Acknowledgments: To Kerby and The Emu, for valuable information. To Sam
Walton, for a lifetime of cheap convenient shopping. To the new Super
Wal-Mart just down the road, for the inspiration. To Inez and Brent, for
being Inez and Brent. To George Lucas and Jude Watson, for the boys and
the birthdays.
Archive: master_apprentice, and anyone who wants it
Archive Date: January 31, 2000
Category: Humor/parody
Disclaimer: any similarity between persons and events is entirely
intentional.
Feedback: yes, please, any comments welcome.
Pairing: Q/O
Rating: PG-13 (implicit slash)
Spoilers: very minor spoilers for the early JA series novels.
Summary: Obi-Wan and the Brothers Derida search for a birthday present for
Qui-Gon.
Warnings: shopping at the Market of Walls may be addictive.
"Friend Obawan, you seem depressed. So?" Paxxi narrowed his eye at his brother Guerra.
"So," Guerra responded affirmatively. "We are glad that you have returned to Phindar to visit us after so many years, but today you are not good company."
Obi-Wan nodded despondently. Yoda had just contacted him via interplanetary comm transmission and reminded him that tomorrow was Qui-Gon's birthday-a momentous event that happened only once every six standard Coruscant years, as Qui-Gon was from a planet with a very lengthy solar orbit. Obi-Wan had to admit: he was stumped. I could always get him a rock...
"Share your problem with us, friend Obawan!" Paxxi encouraged him.
"Yes, we are ready to help you!" Guerra beamed.
I have a bad feeling about this, Obi-Wan thought morosely, and spilled the beans. "Qui-Gon's birthday is tomorrow, and I haven't found a present for him yet."
"Terrible this is, Obawan," Guerra's face melted with misery. "Jedi-Gon will be very disappointed."
"I know," Obi-Wan sighed heavily. "I don't suppose there's anywhere we could go shopping?" He looked skeptically at the Derida brothers.
"There are no good bazaars or markets on Phindar," Paxxi looked at him mournfully. "Not so, I lie!" He brightened immediately. "Offworld Marketing has just built a new market, a very big market, in the hills outside town!"
"Yes!" Guerra slapped his hands together gleefully. "Come, friend Obawan! We will take you to the Market of Walls."
They were greeted at the entrance to the market by a tough-looking little old lady with a roll of smiling face stickers on her arm. Obi-Wan took one look in her steely blue eyes and winced, wondering if he'd remembered to put on clean underwear that morning. He'd been in some pretty rough situations in his lifetime, fighting smugglers and pirates and draigons and trying to negotiate his way past bar-bouncers, but this old bird took the cake. She was wearing a shapeless blue smock flaunting a name tag that said "Inez" and had a pricing gun on her hip-- or was that a blaster?
"Good morning and welcome to the Market of Walls!" She bared yellowed snaggle teeth at him in an ingratiating smile, and Obi-Wan gulped.
"Yes, Ma'am," he responded politely, aware that Paxxi and Guerra were cowering behind him, trying to hide their faces. Obi-Wan suddenly remembered that they had a reputation for casual thievery. Inez peered at them with myopic suspicion.
"Would your daughters like a smiley sticker?" she asked Obi-Wan sharply.
"No thank you, ma'am," he hedged, and shoved the Derida brothers into the store.
Once inside, they relaxed considerably and began insistently tugging Obi-Wan toward stacks of gaudily packaged toys. Obi-Wan stared into the rictus grin of a stuffed tauntaun for a moment with morbid fascination, ignoring the excited clamor of his friends.
"Oh, Jedi heroes collection!" Paxxi was jumping up and down. "Look, a rare unhooded Mace Windu variant."
"Yes, Obawan, you must buy an action figure for Jedi-Gon's birthday!" Guerra snatched up a packet and Obi-Wan was appalled to see that it contained a malevolent-looking little thug with a padawan braid, encased in contoured plastic.
"Um, he already has the life-sized anatomically correct interactive variant," Obi-Wan mumbled, re-shelving the little hoodlum.
