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The distance between Dax’s room and his own seemed greater in the morning than it had the night before. Obi-Wan glanced around himself, tugging his robe closer around yesterday’s tunic and wishing the gray light of pre-dawn offered more in the way of shadows to cloak himself in. As if he could hide where he had been and what he had been doing from anyone here who would care enough to find out.
Not that he would be punished for it, of course; he just didn’t care for the . . . scrutiny.
But hopefully the hour itself would take care of his concealment. Jedi tended to be early risers, yes, but rarely this early, which was why he’d coaxed himself up and out of Dax’s bed at this wretched time. Even Qui-Gon didn’t rise this early, as a rule, and with any luck – Obi-Wan rounded the corner to the hallway where he shared quarters with his master – he’d be able to slip into his own room and wash up without anyone noticing he’d –
The door opened at the press of his palm, and Obi-Wan’s heart sank.
Qui-Gon was seated on the floor in the middle of their common room, palms upturned on his knees in meditation. His eyes were closed, his face peaceful, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, but the air around him practically hummed with awareness.
“Ah. Padawan.” He opened his eyes, and that canny gaze swept up and down Obi-Wan – taking in, Obi-Wan knew, his hastily-donned clothing from yesterday, the rumpled state of his hair, whatever marks Dax had left on him that he hadn’t yet gotten around to cataloging. “Long night?”
A smirk flickered at the corners of his mouth. Obi-Wan flushed.
“Master” –
“Relax.” Qui-Gon’s smirk softened into a real smile. “We don’t need to speak of it unless you want to. I take it you’re familiar with the relevant literature regarding health, contraception, spiritual protection” –
If he had progressed far enough in his training to tear the floor apart underneath him and let it swallow him, Obi-Wan would have done it in a heartbeat. “Master, please,” he begged, giving in to the urge to cover his face. He couldn’t help peeking through his fingertips, though; Qui-Gon’s face often said what his words left out, and if some further punishment was coming, Obi-Wan wanted to be ready for it. “Yes, I’ve read the – I know what I’m doing” –
“Just making sure!” Qui-Gon’s eyes were sparkling, seeking Obi-Wan’s unerringly even through the lattice of his fingers, and Obi-Wan prayed the conversation would end before his master could progress to outright laughter. “In all areas of your life, I am responsible for your well-being, and it would sadden me greatly if I were shirking my duty. I trust your assurances. But if you have any concerns or questions, you can always come to me” –
“Master!”
Qui-Gon did laugh, now, and made a shooing gesture towards Obi-Wan’s room. “Go freshen up, Obi-Wan. I’ll make breakfast for the two of us, this once. Remember that we have a briefing later; it wouldn’t do to be late.”
“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan breathed, and fled.
His master’s chuckles seemed to vibrate in the air behind him.
It was good to be of age.
Age limits meant less in the Order, of course – for as long as Obi-Wan wore his braid, he was accountable to his master’s rules, and for as long as he carried his lightsaber, he would always be answerable above all to a call higher than himself, directed by duty and the decisions of the Jedi Council. But still – now that he had passed his eighteen-year mark he was allowed to leave the Temple unaccompanied, and his evenings were his own so long as his master allowed.
Qui-Gon, for his part, seemed to have decided that Obi-Wan could be trusted with the freedom to make his own decisions, so long as he responded promptly to calls if needed – and that they were on Coruscant infrequently enough that Obi-Wan’s time off was his to do with as he pleased. And so, if Obi-Wan occasionally found himself in the occasional cantina, laughing and dancing and allowing himself to be led out for “fresh air” by the handsome man who had been flirting with him for the better part of his last three visits to the city – well, he as good as had his master’s permission.
“Tell me, then,” said his companion – Nur, Obi-Wan reminded himself; he had introduced himself the last time they’d met – once they had strolled a ways away from the sound of music and shouting. “What brings a Jedi knight out to an establishment like this one tonight?”
