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It is six months after Naboo that Qui-Gon realizes Obi-Wan is gone.
It’s not the quiet of the apartment that causes the realization— Anakin’s tinkering ensures a background of constant clatter— but rather the lack of it. The walls are cast in shades of blue-grey, the last vestiges of the sun that set half an hour ago, and the wind is coming in through the window, cool and fresh. At this time in the evening, the only sounds should be a slight shift across from Qui-Gon and the intermittent tap of a fingertip against a datapad. Instead, the main room is filled with low but unceasing noise, somehow all the emptier for it.
It feels right, almost, except for all the ways that it doesn’t. The past few months have all felt like this— far too loud and far too busy but for the rare moments when they weren’t and an unnatural silence descended, waiting for something that would never happen. But Naboo was, in the end, an altogether unnatural experience, and Qui-Gon had a new padawan to train. He could not afford to spend time wandering from room to room in deep and somewhat laughable meditation on the curious presence of a tangible and unnamable absence.
Qui-Gon looks now to Obi-Wan's customary place on the couch, nestled in the corner between arm and back, one leg tucked under himself with a datapad balanced on his knee. For a long moment, he can’t quite reconcile what he’s seeing. It’s empty, a blanket draped artfully over the side in a way that suggests no one has sat there in a very long while.
There is no Obi-Wan there. There is no Obi-Wan anywhere.
For the first time in many, many months, he looks around the apartment— truly looks, cataloguing all that he sees and holding it up to the image of what should be— and finds curious lacunae. Where there ought to be a picture of Obi-Wan and his friends, an odd thing made out of flimsy that one of them had found a camera for, there is nothing. And next to it, where a book of carefully pressed flowers should sit, is nothing too.
Qui-Gon stands up, going over to the kitchen counter and opening a drawer to find that Obi-Wan's prized mug, a clever piece of pottery that was more cracks than ceramic, gone. So too is the odd citrus-flavored tea that he favored, the one Qui-Gon had continuously claimed (despite Obi-Wan’s protests) tasted like drain cleaner, and the bowl of sea glass that Obi-Wan had rescued from the trash heap last year.
He turns, then, almost frantic, to the floor, searching for the place Obi-Wan had once dropped a heavy pan. The relief that flows through him when he spies the dent makes him reel, and he lowers himself to the floor, back pressed against the cabinets.
There’s a strange urgency building inside him, a need to go over every inch of the apartment, to find everywhere Obi-Wan had touched, every imprint he had left, to reassure himself that he’s not lost his mind. And it should be ridiculous— this was Obi-Wan's apartment as much as it was Qui-Gon's, and signs of his presence should be everywhere— but instead, the only traces of Obi-Wan that Qui-Gon can see are the old dents and cracks, bruises to the walls and floor that could have been made by anyone.
A visceral horror sets in at the wrongness of it all. It is as if the galaxy has screeched to a terrible halt, and begun to turn the other way. And yet— a certain part of him cries out in relief that he has finally noticed, that he now knows why these past few months have felt so impossibly strange.
It’s not that Anakin is come, not that the floor of the room next to Qui-Gon's is littered in droid parts and filled with the omnipresent smell of grease, it’s the absence that has made room for Anakin— an absence that Anakin, with all his exuberant chatter, cannot fill. Obi-Wan is gone, and worse, Qui-Gon doesn’t know when it happened.
Someone must have come to remove Obi-Wan's things, someone who knew him well enough to take everything, quickly and quietly, without leaving a trace. But Obi-Wan is private, too private to give anyone else leave to go rifling through his things. Qui-Gon cannot imagine it was anyone but him. But he hadn’t even left a note.
That’s wrong too, Qui-Gon realizes. Obi-Wan should have stopped by, should have commed, should have done something. Even when they were separated for a month or two, for Obi-Wan's exams, or a trial mission, Obi-Wan had never hesitated to call, or send a message, or on one memorable occasion, a picture of a badly-translated and worse-written epitaph for a tourist attraction that claimed to be the site of a great Jedi’s death. Is it different, now that Obi-Wan is knighted? Did their friendship have an expiration date that only one of them could see?
The light clicks on in Anakin’s room, the doorway’s outline illuminating the floor around it with soft yellow light, and Qui-Gon looks up to find the apartment dark, struck by the hollowness in his chest. It is one thing to become lonely, he thinks, it is another to realize that it has made its way inside you slowly without your noticing and taken up space where other things should be.
He sighs, then grimaces, and stands up to turn the lights on. He’s becoming maudlin, something he’s avoided successfully for many years and intends to for many more. If Obi-Wan were here, he’d likely have something to say about Qui-Gon's tendencies towards melodrama, and perhaps a comment or two on the Coruscant Opera looking for new tragic heroes to monologue weepily on the floor. There’s another pang in his chest at the thought of Obi-Wan, and he very carefully sets the rest of that thought aside.
Qui-Gon finds the datapad he had discarded and pulls up the temple registry. What he’s about to do is not technically legal, nor particularly ethical, but the alternative is comming Obi-Wan, and if he has learned anything from their partnership, it’s that Obi-Wan is never, ever, to be given advance warning if one wants to get something out of him.
