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“Here, come on,” Jango said quietly.
Obi-Wan grimaced, but let Jango move him until Obi-Wan was pressed against him. His body relaxed a little. Jango was far warmer than the floor of their cell, and the more this happened, the safer Obi-Wan found himself feeling, despite there being no such thing as safety when imprisonment and the occasional torture made up the current status quo.
“You deserve a raise,” Obi-Wan muttered, though he wasn’t sure whether the words were completely sensical. He was exhausted and just coming off of the drug that they dosed him with for interrogation sessions.
Jango snorted. “I’ll let them know you think so when we get out of here.”
If they got out of here, Obi-Wan mentally corrected, but didn’t say as much out loud.
“Think Dooku’s going to get sloppy?”
Jango shrugged, the movement shifting Obi-Wan with him. “I think eventually luck is going to turn our way.”
Obi-Wan wished he could be quite so optimistic, but there was something about the situation that left him feeling quite certain that luck wasn’t going that way.
“Not sure I’m going to be in any position to help when that finally happens,” Obi-Wan admitted.
Jango hushed him gently, and before they’d been taken captive, Obi-Wan would have never imagined Jango as gentle.
Something about the gentleness felt dangerous. Obi-Wan had already found himself frustratingly drawn to Jango, his competency and prowess had hit so many of Obi-Wan’s buttons. But Obi-Wan had been able to hold himself back because Jango was capable, but he wasn’t… well, there was a lot of things that Jango wasn’t.
Not that Obi-Wan was a particularly nice person, himself, he knew he had his cruel edges, no matter how he tried to keep them under control.
But he wasn’t capable of the sheer cruelty that he knew Jango was, and knowing that had helped him keep his distance from Jango, even when Jango had made it clear that he would welcome it if Obi-Wan did the exact opposite.
He winced a little as he remembered Jango kissing him, two months ago—or perhaps it’d been longer, it was hard to tell how long they’d been captured.
Obi-Wan had turned him down, had been… less kind, than perhaps he should have been. Had said things that were true, but perhaps unnecessary.
Jango had been… Jango had been angry, Obi-Wan had felt it, sharp and cold in the Force. Obi-Wan had gone so far as to speak with the Council about having Jango transferred to a different High General. The orders had been coming down the pipeline when he and Jango had fallen into the trap Dooku had laid for him.
It was hard to picture the angry Jango from Obi-Wan’s rebuff as the same Jango that held him now, always so careful with him, so gentle.
As though reading his thoughts, Jango’s hand came up to gently run through Obi-Wan’s hair. The rest of Obi-Wan’s tension eased from him.
“Tell me more,” Obi-Wan murmured. “Of the story you were telling me before Dooku came for me.”
Jango let out a quiet hum, but slowly began his story. His voice was low and soothing, and the story about him and his buir light-hearted—so long as Obi-Wan didn’t think about the eventual end—and soft.
Obi-Wan found himself drifting, lulled by Jango’s voice in his ear, the warmth of his body below Obi-Wan’s, the brush of his hand in Obi-Wan’s hair.
He was mostly asleep when the hand in his hair tugged back, tilting Obi-Wan’s head back as something brushed gently against Obi-Wan’s lips.
He tried to stir awake, but Jango hushed him. “It’s all right, Obi-Wan,” he murmured. “You need your sleep.” The words were accompanied by another gentle brush against his lips.
A kiss, his mind informed him.
“Jango?” he asked, though he was too tired to open his eyes.
The only answer was another soft brush of lips against his own, soft and easy. “This is good,” Jango whispered. “Isn’t it?”
Obi-Wan sighed, his mind whispering that there were reasons this shouldn’t be happening, but he was so tired, and Jango was so gentle.
Jango didn’t wait for him to answer before kissing him again.
“See how good this is?” Jango whispered. “How good I am for you?”
The whispers kept coming, soft and soothing, and when Obi-Wan fell asleep it was to Jango telling him good they’d be together, once they were free.
Obi-Wan was fast asleep in his arms when the door slid open. Jango held out his hand, watching as a hypo drifted through the air and fell into his palm.
Jango glanced at it, making sure it was what he thought it was. Once assured, he took the hypo and pressed it against Obi-Wan’s skin. The sedative would keep Obi-Wan out while he and Dooku discussed things.
No reason to ruin his remarkable progress in worming his way through Obi-Wan’s guard for Obi-Wan to realize just what was going on.