As he spoke, he settled his hand on Obi-Wan’s arm – loosely enough to be shaken off if it were unwelcome. It was not, and Obi-Wan let his hand turn lightly into Nur’s grip to indicate as much. He’d done his due diligence, of course – he could imagine nothing more humiliating than to be caught unawares by danger out of an inability to control his own bodily urges. Qui-Gon had expressed no disapproval of Obi-Wan’s, ah, extracurricular activities, no censure beyond the occasional knowing raised eyebrow – but that would be enough to earn him library duty for weeks.
But he sensed nothing untoward from his current companion, only simple desire – desire that he allowed to reflect back from himself. “Not a knight,” he corrected gently, twisting his braid around one finger and watching in delight as Nur’s eyes fixed on the skin beneath his right ear, “not yet. And – the same thing that brings you, I imagine.”
He slanted his gaze up in invitation. The moves in this particular dance had become familiar to him in the last year or so, since he had begun to learn and own his body: the way it could move, the space it occupied within the Force, the pleasure of sharing space with another who moved in harmony with him – and he could feel the ripples of welcome between himself and his chosen partner, the compatibility of their bodies, the way they could move together. He turned subtly, letting himself rotate into Nur’s space, letting the bristle of stubble almost brush his own smooth cheekbone. Nur was a good deal taller than he was, broad-shouldered and broad-chested, and Obi-Wan could practically feel him already, the way the muscles would flex beneath pressed palms –
“Oh,” said Nur softly, and that throb between them was want, was willingness. Obi-Wan’s ability to sense emotions through the Force was limited still, nothing like his master’s, but this was one he knew well enough by now. “Well, then.” His hand slid up Obi-Wan’s arm, along the loose fabric of his tunic – he had forgone the robe tonight – until it nudged the bare skin of Obi-Wan’s collarbone.
Obi-Wan had received years of training in controlling his physical reactions. He had also learned through trial and error that there were certain situations in which that training could be rather off-putting. He let his defenses fall, his body react, his lips part under the touch – and Nur’s throat jerked as he swallowed, his eyes darting directly to Obi-Wan’s mouth.
“You can,” Obi-Wan breathed, tilting his head.
“I – but don’t Jedi” – Nur hesitated. “I mean, aren’t you not supposed to” –
The final sign that he had picked a worthy partner for tonight. Obi-Wan smiled. “It is a choice for each Jedi to make,” he said. “Tonight, I choose you.”
“Well, then,” said Nur again, and his mouth descended onto Obi-Wan’s own.
Obi-Wan was jerked from sleep by the beeping of his commlink.
His reflex response was as ingrained as any stance of Ataru: he as good as leaped out of Nur’s bed, ignoring the jolt of the other man behind him as his hand fell away from Obi-Wan’s waist, and bounded to the corner where he had left his things, pressing the button to answer before it could beep a second time. “Kenobi,” he said, scrubbing at his eyes and glancing around to gauge the time of day: just a little past dawn. He had overslept.
“Obi-Wan.” There was only one person who was likely to call him at this time, but his cheeks still heated at his master’s voice, as if the mildness of the tone itself were an accusation. “We’ve been requested for an errand. How long will it take you to return to our rooms?”
“Ah” – He calculated: the time to dress – and thank goodness the commlink was voice only; his master knew how Obi-Wan was wont to spend his free nights, but it didn’t mean he needed to provide direct proof – to rent a transport or find a ride. “Half an hour?”
“Are you in town?”
He strained to detect any trace of censure in that voice, but couldn’t be sure. “Yes.” Defiance was already tightening his own tone. Qui-Gon had given him permission to leave; retracting it after the fact would hardly be fair –
“As it happens, you may be closer to where we need to be than I am.” Qui-Gon’s tone gave nothing away. “What neighborhood?”
He named it, his lips pressing together at the feeling of Nur’s displeasure behind him – but what else was he to do?
“I see.” Quiet for a moment. “If I pick you up, can you make it a quarter hour?”
“Yes, Master,” he said. “On the corner, perhaps, in front of the Corellian embassy? I wouldn’t – I mean” – He had known that he was forgoing any official right to his own privacy when he’d been taken on as a padawan learner, but Nur had made no such contract; Qui-Gon did not need to know where he lived.
