Reunion (Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan SLASH, post-RotS)
Jun. 6th, 2005 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyricalityTitle: Reunion
Author: Lyricality
Rating: R. Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan SLASH, post-Episode III
Disclaimer: Very much Lucas’. Somewhere, he’s screaming very loud.
C&C: Please do. What you liked, what you didn't like, you know the drill.
Note: Unfortunately, after noticing and picking up the first YA Last of the Jedi book today, I have discovered that this is essentially AU. Fortunately, I’ve decided I don’t give a damn, and I give it to you anyway. Ha. Incidentally, I’m sure a hundred other writers have done this already as well, but being far out of the Star Wars fandom loop, I’ve read none of them. Apologies.
Archiving: With permission. Incidentally, if you know somewhere you think this should be posted, let me know. As above...out of the fandom loop entirely.
ETA: ACK, and thank you, thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dryadgurrl for beta-ing!
“And I, who never could believe,
Never saw the need,
Wanted just to see your face again
Nothing to hold on to,
Now I’ve found you...”
--Janis Ian, “On the Other Side”
Clear your mind you must.
Thus far easier said than done, but so it is with all of Yoda’s instructions--with all the ways of the Force. As for his mind, it coils in on itself, a spiral of disconnected feelings and images, nothing less than turmoil now that the outward battles have been fought and lost and nothing but the inner battles remain.
Feel around you the Living Force.
Alone, but never alone. Strength over fear. Sometimes older lessons prove themselves best after all. Sometimes they linger longer.
To his own surprise, Obi-Wan finds inward focus easier with Padme’s son wrapped in both his arms, curled sleeping against his chest. Denying the child’s sire seems even now a sidestep, an excuse for failure first, shame second, but he forces himself to trust that all that will sort itself in time. Pity that patience has never developed into the strongest of his skills, though perhaps years of practice have left him somewhat improved.
He left Anakin not only to die, but also to suffer. No mercy. He hopes to any and all powers that the man is dead, and the monster dead with him, but he feels it still...that strained connection between them, a tendon of incomprehensible strength, even frayed.
The monster still lives.
Perhaps he did it purposefully. Perhaps he couldn’t let go of what he feared to lose, either.
There is no perfect Jedi. We are not saints, only seekers.
Qui-Gon’s voice, but a recollection only, a murmur in his ear, because Qui-Gon said that more than once, whenever Obi-Wan tortured himself particularly harshly for some mistake. He never has been easily forgiving of his own errors.
Clear your mind you must, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He draws in a breath and holds it, then releases it, concentrating on the movement of air and thought and Force, always Force, its tendrils as ever within reach. Instead of catching at them, he lets himself drift with their current, a part of the greater dance, his consciousness one strand among millions. But he isn’t patient now, and he isn’t all serenity, and he wants an answer. In a long stretch of his mind he catches into the Living Force with both hands, submerging, fearless but desperate, and in that endless moment he feels a stirring, an...acceptance, so familiar that his mind at once welcomes and rejects it. His thoughts condense into a single gasp of solid surprise.
The direct exhalation into the Force stirs Luke in his arms. No surprise, really, that Anakin’s child should be so Force-sensitive, especially in this state of newness to the galaxy, and to keep from waking him Obi-Wan lets the ghost of a connection go, lets it drift away again despite the pain of thwarted desire rising into his throat.
Wait.
The last shred of that touch is a truly familiar voice, brushing him just before he opens his eyes. He closes them again, but the connection has collapsed, and he makes a low sound of unimpressed disappointment. Wait, indeed. He’ll be waiting here for more years than he cares to count, no more or less than he deserves. Around him curls the desert wind, catching sand into the folds of his robe, and the sound of it returns to him, along with the methodical jostling of the eopie beneath him. Luke falls still in his arms again, one fragile hand curled against his wrist, and a light shines dimly on the horizon. The Lars ranch, and the dim haven that Yoda has ordered for this child.
Obi-Wan entertains the briefest pulse of rebellion, the idea of disobedience, of taking this child as his own to raise true to the ways of the Jedi and the Force, the two of them alone against a rising empire, bound together all the more strongly for the rarity of their partnership. For a moment he holds the thought, examines it, cherishes it with a certain detached love for a future that can never be. And then he lets it go.
His training cannot be trusted.