Once he was sure Obi-Wan was completely out, he shifted, putting Obi-Wan gently on the ground. He ran the back of his hand gently over Obi-Wan’s cheek, noting how thin he was growing.
This had all been so unnecessary, Jango couldn’t help but think. They hadn’t needed to go through this. A memory of Obi-Wan’s rejection flashed into his mind. Obi-Wan’s voice going cold and perfectly polite as he explained that they were ‘incompatible’. The rejection had stung, Jango wouldn’t deny it. But it had made it clear that there would be no way into Obi-Wan’s heart unless Jango went and got creative.
He dragged his thumb over Obi-Wan’s too-sharp cheekbones. “You could have accepted me then,” Jango murmured to Obi-Wan’s unconscious body. “I wouldn’t have had to do this.”
Dooku stepped into the room, gaze taking in the sleeping Obi-Wan and Jango stood. “Has he broken?” Dooku asked, sounding completely disinterested.
Jango knew better than that, Dooku was as invested in this as Jango was, strangely enough. Or perhaps not so strange, when Jango was the key to giving Dooku everything he wanted.
There was a reason Jango had turned to Dooku to give Jango just what he wanted in return.
“He’s getting close,” Jango said. “Another week or so and he’ll be mine.”
Dooku’s face twisted in distaste. “And you’re sure that you can keep him?” Dooku asked after. “He’s stubborn.”
That was a truth. Jango had thought that this stint of imprisonment would last a few weeks, enough time for Obi-Wan to fall for him.
It’d been nearly three months, and Obi-Wan was finally posed on the edge of falling fully in love with Jango, bound by their ‘shared’ trauma, that was not as shared as Obi-Wan thought it was.
Not that it had been all easy for Jango. He’d had to go through his own bouts of interrogation, or Obi-Wan would have grown suspicious. And Dooku hadn’t been kind, using the interrogations to work out his frustration, to make it clear how much Dooku loathed Jango, and worse, how much he loathed that he needed Jango.
Still, it was far less than the sustained and constant interrogations Obi-Wan had gone through, the drugs that kept him off-kilter and vulnerable to other’s emotions, the fact that the only time he’d slept was when he was in Jango’s arms.
“If you give me a little bit of time to solidify my hold on him out of captivity,” Jango said dryly, “then yes, I’ll be able to control him.”
“I want to move against Sidious by year’s end,” Dooku said, voice abrupt. “Will I have you and your men behind me?”
And that had been Jango’s coup de grâce, when he had found the chips in the clones and had gained their loyalty by having the chips removed and then brutally murdering every Kaminoan who’d had a hand in creating the chips.
He was not foolish enough to think it was a loyalty he deserved, no more than he deserved the love he was earning from Obi-Wan now.
But he would shamelessly take them both for all they were worth.
“When you move against the Sith Lord you will,” Jango said easily, a truth Dooku had never managed to see past to the lie hiding beneath it. “And then so long as you allow me to take Obi-Wan and my men to Mandalore, I won’t stand in the way of you taking the rest of the galaxy.”
“Of course,” Dooku said, nodding. His gaze turned toward Obi-Wan. “I’ll begin to leak news of where you two are being kept. I expect there’ll be a rescue attempt within the next two weeks.”
“Wait another week,” Jango disagreed. Not only was Dooku underestimating how long it would take the 212th and Skywalker to find them once they had even the smallest hint of their location, but Jango wanted a few more days. Obi-Wan was so close, so close to falling over that precipice and into love.
Dooku pursed his lips, he hated it when Jango gave orders, not when he considered himself so far superior to Jango.
“One week. I’ll be back to torture you tomorrow.”
Jango smiled, sharp and cold. “I look forward to it.”
Obi-Wan sighed, relaxing against Jango’s side. It was always easier to relax when he was pressed against Jango. It was strange to think, given how tense things had been between them when they’d been captured, but it was true. He turned a little so that he could see Jango’s profile and he reached up to run his fingers over Jango’s cheekbones. They didn’t eat well as captives, and he could see the results of that in Jango’s face. Jango’s skin was warm under his fingerpads, warm and so very alive.
“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan murmured.
Jango raised an eyebrow, his smile tired and only a little pained. “For what? Not your fault that Dooku’s a bastard who hasn’t learned to take no for an answer.”
That wasn’t what Obi-Wan had meant. But then it was impossible for Jango to know where his thoughts and gone. “For how… for how I rejected you,” Obi-Wan said finally. “I… I didn’t handle it well. And I never gave you a chance.”