"Then how about this one? Electronic, talking, twelve inches!"
Obi-Wan critically examined the packaged replica of Qui-Gon. "What's the matter with his expression? Did he sit on a sand-burr?" he murmured. At least they're right about the twelve inches...
Already distracted, the Deridas were moving down the aisle, eyes fixed gleefully on a new objective. "Gungan submarine construction kit..." Paxxi mused. "Jedi-Gon could put it together himself! There is a cute little Obawan inside. It's the only kit that has one."
"FORTY-EIGHT REPUBLIC DATARIS?" Obi-Wan yelped, reading the price sticker. "Uh, I don't think so, guys." He set the kit aside carefully. "How about the next section of the market?"
They moved on down the aisle, and a strange acrid aroma teased Obi-Wan's nostrils. "Ah, yes, friend Obawan," Guerra beamed. "The automatic-motive section. Just the place to find a gift for Jedi-Gon. They sell many rubber rings and much lubricant here."
Rubber rings? Lubricant? Obi-Wan perked with interest and ventured down an aisle, poking his nose here and there. At last he fetched up in front of a counter festooned with huge black rubber rings, as promised. Frowning, he gazed up. Rubber rings, yes... but though Qui-Gon was quite impressively sized, these things looked like they were made to fit a Rancor!
"Do you have anything a bit smaller?" Obi-Wan nervously inquired of a shady-looking being who lounged nearby, wearing a smock that matched Inez's.
"What diameter do ya need?" The being replied lazily, shifting a quid of something nasty to his other jaw.
"Um..." Obi-Wan blushed. "About so big." He opened his mouth as wide as it would go.
The being, whose name tag identified him only as 'Brent,' gave Obi-Wan a jaundiced look. "You tryin' to be funny?"
Obi-Wan shook his head with embarrassment and decided that a cock-ring might not be the best idea after all. He slunk off to look for Paxxi and Guerra.
They were standing in front of a display of black plastic bottles. "Look, Obawan. Lubricant!"
This was more like it. Obi-Wan picked up a bottle and read the label. 'Heavy duty.' Well, that certainly sounded promising. 'Maximum viscosity.' Even better. "What weight do you think would be best for..." Obi-Wan realized what he was saying and let his sentence trail off into a mumble. 20-W-50... hmmm. A tap at his shoulder. He glanced back, startled to find Brent staring at him.
"What did you say you were going to use that for?"
Obi-Wan crimsoned. "What would you use it for?" he hedged.
"That's heavy engine oil, there." Brent shifted his chaw of... whatever... again.
"Do you have it in bigger containers?"
"Naw. A gallon's the biggest we got."
A gallon? They'd go through that in a week. Obi-Wan set down the bottle. "Thank you, Brent," he essayed politely. "I don't think I'll be needing any lube today."
"Suit yerself." Brent shrugged. "But if ya change yer mind, we got a shop in the back of the store. We can give ya a whole lube job while ya shop, real cheap. We can change or rotate yer rubber rings fer ya, too."
Obi-Wan paled and backpedaled away from Brent. "Um, thanks," he ventured, and turning a corner, he fled.
Grabbing Paxxi and Guerra by the scruff of the neck, Obi-Wan hauled them away from that section of the market quickly. "Let's look at something else," he put a touch of Force behind the words.
Looking around, he realized that they were surrounded by shoes. He relaxed quickly. Shoes were such nice, neutral things. Surely they couldn't get in trouble here.
"Maybe Jedi-Gon would like a nice pair of slippers," he told Paxxi, who nodded.
Ten minutes later, Obi-Wan indecisively held a pair of warm slippers in his hand. They were shaped like faces, with the mouth ready to devour the foot that would be inserted. Somehow, he simply couldn't picture Qui-Gon wearing them. And the boots he had selected as a possibility... green with a rubbery yellow sole, they might well be waterproof, but they hardly seemed warm. And he suspected they wouldn't offer the best traction, either. He set the slippers aside mournfully, wondering where Paxxi and Guerra had gotten to. In trouble, probably.