The backdoor Tahl made years ago to keep an eye on Qui-Gon himself is still there, and he uses it to slip in, pulling up the list of knights on assignment. Qui-Gon frowns. Obi-Wan isn’t there. He is, though, on the list of knights on Coruscant.
A pit forms in Qui-Gon's stomach. This is proof, incontestable, that something is amiss. Obi-Wan isn’t forgetful, nor is he impolite. Even if Qui-Gon is mistaken, even if whatever trust between them was the product of an apprenticeship and dissolved instantaneously with the cutting of Obi-Wan's braid about their relationship, even if they aren't friends— Obi-Wan would have at least said hello.
The apartment number is easy to find as well (so long as one is possessed of what was once politely referred to as a complete and immutable disregard for rules) and Qui-Gon notes it down. He has never been in the habit of letting things lie. He doesn’t intend to start now.
Qui-Gon is on the verge of leaving immediately, the months of waiting he hadn’t even known he was doing coalescing into an urgency that tugs on his bones. Now that he knows what is lacking, it feels impossible for it not to absorb him, nagging him like a boot left untied.
But a crash sounds from Anakin’s room, and Qui-Gon is reminded that he has an obligation to more than his impatience, more than the strange, frantic, desire that comes with every breath.
He steps away from the door, and turns towards Anakin.
Four Years Before Naboo
“Was it two days that you spent lost in the woods, or three?”
Qui-Gon looked across the cabin to where Obi-Wan was writing a report, legs tucked under himself with the datapad balanced on his lap. “I wasn’t lost.”
Obi-Wan hummed in agreement. “If you tell me what you were up to out there, I’ll write that in instead.”
“Are you really attempting to blackmail me into divulging my story using the mission report?”
Obi-Wan looked up, amused. “Are you really attempting to distract me by questioning my methods?”
Qui-Gon blinked. In truth, of course, he had been lost. A simple negotiation of woodcutting rights had turned nasty, the sector’s resource extraction group utilizing weapons to which they most certainly should not have had access to drive off the native protesters. Qui-Gon had escaped into the woods with many of the natives, initially ferrying them to safety, and later, while trying to return, getting lost. When he had emerged three days later, he found that Obi-Wan had nearly finished with the negotiations. All that had been left for Qui-Gon to do was to sign off on it.
“I was kidnapped.”
Obi-Wan’s amused look dropped. “By whom?”
“Drop bears,” Qui-Gon replied promptly. “Indigenous, not sentient, extremely dangerous. They’re remarkably agile in the tops of trees, and they drop down to capture their prey. I was caught entirely unawares.”
Obi-Wan frowned, and then, slowly, a look of dawning amusement came into his eyes. “You’re lying to me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Padawan.”
“Of course, Master.” Obi-Wan looked back down to the datapad, smirk barely concealed. “I’ll add drop bears to the report, then?”
“Of course,” Qui-Gon said mildly, before dropping the pretense a moment later. “I hadn’t realized I was becoming so...”
“Disingenuous?” Obi-Wan suggested innocently.
“I was going to say unsubtle.”
At this, Obi-Wan looked up, surprised. “You’re an excellent liar.”
“I do not lie,” he said on principle, then frowned. “Though evidently not.
“Manipulator of truths,” Obi-Wan amended, unrepentant, “and I’m sure your story would have worked on anyone else.”
Qui-Gon arched a brow. “It simply didn’t work on you.”
“I know you too well.” Obi-Wan looked back at the datapad, scrolling carefully down with one finger and filling in a blank.
“Do you?”
“Try the drop bears with the first master we come across.” Obi-Wan stopped typing, thoughtful. “Perhaps not Master Yoda.”
“Perhaps not,” Qui-Gon murmured. “He was, after all, the one who taught me that trick.”
“Was he?”
Qui-Gon resisted the urge to do anything undignified, like snort, or anything more undignified, like snicker uncontrollably. “I saw him use it on my master when I was ten.”
“Oh no,” Obi-Wan said, the horror of his words undermined by the delight in his face.
“Quite,” Qui-Gon agreed, entirely insincere. “I’m not sure he ever figured it out.”
“And you did?”
“Not at all.” A smile tugged at the corners of Qui-Gon's mouth. “I thought they were an obscure life form, and I went to look them up. Master Yoda caught me and explained the entire thing.”
“And you never told your Master?” Obi-Wan looked halfway between scandalized and impressed.
Qui-Gon shrugged. “I nearly did. Eventually I decided not telling him was fitting revenge for all the times he had refused to help me find the answers to those obscure legal quizzes Master Lekfo used to set.” He frowned. “Master Yoda seemed disappointed when he found out. I think he expected me to tell him.”
“Well, you certainly can’t try it on him, then.” Obi-Wan looked back up, eyes bright as he smiled, and Qui-Gon felt the ship freeze for a moment, tilting on its axis and sending his sense of equilibrium rolling.
