenched to
a stop, then started again, painful, pounding.
I tried to reach for him, searching through our bond, only to
find a quiet sense of wonder, drifting gently, almost
dreamlike. "No," I whispered, denying, even as I bent to follow
the line of his gaze.
White wisps rising from the cup of tea, curling gently,
swirling, an ever changing pattern of steam that danced and
swayed through the air. I could feel my eyes start to follow
it, focusing on it. I wrenched my gaze away, the sob a hard
kernel in my chest, tight and hot. His hands were relaxed and
offered no resistance as I knocked the cup away, sending tea
and shards of ceramic flying.
He started at the noise, eyes focusing slowly as the pattern
before them changed, vanishing. I dropped to my knees beside
him, taking his hands in mine. "Master?"
He blinked, turning towards me, confusion furrowing his brows.
"Obi-Wan? What is it?"
I bit my tongue, tasting blood. There were no curses strong
enough. "You were drifting," I spat out, hating the words even
as I uttered them. "Tranced. On the steam." Tears stung my eyes
and I knew, without looking, that they were still tinged with
the faintest red.
"Steam." He paused, thinking, then nodded slowly. He looked
old, then, the way he only did when fatigue dragged at him,
feeding on spirit and flesh. "Everything is so sharp..."
"I do it all the time," I admitted, dropping my forehead to his
knee. "Every night... something, anything... I learned to stop
looking, stop trying to hear. It's too much." I shuddered,
convulsively. "Oh sith... SITH... Qui-Gon, what have I
done to us?"
His hand settled on the back of my neck, warm and large and
comforting. "What I asked you to," he said softly. "Whatever it
is, it's done. And now we face it together, not apart. That is
what's important."
In that calm, soothing voice I could almost believe. Almost
trust. Almost... almost find hope. Not quite. But almost. I let
him draw me up, curled into his lap and his arms as I hadn't
even when I was small enough to do so properly. Buried my face
in the soft cascade of his hair, wrapped myself in the scent
and feel of him.
Not quite. But it would have to be enough. For both of us.
I am living to nourish you, cherish you
I am pulsing the blood in your veins
Feel the magic and power of surrender to life
END.
Lyrics used in Silent Legacy:
Melissa Etheridge, "Silent Legacy" from "Yes I Am" (parts 1-5
& 8)
Anuna, "Riverdance" from the Riverdance soundtrack (parts 6-8)
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