Chapter Text
Xanatos Du Crion wants to eat Obi-Wan Kenobi alive.
It was only fair and right that he did. He had not forgotten the jedi teachings of balance and justice and that is why he knew so completely that he had to destroy the boy and everything he stood for.
It was not a matter of jealousy, of course not, what did he have to envy from a pathetic jedi brat? If anything he had helped Obi-Wan Kenobi so far and given him a life by bringing him together with their dear master. So no, he was not envious of the place he had been stifled under. No, this was about what is just.
Qui-Gon Jinn had taken a father from him so he needed to take something in return.
A padawan was not a son though, Xanatos reminded himself bitterly, certainly not a padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn.
Ever ambitious, Xanatos needed to make sure retribution would be fair. There would be no score to settle once he was finished with his master. He would get what he was owed and his master and his new shiny padawan and the whole fucking pack of them would see.
During his careful considerations on how to get even, Xanatos had plotted their whole lineage out to check for the weak points and if anything sparked his taste for this whole spectacle it was that.
As a padawan, Xanatos had seen the other padawans go off for their lineage events, dinners, duels and the like. He had not thought of it until now: how there had been no lack of lineage but there was never anything that brought them together. His terse interactions with Feemor and typical condescension from Yoda did not count and the rest of them lay scattered across the galaxy with barely a common interest, not even a shared lightsaber form, to join them.
There was so much to pick from to exploit that Xanatos had laughed.
They were truly pathetic. He'd been taken from his rightful place, stripped of his rightful power as heir for this and it was pathetic.
And they were Grandmaster Yoda's lineage. They were meant to be the best of the best right?
Who knew how far the jedi's poison had crept.
He would make them see. He would make them all see.
It had to begin with Obi-Wan though. Let his old master think this was purely a scare tactic, just a lick of fear for his little padawan.
They did not know what was coming.
Obi-Wan was missing his astral navigation exam.
Now, granted, he was being held hostage by his master’s vengeful old apprentice who had a history of making his life incredibly difficult but still, he had stayed up late revising for that exam only to be staring at the water trickling down the stone walls.
He slumped against the side and watched droplets race each other against through the crevices and rough edges.
Perhaps it was rather unwise and un jedi like to find being captured dull but maybe Obi-Wan was both of those things because he was in fact bored. Even the memory of the cruel glint in Xanatos’ eyes before he had slung him in this cell did not alleviate the mundanity of his kidnapping. He had traced invisible constellation charts on the floor with his finger, recited nebulae until his eyes drooped and still nothing.
He had of course checked the room for escape methods, half hoping for a secret door under a carpet like in the movies that he could duck into but no. It was just a room.
Not even an interesting room.
Surely his master was in his way by now.
The door swung open and, for a moment, Obi-Wan believed he had summoned his master with sheer force of will.
But Xanatos had decided to make an appearance again.
It would be too much of an understatement to say Xanatos was not a good person and it was not just the gleam in his eyes or the sadistic curl in the side of his mouth which told Obi-Wan that. No, it was his very nature as a dark sider, the kind Obi-Wan had only learned about, that meant his very presence was wrong, discordant.
He was no stranger to this sort of sensation, a scraping of nails in the force, but usually it was merely fleeting or just a warning from the force of an impending danger. A whole person who seemed wrapped in this eerie wrongness set his teeth on edge.
Obi-Wan leapt to his feet.
“Well, well, well! If it isn’t the baby of the family.”
“You seem surprised to see me.” He refused to appear frightened but his voice still sounded abnormally high and reedy. “Which does not make sense considering you left me in here.”
Xanatos grinned and clapped his hands together unfazed.
“I’m not a baby. Or your family.” Obi-Wan added hastily.
Xanatos’ smile contained too many teeth.
“How could I forget? Jedi don’t have families, or friends, or anyone do they?”
His grin does not drop but the amusement seeps out of his eyes as they turn hard and cold.
“That’s what makes murdering other people’s families so easy for them.”
“That’s a lie.”
Obi-Wan knew that was the brave thing to say.
He also knew it was what would provoke Xanatos into a fit of rage.
He said it anyway.
But instead of an immediate proclamation of the jedi’s evil he had been expecting, Xanatos paces around the room. Hands clasped behind his back. Almost like a jedi master.
“Do you remember your parents, Obi-Wan?”
His voice is so soft.
Obi-Wan is young, not of the age to have gone on extensive missions yet but he has studied at least some diplomacy and negotiations. He has skimmed over the ‘non answer’ and heard it from his own master, even in situations as banal as the breakfast table, so he understands how to dodge a question.
“I was brought to the Jedi Temple when I was three.”