When he gives the boy into Beru’s warm and willing arms, Qui-Gon’s voice whispers to him again, a steady curve of wind against the nape of his neck, wrapping over and around his shoulders for only a breath.
Hear me, instead of your own censure.
Not yet. Too early for forgiveness, too late for prevention, Obi-Wan entertains only regret, his previous impatience to hear and be heard tempered now by looming solitude, the promise of years ahead to atone uselessly for what he did and what he could not do. He had not lied to Yoda; he could imagine no more suitable life for himself.
After hours in the dark he swings himself down onto bare stone and strokes one hand along the nose of his mount, removing bridle and saddle blanket and turning the eopie free. It snuffles off into the night, and though the wind has turned chill after sunset and stars provide only a flicker of light, he continues on foot for another hour before finding a cave suitable to conceal him from the sand people. He can measure his life now by moments, by tasks, the small flare of fire and the warmth of brewing tea. The instinct of survival forces him to eat out of hunger, but not desire.
Too strong to die, or perhaps too weak. Perhaps the Force means to punish him with life.
The Force does not punish and it does not praise, beloved.
This time the voice rings louder, focused, and Obi-Wan almost jumps, actually glances over a shoulder. Not that he truly expects Qui-Gon to materialize out of thin air. He deals in faith, but not impossibilities.
More faith and more possibilities. A gentle tone.
Obi-Wan lays back against his bedroll and lets his eyes close. Not a traditional posture for meditation, but the most civilized one at the moment, considering the aching of his joints. No mercy, still--he starts with honesty. A part of me resents this.
This time, the answer comes readily. As well you should, and as well you may.
A tinge of weariness stains the words, piques Obi-Wan’s irritation. All these years, and never a touch, never a word, never a hint that he need not grieve, and how he had grieved. In an instant he had lost purpose and partnership and passion, lost self, suffered in a way no Jedi should suffer. He had thought that Qui-Gon’s death had banished the boy in him, shattered it, leaving only the man, but maybe the past never resolves so simply. The boy still curls into itself, hurt and hurting, deep in the quiet of his mind.
Set free what you fight and what you fear, and your own freedom will follow.
Everything I was losing, and all you could speak of was him. It’s the shadow of a very old, submerged envy, the touch of greed, unsuitable and unwelcome but secrets somehow force their way out of obscurity, dripping black from every mental orifice, old blood. Shame can be cleansing.
True pain tempers that familiar voice, and even the touch of rare apology. It isn’t quite enough, but it soothes. I am sorry, Obi-Wan. Even in this state, his Master takes the time to consider his words carefully. The moments before death are not so full of...clarity, not as legends would have us believe, but that is no excuse. For a moment, Obi-Wan feels the unexpected brush of one strong hand along his shoulder, against his cheek. The intimacy almost makes him flinch; touch has not been a regular part of his life for decades. I am so sorry, that I feared too much for what I was leaving unfinished, Qui-Gon sighs. It was not meant as lack of affection, but as trust in you, to finish what I could not.
Obi-Wan gives him a snort in response. Misplaced, then.
No.
That’s a very stern tone, and Obi-Wan’s body, if not his mind, still reacts naturally to it, tensing and straightening, so ready for censure that the deliverance of it brings relief.
Anakin’s failure was not your fault. Obi-Wan can feel the shift of movement when he concentrates, the crossing of both arms over a broad chest, the shadow of scolding in eyes too gentle for so powerful a form.
Nevertheless, he isn’t finished with blame, and blame turned upon oneself is the ultimate Jedi satisfaction. It was. You must know, he insists. Even in our best of moments, we were in competition. Always. A pattern started long ago, a cycle once begun and now to end here on Tatooine, in the ascetic depths of the desert. A deeper truth lay buried there as well, one he’d hidden almost from himself, but could not conceal from his Master, after all. I was afraid of him. Afraid of him. And for him... Though he does not reach out, his mind does, and Qui-Gon reaches out as well, touching as if hand to hand, the connection fragile but warm. Obi-Wan ends his struggling with the memory; he releases it. Qui-Gon holds it with great care, watching through Obi-Wan’s eyes. In recollection Anakin is only eleven, but in shared meditation he catches onto the threads of his young Master’s profound loss and pulls them apart, lays him open, examines Obi-Wan’s despair and loneliness and sorrow with a clinical detachment just short of heartless. Obi-Wan almost strikes him. Unforgivable to even think it. Afterwards, Anakin apologizes, but the emotion is by rote only and Obi-Wan tries desperately to overcome his own unease over a boy who might not quite be human at the heart. Who might fail himself. I wasn’t good enough. I brought it true.
No, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon sighs, and his touch against the memory is soothing, his own regret still something of a balm. The failing is mine, to place such a burden upon you both. To require the fulfilling of my faith from the two of you. Obi-Wan feels the touch of one strong hand against his chest, fingertips splayed across his ribs, closing over the beat of his heart. Selfish of me, I know.
Stubborn and self-righteous, Obi-Wan adds, all the cynicism he’s earned in two decades flaying full into Qui-Gon’s admission.
The sense of Qui-Gon’s smile is only sorrow, unsatisfying, as Obi-Wan should have known it would be. That, too. Perhaps... Uncertainty from Qui-Gon Jinn still shakes him--unsettling as ever, Obi-Wan discovers--but he waits. Perhaps you should not forgive me.
Obi-wan does consider it. Then he releases his breath in a long, slow sigh, a heavy weariness settling over and through him, the weight of years, intimacy betrayed and emotion distanced, love dismissed, asceticism embraced for a starker balance. Memory is a capricious thing, reminding him now how much he’s lost, and how much he can’t afford to lose all he has left--the things he must protect. No, he whispers. I forgive it. There’s nothing left to forgive, Master.
The lingering bitterness drains out of him, leaving him warmer again, perhaps too warm, perhaps turned young once more and shaken, unsure. And then the Force is touching him, familiar as the hum of his own bones and blood, but this time also all cool, comfortable heat and the sudden sensation of embrace, so much missed that it makes his heartbeat skip, his throat ache. Parched.
Obi-Wan. Deeper regret weights the syllables. Are you so very alone?
Has he ever been touched like this? Long enough ago to be a dream. Not skin to skin, but more than good enough. He might have a little faith left.
Not alone, he says, and the touch of his hands proves a little clumsy in this place, outside of flesh and form, not so familiar as he would like. Just sometimes empty.
The ghost touch of Qui-Gon’s fingertips moves along his shoulders, hands so powerful, gentled here, and Obi-Wan senses for an instant the overlay of one moment over another, layers of silenced passion and anticipation, longing and loyalty and love. The physical sensation lingers, mapping over the curves of his ribs, body far heavier now than it was the last time these hands touched him. Stolen moments.
Qui-Gon might be speaking into him, a first step of intimacy. Let me fill you.
His Master seems shaken just a bit, eager, and that Obi-Wan can still hold that secret between them makes him more willing than ever before, denying nothing. Nothing to deny, perhaps, now. “Please,” he breathes aloud.
The sudden intensity of Qui-Gon’s caress reminds him that he needn’t ask for what they both want. Not when it’s incomprehensibly within reach again. In a reality apart from this place, he is alone, his body still, but here he arches, his consciousness curving up into the shelter of Qui-Gon’s body and mind, so solid and true, and the weight and strength of the Force wraps around him, supporting and steadying. So beautiful, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon murmurs, the words stroking though him, leaving heat in their wake. Always so beautiful. Shall I touch you as you are, all power and poise? To still be termed beautiful leaves Obi-Wan speechless, quaking, and in a moment Qui-Gon’s memory begins building around them, recollections of light and warmth and slick cool sheets. Or as you once were, sleek and smooth...
Qui-Gon’s touch eases beneath his skin, soothing tensed muscles and stimulating nerves, a building pleasure that wrings jolting cries from flesh and thought. Obi-Wan adds to the construct between them in shuddering bursts of surfacing memory. Nights hanging dark and silken when they shared more than warmth, the structure of praise and passion between them, one woven above the other into impenetrable strength, and the astonishing depth of trust required by them both to offer and to give and to share of themselves.
More immediate now, he can recall the building heat, the weight of Qui-Gon against him, perfectly balanced. Prepared but waiting, or thrusting slow.
In the growing brilliance of his waking dream, Qui-Gon’s laughter ripples smooth and low, reflections of light off water, off gleaming skin. Not always so. The vision is a construct, a thousand strands of memory and desire, and to it Qui-Gon adds the recollection of faltering breath, sudden erratic thrusts and the groaning loss of control, Obi-Wan’s own ringing outcry.
