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When he'd been very small, he'd been relentlessly insomniac. So
much so that for years he hadn't believed he slept at all. He
only laid in the dark for hours at a time, listening to the
breathing of everyone else in the creche. And he'd become
familiar with the details of the night: the hiss of sheets
slipping over each other, the hum of the heating registers, adult
feet moving through the hallways outside. Very occasionally,
someone soft-footing through the children's sleep-rooms would
brush a hand over him and realize that he was still awake. Of
all the initiates, only he knew that the creche-Masters checked
on the little ones three or four times a night. The silence in
the Force of a Master's movement wouldn't have disturbed even a
warrior, let alone a sound-asleep four-year-old.
Fingers resting on top of his head. "Why are you awake, Obi-Wan?"
And a very small shrug from him, because he didn't know why.
He remembered being lifted and held in adult arms, cradled across
a soft-robed lap in a rocking chair. He remembered his head against
a big shoulder, he didn't know male or female, and being
rocked, sometimes for hours. Sometimes a voice talking to him,
telling him a story. Not something for him to pay attention to
and learn from, only words to calm him and make him drift, a
voice pushing him towards sleep with long, air-thin touches of
the Force.
As a working Padawan, he didn't have the luxury of that drifting,
and he had more than enough mental discipline to make himself
sleep almost instantly when he chose. In the field, if he was
going to be any kind of partner for his Master, he had to be
rested, even if all he got were catnaps in the midst of a flight.
In the Temple, he slept in Qui-Gon's quarters, usually, tucked on
the pallet across from his Master's bed. He had quarters of his
own, but he'd never used them for anything more than storage.
His whole experience of the Temple was sleeping in shared space.
Privacy was infinitely less important to him than the contact
between Jedi. But in seven years, he had managed to fool his
Master only a handful of times on any subject, and his ability to
counterfeit sleep was not one he cared to match against Qui-Gon's
perceptive powers. So it was only a few times a year, when his
Master was out and he slept in their bedroom alone, that he was
able to drift to sleep naturally, slipping around the edge of
consciousness for hours and listening to the quiet Temple sounds
that lasted long into the night.
He'd never asked where Qui-Gon went when he was gone all night.
As an adolescent, he'd assumed that his Master was working, or
dealing with the Council. As an adult, he understood that his
own presence in Qui-Gon's bedroom meant that his Master had gone
elsewhere to meet his lover, or lovers. Obi-Wan had never asked
who, when, how many.
When he'd first acknowledged that his Master had a life beyond
their quarters and training grounds, he'd had to find a place for
that knowledge in his own world-arrangement. The first emotional
wave-shock had been a child's jealousy, wordless resentment of
any time that Qui-Gon did not spend with him, and it had been the
easiest to release. The second had a kind of relief that the
sexuality he'd sometimes seen as an imperfection in himself was
comfortably, if quietly, practised by others in the Order.
The third had been complete shock that the person at the centre
of his world could be a sexual being as well as an object of
worship.
Shock because it made him think back through his own conduct, and
what he saw in himself was more disturbing. Like most Jedi-
raised children, he had no memory of his parents; he'd been hand-
raised by the creche-Masters, then by a legion of teachers and
counsellors who had eventually given him over to Qui-Gon Jinn.
And from any of them, he had been able to demand the casual
touches and petting that a small boy could expect to receive from
his family. Hands on his shoulder, fingers ruffling his hair,
the right to settle in someone's lap and be held -- something
that he had only given up when his pre-adolescent dignity had
given him a little reserve. But even then, he had still
practically begged for attention, and shivered with quiet
happiness whenever someone hugged him spontaneously. The most
pure thing he could remember from childhood was nighttime in the
Initiates' dormitory, with a roomful of children curled up
together in a heap on two or three beds, talking quietly. How
the Force ran through their body contact like an electric breath.
His expanding reserve had long since curtailed those kinds of
displays in any kind of a social setting, but he hadn't outgrown
his need for physical contact at the same rate. That need meant
that he arched into any touch of his Master's. That he rested
casually against the larger man when they were in quarters. It
wasn't unusual for him to study in the evenings while maintaining
some level of body contact, ankle touching ankle, or a head on
his Master's shoulder if it was convenient and adequately clear
that he was welcome.
And he remembered waking once in the night, when his Master had
been out late, to find one big hand resting beside his shoulder
and the other just touching his face. He'd pushed up into that
hand and rubbed his face against it like a cat. It wasn't
something he would have done if he'd been fully awake, but at the
time he only knew that he'd missed Qui-Gon's presence and wanted
to reaffirm it somehow. There hadn't been any smell on his
Master that night that Obi-Wan had since managed to identify as
sex, but in retrospect he was shocked at his own conduct. He was
far too old for that kind of need, and his expression of it must
have bordered on salacious.