Jango let out a breath of air, eyes widening in surprise at Obi-Wan bringing up the past rejection. “You weren’t wrong about anything you said, Obi-Wan. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise. I’m just as cruel and uncaring as you said I was. Perhaps even more than you realize.”
It was hard to imagine that, though, not with how… not with how gentle Jango was.
“I haven’t forgotten that,” he said finally, though it still felt so very distant. It seemed impossible to think about Jango as he had back then. “I just… perhaps I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
Jango let out a strange laugh. “No, you didn’t.” He smiled a little, almost fond, but a little teasing. “If you did, you’d have made different choices.”
Obi-Wan’s gaze darted to Jango’s lips and he immediately looked away. Part of him thought that night, almost a week ago now, must have been a dream. A dream where Jango had kissed him, over and over, promising him how good they’d be.
Jango hadn’t kissed him since, had said nothing like what he’d said that night.
Of course, Jango had been tortured himself the next day, and if that night hadn’t been a dream then Jango had no doubt been distracted by more important things like surviving.
“What would I have done, if I’d known you better?” Obi-Wan asked.
“You’d have run for your life,” Jango answered easily. “Not that that would have been enough to protect you from me.” Obi-Wan blinked and stiffened, startled by the answer; Jango’s expression shifted into a teasing grin. “Or alternatively you’d have been willing to give me a chance, and I’d have shown you just how good we’d be together.”
Obi-Wan laughed, tension escaping him. “And how would that have worked out?”
Jango’s smile twisted and he looked almost… heartbroken. “We’d have been something beautiful, Obi-Wan.” Jango caught Obi-Wan’s hand, bringing his fingers to Jango’s lips and kissing the tips of them. “I would have loved you until the end of time. I’d have given you the galaxy, everything you could possibly imagine wanting, and everything you’d have never thought to. I would have loved you, Obi-Wan.”
Obi-Wan’s breath hitched.
Jango met his gaze, and there was something vibrant in his eyes, something vulnerable.
“Would have?” Obi-Wan asked, hesitant, wondering if that opportunity had passed. If Obi-Wan had shut the door on that possibility forever.
Jango was quiet for a long moment. “Obi-Wan, don’t ask me to ask you again. Don’t ask me to be the one to take this step. I can’t take your rejection again.”
Obi-Wan swallowed, because that was fair. Jango had been the one to put himself out there the first time, it wouldn’t be fair for Obi-Wan to ask Jango to make himself vulnerable a second time.
He licked his lips, they were chapped, dry, and tasted like blood; he tried to decide if this was foolishness, if his reasoning was being effected by months here with Dooku torturing them.
He wasn’t in the right mindset to be making decisions like this.
But… He stared up into Jango’s eyes, vibrant and vulnerable.
Jango had been so gentle, had done what little he could to protect Obi-Wan, even if all that meant was keeping Obi-Wan off the cold stone floor, had shared with Obi-Wan stories of Jango’s past, letting Obi-Wan see him in ways he’d never even thought to before all of this had happened.
“Jango,” he started, slowly and careful, throwing caution to the wind. “Will you love me, please?” He breathed through a twist of pain. “Be something beautiful with me? Will you take my heart?”
Jango’s gaze went sharp for a moment, almost vicious, or maybe victorious. Obi-Wan felt a twist of unease, knowing he was about to face the same rejection he’d once given Jango. But then it was gone, Jango’s gaze soft and easy and Obi-Wan wondered what it was he’d seen, if he’d really seen anything at all, or just what his tired mind had expected to. “That’s all I want,” Jango murmured. “I want you to be mine, to be the person you turn to, the person you come home to. I want you to love me the way I love you.”
“I can give you that,” Obi-Wan whispered. “I can love you. I do love you.”
“Coarse had interesting things to say,” Commander Cody said quietly, datapad held tightly in hands.
“Oh?” Jango asked, paying only partial attention, gaze focused on the bed over where Obi-Wan was sleeping, his face lax. The blood had been cleaned away, making the thinness and the heavy bruises all the more obvious on his pale face.
“Apparently, all of your injuries were… superficial. As though they were for appearances only.”
Jango didn’t so anything as foolish as stiffen to give himself away, but he did look away from Obi-Wan, meeting Cody’s gaze. “They certainly didn’t feel that way.”