He hasn’t forgotten. And he hasn’t forgotten the powerful, moving thrill of the way they work together, matching turn for turn and thrust for thrust in battle as much as in bliss, the flow of the Force through them, back and forth and back again in a bond more perfect than most Masters had ever seen. Touching mind to mind carries always the overtones of making love.
In that moment of memory, Qui-Gon presses against and into him, and Obi-Wan makes a shout from his soul and pulls him deep, past penetration and into utter submersion. Sensation crests and breaks.
Completion. Whole.
This is greater than self and stronger than sex--this is making love to the Force itself, surrendering body and mind to an ecstasy limited only by acceptance, and he wants it, absorbs it, welcomes more of it than he can possibly hold, his mind merged utterly with that of his Master and his lover and his purpose, his body shaking apart in a climax completely apart from self. Nothing but joining and joy.
In the very distant world of physical weight and form, two tears slide down his cheeks.
Resounding through his own consciousness, the pure satisfaction of the Force and the beloved mind woven into it sends him shaking, not only responsible for that languid bliss, but part of it, caught up in it, existing in it. Qui-Gon’s voice shudders among his scattered thoughts, speaking from within.
Obi-Wan. Everything I knew, and everything I know, it was meaningless until I taught it to you. Until it became of use to you.
He can’t speak, or he might sob. Better just to hold and be held, tangled together, wrapped into a single embrace. How long until they begin to separate again, he can’t guess, but the process must be natural, the slow consolidation of joined thought into self once more. It must be healthy, because he couldn’t bear such joy for long. Not yet.
How has he never guessed it, never felt it? The Force swims through him, a wave of uncompromising light, and every brush of it against his bones, his emotions, his soul is Qui-Gon, surety and strength and stubborn will. It will catch him and hold him and never let him fall, and all he needs in return is trust, but he has so little of that left that giving it is like ripping free pounds of flesh. Maybe it’s more selfless than any living creature can possibly be.
Worry not, Master Kenobi, Qui-Gon chuckles, the sound breaking against roughened breath even here, tendrils of Force rippling over him with fond and amused admiration. Such things take time.
The new title settles between them, a strange weight. Not uncomfortable, but unfamiliar, something to reach around and through when they touch, because though apprenticed he might be yet again, Obi-Wan is no child at all. He wonders why he isn’t more ashamed of screaming his mind raw, stretched virginal to his limits and beyond them, still quivering with a satisfaction so much more than simply physical.
Qui-Gon is musing as well, beneath the slow and steady stroking of his thoughts against Obi-Wan’s. They can hide nothing from each other, here. Alarming. Astonishing.
Perhaps this first moment could be nothing else, Qui-Gon offers at length. We had much unresolved between us. His smile is a slow stretching of Force, a flicker against Obi-Wan’s lips. A lesson for us both.
The learning is never done. Even after death, Obi-Wan breathes.
Even so.
His thoughts are air, his body is light, transcending the physical and emotional weariness that has so often brought him low, brought him crashing back into himself even when the Force is moving him and moving in him. Never again. Live in me, he asks, never demanding, but with certainty nevertheless.
So I have, his Master affirms, his touch once more a familiar joy, one Obi-Wan can never again lose, only distant from heartbeat to heartbeat. So I do, and so I will. Qui-Gon’s pride in him glows bright and true, so filling, so full that he can’t draw breath to cry out again. Anakin’s betrayal and his own mistakes diminish into shadows against that light. Nothing is without purpose. You have done well, Obi-Wan. He can hardly bear the beauty of those missed words. Better than I. Still regrets.
There is no perfect Jedi. Perhaps the wish to be both more and less in one moment is enough to begin. Teach me.
Weight settles intimately against him again, and Qui-Gon is smiling in the reflection of the night, features lined in perfect and iridescent blue, even when Obi-Wan opens his eyes.
Most beloved, we will learn together.
*******
Author: Lyricality
Rating: R. Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan SLASH, post-Episode III
Disclaimer: Very much Lucas’. Somewhere, he’s screaming very loud.
C&C: Please do. What you liked, what you didn't like, you know the drill.
Note: Unfortunately, after noticing and picking up the first YA Last of the Jedi book today, I have discovered that this is essentially AU. Fortunately, I’ve decided I don’t give a damn, and I give it to you anyway. Ha. Incidentally, I’m sure a hundred other writers have done this already as well, but being far out of the Star Wars fandom loop, I’ve read none of them. Apologies.