“That will do fine.” His master chuckled, perhaps understanding what Obi-Wan didn’t say. “I’ll fill you in on the details when I see you – I surmise you aren’t alone?”
“You surmise correctly,” Obi-Wan said glumly.
“Relax, Padawan. You’re not in trouble, so long as you aren’t late. I’ll see you shortly.”
Obi-Wan opened his mouth to say farewell, but the connection had already cut off. He sighed – such was the way of conversation with Qui-Gon Jinn – and turned back to the bed, where Nur was propped up on one elbow. He was rumpled attractively from their night together, his hair swept into a voluminous wave on one side of his head, but the ease of relaxation had gone out of his posture and his mouth was tight with unhappiness.
“You’re leaving, then?” he said, before Obi-Wan could so much as open his mouth.
“I – yes.” Obi-Wan fumbled for his clothing, assessing its condition even as he pulled it on. He would have preferred fresh clothes, but fortunately he hadn’t spent enough time in the cantina last night for it to smell of alcohol and smoke. The will of the Force, perhaps? He spared a thought for his master’s perspective on that, and bit back a smile. “You heard – I’ve been summoned.”
“Could you not delay just a few minutes?” Nur said. “I had hoped – there’s a little breakfast place a block away, or I have some basic fare in the kitchen. Even just a cup of tea?”
Obi-Wan’s brows rose, his hands momentarily stilling at the buckle of his belt in astonishment. The words – and the sentiment behind them – were as foreign as the time Qui-Gon had spoken to him in Alderaanian for half a day with no warning to test his skills in reading body language. “What?”
Nur went rigid, any trace of last night’s flexibility faded faster than a memory. “I was inviting you to breakfast,” he said stiffly. “I wouldn’t have thought that such a hard invitation to understand.”
“And I have been called away by my master,” said Obi-Wan. He could feel the coolness creeping into his tone, and he turned away from Nur to pull on his boots. The walk to the spot he had named would take perhaps ten minutes, but he didn’t want to take any risk and leave Qui-Gon waiting for so much as a second, didn’t want to leave his own conduct any more open to censure than it already was. “I think the misunderstanding happened somewhat earlier, if you expected me to stay.”
“Right,” said Nur bleakly, and Obi-Wan turned back around in time to see him roll over until his back was to Obi-Wan, pulling the sheet up over his waist. His next words were muffled in the pillow, as though addressed to the bed itself. “Of course. I wouldn’t expect anything from you.”
Obi-Wan froze in the doorway, staring at Nur on the bed – feeling, too late, the real hurt beneath the other man’s anger. He opened his mouth – closed it again. There was nothing more to say, and he left without risking another word.
He made it to the meeting point barely a minute before a speeder pulled up with his master at the controls – little enough time to assure him that his decision not to engage Nur further had been the right one. But that thought did not comfort him the way it should have; the unease of their parting nagged at him, like an itch beneath his skin, somewhere he couldn’t reach.
It had no bearing on their current errand, he told himself firmly as he opened the opposite door and took the empty seat.
“Good morning.” Qui-Gon seemed in better spirits than Obi-Wan; his eyes glinted when he half-turned. Obi-Wan didn’t let himself be fooled by the casual appearance of the glance; he well knew that Qui-Gon could register any hair out of place on Obi-Wan without even looking at him. As evidenced by his next words: “Your braid is coming undone.”
Obi-Wan flushed and applied himself to neatening its end, not wanting to reweave the whole thing in a moving transport. “Thank you, Master.”
“Good night?” Qui-Gon inquired.
It was a common interchange by now; Obi-Wan knew the words were meant more as a tease than a question, but they probed at that unresolved awkwardness, exacerbating the mental itch, and he tensed despite himself. “Don’t ask, please.”