“Humans form memories at four.”
“Three.” Obi-Wan corrects.
The tactical side of his brain catches up with his brain too late. The words are gone. His mistake is made.
Xanatos continues to pace and Obi-Wan knows, he knows, even without the buzzing satisfaction in the force he knows that this is what he was brought here for.
“But did you know force sensitives form memories earlier than that?”
Obi-Wan is young and known for his sharp tongue but he is not of the age to think about checking it, only revelling in being smarter than someone else. He still stays silent though. He’s quick enough to know he is in a trap.
“So you probably do remember them.”
Xanatos comes to a stop in front of him.
“I’m sure your mind has some impression of them in some nook or cranny. I could help you remember them-”
If the thought of Xanatos rooting around his mind isn’t enough to make him recoil, his outstretched hand definitely is and Obi-Wan jerks away.
“No?”
If asked, Obi-Wan would blame the fear on Xanatos. He would blame the fear on Xanatos’ presence and it was fear, like his lungs had forgotten their function and so had every part of him. He had been brought here, he had been brought here and had succeeded in ensnaring himself into one of Xanatos’ traps and this was what he had wanted: to talk about Obi-Wan’s birth family.
It had never been personal with Xanatos. Bruck Chun being a glaring, bitter exception to that but it was always about Qui-Gon and what Qui-Gon had ruined. The closest it had truly come to Obi-Wan were barbed insults and the allusion to what Qui-Gon would ruin for him.
So, yes, if asked Obi-Wan would pin the terror on Xanatos and what it meant for him to single Obi-Wan out.
You do not want to understand. I get that.” He whispered, leaning over Obi-Wan.
“Let me make myself clear, padawan. Qui-Gon Jinn, who took me from my cradle, who swore to train me, who was meant to guide me, slaughtered my father in front of me.”
Xanatos was obsessive and cruel and violent so for a moment, Obi-Wan imagines the horrifying and he knows for certain he does not understand. He imagines his father’s blood on his master’s hands, a lightsaber through the back of a woman who had his eyes.
It is the longest he has ever thought of his parents.
The idea is cruel and awful but the shame swallows up any response he could conjure because he supposes he is not as horrified as Xanatos wants him to be.
"The jedi are peacekeepers." He insists.
“The jedi are the butchers of the galaxy.”
Xanatos laughs as Obi-Wan tries not to cower. He laughs so hard he can see his back teeth.
Xanatos opens the door and Obi-Wan considers making a run for it.
"You'll see soon enough. They're rotten to the core."
Qui-Gon Jinn sits alone.
His comm is his only company and it is stubbornly silent.
He should be making dinner for his padawan now. His padawan should be narrowing his eyes at him, no doubt remembering the last time he cooked something for the both of them, before making a polite comment about looking forward to it.
The council was angry when they found out Xanatos was still alive and it seemed with Obi-Wan's recent disappearance, that that fury had never been quite quelled.
Qui-Gon prides himself in his ability to stand up to the council, he and his master before him practically invented pushing the line of the council's patience but even he knows he's gone too far this time. He had gone too far when he had lied all those years ago and he had gone too far again when he had revealed he had been looking for Xanatos with Obi-Wan without council mandate this whole time.
They didn't like not knowing things, Qui-Gon bitterly thought.
He knew that it came back to, as it always came back to with him, attachment. He couldn't help but dwell on the council's dislike of the unknown though.
Perhaps he was not well suited to be assigned to find his former padawan especially since he was holding his current padawan hostage. Perhaps he was not equipped to track dark jedi in the first place. Perhaps he shouldn't be taking padawans at all if this was what would happen.
He knew he had fucked up with Obi-Wan multiple times now.
He couldn't seem to help it.
He still wondershow many mistakes would tally up to Obi-Wan following Xanatos' path.
Qui-Gon hates putting this in someone else’s hands. He trusts his fellow jedi with his life, every single one of them as he is meant to but it does not mean he thinks they will handle his padawans better than him. Xanatos was his responsibility ever since he had plaited his braid for the first time and it had not stopped just because he had betrayed Qui-Gon. His culpability had only grown when he had swung his lightsaber that day on Telos and failed as a jedi consular, failed in diplomacy and had had to turn to violence.
And Obi-Wan, it was a very large stretch to place any sort of claim on Xanatos now but Obi-Wan was his padawan, indisputably. How would he feel when another jedi rescued him, knowing that it was Qui-Gon’s fault he had been taken in the first place?
Qui-Gon stood up and pulled his cloak on, pocketing his obsolete comm.
The council had been wrong before and they would be wrong again.
He had a job to do.