Archiving: With permission. Incidentally, if you know somewhere you think this should be posted, let me know. As above...out of the fandom loop entirely.
ETA: ACK, and thank you, thank you to
dryadgurrl for beta-ing!“And I, who never could believe,
Never saw the need,
Wanted just to see your face again
Nothing to hold on to,
Now I’ve found you...”
--Janis Ian, “On the Other Side”
Clear your mind you must.
Thus far easier said than done, but so it is with all of Yoda’s instructions--with all the ways of the Force. As for his mind, it coils in on itself, a spiral of disconnected feelings and images, nothing less than turmoil now that the outward battles have been fought and lost and nothing but the inner battles remain.
Feel around you the Living Force.
Alone, but never alone. Strength over fear. Sometimes older lessons prove themselves best after all. Sometimes they linger longer.
To his own surprise, Obi-Wan finds inward focus easier with Padme’s son wrapped in both his arms, curled sleeping against his chest. Denying the child’s sire seems even now a sidestep, an excuse for failure first, shame second, but he forces himself to trust that all that will sort itself in time. Pity that patience has never developed into the strongest of his skills, though perhaps years of practice have left him somewhat improved.
He left Anakin not only to die, but also to suffer. No mercy. He hopes to any and all powers that the man is dead, and the monster dead with him, but he feels it still...that strained connection between them, a tendon of incomprehensible strength, even frayed.
The monster still lives.
Perhaps he did it purposefully. Perhaps he couldn’t let go of what he feared to lose, either.
There is no perfect Jedi. We are not saints, only seekers.
Qui-Gon’s voice, but a recollection only, a murmur in his ear, because Qui-Gon said that more than once, whenever Obi-Wan tortured himself particularly harshly for some mistake. He never has been easily forgiving of his own errors.
Clear your mind you must, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He draws in a breath and holds it, then releases it, concentrating on the movement of air and thought and Force, always Force, its tendrils as ever within reach. Instead of catching at them, he lets himself drift with their current, a part of the greater dance, his consciousness one strand among millions. But he isn’t patient now, and he isn’t all serenity, and he wants an answer. In a long stretch of his mind he catches into the Living Force with both hands, submerging, fearless but desperate, and in that endless moment he feels a stirring, an...acceptance, so familiar that his mind at once welcomes and rejects it. His thoughts condense into a single gasp of solid surprise.
The direct exhalation into the Force stirs Luke in his arms. No surprise, really, that Anakin’s child should be so Force-sensitive, especially in this state of newness to the galaxy, and to keep from waking him Obi-Wan lets the ghost of a connection go, lets it drift away again despite the pain of thwarted desire rising into his throat.
Wait.
The last shred of that touch is a truly familiar voice, brushing him just before he opens his eyes. He closes them again, but the connection has collapsed, and he makes a low sound of unimpressed disappointment. Wait, indeed. He’ll be waiting here for more years than he cares to count, no more or less than he deserves. Around him curls the desert wind, catching sand into the folds of his robe, and the sound of it returns to him, along with the methodical jostling of the eopie beneath him. Luke falls still in his arms again, one fragile hand curled against his wrist, and a light shines dimly on the horizon. The Lars ranch, and the dim haven that Yoda has ordered for this child.
Obi-Wan entertains the briefest pulse of rebellion, the idea of disobedience, of taking this child as his own to raise true to the ways of the Jedi and the Force, the two of them alone against a rising empire, bound together all the more strongly for the rarity of their partnership. For a moment he holds the thought, examines it, cherishes it with a certain detached love for a future that can never be. And then he lets it go.
His training cannot be trusted.
When he gives the boy into Beru’s warm and willing arms, Qui-Gon’s voice whispers to him again, a steady curve of wind against the nape of his neck, wrapping over and around his shoulders for only a breath.
Hear me, instead of your own censure.
Not yet. Too early for forgiveness, too late for prevention, Obi-Wan entertains only regret, his previous impatience to hear and be heard tempered now by looming solitude, the promise of years ahead to atone uselessly for what he did and what he could not do. He had not lied to Yoda; he could imagine no more suitable life for himself.