Qui-Gon’s eyes cut over to him again, startled. “Later, then,” he said, and Obi-Wan grimaced; if he’d just feigned a response, he might have gotten out of what now promised to be an actual conversation. “For now, we’re tracking a member of the Senate: a representative from Castell. The Council has had their eyes on him for some time; they think he might be using a local business as a way of funneling money – and, thereby, influence – through unofficial channels in the hopes of swaying local opinion. Word has reached us that he might be having a . . . business meeting this morning; we are to track him down and investigate.”
Obi-Wan frowned. This was sparser detail than Qui-Gon should have given for a briefing, which meant that there were gaps in between that he was meant to puzzle out for himself. “A business meeting,” he said slowly. “Then why” – Here was the question. “Why was this report routed to the Jedi? Isn’t this more under the purview of the Senate?”
“An astute question.” The praise warmed Obi-Wan, momentarily easing the discomfort of guilt. “The nature of this establishment is such that it might cause scandal within the Senate if revealed without a clearer picture. The Council is eager to protect the innocent within the organization, who may find themselves in a rather vulnerable situation, at the mercy of lawmakers who may not be friendly to their trade. Do you understand?”
And he did – it was just his luck that it should happen this morning, and he found himself wondering if the will of the Force were particularly mischievous. “They’re sex workers,” he said. “Possibly in league with this representative, or possibly” –
“Or possibly being exploited, yes. Or a combination of both; employers are not always forthcoming with those under their employment.” Qui-Gon manipulated the speeder around a corner a bit too widely, and Obi-Wan winced; he preferred to pilot on their missions, and Qui-Gon preferred to let him, but he reminded himself that his master had driven around city streets for some twenty years before Obi-Wan had ever learned. “Such a mission requires – discretion.”
“Discretion,” Obi-Wan echoed. “That, I can do.”
Of course, discretion turned out to be a lot more sitting and waiting than Qui-Gon had let on. For all the hurry of this mission this morning, Obi-Wan thought bitterly, now they were stalled in front of the establishment in question, having verified the presence of the representative inside, and waiting for him to come out.
And, worst of all, his taciturn master seemed to have decided it was time for that postponed conversation.
“I sense a disturbance in your energy, Obi-Wan,” he said. “What did go wrong last night?”
Obi-Wan sighed. “Can I not keep some things private?”
It was a question more to himself than to Qui-Gon – more concerning his own inability to hide his feelings from his master, Qui-Gon’s ability to pick them up – but he felt like a petulant child as soon as the words were out. The corner of Qui-Gon’s mouth quirked. “Your private life is your own until it begins to interfere with your focus. I know it has not,” he said before Obi-Wan could retort, “not yet. But if left unchecked, dark thoughts can fester.” That, Obi-Wan knew, was meant for both of them, a reminder of the early days of his apprenticeship. “I am not demanding anything from you, but if you have something to share, I offer my ear – for what it’s worth.”
Obi-Wan hesitated, but Qui-Gon was right. To refuse to ask for help when offered was foolish, and it was true that that nagging unease still churned at him. “All right,” he said slowly. “The person I – was with last night.” His cheeks heated just at having to say the words. “We parted badly, this morning, and I don’t quite understand what went wrong, though I fear I am to blame for it.”
“Badly in what way?” Qui-Gon’s hands were relaxed on the controls, his gaze straight ahead and not on Obi-Wan at all, but Obi-Wan knew himself to be keenly observed, knew his master would not miss a single word. Such a conversation required precision, which was a challenge when the root of the problem remained a mystery.
“I think” – Obi-Wan combed back through his memories; the unease had started the moment Obi-Wan had leapt out of bed, and had only thickened in the following moments, though Nur had been most unhappy at the declined invitation for – hmm. “He asked me to stay,” he said thoughtfully. “After I responded to your message. As if I could so easily turn down a summons! And I think . . .” Yes, it was making sense now, though he still had the maddening suspicion that a piece was missing. “I think he was hurt. That I would leave without considering his invitation, perhaps? And I did not acquit myself especially well, I fear.”
