Once upon a time, there was a Jedi master. His
name was Qui-Gon Jinn. And he had never, ever,
despite his years and wisdom, seen any action.
He'd trained one padawan all the way to knighthood
-- bing! Next.
He'd lost the next padawan to the Dark Side. Buzz!
Next.
He didn't want to take another padawan. He just
wanted to go look at the wall and wallow in self-
pity for the rest of his life.
He especially didn't want the little whiner who kept
screwing up really easy assignments. Kid was on
his way to the Agricorps, and not a moment too
soon. Especially what made Qui-Gon the maddest
was how moony-eyed the other kids got around the
little twerp. By the time he was of Acceptable Age,
that boy was going to be seeing more action than a
proscenium stage.
But as the transport was leaving, washouts aboard,
Qui-Gon saw the face of young Obi-Wan framed in
the rear window, looking wistfully at him. He felt a
softening in his heart (and a hardening in -- well,
we'll get to that later), and he chased after the
transport and made it stop. He pulled Obi-Wan off
the transport and said, his voice choked from the
exhaust, "I would be honored if you would be my
padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi." Obi-Wan smiled
through his tears, and the iris closed around their
beaming faces as the house lights came up on
intermission.
As Obi-Wan grew older and wiser and yummier,
Qui-Gon knew he'd been right. He had to fend
them off with sticks; poor Obi-Wan had a different
date every night of the week, and a different pattern
of scratches and teeth-marks every morning.
It was quite tiresome.
Qui-Gon told himself not to fall victim to the green-
eyed monster (Obi-Wan), but his lust was rapidly
undermining his constitution. He tore his hair and
beard out in great handfuls. He developed bags
under his eyes. He was as jealous of Obi-Wan
himself as he was of all those other people who
were sleeping with him.
How had he gotten to be forty-two (or sixty, in base
seven) years old without
ever getting any? Was
there a deadline nobody had told him about?
He contemplated the merits of strong drink.
And the curtain fell on Act Two.
Finally, the moment came when Qui-Gon Had To
Act. He'd been biding his time for ten long years
(that's thirteen, base seven), and enough was finally
enough. Over lunch one day, he put down his beer
bottle, leaned back in his chair, and spoke his
padawan's name.
Obi-Wan looked up from his plate of oysters.
"Master?"
How do you do it, Obi-Wan? he wanted to ask.
You're such a ... such a
slut, and you don't seem
to care what people think. Qui-Gon cleared his
throat and took a breath. "You're grounded, Obi-
Wan."
"I -- what?"
"Grounded. Down to earth, so to speak. An
electrical charge would pass right through you and
into the floor. How do you remain so level-headed?
Do you never fantasize?"
Obi-Wan cocked his head to one side and got a
crinkle between his eyes, and Qui-Gon had to clear
his throat again. "Well, of course I do, Master.
Don't you?"
Qui-Gon gave a Mirthless Laugh [tm]. "Do I?
Only for the past twenty-eight -- or possibly forty --
years of my life, Padawan. Every master who ever
trained me, every superior officer I ever had, they
all complained constantly that my thoughts had an
obvious tendency to wander." He spun his plate
around in circles a couple of times.
Obi-Wan cocked his head to the other side. "They
could tell?"
Qui-Gon nodded. "It caused me no end of trouble."
"I should say, Master. If you don't mind my saying
so, you've been doing it wrong."
"I beg your pardon?"
"The whole point of allowing your mind to wander,
Master, is to do so without being detected. As long
as the person you're speaking to believes he has
your undivided attention, you're free to actually
think about whatever you wish."
"I know the point of allowing one's mind to wander,
Padawan."
"I don't think you do, Master. Because in your case,
the people you've been speaking to have been
conscious all along of the fact that your attention
has been ... elsewhere."
Qui-Gon fidgeted and scratched his shoulder against
the back of his chair. "So you just
seem to be
alert and attentive at all times, Padawan?"
Obi-Wan looked down at the table, but not in time
to hide a Slight Smirk [tm]. "Often, Master."
"Your concentration on your lessons and training is
a mere facade, while your mind occupies itself with
thoughts of your many conquests?"
Qui-Gon felt his nostrils flare. He folded his arms
in his sleeves so Obi-Wan would not see him clench
his fists. But Obi-Wan had looked up sharply and
met his eyes. "No, Master! You misunderstand
me!"
Qui-Gon Raised One Eyebrow [tm]. "Do I."
"It's ... I ..." Obi-Wan looked back at the table and
started arranging his oysters in patterns on his plate.
His face flushed; the tips of his ears had turned a
rather fetching shade of pink.
Qui-Gon bit his tongue. "Go on, Padawan."