After hours in the dark he swings himself down onto bare stone and strokes one hand along the nose of his mount, removing bridle and saddle blanket and turning the eopie free. It snuffles off into the night, and though the wind has turned chill after sunset and stars provide only a flicker of light, he continues on foot for another hour before finding a cave suitable to conceal him from the sand people. He can measure his life now by moments, by tasks, the small flare of fire and the warmth of brewing tea. The instinct of survival forces him to eat out of hunger, but not desire.
Too strong to die, or perhaps too weak. Perhaps the Force means to punish him with life.
The Force does not punish and it does not praise, beloved.
This time the voice rings louder, focused, and Obi-Wan almost jumps, actually glances over a shoulder. Not that he truly expects Qui-Gon to materialize out of thin air. He deals in faith, but not impossibilities.
More faith and more possibilities. A gentle tone.
Obi-Wan lays back against his bedroll and lets his eyes close. Not a traditional posture for meditation, but the most civilized one at the moment, considering the aching of his joints. No mercy, still--he starts with honesty. A part of me resents this.
This time, the answer comes readily. As well you should, and as well you may.
A tinge of weariness stains the words, piques Obi-Wan’s irritation. All these years, and never a touch, never a word, never a hint that he need not grieve, and how he had grieved. In an instant he had lost purpose and partnership and passion, lost self, suffered in a way no Jedi should suffer. He had thought that Qui-Gon’s death had banished the boy in him, shattered it, leaving only the man, but maybe the past never resolves so simply. The boy still curls into itself, hurt and hurting, deep in the quiet of his mind.
Set free what you fight and what you fear, and your own freedom will follow.
Everything I was losing, and all you could speak of was him. It’s the shadow of a very old, submerged envy, the touch of greed, unsuitable and unwelcome but secrets somehow force their way out of obscurity, dripping black from every mental orifice, old blood. Shame can be cleansing.
True pain tempers that familiar voice, and even the touch of rare apology. It isn’t quite enough, but it soothes. I am sorry, Obi-Wan. Even in this state, his Master takes the time to consider his words carefully. The moments before death are not so full of...clarity, not as legends would have us believe, but that is no excuse. For a moment, Obi-Wan feels the unexpected brush of one strong hand along his shoulder, against his cheek. The intimacy almost makes him flinch; touch has not been a regular part of his life for decades. I am so sorry, that I feared too much for what I was leaving unfinished, Qui-Gon sighs. It was not meant as lack of affection, but as trust in you, to finish what I could not.
Obi-Wan gives him a snort in response. Misplaced, then.
No.
That’s a very stern tone, and Obi-Wan’s body, if not his mind, still reacts naturally to it, tensing and straightening, so ready for censure that the deliverance of it brings relief.
Anakin’s failure was not your fault. Obi-Wan can feel the shift of movement when he concentrates, the crossing of both arms over a broad chest, the shadow of scolding in eyes too gentle for so powerful a form.
Nevertheless, he isn’t finished with blame, and blame turned upon oneself is the ultimate Jedi satisfaction. It was. You must know, he insists. Even in our best of moments, we were in competition. Always. A pattern started long ago, a cycle once begun and now to end here on Tatooine, in the ascetic depths of the desert. A deeper truth lay buried there as well, one he’d hidden almost from himself, but could not conceal from his Master, after all. I was afraid of him. Afraid of him. And for him... Though he does not reach out, his mind does, and Qui-Gon reaches out as well, touching as if hand to hand, the connection fragile but warm. Obi-Wan ends his struggling with the memory; he releases it. Qui-Gon holds it with great care, watching through Obi-Wan’s eyes. In recollection Anakin is only eleven, but in shared meditation he catches onto the threads of his young Master’s profound loss and pulls them apart, lays him open, examines Obi-Wan’s despair and loneliness and sorrow with a clinical detachment just short of heartless. Obi-Wan almost strikes him. Unforgivable to even think it. Afterwards, Anakin apologizes, but the emotion is by rote only and Obi-Wan tries desperately to overcome his own unease over a boy who might not quite be human at the heart. Who might fail himself. I wasn’t good enough. I brought it true.
No, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon sighs, and his touch against the memory is soothing, his own regret still something of a balm. The failing is mine, to place such a burden upon you both. To require the fulfilling of my faith from the two of you. Obi-Wan feels the touch of one strong hand against his chest, fingertips splayed across his ribs, closing over the beat of his heart. Selfish of me, I know.