It had been that conclusion that locked the final stage of his
reserve into place. He didn't afterwards reject the casual, or
the deliberately affectionate, touches that Qui-Gon offered, but
he stopped demanding them, and he locked himself into an
independent posture kept him a little more apart. At the time
he'd only been embarrassed. Grateful when more and more often
Qui-Gon only smelled like smoke and faint alcohol, and not body-
scent when he came in late. And Obi-Wan was deliberately not-
jealous, because he was an adult, and knew that all the forms of
Qui-Gon Jinn's love were not his by right.
He'd never realized, though, how much he depended on the parts of
the man that were his until he was temporarily without them. Not
even Qui-Gon's ability as a teacher could completely replace the
structures of the Temple, and Obi-Wan had genuinely needed to
work within those structures, at least for a while. As a result,
he'd been left behind to study the last time that his Master was
sent into the field. He'd buried himself in his studies, and
looked forward to the often almost daily transmissions from the
older man. Qui-Gon's diplomatic work kept him close to comm
systems, and even when exhaustion showed at the edges of his
face, he wanted to know how his apprentice had spent the day.
Not even checking up on him, really -- at twenty, Obi-Wan had
long since graduated from that kind of close supervision -- just
keeping the lines of communication between them open.
He'd let himself be comforted by those conversations, even when
all he had to report was a day spent in meditation and
housekeeping. And while he missed his Master, the feeling of
absence had settled in the last weeks into a simple fact that he
could accept and move past.
In the small hours of the morning, though, he woke with the
covers kicked off and his arms wrapped around himself. He
realized gradually that he'd been stroking his own arm, and that
in his vague dream it had been Qui-Gon's hand on him. There was
nothing terribly disturbing in the thought, but when he tried to
merge it with his own self-knowledge, something else rose.
Outside of combat practice, no one had touched him in the three
months his Master had been absent, and even the touches he'd
received had only been an instructor's tap to correct the
position of his elbows or knees. In the Temple, he had casual
friends, but no close ones, and few people took notice of him as
he moved between classes. He spent most of his time alone.
He was craving touch. No, more than that, he wanted to be held,
hugged, cradled against some larger body, so that he could bury
his face in his Master's robes and breathe the steady Qui-Gon
scent, and then go on with his day knowing quietly that his
Master loved him.
The blankets around him were constricting, suddenly. Obi-Wan
shook himself free and stood up in the dark, reaching with the
Force automatically for a sense of the room. Qui-Gon's bedroom,
in the absence of the Master. He should have gone back to sleep
in his own rooms, maybe, for the duration. He hadn't, though,
and the chill that ran through him now from the cold air was
enough to determine that he wasn't going to make that trek
through the Temple in the middle of the night. Instead, he
gathered up a blanket from his mussed pallet and padded out to
the common room, installing himself on the couch there. The
shimmer of a Coruscant night poured up through the plasteel
windows and made huge pools of radiance on the ceiling. By
following the modulations of light, he was able at least to
meditate, and then to drift, and his place on the couch let him
pretend that his Master was only delayed at a Council meeting,
and that Obi-Wan was only waiting for him before going to bed.
(Light like water on the ceiling, flowing outward from the window
shape into the backs of his eyes, until all of night-side
Coruscant floated there. Reaching out for the Force-traces of
Qui-Gon Jinn rippling through the universe so close in the
unifying Force that Obi-Wan could almost feel him.)
***
Jinn's transport came down in the dawn shimmer of a chemical
atmosphere. Obi-Wan waited in the platform's provided shelter
for the ship to settle, bracing himself a little against the
high-altitude winds. Metal legs opened, touched down, folded
again under the craft's unspeakable weight, and he had to fight
the urge to run forward and bury himself in his Master's arms as
soon as he came down the ramp. No one on the platform but the
handful of techs and mechanics and still he couldn't allow
himself that much leeway. He only came forward to collect Qui-
Gon's bags when the older man descended.
There never seemed to be enough baggage resulting from trips like
this one. Obi-Wan had been trained in mission packing, and he
knew that a change of clothing and a few spare lightsaber
components truly were all that was needed, but his Master had
been gone for months, he must have wanted other things. The
teapot on the highest shelf of the kitchen, a cushion for the
small of his back so that it would ache less after hours in the
rigid transport seats, one or two of the hand-bound books he knew
Qui-Gon collected. He should have had his
//padawan//
small comforts with him.