Commander Cody’s eyes were hard as beskar. “Give me one reason not to turn you over to the authorities as a traitor and saboteur.”
“I didn’t tell anyone anything,” Jango said calmly. “Such an accusation would be false.”
“Then tell me why, exactly, my General was tortured while you were given some superficial injuries?”
Jango mentally cursed Dooku. “For one, he’s a Jedi while I’m nothing more than a bounty hunter with an advisory role.”
“Try again.”
Jango sighed, turning his head to look over at the still sleeping Obi-Wan.
“Have you ever wondered what Obi-Wan will do, after the war?”
Commander Cody went still. Ah, so he had wondered then. “The Jedi will return to their posts.” The words were clipped and professional, and only the educated ear could hear the unhappiness that dripped off the words.
“That’s not where he belongs, though, is it?” Jango asked.
Commandeer Cody didn’t answer, but Jango didn’t need him to. Commander Cody was perhaps not in love with Obi-Wan—though Jango wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he was—but he was utterly devoted to him in a way that would be alarming, if Jango didn’t feel his own emotions with a similar intensity.
Cody was devoted to Obi-Wan in a way not dissimilar to the way Jango had been devoted to Jaster.
“I needed him to fall in love with me,” he said, quiet and honest. “I needed to be the only thing he could trust, the only thing he could depend on. I needed to drown him in my love, until I was the only thing keeping him afloat.”
Cody’s breath was a little ragged, and his voice was conflicted when he finally pushed out his question. “Did it work?”
Jango looked back at him. “Yes.” Obi-Wan would be tempted to step back away from choices made during a traumatic episode, but their time together had not only given him a chance for Obi-Wan to fall in love with him, but for Jango to search out and pry apart all those little weaknesses Obi-Wan had.
And oh, his Obi-Wan was littered with weaknesses, small yes, carefully hidden. But there. Little cracks in his impenetrable defenses where Jango could grow like ivy.
Commander Cody’s face twisted in indecision. “If you hurt him, ever again, I don’t care what we owe you, I don’t care what plans we have, I’ll kill you.”
“I won’t hurt him again,” Jango reassured him, quiet and sincere. “Obi-Wan is mine now. He doesn’t know what that means, yet. But you do. You know exactly what means. I’ll protect him from everything.”
“Including himself.”
Jango snorted. “Perhaps especially himself.”
Cody didn’t contradict him there, but then he’d been at Obi-Wan’s side even longer than Jango had. He knew just how unconsciously self-destructive Obi-Wan was.
Cody stared at him for a long moment. “I’ll have Coarse adjust your medical records to reflect treatment only slightly below what the General received,” Cody finally said. If he felt any conflict about the matter, then it was well hidden.
Jango nodded appreciatively.
He watched as Cody left, before carefully climbing out of his bed and into Obi-Wan’s beside his.
In their past months as prisoners he’d gotten used to Obi-Wan sleeping mostly on top of him, Obi-Wan curled up in his arms.
It took effort to get Obi-Wan into position with all of the medical wires involved, but he managed it eventually.
He found some of his own strain fading once Obi-Wan was in his arms again.
Obi-Wan wasn’t the only one who had been effected by their months together, Jango had to admit to himself. He’d made himself vulnerable for Obi-Wan, over and over.
He’d trained himself into feeling better when he had Obi-Wan in his arms just as much as he’d trained Obi-Wan into feeling safest there.
Jango could handle that, though, these new weaknesses he’d given himself, so long as he knew that Obi-Wan’s weaknesses stayed complementary to his own.
Obi-Wan stirred a little bit in his arms. “Jango?”
“Shh,” Jango whispered. “You need more sleep.”
Obi-Wan blinked his eyes open obstinately. “I thought it was a dream.” He nuzzled into Jango’s chest. “But they really found us.”
“Your 212th got us out of there with prejudice,” Jango said, smiling a little. Dooku had escaped, much as Jango had expected he would. Dooku wouldn’t be a problem for much longer though.
Dooku had said that he would be attacking Sidious by year’s end. Which gave Jango his timeframe for when he needed to move against the both of them.
But that, he decided, was a worry for another time.
“I'll keep you safe from now on,” he murmured quietly. "Nothing like that will ever happen again."
Obi-Wan looked up at him, and his eyes were bright with a trust that Jango had carefully stolen for himself. “I love you, Jango.”
Jango leaned forward pressing a kiss to Obi-Wan’s lips. “I know.”
He’d made sure of it.