"Well ... I mean to say ... this is rather difficult,
Master." Obi-Wan scratched at the back of his
neck. "It's actually -- Master, when my mind
wanders, it wanders to thoughts of you."
Qui-Gon sat very still.
He sat very still and looked across the table at Obi-
Wan.
He looked across the table at Obi-Wan and breathed
calmly and evenly through his nose.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi. It is not nice to tease."
Obi-Wan looked as though someone had asked him
to thread a fish. "Master?"
"You heard me. You are a man, very nearly grown,
and you should not toy with another sentient being's
feelings."
"I don't under--"
"I imagine that my romantic life, or lack thereof, is
the subject of much discussion and merriment
among you and your many friends, but I assure you
I am not as stoic as I sometimes appear."
"You -- stoic -- what --"
"Don't sit there with your smug face and your
bruised neck and tell me I'm the subject of your
fantasies, Obi-Wan! You insult me to suppose that
I would fall for such a line! With age comes
wisdom, Padawan; it's taken me a long time, but
I've learned that one thing I am not is sexually
desirable."
Obi-Wan stared at Qui-Gon and didn't speak.
Qui-Gon un-clenched his fists.
Obi-Wan folded his napkin, stood up, replaced his
chair, walked across the room, turned Qui-Gon
around so his back was to the table, and slapped
him across the face.
His eyes widened in horror immediately, but he
didn't look away for another couple of seconds.
Obi-Wan's nostrils flared, and Qui-Gon could tell
he was biting down on his tongue. Qui-Gon himself
was too stunned to do much more than stare. Had
Obi-Wan just struck him? Obi-Wan had just struck
him!
Finally, jaw trembling, Obi-Wan dropped to his
knees and hung his head. Even with his chin in his
collarbone, though, he spoke. "That was for calling
me a liar, Master," he murmured.
"Obi-Wan --" Qui-Gon choked. "I --"
"I'm afraid it's a conditioned response." His
shoulders set and held. "I've never done well with
people speaking ill of you. Apparently it doesn't
matter who."
Qui-Gon shook his head once, sharply. Obi-Wan
had struck him -- because he had disparaged
himself? The logic of that wasn't immediately
apparent to him, but the end result seemed to be --
yes, any way he approached it, it seemed to mean
that Obi-Wan Kenobi considered him, Qui-Gon
Jinn, very attractive indeed.
Obi-Wan had raised his head. "There you go
again," he said with a nervous smile. "I -- where
does your mind wander to, Master?"
Qui-Gon snorted very ungently and reached down
to touch Obi-Wan's face with his fingertips. "Isn't it
obvious?" he whispered.
Obi-Wan's smile brightened by degrees. By the
time he said "It is now," he was beaming.
"Why have you never --"
Obi-Wan laughed lightly and leaned his head into
the palm of Qui-Gon's hand. "Please, Master.
Think back a few years, if you will. Here's me, a
mere boy in the first flush of adulthood. More than
anything in all the worlds, I yearn for one man -- a
man who is proud and aloof, and who incidentally
also happens to be my master.
"It's not long before I realize that damn near
everyone else I know wants him as well -- and as so
many of them are so much more, ah, qualified than I
am, I resign myself to only admiring him from afar.
"Many of these other admirers reach the same
conclusion, but they think of a way to get as close to
him as possible without actually
being with him."
Qui-Gon slid his fingers through the fuzz of Obi-
Wan's hair and said nothing.
Obi-Wan said nothing either.
Qui-Gon slid off the chair to join Obi-Wan on his
knees. "They were using you," he whispered.
"Yes."
"And I assumed you were simply putting off
making a choice," Qui-Gon went on. Then, with a
smirk, he added, "Perhaps indefinitely."
Obi-Wan nodded. "So it would seem."
"And you ... assumed the same about me, I
suppose." He raised his other hand to the other side
of Obi-Wan's face, lightly massaging his neck
behind each ear.
Obi-Wan's eyes drifted closed and he nodded
mutely.
"Which of us is more foolish?" Qui-Gon asked.
"The fool, or the fool who follows him?" Obi-Wan
murmured, as he closed his hands over Qui-Gon's
and tipped up his chin, and quick like that they were
kissing.
The initial brush of their lips was soft and dry and
over in an instant, but before he had time to regret
its brevity, Qui-Gon's mouth was sealed to Obi-
Wan's. He felt a sound of approval begin in his
chest, something between a moan and a shout, but it
had nowhere to go; it stuck in his throat and
reminded him to breathe.
He closed his eyes and opened his mouth wider, and
Obi-Wan's mouth was immediately opened wider
too. Obi-Wan's tongue was tracing the inside of his
lips, the inside of his cheek, the roof of his mouth;
Qui-Gon touched his own tongue to the inside of his
lower lip, and Obi-Wan's tongue was there again.