Stubborn and self-righteous, Obi-Wan adds, all the cynicism he’s earned in two decades flaying full into Qui-Gon’s admission.
The sense of Qui-Gon’s smile is only sorrow, unsatisfying, as Obi-Wan should have known it would be. That, too. Perhaps... Uncertainty from Qui-Gon Jinn still shakes him--unsettling as ever, Obi-Wan discovers--but he waits. Perhaps you should not forgive me.
Obi-wan does consider it. Then he releases his breath in a long, slow sigh, a heavy weariness settling over and through him, the weight of years, intimacy betrayed and emotion distanced, love dismissed, asceticism embraced for a starker balance. Memory is a capricious thing, reminding him now how much he’s lost, and how much he can’t afford to lose all he has left--the things he must protect. No, he whispers. I forgive it. There’s nothing left to forgive, Master.
The lingering bitterness drains out of him, leaving him warmer again, perhaps too warm, perhaps turned young once more and shaken, unsure. And then the Force is touching him, familiar as the hum of his own bones and blood, but this time also all cool, comfortable heat and the sudden sensation of embrace, so much missed that it makes his heartbeat skip, his throat ache. Parched.
Obi-Wan. Deeper regret weights the syllables. Are you so very alone?
Has he ever been touched like this? Long enough ago to be a dream. Not skin to skin, but more than good enough. He might have a little faith left.
Not alone, he says, and the touch of his hands proves a little clumsy in this place, outside of flesh and form, not so familiar as he would like. Just sometimes empty.
The ghost touch of Qui-Gon’s fingertips moves along his shoulders, hands so powerful, gentled here, and Obi-Wan senses for an instant the overlay of one moment over another, layers of silenced passion and anticipation, longing and loyalty and love. The physical sensation lingers, mapping over the curves of his ribs, body far heavier now than it was the last time these hands touched him. Stolen moments.
Qui-Gon might be speaking into him, a first step of intimacy. Let me fill you.
His Master seems shaken just a bit, eager, and that Obi-Wan can still hold that secret between them makes him more willing than ever before, denying nothing. Nothing to deny, perhaps, now. “Please,” he breathes aloud.
The sudden intensity of Qui-Gon’s caress reminds him that he needn’t ask for what they both want. Not when it’s incomprehensibly within reach again. In a reality apart from this place, he is alone, his body still, but here he arches, his consciousness curving up into the shelter of Qui-Gon’s body and mind, so solid and true, and the weight and strength of the Force wraps around him, supporting and steadying. So beautiful, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon murmurs, the words stroking though him, leaving heat in their wake. Always so beautiful. Shall I touch you as you are, all power and poise? To still be termed beautiful leaves Obi-Wan speechless, quaking, and in a moment Qui-Gon’s memory begins building around them, recollections of light and warmth and slick cool sheets. Or as you once were, sleek and smooth...
Qui-Gon’s touch eases beneath his skin, soothing tensed muscles and stimulating nerves, a building pleasure that wrings jolting cries from flesh and thought. Obi-Wan adds to the construct between them in shuddering bursts of surfacing memory. Nights hanging dark and silken when they shared more than warmth, the structure of praise and passion between them, one woven above the other into impenetrable strength, and the astonishing depth of trust required by them both to offer and to give and to share of themselves.
More immediate now, he can recall the building heat, the weight of Qui-Gon against him, perfectly balanced. Prepared but waiting, or thrusting slow.
In the growing brilliance of his waking dream, Qui-Gon’s laughter ripples smooth and low, reflections of light off water, off gleaming skin. Not always so. The vision is a construct, a thousand strands of memory and desire, and to it Qui-Gon adds the recollection of faltering breath, sudden erratic thrusts and the groaning loss of control, Obi-Wan’s own ringing outcry.
He hasn’t forgotten. And he hasn’t forgotten the powerful, moving thrill of the way they work together, matching turn for turn and thrust for thrust in battle as much as in bliss, the flow of the Force through them, back and forth and back again in a bond more perfect than most Masters had ever seen. Touching mind to mind carries always the overtones of making love.
In that moment of memory, Qui-Gon presses against and into him, and Obi-Wan makes a shout from his soul and pulls him deep, past penetration and into utter submersion. Sensation crests and breaks.
Completion. Whole.