Six Months After Naboo
It takes more than a few days for him to find Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon is woken by Anakin’s frantic scramble to finish the work he had due that morning, the beginnings of a meltdown starting to shake the walls as Anakin stares at the papers and knows he will not have it done before he needs to turn it in. Qui-Gon coaches him through the reading— still a challenge, though Anakin’s Aurebesh has much improved from the slow sounding-out that had plagued him at the beginning— and has him submit the math and engineering that he’d done on his own. The writing, he knows, is a lost cause. Qui-Gon calms Anakin through the tears that follow that realization, and sends him to class. By then, Qui-Gon has one of his own advanced saber courses to teach, and so follows a progression of obligations so closely connected that Qui-Gon barely has time to breathe. Still, the thought of Obi-Wan is forever in back of his mind, and he cannot stop poking at it like the empty space where a tooth used to be.
When he does finally find the time to see him, it is early morning, the pale sunlight streaming through the windows as the blue of the sky deepens, the shadows in the temple lessening with each passing moment.
He knows it might be too much to hope for that Obi-Wan is at home. He is a new knight with many friends, after all; there’s no guarantee he’s not still out, doing whatever it is twenty-somethings do when finally granted true independence.
It’s almost a surprise, then, when Obi-Wan opens the door, barefoot and clad only in his undertunic.
Qui-Gon meant to say a calm hello, maintaining the sort of relaxed air of control that has always served to smooth down rough edges, but Obi-Wan is so much changed already that all his plans fly out the window.
Obi-Wan looks older, a new neatly trimmed beard diminishing the youthfulness of his face. His hair has grown longer, too, bangs sweeping over his forehead sleekly with the sides trimmed short. There’s always been something ancient in Obi-Wan’s eyes, a sort of far-awayness that reminds Qui-Gon of the venerable masters at the temple, but no longer is it belied by childlike lines of his face, nor the choppy nature of a padawan’s hair. Obi-Wan, in short, looks like a stranger.
“You have a beard,” he manages at last.
“Yes,” Obi-Wan replies after a second, the tense lines of his body not relaxing even as his face smoothes out, “No one would listen to me otherwise. I look too young.”
“It suits you,” Qui-Gon replies after a moment, and it does. It makes Obi-Wan look very handsome and very wise, for all that it also makes him look nothing like the man Qui-Gon had been expecting. “Though I expect it’s much harder for you to claim innocence when caught somewhere you shouldn’t be.”
“I expect it helps that I do less of that, now.” Obi-Wan pauses, and then, suave and utterly ingenuine, “Would you care to come in?”
It looks as if Obi-Wan is expecting him to say no— it looks as if Obi-Wan wants him to— but Qui-Gon has never been above taking advantage of social niceties to get what he needs.
“Yes,” he replies brightly, and steps inside quickly as Obi-Wan turns to let him in.
The apartment is small and sparsely decorated but for the few scattered items that must have been given to Obi-Wan by his friends— a watercolor of a favored bench in the gardens, a hand-carved bowl that looks to be made of real wood, and a light colored blanket tossed over one of the few chairs. It feels staged, almost— too scant and untouched to be anything but a show.
It does not give Qui-Gon pleasure to see that Obi-Wan is not yet settled in, not yet comfortable or content. And yet, the fact that Obi-Wan has not managed to make a home without him yet brings him some measure of relief. The apartment they shared was theirs— a home and a shared life, if one with an inevitable end, and that Obi-Wan has not been able to abandon him so quickly, that he has at least some of the significance in Obi-Wan's life that Obi-Wan has in his— it is a comfort.
“Would you like anything to drink?”
Obi-Wan turns towards the cupboard, perfectly gracious and welcoming, but there’s not a hint of any other emotion— no tinge of mirth, or exhaustion, or familiarity. Qui-Gon knows this mask, has seen Obi-Wan use it on politicians countless times, but having that falsely warm politeness turned on him is altogether novel, and altogether jarring. It feels wrong, all parts of him rebelling at the facsimile of the Obi-Wan before him.
“I have some tea,” Obi-Wan offers with that same even friendliness, “and a bottle of istrelt.”
Qui-Gon blinks, then frowns. “You hate Mirialan spirits.”
“It was a joke gift. A bad one.” There’s a grimace in Obi-Wan's voice, one Qui-Gon knows should be accompanied by a wrinkle between his brows, but when he turns back, there’s nothing but the same shallow geniality.
“Ah,” Qui-Gon replies, at a loss. “Some tea, then. Jasmine if you have it.”
“Of course.” Obi-Wan sets the kettle to boil, leaving them both in silence.
“Where have you been?”
Obi-Wan doesn’t even glance back, and Qui-Gon cannot quite shake the feeling that it is not his Obi-Wan that stands before him. “The mid rim, for the most part.”
“And the missions?”
“Nothing too taxing, thank you for asking.”
Qui-Gon is used to starting conversations with surly partners, drawing them out of their shell, but this— this is not a surly conversation partner, this is a charade. If Obi-Wan will not even allow himself to be drawn into a conversation where he might be asked questions he does not want to answer, Qui-Gon will ask him those difficult questions without a conversation to ease their way.
“I have missed you,” he says. “It hasn’t been the same without you.”
“I’m sure things will feel more normal after you return to the mission roster.” Obi-Wan's tone is light— too light. “You never were good at staying still.”
