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There were things Obi-Wan had not been warned about when it came to becoming a padawan.
Oh, some of those things were large and consequential – the change in accountability, for one thing. Obi-Wan had always been used to the scrutiny of his teachers and masters, the knowledge that he was to strive for their approval and answer to their assignments, however little sense they might make to him. He had adjusted himself to that expectation – and now, in the blink of an eye, after nothing more than a few words spoken on a training field, his highest authority was one man, and if Master Jinn told him they were going to do something, they had to do it. Even if that meant skipping class or going against the authority of his other teachers, even after all the years of training in obeying them. And if he got in trouble for it, all he had to do was say that his master had asked him to do it, and suddenly their displeasure wasn’t on him anymore at all, but on Master Jinn, who accepted their rebukes with an impassive face and the faintest twinkle in his eyes, and then continued to do whatever he wanted to do anyway.
And then there was the change in lessons – suddenly, he wasn’t only in all the regular classes for initiates on saber skills, Force control, mathematics and language, but he was expected to report to Master Jinn for one-on-one sparring sessions and conversations in riddles to “stretch his thought processes” and meditation, endless meditation. He was busier than he’d ever been before, and he couldn’t even see the point of half of what he was being asked to do, and even though some of it was amazing and revelatory, more of it seemed vague and arbitrary to him. Not that his opinion mattered.
Those were the bigger things. But there were other things, too, things no one had even thought to warn him about. Things like vaccination day.
He had been vaccinated as an initiate, of course – against all the usual Coruscant illnesses and human-specific diseases. Most of those shots had happened when he was so young that he couldn’t remember more than needles and pain and being told to release his fear. But when you were chosen by a master, particularly one like Qui-Gon Jinn, who was always traveling when they weren’t training, and when the expectation was that you would follow a similar path, there were a whole host of other diseases that you needed to be protected against, a whole array of needles lined up and waiting for you. And earlier in the day, Obi-Wan had been rounded up with the other padawans in his age group and situation and presented with all of them.
At thirteen, he was old enough now not to cry when pricked with the needles, even if his arm was so sore afterwards that he could hardly move it. Old enough to suppress his fear and breathe through the pain and bite back his reactions to present a face nearly as impassive as the gloved and masked healers who briskly rubbed down his arm with disinfectant and jabbed him again and again. Old enough not to wince at the speckling of his arm with tiny bandages, the little dabs of blood caught in the healers’ gauze. He could handle fear and pain, he had thought proudly.
He had forgotten, or perhaps he had never known, about the other effects.
And now he was a tiny, tightly-curled ball of misery in his bed, still new and unfamiliar to him in his new shared quarters, all of his blankets pulled as tightly around him as he could manage and still not enough to stop the shivering. His body felt like it had been wrung out by a laundry droid, smacked to bruises against every imaginable surface and then squeezed mercilessly; his skin felt like it was on fire; and he squeezed his chattering teeth together to keep from moaning and waking his master in the next room.
Why hadn’t anyone warned him about this?
It had come on slowly at first – he’d been tired at dinner, barely able to keep his eyes open. Master Jinn had looked at him questioningly, but hadn’t stopped Obi-Wan when he announced his intentions to go to bed early – had even promised to clean up their meal himself. Obi-Wan would have protested, but he could hardly keep his eyes open. He had dragged himself through his evening routine, forcing himself to wash his face and clean his teeth, and then dropped into sleep the instant his head hit the pillow.
And now, hours later, he’d woken with a vengeance.
A current of nausea rippled its way through him, and he bit back another moan.
There was no escape from the sensations – no way he could toss or turn that would ease the ache in his muscles. The blankets were rough against his agonizingly sensitive skin, but he had to clutch them closer against the chill – though he could tell, just from his hands against his own neck, that his skin was burning hot.
A single tear slipped free of one of his eyes, cool against his scorched cheek, and he curled tighter in on himself.
Across the room, the door cracked open.
Sensation outside of his immediate excruciating discomfort filtered in slowly, both through the Force and his other senses, but Obi-Wan could make out the tall figure of his master in the doorway, shadowed against the darkness of their quarters – could feel the presence that was slowly becoming familiar to him in the Force. No, no – Master Jinn couldn’t see him like this! His already-racing heart pounded harder at the spike of sudden panic, and he fisted his hands in the blankets, holding himself still.
“Padawan?” His master’s voice was lower at night, rough from sleep and its whisper tone. “Obi-Wan, are you all right?”