Jinn reached over and gripped Obi-Wan's shoulder for a moment,
then swept past him into the Temple. The Council, Obi-Wan knew,
was waiting, as they always were, for a report. He could
remember Qui-Gon standing before them with bloodstains still on
his clothes because he hadn't been given time to change before
presenting himself. As though they were afraid he might forget
something if he were allowed to rinse the mission dirt away
first, or allowed to greet and hold his student for more than
half a moment.
The Force-flickers of resentment and anger he shunted off heated
the airborne chemicals almost to ignition temperature, and he had
a quick flash of green within the red-tones of the morning before
he went indoors with a bag over each shoulder.
***
He only thought of Qui-Gon again hours later, after he'd unpacked
and gone through the motions of his day. In the time of his
Master's absence, he'd passed the necessary exams, and since then
he'd been at loose ends, eventually settling into unsupervised
work in the dry gardens. Their layers of sand and rock, relieved
only by tiny desert plants, pulled at something in the back of
his mind, as if he'd known them before he was Jedi, but the
places they touched were too vague even to be called impressions,
let alone memories.
Obi-Wan meditated on the asymmetrical beauty of a dry place, and
what he'd eventually come to was a wordless understanding that he
wanted to share with his Master. The thought brought a quick,
hollow feeling, succeeded by the shock that Qui-Gon actually was
present, just out of reach in the Council chambers in the Spire.
So close he could almost be touched.
His Master's proximity centred him more easily than long hours of
breathing exercises could have, and Obi-Wan let himself slide
into the trance again, this time letting the Force-currents guide
his meditations.
(Shimmer of Coruscant lights, the sun angling towards the
horizon, making long patches of dark in the dry gardens,
expanding as he slid deeper . . .
. . . sand two suns the bottles and pots of a traditional
healer on the windowsill cloth across his face to let him
breathe water a precious thing tasting always of animal hide
and dust . . .
. . . walking on the rim of a canyon. There was bright sun-heat
against the back of his neck, and the light of a second one
against his face, the two brilliances merging into a single
shadow slightly in front of him and to his left. Sand on
everything, in his hair, inside his clothes, but he hadn't
thought anything of it for years. The Force said he was supposed
to be somewhere just ahead of here, that there was something he
had to do, but it hadn't specified where exactly, or what. So he
kept walking, careful of the loose rocks and questing outward a
little with his mind for life signs.
The laser rifle he'd been taught to use as a junior padawan was
braced across his shoulders, but he wasn't going to need it.
Instead, he'd strung bottles from it, smelling each beforehand to
make sure its contents were what he thought they were. He'd
never trained as a healer, but an armed knight drew too much
attention even here on the Rim. In the past -- what? ten years?
-- he'd learned enough about herbal medicine that he was useful
to the desert's nomads, though too often someone died because he
didn't dare use the Force deliberately enough to save them.
The bottles struck one another and echoed through the canyon as
he descended. Tiny ringings in the dry light. In the shade at
the bottom, there was a crashed speeder, one that must have been
there for years, and a few small beings crowded around it. They
looked up at him descending and he saw luminous gold eyes.
Jawas, then, and one of them had burned himself on the still-
charged battery cells when he'd tried to remove the power source
from the wreck. Whimpering now with his arm cradled and his back
against the rocks. The others ignored the injured one utterly;
they were working to get the power source free, with the right
tools this time. Almost immediately, they dismissed his own
presence and ignored him as they ignored the injured one.
And while he was bent, smearing aloe and sala-oil on the crying
little one, he wondered what stray impulse had driven him to
become a healer in his old age. Certainly, he'd done enough
damage to the universe to last two lifetimes, but . . . watching
the flesh heal a little with the little added Force energy he
dared to bring to bear. Something Qui-Gon had taught him maybe,
decades ago, with the hordes of injured animals and sentients
he'd adopted as a matter of course . . .
. . . sala-oil in glass, ringing just inches from his ears
brilliant light just beyond this pool of shade home again to the
hut where he still stored his lightsaber and his Jedi clothes and
Qui . . .
(. . . the dry gardens. Night brilliance pooled on the ceiling
now, coming up from below, the hundreds of levels of the city
glowing in the dark.)
Of all his Jedi abilities, prescience was the one Obi-Wan would
gladly have traded away. Too often, it told him nothing useful,
nothing about chains of events or things that could be changed.
Instead he got fragments like that one, pieces of possible future
lives that haunted him for days after. He'd have to ask Master
Yoda to help him focus better, so that he could draw something
out of his visions besides heaps of images and seconds of
absolute dread.