“Obi-Wan—”
“Why did you come here,” Obi-Wan asks, the flatness of earlier now overwhelming as his hands grip the counter, white-knuckled.
“I haven’t seen you in months.”
“I know.”
Qui-Gon lets out a quiet, careful, breath. “Why?”
“What do you want me to say?” There’s a hint of rawness in Obi-Wan's voice, and though Qui-Gon rejoices at the loss of Obi-Wan's complete equanimity, a part of him feels too sharply that he is the cause of it.
“I don’t know,” Qui-Gon says quietly, lost. He has never had to reach out to Obi-Wan— not like this, not when Obi-Wan would always find him first. “All I know is that I woke up one day, and you were gone.”
“I was knighted. You were there.”
And Qui-Gon was. He cut the braid and pressed it into Obi-Wan's hand himself, the Council looking on from the sides of the Naboo hall, an interlude between the endless meetings, the debriefings where they were each forced to recount every moment in exact detail over and over. The hall was beautiful, at least, with the late summer sun streaming through the windows, the scent of sweetgrass on the air, but it was not the Temple. Qui-Gon was desperate, then, that he take Anakin as a padawan before the Council could change their mind, and he had demanded Obi-Wan's knighting be held right then and there. At the time, Obi-Wan had agreed, but Qui-Gon now remembers that Obi-Wan had not met his eyes as he’d done so. That was the last time he had spoken to Obi-Wan, the last words he heard before Qui-Gon had come to his door— a soft thanks as he took the braid, and a bow, and then Obi-Wan was gone, cloak disappearing around the corner as Qui-Gon took Anakin as his padawan.
“You left,” Qui-Gon says finally, “with barely a word.”
“You know my comm code,” Obi-Wan replies, and it’s meant to be light, but there is a bitter edge to it— one Obi-Wan clearly hadn’t wanted there, judging by the way he tenses after he says it, waiting for the blow.
“I—” Qui-Gon starts, meaning to finish with how busy he’s been, but he knows that that, at least is a flimsy excuse in place of the truth— he had been so unable to grasp the concept of Obi-Wan leaving that once it had happened, he could not even begin to articulate what was wrong.
But he has hurt Obi-Wan— without intention, without malice, but hurt him all the same.
“I am— I am glad,” Obi-Wan says, once it is clear Qui-Gon has nothing more to say, “that you have come to see me.” Qui-Gon can hear the iron control in his voice, but Obi-Wan is not a good enough liar to hide the wound beneath it, “but please feel no need to justify your absence to me. I am not so fragile that a simple truth of life will break me. You trained me better than that.”
It is a harsh, cruel, thing, to know that he has caused this pain. It steals his breath away, leaving a gaping absence in his chest, a tightness beyond pain as his lungs cry out for air. It is not Obi-Wan who has left him, it is he who has left Obi-Wan, and left him to this emptiness. If Qui-Gon has felt Obi-Wan's absence in the rare still moments, Obi-Wan must have felt Qui-Gon's all the time— and worse, Obi-Wan had known all along what the cause of it was, and thought there was nothing to be done.
“I have no excuse,” Qui-Gon says, though there is nothing he can say, nothing that can face the jagged edge of Obi-Wan’s voice, “but please— know that I have felt your absence keenly. I— I am sorry.”
There’s no response from Obi-Wan, nothing but the same stubborn shadow in his face, a mask held together to the end. Qui-Gon turns towards the door, and thinking on it, he cannot help but take a grim, awful satisfaction in the fact that their two sunderings now mirror each other, each ending with a soft goodbyex and the other looking away.
And then, of all things, the kettle whistles, and Qui-Gon turns around. Obi-Wan takes it off the stove by rote, switching the burner off, and then looks up, mouth half open as if to ask if Qui-Gon will finally be giving up on adding sugar to his tea.
Qui-Gon stands there awkwardly as Obi-Wan meets his eyes, and it suddenly seems so terrible he cannot stand it that he should never have this again, that there must be one million things left unsaid between them for as long as they both live.
“You should have been knighted before Naboo,” he blurts, the words welling up before he can think them through. “You should have been knighted long before Naboo— before any of this should have been a problem. I was not ready to let you go.”
Obi-Wan goes still— not an unnatural, forced stillness, but one of a moment before action, when the mind races and the body holds.
“Even before Anakin I was thinking of taking a new padawan,” Qui-Gon adds, wild and frantic. “I didn’t know how I should cope without your presence and I thought— perhaps a new padawan would help me manage. And now that I have a new padawan I have found that he cannot distract me for long.”
“I—” Obi-Wan’s breath catches. “Why are you telling me this only now?”
“Because— I fear I will lose you entirely either way.” Qui-Gon runs his fingers through his hair, too agitated to stop himself. “For so long I avoided talking about it for fear that you would want to leave, but now you have left, and I never told you, so it has all come to nothing.” He sighs. “You were ready. You were ready long ago.”
Obi-Wan pauses, looking at Qui-Gon with strange, serious eyes. “I know.”
“You— what?”
“I know,” Obi-Wan repeats. “I’ve known for a long while.”
Qui-Gon gapes.
“I knew I was ready. Or— I hoped, at least. I thought I was. So I began to think that you just wanted me around— wanted to keep our partnership a little longer before I set off on my own.”