Then it was gone. Qui-Gon felt his eyebrows knit,
frustrated. The tip of Obi-Wan's tongue returned,
then flickered away again; Qui-Gon took a breath,
changed the angle of his head, replaced his mouth
on Obi-Wan's, and followed. He felt Obi-Wan's
teeth with his tongue. He felt Obi-Wan's
tongue
with his tongue. He tore his hands from under Obi-
Wan's hands on the side of his head, wrapped an
arm around Obi-Wan's shoulders and the other
around his waist, and pulled Obi-Wan to him, knee
to chest.
Obi-Wan slid a hand behind Qui-Gon's head and
pulled away to catch his own breath, sliding
smoothly into the next kiss, and the next, and the
next.
Qui-Gon moved his hands.
He didn't know what to do next -- he couldn't
decide. All these years, however many it had been,
looking but not touching, enduring his thoughts of
what other people -- damn near everyone else, as
Obi-Wan had said -- had been allowed to see and
feel ... he wanted, was all he could think, but he
couldn't choose.
He tugged impatiently at Obi-Wan's shoulders and
leaned towards the floor. He could feel Obi-Wan's
smile as they lay down side by side; then Obi-Wan
was pulling away, kneeling over him, bracing his
weight on one hand and tracing the lines of Qui-
Gon's face with the other.
"Obi-Wan ... I ..."
"Shh."
Qui-Gon gasped for breath. He helped Obi-Wan
unfasten his belt and sash, but his fingers were
clumsy. Finally he took hold of Obi-Wan's tunic
and held on. Obi-Wan smiled and kissed him and
unwrapped him like a gift.
At the first touch of Obi-Wan's bare hand on his
bare ribs, Qui-Gon felt his whole body tense. He
heaved another breath and tried to speak, but Obi-
Wan shushed him again, kissed him again, and
placed his elbow at Qui-Gon's shoulder and his
hand behind Qui-Gon's head. He kissed Qui-Gon's
chest and throat as his other hand crept down
toward Qui-Gon's waistband; but by the time his
hand was inside Qui-Gon's pants, Obi-Wan's mouth
had covered Qui-Gon's again.
Magic fingers. Magic fingers. Magic fingers. Qui-
Gon couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. His mouth
was full of Obi-Wan's tongue and he couldn't cry
out. He couldn't even kick his legs.
He arched his back and Obi-Wan's mouth left his
and he shouted something that sounded to him like
"AAAH" and he opened his eyes and the room was
upside down. Qui-Gon took a great gulping breath,
and then another. Obi-Wan's teeth were sunk into
his shoulder. Obi-Wan's one hand was still behind
his head -- between his head and the table leg, he
realized, as he gasped another breath -- and Obi-
Wan's other hand was tracing sticky shapes on his
belly.
Obi-Wan grinned as Qui-Gon's breathing returned
to normal. He licked his collarbone. Qui-Gon still
held Obi-Wan's tunic in his fists; he tugged,
strengthlessly, and Obi-Wan was instantly on his
knees and pulling off the belt and the sash and the
tunics and shoving his pants down over his boots,
and only a moment later he was back. And now
Obi-Wan gave Qui-Gon his full weight, didn't hold
himself up on one arm any more, and kissed him
and kissed him and pressed their bodies together.
And Obi-Wan was young and strong and his skin
burned like fire, and Qui-Gon found the strength to
wrap his arms around Obi-Wan's back and hold
tight.
Obi-Wan rolled them away from the table, rolled
them until they were both lying on their sides, and
then he had one arm around Qui-Gon's neck,
holding him in place for more and more kisses, and
one arm around Qui-Gon's hips, fingers digging into
his flesh, holding him in place so he could shove his
own hips rhythmically against him.
Obi-Wan rocked, and Qui-Gon clung, and Obi-Wan
tried to get his legs in amongst Qui-Gon's, but they
were both just a jumble of pants and boots from the
knees down. And Obi-Wan rocked and rocked and
tore his mouth away from Qui-Gon's, and Qui-Gon
licked his jaw and his ear and bit his neck as Obi-
Wan tensed and shook and tipped his head back
with a sustained, keening wail.
Qui-Gon closed his eyes, and he fell asleep with the
sound of Obi-Wan's voice in his ears.
Qui-Gon was aware that some time had passed
when he opened his eyes again. His boots and his
pants, and Obi-Wan's, were gone; Obi-Wan lay
pressed against him, legs finally tangled together
comfortably. His chin rested on Qui-Gon's
breastbone, and his smile was the very image of
contentment.
Qui-Gon sighed. "That was --"
Obi-Wan interrupted him with a soft kiss. "Just the
beginning, Master." He laid his head on Qui-Gon's
shoulder. Qui-Gon smiled and closed his eyes and
allowed his attention to wander.
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