“I see.” Qui-Gon did turn now, the full force of his blue gaze coming to rest on Obi-Wan like a lightsaber piercing him through, like flame stripping away layers of deception. “When you say you did not acquit yourself well, do you mean in his eyes or my own? You’re here, so you clearly didn’t give in to the temptation of shirking your responsibilities.”
“The – the temptation?” Obi-Wan fumbled his words. “I’m – Master, there was no temptation. I was never going to stay, and I was – short with him when he did not seem to grasp it.”
“Ah,” said Qui-Gon. “I think I understand.”
“That makes one of us,” Obi-Wan muttered.
That startled a laugh out of his master, a sound which marginally improved Obi-Wan’s mood. At least there was someone who appreciated his sharp tongue. “Let me see if I can aid you, then,” Qui-Gon said. “You say that you would never have considered staying, and I know that to be true.” Another smile, inviting Obi-Wan to share the joke, and he found his own mouth curving rather reluctantly upward; his singlemindedness had long been a point of playful contention between the two of them. “But were you at all sorry to leave, even if you knew staying wasn’t an option?”
Leaden weights returned to the corners of his mouth; his smile fell. “I was sorry to hurt his feelings, if that is what you’re asking,” he said. He hadn’t been at the time, but he certainly was now.
“It isn’t,” Qui-Gon said calmly. “I mean, would you have stayed longer if you’d had the choice? Did you resent me for calling you away? Your duties for taking you away from someone you would have liked to remain with?”
“Oh.” Obi-Wan had not thought about it from this perspective – never had it even occurred to him to blame Qui-Gon or the Council for the interruption. He searched his own feelings, probing back through the events of last night – he had gone into the city knowing that he was on borrowed time, that his actions were a deviation from his expected state, not a state themselves that he could be wrenched free of. And he had woken to the commlink and gone to it immediately, had responded instantly to Qui-Gon’s summons – knowing, always, that it was what he was supposed to do. He had not even considered his time in Nur’s bed a respite from his duties as a Jedi; he was still performing his duties, or available to perform them; he just happened to be keeping company with someone at that time –
“No,” he said at last. “No, it never occurred to me to resent you.”
“And now that it has occurred to you?”
Qui-Gon’s voice was as placid as if they were having some debate about philosophy, or as if he were challenging Obi-Wan’s answer on a question of protocol. Obi-Wan couldn’t decide whether he appreciated it or not – or whether he even understood what they were discussing to begin with. It was that same itch again, the heart of a matter that eluded him still. He frowned. “I’m sorry, Master, I’m afraid I still don’t understand. Why should it have occurred to me to resent you?”
Qui-Gon laughed. “And I suppose that is my answer. I know you’ve done the reading and research on how to practice sexuality in a way compatible with the demands of the Order, and you’ve clearly taken them to heart. But this isn’t the way everyone views sex, Obi-Wan. Had you been with anyone outside the Temple before?”
Obi-Wan blushed. “Once.” And that had been with someone he’d spent much less time with than Nur, had been much – faster, less careful, a grope in an alleyway rather than anything more extensive. He’d been fortunate, that time, but had realized quickly that he could not always count on fortune. But other than that, his other partners had been fellow padawans, people who – he was now realizing – had had access to the same literature he did, the same meditations on protecting their spirits from unnecessary attachment, false intimacy. “Do you mean that” –
“I imagine that your partner of last night was unfamiliar with the Jedi approach to intimacy,” said Qui-Gon. “And did you explain it to him, before?”
Obi-Wan’s heart sank into his stomach, heavy as a rock with the weight of his transgressions. It was coming clear to him now: the hurt in Nur’s eyes, the stiffness in his posture. “No,” he said slowly, recalling the night before, when Nur had asked – but Obi-Wan had thought he was asking about celibacy only, nothing more. “No, I didn’t – I didn’t think to explain” –
Qui-Gon shot him a sharp glance, perhaps sensing the guilty spiral of Obi-Wan’s thoughts. “What’s done is done, Obi-Wan. You did not know, and I’m sure you were caring and considerate in all other ways?”