“You—”
“Knew, yes.” Obi-Wan doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile even, but there’s a hint of softening around his eyes. “I can’t say it didn’t bother me, but I thought— well, I didn’t mind staying with you, even if it meant I couldn’t be knighted.” He turns away slightly, head dipping as if ashamed. “But then Naboo happened, and it seemed that you had finally grown tired of my company.”
“I never intended—”
Obi-Wan’s head darts up, hurt smoldering in his eyes, not overwhelming, not even beginning to consume him, but there in a way impossible to escape from. “You didn’t even give me a warning. Not before, and not after. Yours was the only opinion I cared for, and not only did you deny me the respect of telling me your plans, you made it seem like you only thought I should be knighted so you could take Anakin on.” He lets out a bitter huff. “Does it really surprise you that I thought you didn’t want to see me? Does it really surprise you that I didn’t want to see you?”
“I—” Qui-Gon begins. “I thought—“
“No,” Obi-Wan replies harshly, “you didn’t. You never do.”
There’s a long pause, and Obi-Wan sighs.
“I didn’t mean that. I just— you assume that everyone knows what you mean without you having to say it. And for so long, I thought I could see through you well enough that it didn’t matter. But now—” Obi-Wan’s mouth tightens. “I’m ashamed I had pride enough to think so.”
“I’m sorry,” Qui-Gon says, low and guilty.
Obi-Wan sighs, the anger in his eyes fading, leaving only the hurt, and for the first time Qui-Gon notices how very tired he looks, an exhaustion beyond the body.
“I did not always,” Qui-Gon begins, slowly and carefully, looking down at his hands, “hold you in the highest esteem.” He looks up at Obi-Wan. “But for years, Obi-Wan, I have thought only the best of you. You should have been knighted when you were twenty-two, at the very latest. I wish I had told you that before.”
Again, there’s a softening of the tension in Obi-Wan, the lines of his body relaxing into something closer to what Qui-Gon remembers, a little less like the stiffness Obi-Wan reserves for strangers.
“I cannot undo what harm I caused,” Qui-Gon adds, “but I miss you, Obi-Wan. I would have us be friends again, if you are willing.”
Obi-Wan’s hands come to rest on the back of the chair. “I would like that,” he says, and there’s a strangeness in his expression that Qui-Gon cannot place, something deeper and more wonderful than Qui-Gon knows he will ever be entitled to. This isn’t new— Obi-Wan has always been a mystery to him underneath the familiarity— but for the first time Qui-Gon feels a strange sense of disappointment at that.
It is a strange and cruel thing, he knows, that he is only realizing how much he wants of Obi-Wan now that he is entitled to none of it.
Three Years Before Naboo
When Obi-Wan had said he was spending time with friends, Qui-Gon had quite naturally understood this to be the same sort of going out that padawans usually engaged in: harmless pranks, a little drinking, perhaps even an ill-advised (if discreet) encounter in a dark corner or two— nothing that might take him out of the district, or even out of the Temple.
Spending time with friends, Qui-Gon was beginning to realize, may have come to mean something very different in the time since he was a padawan.
Technically speaking, Obi-Wan was fully clothed. But Qui-Gon was well versed in technicalities. The case before him only reinforced the long-held belief that they were occasionally useful, often irritating, and, at times, deeply unnerving.
“Well?” Obi-Wan cocked his head, a not unkind smile pulling at the edges of his lips, as if he could hear exactly what Qui-Gon was thinking.
“I didn’t realize you knew how to apply eyeliner,” Qui-Gon managed, impressed with himself for keeping such a mild tone.
It shouldn’t have been such a shock, really. Obi-Wan was twenty-one. Most non-Jedi his age likely would have worn the same sorts of things when they went to whatever club was now popular among the young people of Coruscant. And Qui-Gon certainly had no problem with Obi-Wan dressing like that. He was perfectly within his rights to wear whatever he’d like in his free time.
Obi-Wan gave Qui-Gon a perplexed look before blinking slowly, as if amused— and even slightly satisfied— by what he’d found. “Siri makes me do hers. She says I’m better at wings.”
“Ah,” Qui-Gon said, and looked very determinedly back down at the article he’d been reading before Obi-Wan had distracted him. He had always firmly believed that there was no shame in tactical retreats, especially when one could feel the conversation rapidly escaping from their tenuous grasp.
Obi-Wan's amusement became palpable as Qui-Gon attempted to begin the next paragraph, and not for the first time Qui-Gon wondered when he started to lose the upper hand in their conversations.
“It’s likely I won’t be back until tomorrow.”
Qui-Gon murmured a vague assent, the letters in front of him refusing to form words.
“I’m surprised,” Obi-Wan said after a moment. “I thought you’d be more excited at the prospect of a quiet night in by yourself.”
“I am,” Qui-Gon replied, though the truth of it was that his quiet night in would now likely involve far more meditation than he’d had planned in an attempt to figure out what, exactly, had shocked him like this.
Obi-Wan hummed skeptically, but didn’t press the issue, and Qui-Gon heard him settle against the edge of the couch, only a foot away.