He pressed his lips together. Maybe if he didn’t answer, Master Jinn would think he was asleep and would leave him alone.
“I know you’re awake, Padawan.” His master’s footsteps came closer, and Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut. “Are you in pain?”
Against his will, a strangled moan slipped from between his clenched teeth. The heat in his face was no longer only from fever, now, but from embarrassment.
“Are you sick?” Alarm in that voice now. “Obi-Wan, can you answer me? Do I need to call the healers?”
That threat was enough to break Obi-Wan’s silence. “No,” he said urgently, “no, I’m – I’m fine” –
“Lies do not become you,” said Master Jinn gently. “Your discomfort is practically screaming in the Force; I could feel it from the other room. What’s wrong?”
Obi-Wan’s eyes were still closed, and so he didn’t see the hand until it came to rest on his forehead. Large, square palm and fingers, rough and callused from years that Obi-Wan could not imagine of fighting and climbing and working – dragging across his sensitized skin like a grater. Obi-Wan flinched away, and again he could not hold back a whimper.
“I’m sorry,” said Master Jinn, and the hand withdrew in a whisper of air. “I shouldn’t have touched you without asking. But you do have a fever. I think I should get the healers” –
“No!” said Obi-Wan again. “No more healers. I’m fine, Master.”
“No more healers?” said Master Jinn. “Have you already been to see them? Or – ahh.” A long, drawn-out rush of air, heavy with revelation. “Today was vaccination day, wasn’t it?”
Painfully, shamefully, Obi-Wan nodded.
“I understand,” said Master Jinn. “I wish you had let me know before; you gave me a bit of a scare tonight. But don’t worry; what you’re experiencing is normal. Everyone is subjected to it at your age, and everyone – or, most humans, anyway – have the same reaction.” Another whisper of air beside him, the swish of his master’s dressing gown. “Let me get you some water, then.”
With nausea still churning at his gut and chill still clawing at his insides, Obi-Wan thought privately that water didn’t sound especially appealing right now – but at least it won him a moment of freedom, a moment to collect himself. He buried his face in his blankets, wishing he could hide from the world – wishing he could hide from his master the way he had always been able to hide from teachers before.
This, perhaps, was the biggest change in having a master of his own now. There was nowhere to hide, no one to shield him from scrutiny. Even his smaller indignities were his master’s business now, subject to Qui-Gon Jinn’s witness and his judgment –
And his help. There was a clink as a glass of water was set gently down on his bedside table, and his master paused beside him, hovering for a moment before speaking again.
“Would you like a sleep suggestion?” His master’s voice was almost tentative. “There’s not much you can do for this but wait it out, but it might be easier to wait if you can sleep a little. I know you didn’t want me to touch you” –
Was that what his master had thought? Obi-Wan shook his head a little, rustling in the blankets. “Don’t want to cause you trouble,” he confessed, mumbling the words into his covers.
Master Jinn laughed, rich and rumbling and somehow soothing. “It’s no trouble at all,” he said. “A lesson you will learn over your years as a Jedi, Obi-Wan, is that at some point, everyone needs a bit of help. And it is never a hardship to accept help from someone who wants to give it to you.” That hand approached his face again, hovering in the air above his forehead, waiting before touching this time. “May I?”
He was no stranger to sleep suggestions, of course – he had received them in the crèche, when he was too young to learn to shield his discomfort. But Obi-Wan had learned to move beyond attracting such attention, had learned to keep himself to himself. And yet –
And yet, maybe there was some benefit to the increased scrutiny of his very own master, after all. In accepting a master, Obi-Wan had promised to learn from him, to share with him. And, even in his very short time as Qui-Gon Jinn’s padawan, Obi-Wan had learned that his lessons often came at unexpected times, in unorthodox situations.
He hesitated only a moment longer before nodding at last, and that hand descended onto his head again.
It still hurt, his flaming skin protesting against the contact, but the rush of soothing energy that followed in the wake of the touch eased the pain – it could not remove the sensation, but it lessened it, pushed it back, in favor of a descending oblivion that was suddenly much more pressing, much more real than the ache in his muscles and the chill in his bones. His discomfort receded as waves of exhaustion softened his defensive clench, eased him into his bed, which suddenly felt more comforting and welcoming than ever before.
But there was one more thing he had to say before he could let sleep claim him entirely. He forced clumsy lips to move, slack vocal cords to respond in sound. “Thank you, Master,” he mumbled.
“My pleasure, Padawan,” was the last thing he heard before sleep carried him down.