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Chapter Three

The meeting was for textile manufacturers, all blessedly local, so Qui-Gon didn't feel too guilty about not hearing a word that was said. He glared when someone raised a voice, and looked thoughtful when they didn't, and they managed their discussion perfectly well without his attention.

A night with a consortium leader had earned Perkog a mineral shipping contract, and Qui-Gon had thought nothing of it. The seduction of a married man had won them a construction deal for a school development, and Qui-Gon had hesitated to act. Those relationships, at least, were with peers.

Accomodations attendants were responsible for the personal needs and comforts of the conference attendees: everything from clean bedding to electrical maintenance. They had entry codes to all the private residences, and with a little work could access anyone's personal files: details of family and history and health, all the details a confidence trickster craved. The young man was doubtless charmed with no effort at all by a powerful, offworld businessman like Obi-Wan. Probably a few credits of local currency slipped in his hand as well, and Obi-Wan had himself a perfect spy.

Obi-Wan was not merely using sex to win over business partners. He was spying on other members of the summit, and there was no knowing who. Any lingering hopes Qui-Gon had carried that Perkog's dealings were legal could be put aside.

Crowding out the hopes was Obi-Wan's pale round arse, a view of his padawan Qui-Gon had never been blessed with in their apprenticeship.

There was Obi-Wan's mystery resolved then. Obi-Wan was the best at sex and emotional manipulations. Years of training abandoned for skills a streetboy might have taught him in a few nights. And yet...

And yet, there was still nothing to prosecute. Qui-Gon could quietly have the attendant directed into other duties, but unless the boy was caught in the act of giving Obi-Wan stolen goods or information, it was all speculation.

Obi-Wan had taken sex as seriously as everything else in his youth. Two years with Garen, almost three with Stasel. Obi-Wan was private and loyal and never took a partner casually. No partner at all in the last years of his training, though he was content, and sometimes his gaze would linger on his master.

Qui-Gon could not tear himself from the memory of muscled thighs and balls swinging between, invitingly low, fine globes in soft skin, crisp hair.

Obi-Wan stalked into the small meeting room, ignoring Qui-Gon's invitation to sit. He looked thoroughly indignant. "You summoned me?"

"I have moved your boy."

"I beg your pardon?"

Qui-Gon was sitting at the head of the long table, painfully straight, hands folded in front of him. He was a Jedi Master and he was through with the amateur games. "Your spy has been transferred to Damel City."

"My *spy*?"

"Is this how you win all your contracts, Ben? Open your legs?"

Obi-Wan's mouth opened and he stared at Qui-Gon for what must have been a full minute. He looked good, Qui-Gon noted distantly. His dark blue tunic was cinched tight around his waist, slightly awry as though donned in a hurry. Finally his jaw snapped shut and he strode up, angry enough that Qui-Gon stood as well, just in case, but he stopped an arm-length away, chin raised. "I wish to hear your accusation."

Qui-Gon's heart raced but there was small relief at least in seeing Obi-Wan riled. It made it easier to keep his own composure. "I make no accusations. I am informing you that the attendant you have been bedding will no longer be available. Consider this a courtesy, since I'm not sure the young man had the opportunity to say goodbye."

"What do you know of- Have you been spying on me?"

Qui-Gon turned away to put some space between them. "Save your righteous indignation, Obi-Wan. My job as mediator-"

"My name is Ben. Whom I choose to fuck is not your concern."

The coarse word on Obi-Wan's tongue made Qui-Gon wince. "It is my concern when you are manipulating members of this conference. It is my concern when you are spying on your competitors."

Obi-Wan regarded him darkly, finally leaned on both hands on the table, and spoke quietly. "Is that really what is upsetting you, Qui-Gon? Or is it that I like sex?" His gaze was intense, and his mouth twisted in a cruel smile as he added, "Or is it that I like sex with people who are not you?" He wet his lips, and tipped his head. "I like sex a lot. I'm thankful I left behind the romantic notions I had in my youth."

"I am following my mandate."

Obi-Wan shook his head. Softly, he asked, "What has this to do with your mandate, Qui-Gon? The last time I checked, sex wasn't illegal. Not even for Jedi."