“You haven’t been out in a while,” Qui-Gon added, a justification that sounded weak even to his own ears. “I’m used to having you around.”
“Yes, well, I thought I’d spare you the raucous misconduct bound to follow twenty-somethings.” Obi-Wan paused. “You know, horrible drunkenness and the like.”
“Be still my glorious heart,” Qui-Gon deadpanned, chancing a glance up at Obi-Wan to see him grinning. “What shall I do with such a wonderous gift.”
Obi-Wan snorted. “Does my courtesy not surprise you? I seem to remember you saying something about common decency being in short supply these days.”
“I believe I was referring to Master Yoda sending us to Tryall-7 without having the decency to warn us about the insects, not to sparing me a firsthand view of the drunken exploits of your friends.”
“The principal applies,” Obi-Wan countered, and shifted towards Qui-Gon, close enough that he could smell him— the scent of Obi-Wan underlying the soap they both used. “Besides, Master,” Obi-Wan continued, “I’m giving you the greatest gift possible— even better than a quiet night in without a padawan.”
Qui-Gon felt oddly off-balance. He must not have been used to Obi-Wan leaning over him, to have to look up into his brilliant blue eyes. “And what is that?”
Obi-Wan pulled away, barely pressing back what promised to be a wicked smirk. Though Qui-Gon breathed a little easier at the new distance between them, looking at Obi-Wan, he felt strange. It’s odd, he thought, to see a padawan grow up. Qui-Gon hadn’t even realized Obi-Wan was capable of such a look, let alone of turning it on his master.
Obi-Wan tilted his head and let the smirk break through, stunning Qui-Gon all over again with the sheer force of it all. “Plausible deniability.”
Three Years After Naboo
“Hello there.”
Qui-Gon turns from the window to see a familiar figure, tired and travel-worn, standing in the doorway. “Obi-Wan?”
Obi-Wan lets out a tired huff, half-smiling. “I take it they didn’t tell you who was coming?”
“No, I— well, I can’t say I’m disappointed.” Qui-Gon blinks, regaining his wits. “Come in.”
Obi-Wan steps inside gratefully, letting the door shut behind him.
The rooms Qui-Gon was given are big enough for far more than two people, though it had been at least two people that the government was expecting— an old tradition from its founders, a holdout that hadn’t disappeared even with the increasing exchange with the Republic. This fact, unfortunately, had not been elaborated on by the ones who had requested aid, nor had it been stored in any report on the planet the Order had access to. When Qui-Gon arrived to begin negotiations, he was met first with disbelief, and then the beginnings of offense when he failed to produce a partner, at which point the negotiations had been stalled until he could find one. He had called the temple soon after, and though he hadn’t been irate when he’d called, he was by the end of it. (Temple dispatch had a long history of being a famed nightmare of hold music that would cheerfully drive the caller insane. Unfortunately, Qui-Gon's call lived up to its reputation.) It took two hours for him to get ahold of someone, and two minutes for them to send out a message to everyone in his sector asking for assistance. It did not help his temper. Obi-Wan's arrival, on the other hand...
“I admit,” Obi-Wan says, following Qui-Gon to the second bedroom, “I was surprised to hear that it was you who needed a second— is Anakin not along?”
Qui-Gon winces before he can think the better of it. “It was decided that he should have some... additional in-temple training after the situation on Uuaok.”
There’s a distinct pause as Obi-Wan digests that information. “I hadn’t realized that was you.”
Qui-Gon sighs. “You heard of it?”
“I think most people have, at this point,” Obi-Wan replies, though he doesn’t sound unsympathetic. “Major shipyard explosions and a civil war tend to garner attention.” He sets his bag down by the bed, walking over to one of the three windows and drawing the heavy purple curtains open to reveal a glittering seascape. “Oh,” he breathes.
Qui-Gon softens, then, the memory of Uuaok forgotten as he joins Obi-Wan.
Stretching all the way to the horizon is an amber expanse, glowing with waves of gentle light. Far away and far above it is a weak, old sun, a candle to the light that fills the room in swirls against the wall, cast up from the depths.
Obi-Wan turns, the light of the ocean bouncing off his hair, changing copper to flame, and in the soft, endless light, his eyes glow an impossible blue-green. There’s a gentle, wonderous smile on his face, and Qui-Gon's heart jumps into his throat, momentarily struck dumb.
“It’s beautiful,” Obi-Wan says, voice rough.
“Yes,” Qui-Gon agrees, though he knows very well that he’s no longer talking about the sea. “It is.”
Obi-Wan turns back to the window, and the spell lifts a little, the impossible bewitchment undone as his gaze moves back outside, but Qui-Gon's heart still beats faster and he knows— this is a discovery never to be undone.
That Obi-Wan is beautiful is a fact long established in the abstract— one would have to be a fool with a blindfold to keep from seeing how the galaxy reacts to him— but this? This is new. This is not extrapolation born of inevitable observation, this is a strange feeling in his chest, an unutterable welling up of emotion, an impossible fullness and tightness all at once. Obi-Wan is beautiful, yes, but now it is no longer something Qui-Gon can ignore.