“I tried to be,” Obi-Wan said miserably. At least, he had at first. Before he had snubbed a request that Nur had surely thought reasonable, even if it defied Obi-Wan’s own understanding of the world. “But I didn’t think” – He had been leading Nur on all the while, though he hadn’t known it; pretending an intimacy he had no intention of feeling, and he’d wounded him in the process. “I didn’t realize” –
“I know.” Qui-Gon took one hand off the controls to squeeze his arm. “You didn’t mean to cause harm, and you know now how to avoid it in the future. But this is why many Jedi choose to practice celibacy – or at least to refrain from sexual encounters outside of the temple. It isn’t the sex itself that is the problem, but the intimacy that is sometimes assumed to accompany it.”
“I understand,” Obi-Wan whispered. The shame was still crawling inside him, eating him alive – to know that he had misstepped so badly, had used someone –
“Padawan,” said Qui-Gon sternly. “You made an understandable mistake – and it wasn’t your mistake alone. All communication relies on both parties, hm?” Another reference to them, to the earlier struggles in their relationship, to the ease they had settled into once they had learned to talk to one another instead of talking past. “It is unfortunate, but it can’t be changed, and you have learned and won’t do it again. Punishing yourself serves no one – least of all yourself. Let yourself accept the past as part of you, then release it and turn your mind to the present.”
Obi-Wan closed his eyes and focused: on that point of shame in his belly, the sensation of it, the consequences of his actions. Breathed into it, then out again. Centered himself on the present – let his connection to the Force ripple around him, tasting the sensation of every life-form around him –
Not a second too soon. The very presence they were looking for was on the move, moving towards the exit of the establishment. Obi-Wan’s eyes snapped open.
“Master” –
“I feel it, too.” Qui-Gon swung the door of the speeder open, Obi-Wan hot on his heels, and the conversation was left behind as they pursued.
He was more careful after that – or at least more clear. For some months, he limited his occasional affairs to his fellow padawans, to those who could be trusted to understand the Code and its limitations.
But not touching didn’t mean he had stopped looking, and his training in observation meant he couldn’t avoid noticing when someone was looking back. And the more that he and his master were summoned away from Coruscant to missions all over the galaxy . . .
The more complicated things became.
He never acted on his urges, never gave in to the temptation of inappropriate conduct on a mission. Qui-Gon knew it, of course – Obi-Wan’s duty always came first, and it would be hard to miss him slipping away from the close quarters they tended to share in other lodgings – but it didn’t stop him from teasing. The jokes ranged from subtle commentary to insufferably knowing glances, but never with anything serious behind them, never with censure or reproach or – anything more intentional.
Until now.
“There is something deeper brewing here,” Qui-Gon said, on the fourth day of their presence at a negotiation in which neither party had given an inch of ground. They had retreated to their quarters after hours of fruitless arguing, and even Obi-Wan’s tireless master was beginning to look ragged. He sat on the floor instead of the couch that had been provided for them, as if closeness to the ground would grant him greater clarity. “Have you sensed it? Something beneath the official reports we have been given.”
Obi-Wan slipped obligingly from the couch to the floor to settle beside him, pulled into Qui-Gon’s space like a moon in orbit. The sense of unease had been growing for him, as well, a hum of tension or discordance in the Force, something maddeningly elusive. “There is something we are not being told,” he agreed, “but – it is subtle enough that I even wonder if the parties in question are aware of it.”
“Hm, yes.” Qui-Gon reached up to loosen the tie that held back his hair, letting it fall about his face in a vast wave, as if exalting in its freedom from containment. “For all that such negotiations claim to be about facts and reason, too often emotion colors such moments, unspoken and unacknowledged.” He shot Obi-Wan a smile. “Never forget that for yourself either, Padawan; always examine your own motivations for what might lie beneath.”
Obi-Wan accepted the lesson with a nod. “It makes me wish Master Navarr were here,” he said. He had met the master only once, but her skill at teasing out such things was renowned; her gift for the Force one of sensing interconnected emotions and pulling out the threads of a story among them. She had given him a briefing once before a different mission, had described a web of intrigue hovering beneath official documents that had served him well in negotiation.