Further investigation revealed that they were both lounging next to a desk marked "Lay Of Way" near the back of the store, attempting to chat up a bored, gum-snapping female Phindian merchant clad in the ever-present blue smock that marked employees of the market.
"The deposit is ten percent of the item's purchase price," she told Guerra. "Now, do you have it, or not?"
"So!" Guerra scrabbled in his pockets frantically.
"Not so," Paxxi snickered.
Obi-Wan dragged them both off before security could arrive, reshelving the pack of gum Guerra had been attempting to give the market employee. "No lay, no way," Guerra mourned, and Obi-Wan rolled his eyes.
"She wasn't that pretty anyway, Guerra."
"But she has a good family health benefit plan and gets an employee discount."
"Whatever." Obi-Wan dragged the Phindian brothers through a display of bedding and bathroom linens, hardly bothering to look. While he and Qui-Gon could always use new and unstained bedlinens, all the 200-count cotton percales were festooned with gaudy flowers, and somehow he suspected Qui-Gon would not look kindly on losing even more face with the Temple Laundry personnel.
They wound up in a tunnel of hideous fake greenery with even more gaudy blossoms bursting color on every side. Obi-Wan looked around cautiously, prepared for attack, as they negotiated the small avenue. "How about this, Obawan?" Guerra looked hopeful, holding out a handful of dismally designed plastic posies. "Jedi-Gon likes plants and living things..."
"Guerra, do you honestly mean to imply that there is anything inside these things that was ever alive?" Obi-Wan lifted one limp polyethylene leaf gingerly.
"So!" Guerra nodded enthusiastically.
"Not so!" Obi-Wan and Paxxi both chorused emphatically.
"Well there is the Garden Center, friend Obawan."
"Closed for the winter," Paxxi huffed.
"Grass cutting machines are sold year-round, Obawan," Guerra retaliated.
"We don't have a lawn," Obi-Wan murmured, letting himself be dragged away from the Aisle of Hideous Fake Greenery.
"Perhaps clothes then." Paxxi snatched Obi-Wan's hand and after a momentary tug-of-war with Guerra, who was apparently interested in a bin of inflatable Gungans, dragged Obi-Wan into yet another sector of the market. "Men's Wear as far as the eye can see," he proclaimed proudly.
"So," Obi-Wan agreed, staring around dazedly at the racks and racks of clothing. "But the Temple provides all our robes and Jedi Code prohibits using bodies as billboards for the advertisement of sporting franchises." He picked up a jacket emblazoned with the logo of the Coruscant Cows, eyeing it dubiously.
"It is a problem, Obawan," Paxxi nodded mournfully. "How about naughty underwear?"
"They have that here?" Obi-Wan brightened. Things were finally looking up!
"They have everything here." Paxxi tugged him around a corner, and Obi-Wan stepped into an aisle festooned with wildly colored bikini briefs. Guerra was waiting, experimentally holding up a pair of Gungan-spotted boxers against his skinny frame.
Obi-Wan reached out at random and snared a pair of tiger-striped briefs. He stretched them dubiously over his fingers. Qui-Gon certainly wouldn't like those... unless maybe Obi-Wan was wearing them. Hmmm.
"Here, Obawan! Perfect for Jedi-Gon." Paxxi posed with a pair of fluffy fake-fur red briefs held against him. Obi-Wan blinked. No, he wouldn't be able to get the image of his friend posing in the underwear out of his head no matter how good Qui-Gon might look in the things.
"How about these?" Paxxi held up a pair of boxers helpfully.
Obi-Wan studied them carefully before shaking his head. "The yellow bird is cute and all, but it has a speech impediment," he pointed out. "Anyhow, what the hell is a 'puddy tat?'"
"We do not know, Obawan, but it is very hungry." Paxxi and Guerra nodded solemnly.
Obi-Wan sighed, defeated. "I'll try these on," he dangled the tiger-striped briefs from one finger. "Maybe he'd like to see me in them."