“You’ve always had a knack for finding marvelous places,” Obi-Wan murmurs, an amazed half-smile still on his lips, and even as Qui-Gon is struck once again he can feel the bell tolling. This is a threshold that he crossed without knowing, and he is sure, as he is sure of one thousand other fundamental things, that he cannot go back.
“Luck,” Qui-Gon manages, far too late and far too quiet, and Obi-Wan turns back to look at him, brow quirked.
“Luck?”
“Providence,” Qui-Gon amends, and it is only the decades of training that make him able to look away, to return to the flow of the conversation without betraying himself entirely.
Obi-Wan hums in agreement. “Fortune, there is not. Only the Force.”
“Perhaps I should be grateful that you’re not in possession of a stick with which to whack my ankles.”
“I can go find one, if you’d like.”
Obi-Wan smiles an impish smile, something Qui-Gon has seen countless times before, but here, in the light of the amber sea, with his world slowly turning upside down, it strikes him right between the ribs, straight through his heart, and he realizes something much, much, more dangerous than that Obi-Wan is beautiful—
Qui-Gon is in love with him.
It is a strange, perilous thing to realize, all the more alluring for the impossibility of his escape. The earth has not shifted beneath his feet, the galaxy does not spin differently— not as it had when Obi-Wan was gone. There is no change except that he knows. And if that is true— if the only change is him— then he has been in love with Obi-Wan for a long, long time.
“Qui-Gon?” Obi-Wan asks, concerned, and with Obi-Wan's eyes staring straight through him Qui-Gon doesn’t know how he will be able to hide this. He is a skilled liar, an excellent actor, but Obi-Wan knows him too well, and this is no fleeting fancy, no momentary desire to be overcome. This is a part of him, as inextricable as his lungs, and he cannot hide who he is for long— not from Obi-Wan.
“It’s nothing,” Qui-Gon replies, voice rough, and he knows the jig is up.
Obi-Wan's eyes flash with razor sharp intelligence. He is too familiar with Qui-Gon to think that whatever secret has been discovered here will be revealed in time; he is too familiar with Qui-Gon to think that there is any recourse but to pull it out of him here before it calcifies beneath a mask. Once, Obi-Wan might have waited, might have let Qui-Gon keep a secret that so obviously concerned him, but that time is long since passed.
“You know I’ll end up figuring it out,” Obi-Wan says.
A fear seizes Qui-Gon. Whatever damage to their relationship will be done by his admission, it will be ten times worse if Obi-Wan is left to discover it on his own. If Qui-Gon is to leave them in tatters, he will at least do it without Obi-Wan thinking him cowardly and desperate, a man so ignominious that he would cling to someone who did not know to refuse him in order to satisfy his own desires.
“I’m sorry,” Qui-Gon begins, hushed and horrified.
Then, of all things, Obi-Wan pales. “For what?”
Qui-Gon blinks. Obi-Wan is scared— not worried, not concerned, but scared. He thinks he knows what is coming; he thinks it will be terrible. What secret does Obi-Wan carry, Qui-Gon wonders, that could be terrible enough to evoke this reaction?
“I—” Qui-Gon lets out a long, slow, controlled breath, steadying himself for the blow to come. A rejection he will be able to endure— he will have to; there is no other way this ends. But a true rending? A split from which they emerge parted forever? Qui-Gon does not know how intact he will be if he must survive that. “I’m sorry, Obi-Wan. I am in love with you.”
Obi-Wan freezes. “You— what?”
Qui-Gon opens his mouth, but he cannot say it again— cannot face the censure that is coming.
Obi-Wan breathes out, then, a long slow breath in the stillness of the room. “You said—”
Qui-Gon closes his eyes, and speaks, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m in love with you.”
There’s a flash of emotion from Obi-Wan, a terror-hope-delight strong enough to break through Obi-Wan's iron control, and underneath it something deeper, more terrifying— love, like a river through Obi-Wan's thoughts, roaring and beautiful. Qui-Gon opens his eyes to see Obi-Wan watching him, eyes wide and color returned to his face.
“You—” Qui-Gon says, that same terror-hope-delight now flooding through him.
“I’m in love with you too,” Obi-Wan breathes.
Qui-Gon reaches towards him, cupping Obi-Wan's jaw and running his thumb over his cheekbone with wonder. Obi-Wan looks up at him, and then, impossibly slow, reaches up to slot their mouths together.
Years ago, during those terrible few months, Qui-Gon had felt as if the galaxy was wrong, everything a half-step out of sync. Now, he feels it slip into alignment, the rightness of it settling deep in his bones. This is how they are meant to fit together, slipping in so neatly beside each other that there can be no doubt.
It is a humbling thing to know that this is what he has been looking for all along. This is the shape of them together, the place Obi-Wan should fill with him, their presences intermingled, tangled as they move against each other in a seamless dance.
Qui-Gon knows, as he has never known anything else, that this is his place, that this is his home— the sweet, slow push and pull of him and Obi-Wan, a perfect ebb and flow.
“Well,” Obi-Wan says, falling back with a breath as his eyes flutter open, “that was... something.”
A slow curl of amusement winds its way through Qui-Gon. “Encouraging,” he says dryly, and Obi-Wan snorts softly.