This is greater than self and stronger than sex--this is making love to the Force itself, surrendering body and mind to an ecstasy limited only by acceptance, and he wants it, absorbs it, welcomes more of it than he can possibly hold, his mind merged utterly with that of his Master and his lover and his purpose, his body shaking apart in a climax completely apart from self. Nothing but joining and joy.
In the very distant world of physical weight and form, two tears slide down his cheeks.
Resounding through his own consciousness, the pure satisfaction of the Force and the beloved mind woven into it sends him shaking, not only responsible for that languid bliss, but part of it, caught up in it, existing in it. Qui-Gon’s voice shudders among his scattered thoughts, speaking from within.
Obi-Wan. Everything I knew, and everything I know, it was meaningless until I taught it to you. Until it became of use to you.
He can’t speak, or he might sob. Better just to hold and be held, tangled together, wrapped into a single embrace. How long until they begin to separate again, he can’t guess, but the process must be natural, the slow consolidation of joined thought into self once more. It must be healthy, because he couldn’t bear such joy for long. Not yet.
How has he never guessed it, never felt it? The Force swims through him, a wave of uncompromising light, and every brush of it against his bones, his emotions, his soul is Qui-Gon, surety and strength and stubborn will. It will catch him and hold him and never let him fall, and all he needs in return is trust, but he has so little of that left that giving it is like ripping free pounds of flesh. Maybe it’s more selfless than any living creature can possibly be.
Worry not, Master Kenobi, Qui-Gon chuckles, the sound breaking against roughened breath even here, tendrils of Force rippling over him with fond and amused admiration. Such things take time.
The new title settles between them, a strange weight. Not uncomfortable, but unfamiliar, something to reach around and through when they touch, because though apprenticed he might be yet again, Obi-Wan is no child at all. He wonders why he isn’t more ashamed of screaming his mind raw, stretched virginal to his limits and beyond them, still quivering with a satisfaction so much more than simply physical.
Qui-Gon is musing as well, beneath the slow and steady stroking of his thoughts against Obi-Wan’s. They can hide nothing from each other, here. Alarming. Astonishing.
Perhaps this first moment could be nothing else, Qui-Gon offers at length. We had much unresolved between us. His smile is a slow stretching of Force, a flicker against Obi-Wan’s lips. A lesson for us both.
The learning is never done. Even after death, Obi-Wan breathes.
Even so.
His thoughts are air, his body is light, transcending the physical and emotional weariness that has so often brought him low, brought him crashing back into himself even when the Force is moving him and moving in him. Never again. Live in me, he asks, never demanding, but with certainty nevertheless.
So I have, his Master affirms, his touch once more a familiar joy, one Obi-Wan can never again lose, only distant from heartbeat to heartbeat. So I do, and so I will. Qui-Gon’s pride in him glows bright and true, so filling, so full that he can’t draw breath to cry out again. Anakin’s betrayal and his own mistakes diminish into shadows against that light. Nothing is without purpose. You have done well, Obi-Wan. He can hardly bear the beauty of those missed words. Better than I. Still regrets.
There is no perfect Jedi. Perhaps the wish to be both more and less in one moment is enough to begin. Teach me.
Weight settles intimately against him again, and Qui-Gon is smiling in the reflection of the night, features lined in perfect and iridescent blue, even when Obi-Wan opens his eyes.
Most beloved, we will learn together.
*******
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-07 07:55 am (UTC)This is so very beautiful, dear. I had to read it twice. I haven't had the fortune of reading much of your work, but I must say, I'm definetly taken by the elegance in your style. Your grasp of these characters, the way they move together, ebbing and flowing in unison throughout their sequences together... You definetly have them inside. :3 The Force, too, I see. I love your use of it here, and frankly, I've not read a better SW fic, bar none.
I wish I could offer something more critical, but I can't. I was just blown completely away. Great job ^___^ *wuggles*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-07 02:28 pm (UTC)And thank you, thank you, but there are many fics better than this... *does a Master&Apprentice archive search for you*
Also...omg wuggles. It sounds like some sort of little bloopy creature from the Wonkaverse. *wuggles back*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-07 05:25 pm (UTC)And of course you think there are "many better" and blah blah but you don't give yourself enough credit :3~
*wuggles again*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-07-20 02:03 am (UTC)I'm still surprised at how you pulled my into Wonka/Charlie ^_- I love both of your fics. Just keep on writing!