Fear led to anger, anger led to hate, hate led to suffering, and
suffering in turn might or might not lead to the Dark. Some Jedi
turned, and others simply flowed through suffering as though it
were their natural element. Scattered through the Republic,
there were pockets of Jedi ascetics whose tenets included
suffering as part of the path to the light.
Others, suffering simply broke.
When he pushed up from his knees, he had to brush sand off every
layer of his clothing. The dry gardens were like that. If you
were still enough, long enough, the sand would eventually drift
and coat your every surface.
Obi-Wan reached out for his Master with the Force and found him
in the slightly-other headspace that meant the man was focussed
inward, probably reading. He walked through the Temple towards
that serenity, focussing on it and letting the fragments of his
vision dissolve as he walked.
He couldn't see Qui-Gon, though, when he entered his Master's
rooms. Jinn's presence was a kind of low Force-hum, powerful
enough that he must be nearby, but he didn't appear, and the
moment pushed Obi-Wan instead towards a box of collected trip-
artifacts stored in the bottom of the closet. In a corner of
that box, he found sala oil, poured it into his palms and
massaged it into both his hands, raised them to his face. Sharp
smell, like aloe and cinnamon. When he turned, Qui-Gon was
standing in the bedroom's doorway, watching him.
"What is it, Obi-Wan?"
"Sala oil, Master. I had a vision in the dry gardens. Something
. . . I thought it might be something about the oil."
Instructor voice, "What do you know about it?"
"It's an organic compound, originating in the heart of the sa'al
plant, a moisture-absorber that grows in desert climates on
several Rim worlds. The oil is useful for aromatherapy and burn
treatment, and functions as a kind of herbalist's cure-all in the
absence of more advanced medicine." Pause. He let his mind
brush against the bottle itself, and its small wooden cork,
reading its small history. "You bought this vial from a street
vendor on Faiyaha'al the year before you became my Master."
"Well done, Padawan. If you think the information will assist
you, you may want to research the oil further."
"Thank you, Master. Can I get you anything?"
Jinn rubbed a little at his face, and his breathing hitched as he
stretched. "Much as I hate to ask it of you at this hour, tea
would be wonderful."
Obi-Wan half-bowed from his kneeling position and rose. In the
kitchen, he found the jar of tea leaves and boiled water,
absently wiped down the tea pot and small cups. He'd been taught
how to make tea on his seventh birthday, part of his initiate's
training. In Master A'aren's kitchen, dimly lit, and he'd come
so close to scalding with his arms when he jostled the pot.
After the terror had faded, the silver-skinned Jedi had shown him
how to manage the kettle safely, then how to prepare and present
tea both ceremonially and in the field. He knew how to do this
even in a pot over the smallest fire, when a double-handful of
hot water was the only comfort available.
He rested both hands on the filled pot for a moment, then added
it to the tray with the cups and carried it into the common room.
Set the lot on the low table and knelt at his Master's feet,
poured carefully into one ceramic, handleless cup. He bowed over
it, kissed the edge, and presented it to the older man with both
hands, keeping his eyes down. He could feel Qui-Gon's brief
hesitation, but the man accepted the tea and touched Obi-Wan's
head briefly in thanks. Instead of pouring for himself, though,
Obi-Wan bent double, pressed his lips briefly into the robes
pooled around the Master's feet, touched the skin beneath with
one hand, then returned to an upright kneel.
Some part of him wondered why he felt the need to be so formal.
The rituals of Master and Padawan interaction were virtually
unchanged since the Order had been founded almost twenty thousand
years before, but while the ceremonies of daily life were still
taught, they had largely been abandoned in practice. He'd abased
himself before his Master only a handful of times before, and
those only because he's needed to make personal requests. He
knew what he wanted this time, had known it for weeks, but he
didn't expect he'd have the sheer nerve to ask for it.
Big fingers stroked through his hair. "What is it, Obi-Wan?"
He didn't know how to ask for this anymore. When he was little,
it was enough to just hold out his arms and wait for his chosen
someone to hold him. He had yet to discover what the equivalent
comfort for an adult was. Didn't even know how to voice his
small hurt that he hadn't been granted a hug when he met his
Master's transport.
Qui-Gon inhaled sharply, and the sound made him look up. His
Master had set his teacup aside and bent now to focus better on
his kneeling apprentice. Luminous navy eyes. Enormous hands
tilted his face up so that he couldn't avoid that gaze. A thumb
brushed from his temple down to the corner of his eye, and he
leaned into the caress, too blatantly, too much like begging.
But Qui-Gon only lengthened the stroke so that it ran down the
side of his face and ended with a hand resting on Obi-Wan's
shoulder. Hard grip for a second, and then it pulled him
forward, out of his kneel and up to his Master.