“I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re attempting to willfully misunderstand me even now.”
“I’ll alter my ways for no man,” Qui-Gon says, though his tone is soft enough to belie any bite.
Obi-Wan bites back a smile. “Of course not.” He frowns, then, and gives Qui-Gon a curious look. “Why now? What changed?”
Qui-Gon pauses, brow furrowed. “I don’t know. You were standing there, and you were beautiful, and I just— knew, as if I had known it all along.”
“Wait a second,” Obi-Wan says, indignant and slightly amused, “do you mean to say that you figured it out just now?”
“How long have you known?” Qui-Gon replies.
Obi-Wan lets him have his deflection, too astounded to do anything but. “I— Years.”
“Years?” Qui-Gon repeats, hushed. “Why did you never say?”
Obi-Wan closes his eyes, leaning into the hand cupping his cheek. “I knew you cared for me. I knew you thought well of me. It was enough.”
Qui-Gon thinks back to the surge of emotion he’d felt in the second before Obi-Wan had gained control of himself again, the river of love that lay beneath all his thoughts, beautiful and fathomless.
“It had to be enough,” Obi-Wan adds softly, eyes fluttering open.
“You’re a much better liar than I.”
Obi-Wan quirks an eyebrow. “I’m really not. You’re just spectacularly easy to get things by when you’ve decided you know what’s going on.”
“Years,” Qui-Gon repeats, astounded, and then the chilling realization sets in. “How many?”
“Eight.”
Qui-Gon freezes, hand flinching away from Obi-Wan's cheek. “You were a padawan.”
Obi-Wan gives him a scathing look, glaring up at him with full force. “By your own admission, I could have been knighted.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you were a padawan— my padawan.” They are standing too close, suddenly, but Qui-Gon's feet are glued to the floor.
“That was the other reason I never told you.” Obi-Wan huffs. “I knew that you would be having a crisis in short order.”
“How can you make light of this?” Qui-Gon demands, lowering his hand from Obi-Wan's cheek altogether. “How can you make light of this situation? I was your Master! Does that not give you pause? I— kriff, Obi-Wan I had power over you for twelve years!”
Obi-Wan throws his hands up in the air. “Because you didn’t take advantage! Because I was there! I watched you! Don’t you think I would have noticed?” He huffs. “You had no idea you had feelings for me until a minute ago! How could you have taken advantage?!”
“I could have accidentally—”
“If it was an accident then it wouldn’t have been you taking advantage!” Obi-Wan glares up at him, skin almost golden in the light, and Qui-Gon is reminded nothing so much as a predator he had seen once on an unnamed moon— a strong, tawny thing, made up of whipcord muscle and a dangerous mouth. “Furthermore, do you think me so unobservant, so oblivious as to be incapable even now of recollecting your behavior and drawing appropriate conclusions? And what of yourself? Are you truly so insensitive of your defects as to ignore the lecherous behavior that you now claim was there are along?” Obi-Wan's eyes burn blue, not furious, but fervent, though were Qui-Gon not pinned under their gaze, he might be able to appreciate them more. “You are a foolish, stubborn, insufferable man, but one thing you are not is ignorant of your own faults.”
Qui-Gon blinks, then blinks again, because if this is Obi-Wan— clever and beautiful, earnest and caring— he wonders how it has taken so long for him to realize he has been in love. Obi-Wan, his Obi-Wan, has had a core of steel since the beginning, and that has not changed, but the rest of it— the furor, the competence, the silver tongue with an edge— that is new.
Obi-Wan meets his gaze head on, not turning from it, waiting whatever challenge will come to meet him. Perhaps, Qui-Gon realizes with dawning certainty, it is not that any of this is new, but that it has never been turned on him before— not like this.
“What would you have me say?” Qui-Gon breathes, not an admission nor a defense, but a genuine question.
Obi-Wan relaxes, and the image of the predator slips from Qui-Gon's mind, consumed by the wry half-smile that has appeared on Obi-Wan's face. “Well, ideally a signed and notarized confession that I’m right, but I’ll take a ‘Thank you, Obi-Wan, for bringing to my attention all the ways that I was being a kriffing idiot.’”
Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow, to which Obi-Wan cocks his head in challenge, and Qui-Gon is forcibly reminded that that move hasn’t worked since Obi-Wan was seventeen.
“I don’t concede that you were entirely right,” Qui-Gon says, giving in, “but I will admit to the idiot part.”
“You never concede to anything,” Obi-Wan says, smirk not entirely hidden, “so I’ll take that as a victory.”
Perhaps it’s inappropriate that that piece of smugness should be so very attractive, but Qui-Gon has never claimed propriety, and the flush that graces Obi-Wan's cheeks when he voices the thought makes it well worth it.
“You,” Obi-Wan mutters, “are incorrigible.”
Qui-Gon doesn’t deny it— he can’t— so he resorts to the only recourse, which shuts Obi-Wan up quite nicely.
“Oh, be quiet,” Obi-Wan says as he pulls away, as if he can hear what Qui-Gon is thinking. But then Obi-Wan, beautiful and shameless, is kissing him again, and Qui-Gon can’t be bothered to muster up a reply— not when all feels so right.