Guerra and Paxxi traded dubious looks, but followed Obi-Wan into the changing room. Obi-Wan sighed at the lack of privacy and quickly skinned out of his Jedi attire and into the scandalously skimpy underwear. Qui-Gon might like it, but Obi-Wan just couldn't handle the thought of running into Councilor Yoda while wearing the damned things. He'd never been sure if "See through you we can" included being able to spy on his selection of underwear or not...
Over his own shoulder in the mirror, he could see Guerra surreptitiously stuffing the Gungan-spotted boxers in his jacket pocket.
"Guerra!" His voice held a tone of warning. "That security goon at the entrance may have been handing out smiley faces but I don't think you want to mess with her." He offered a sympathetic smile. "Besides... see that sign?" They all looked at the poster on the wall of the changing cubicle. It read: SHOPLIFTING IS A CRIME! SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE PUNISHED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW!
"Yes, friend Obawan." Desolately, Guerra unpocketed the underwear. "You are right."
"You know I am," Obi-Wan nodded upward at the mirrored half-dome stuck to the ceiling above the open top of the cubicles. "And they have a camera in there, or I'm not a Jedi padawan."
Hastily Guerra dropped the Gungan-spotted underwear. "Just bringing them in here for my friend Obawan to try on," he mumbled.
Obi-Wan took pity on him and tried on the boxers, shoving them back down his hips with a hasty shudder. "The day my master takes up with a Gungan will be the day he dies," he muttered, kicking them into a corner and hastily wriggling back into his own clothes. Somewhere in the afterworld, a harassed reception clerk made a note in her appointment book.
They emerged into the store again, downcast.
"There is meat in the foodstuffs sector," Paxxi suggested.
"Yes, meat is always a good gift," Guerra agreed.
"Not for Qui-Gon. He's a vegetarian-- he won't put meat in his mouth." With... certain significant exceptions. Obi-Wan blushed again.
"A toaster?"
"Nah."
"Matched oven mitt and dish-towels?"
"Nah."
They moved through the remainder of the store, the Deridas listing items that Obi-Wan promptly vetoed.
"Generic tupperware? Cologne? Candy? Poster of Pamela Anderson Lee? Trashy romance novel? Biker magazine? Soh-Nee Walkman? Potato peeler? Casserole dish? Muffin tin? Non-stick cookware?"
"Nah."
"Ironing board, lemon-scented cleanser, paper towels, Magic Mushroom, spray disinfectant, styling mousse, tampons, Samz Choice cola?"
"Nah."
Discouraged, they sat down in the cafeteria at the front of the store and ordered absurdly expensive fountain drinks. The Deridas continued listing items helpfully.
"Guppy, gerbil, parakeet, flea shampoo, cedar chips, squeaky-toy?"
"Nah."
"Grass-seed, flower-pot, garden hose, batteries, lawn-gnome?"
"Nah-- wait. What was that again?"
"Grass-seed..."
Obi-Wan brightened suddenly, his eyes fixed on a point in the far distance. "Never mind." He hastened to the customer service counter, beckoning happily to his friends. "One more thing after this, and then we're out of here."
THE NEXT DAY...
Qui-Gon awakened grumpily and stomped out into the common room of the quarters he was sharing with Obi-Wan. On his breakfast plate sat a small cake in a paper cup, heaped high with unnaturally blue frosting. He blinked at it warily, wondering where his tea was. Obi-Wan bustled in from the kitchenette, beaming.
"Happy birthday, Master!" Obi-Wan trilled in an obscenely cheerful voice.
Qui-Gon grumped and sat down in front of the clearly inedible cake, shoving it aside. He frowned as a piece of paper that had been stuck under the plate crinkled.
"A gift certificate?" Qui-Gon squinted suspiciously.
"To the Market of Walls," Obi-Wan warbled. "They have everything!"
Qui-Gon considered for a moment, then his expression brightened. "We are almost out of lube. And I could use some lawn-gnomes..." He picked up the scrap of paper and shouldered eagerly into his robe. "I'll be back by lunchtime."
"Say hello to Brent for me!"