The beginning of the embrace was rough, but the Force-sense of
the other man blanketed him immediately. Obi-Wan's clinging
anxiety, that had been part of his thought process for weeks and
screamingly active since his vision in the dry gardens, settled
finally, and he was able to bury himself in his Master and only
breathe.
"I missed you too, Padawan."
Qui-Gon settled back, pulling Obi-Wan with him, so that Obi-Wan
ended the motion sitting with his legs across his Master's thighs
and his head on his Master's shoulder. One big, warm hand ran
up his back under his tunic and gently rubbed the bare skin.
Massive fingerprints etching themselves into his flesh as he
leaned into that touch.
He eased away, finally, but before he could move out of reach
Qui-Gon tilted his face up and kissed him. Ceremonial touch on
his forehead and both cheeks, and a delicate brush against his
lips that was entirely personal. When he resumed his kneeling
position, he let one hand stay resting on the older man's knee.
Qui-Gon said, "Tell me what you wanted, Obi-Wan."
Long breath. "I would claim my Padawan's right." Tilt of
luminous navy that demanded he elaborate. Blood slid to his
cheeks' surface. What he was asking derived from a custom that
had only been relevant in the first centuries of the Order,
before the construction of the Temples, when Padawan-learners had
simply resided -- or travelled -- with their masters, and rules
had been necessary to ensure that the students were adequately
cared for. "I serve you. I have learned from you and I do love
you. I ask you to grant me the warmth of your bed and your body
for this night."
He stayed kneeling with his head down, needing all the forms of
the ritual to couch his request. He wasn't begging for
protection from the cold, and he was aware that in asking he ran
the risk of suggesting that Qui-Gon did not care for him
adequately.
Softly, "Granted." Qui-Gon bent forward and laid yet another
too-ceremonial kiss just at his hairline, then stood and pulled
him up. Almost-black folds of the robe swept around him for a
moment, then he was standing by himself. "When you are ready to
sleep, you have only to come to me. My bed is yours." The words
were delicately formal, but the crooked smile was familiar. He
bowed a little in response, closing the ritual, and watched Qui-
Gon disappear.
He waited half an hour, centring on a bright stillness before
following. In their bedroom, his pallet was tucked away, and his
Master was sitting cross-legged on the bed's loose sheets,
watching him. Obi-Wan waited in the doorway, just watching,
until the larger man rose. Every scar showing suddenly on the
naked skin. Obi-Wan shrugged out of his own clothes and walked
into the offered embrace. Long hair swept around him as
ethereally as the robe had; it followed the forward dip of his
Master's head as a bearded cheek was laid against his crown. The
hands that had grazed his back earlier simply settled on his
shoulder blades and held him, face to shoulder, genitals to
belly, legs close enough that he couldn't have shifted
significantly without falling.
He was, inevitably, released briefly, and when he was offered
that touch again, it was from a prone position. The bed was open
to him, and his Master rested on his side with an elbow on the
pillow. Reflexively, Obi-Wan bent and retrieved his own from the
folded pallet. For a moment he flinched, realizing he'd stepped
out of the ceremony's borders for a moment, but Qui-Gon only sat
up a little and reached for him. The empty hand brushed his
flank and curled a little to pull him in. The other took the
cushion out of his grip and settled it beside its mate.
Obi-Wan laid down on his side and pushed back a little, settling
into the relaxed curve of his Master's body. Qui-Gon reached
down (such an enormous reach, his arms like branches stretching
across him) and caught the bedspread, pulled it up to chest
level. And simply held him, letting him get used to the constant
Force-flow between them, the close sense of another living body,
the more immediate sensations of body hair and warm flesh against
his back. Only when he relaxed and let his breathing slow, the
touches started.
Fingers brushed him, following the pattern of veins in his body
out from his heart to his extremities, finally grasping his hands
and massaging each finger with a jeweller's care. It was part of
the prescribed behaviour, intended to bring circulation back into
cold-numb fingers, and though it wasn't necessary, it relaxed
him. Qui-Gon stilled eventually into a series of palm-touches,
so that Obi-Wan could feel his body responding as each reflex was
cued. Heart, lungs, sinuses, flash of not-unwelcome sensation
when the pressure focussed his prostate reflex. He was almost
trembling in relaxed pleasure by the time the enormous hands
wrapped around his and crossed over his chest, making a double-
embrace that radiated Qui-Gon's love for him as well as ritual
protection. Instead of pushing his consciousness down, Obi-Wan
surfed on thin Force-ripples that spiralled out from their
connection, letting his attention go.
He didn't have any intention of sleeping through this.