"Sexual manipulation is hardly-"

"Have you heard any complaints? Do any of my partners seem at all upset? I'll have sex with whomever I like, Qui-Gon. I'll indulge in any place, any position, any perversion I choose, and until I start forcing myself on my colleagues or doing it on the negotiating table, it's none of your business. For once, why don't you do your job and mediate, instead of supervising me? I'm not your padawan anymore and I have never been your lover and my sexual life is not your concern."

The door slammed behind him.

It was out. Years of something pure and unspoken and this is what Obi-Wan chose to make it into, a dirty jealous obsession of an old man. It was a damned lie. Qui-Gon had supported Obi-Wan with Garen and Stasel, and when they were gone he'd made no demands of his own. Even now, branded with the vision of Obi-Wan with a mouthful of cock, it was not his sexual life that tore at Qui-Gon's heart.

Qui-Gon's evening walks were well-known, by now. The traders greeted him as he passed, respectfully touching their heads. He varied his route each night, making sure to be seen. He had found very little to question, as most used the evenings to work on their own research, or to relax.

There were too many people in the corridors, traders greeting him cheerfully and attempting to draw him into conversation. One night's absence would surely not lead to anarchy, so he left the compound behind to wander the edge of the forest instead. The air was fresher in the woods, the sap-scent of local trees sharp on his tongue, and he caught himself in a shiver as the night frost slipped through his tunics.

The compound floodlights barely reached here, the trees casting long shadows, but it was enough to make his way once his eyes adjusted. Ideal for privacy, not business: the one time he'd ventured out before this, he'd interrupted three different couples, and he'd kept to the compound ever since. It was a shame to avoid this; tonight he could feel the life in the forest, nocturnals plodding about in the long grass to scavenge for food and scampering hopefully along the branches in search of mates.

This was the peace he needed, silent but for the icy grass crunching under his boots, so he lightened his step, gliding through the dark like a phantom. He needed solitude. He needed not to think about what a cheap commodity Obi-Wan's body had become. Cheap like his talents. Like his values. And if Obi-Wan was right, if some of Qui-Gon's reaction was personal, hadn't he earned that much?

He almost missed the figure sitting in the deeper shadows of a dense tree - it took a moment to recognise him, and another moment to place him as the man he was now, rather than the boy he had been.

Ben Kenobi sat in Obi-Wan's favoured meditation position, on his heels, head bowed, hands clasped lightly behind his back. He'd taken to putting his hands behind his back when he was fourteen, to alleviate the distraction of his own fingers.

In the bland grey tones of the halflight, Obi-Wan looked younger - about the age he ought to have looked, were he not worn by the life he was leading. The shadows washed the silver from his hair and beard, blurred the lines of his face. It was a kindness, just to observe him without that calculating look in his eyes.

Qui-Gon stood for a long time, watching the Jedi Knight that Obi-Wan might have been. The man Qui-Gon had planned to love. Force, it hurt to admit that.

Live in the moment, he'd said, as he planned out a hundred different futures. Gentle intimations that would allow Obi-Wan a diplomatic escape, bold advances that would sweep him past any doubts. Perhaps to be caught unawares, as Obi-Wan made his own move.

Qui-Gon turned away, forced himself to leave the forest.

It had never been the crackling fire of passion that governed so many in love. Nothing so fickle as that. Qui-Gon's feelings had been a gentle, growing thing, a patient warmth in his heart that sparked late into soft desire. When they made love, it would be personal, spiritual, one certain thing in a lifetime of intuition and weighed judgments.

Instead, he had found himself alone, and he didn't even have the certainty of why.

Qui-Gon stepped into his quarters and closed the door, leaning back against the solid wood. He'd thought he'd known devastation when Xanatos fell. It had stripped something inside him, to lift his saber against his own student. He'd never known how physical a pain like that could be. But a wound could heal.

Obi-Wan had taken the floor from his world, and left him without the stones to rebuild it.

He pushed off the door, sighing with the effort, and began to strip, tossing his boots in the corner, his clothes on the table. He was tired. Tired right down to his bones, had been tired for ten years. He'd felt in his prime with Obi-Wan at his side, still charged with youth but already tempered with age, the best part of his life awaiting him on the day his would-be lover became a man in his own right.

He hadn't exactly aged overnight, but with each day after Obi-Wan disappeared he'd withered far more than his share. Nude before the mirror, he saw sagging skin, bowing shoulders, softenings and discolourings. Is this what he'd once been eager to give?

He'd been angry at Obi-Wan for years, an ignorant, impotent simmer, and it was exhausting. It hurt.