“Well, in her absence, we will have to use our own means, paltry as they may be.” Qui-Gon eyed Obi-Wan speculatively. “I have noticed that the duke’s son steals glances at you when he thinks no one is looking.”
Of all the things Obi-Wan had expected his master to say, that was not one of them. He spluttered, “Master!” even as he turned wild eyes on Qui-Gon in search of some hint of misunderstanding. He found none; Qui-Gon’s face was as mild as ever. “Are you asking that I – use another sentient being’s – attraction” – He blushed; he had never quite made it past the embarrassment of having such conversations with his master – “as a way of gaining illicit information?”
“Not illicit,” Qui-Gon countered, “and only as a way of serving his needs, in the end. And no, I am not asking you to do anything. I am . . . presenting a possibility for your consideration.”
“But I can’t – why are you presenting it at all?” After the conversations they had had in the past, about clarity, about communication, that his master would suggest something like this was – well, it was shocking. “That you would suggest I abuse someone’s trust” –
“Would it be an abuse of trust?” Qui-Gon’s tone was not one of challenge, for all his words seemed argumentative, but honest question. “How is something like this more of an abuse than a Force suggestion?”
Obi-Wan did stop at that. It was – it was different, but he couldn’t figure out how to articulate it . . . but his master’s tone wouldn’t allow a simple rebuttal without a thought-out explanation. So he forced himself to settle back, breathe deep, quiet his mind. Searched for the core of the wrongness of that thought, teased it out.
“It would be exploiting an attachment, Master,” he said. “You know how wrong that sat with me last time it happened, for all that it was an accident. To do such a thing on purpose would be to enter an arrangement with false pretenses.”
“But would they be false?” Qui-Gon inquired. “If you were clear about your philosophy before, then the connection or attachment would never enter into the situation. I am not trying to frustrate you this time, Obi-Wan,” he added, with the ghost of a smile. “This is a subject on which I know relatively little. If you would indulge your master in a lesson of his own, I would like to understand.”
Of course he would. Qui-Gon had never met a mystery he did not want to puzzle through. But was there some satisfaction here in being able to teach his master something, watching Qui-Gon sit back on his heels, his hands open in his lap, ready to receive? Obi-Wan gathered his thoughts, striving to find an answer that would be worthy of the honor of the question. “They would be false because” – He hesitated. “The spiritual meditations suggest that the act at its most detached be a search for bodily pleasure, nothing more, and my own ethical code dictates that this be the case on both sides, or else it is fundamentally unequal. If I were to enter such an arrangement hoping for information, that would rely on some trust from the other party – trust in me, which I would betray, spiritually at least, with the fact of my ulterior motives. It would not be pure pleasure; it would be manipulation. And in an act like this, which demands deliberate vulnerability and a certain amount of trust, that is a manipulation I don’t feel comfortable with.”
“Deliberate vulnerability,” Qui-Gon mused. “What an apt way of putting it . . . Did you know, that is exactly why I chose celibacy for myself?”
“Master?” Obi-Wan nearly held his breath. Such a personal confession was rare from Qui-Gon, who kept his past close to his chest, even if he had come to share more freely of himself in the last few years.
“I was warned, in my youth,” Qui-Gon said with a wry smile, “that the act could be dangerous for those like myself, who are – ah – prone to attachment, you might say.”
“Prone to attachment?”
“So I have been told,” said Qui-Gon. “And with greater age and – dare I say – greater wisdom, I have come to agree. Some of that,” and he laid a hand on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, his smile softening into something gentler, more personal – one of those rare glimpses beneath the surface that he allowed Obi-Wan to see, “I accept – even embrace. I don’t think all attachments must be forsworn entirely, so long as I remain clear in my purpose. But for those I can avoid” – He shrugged. “I find it better to avoid the potential for clouding.”
“Master” – The word choked off in Obi-Wan’s throat. The depth of his master’s affection for him, his own for Qui-Gon, lay largely unspoken between them, though it had been years since he had doubted the strength of that bond – though every mission only strengthened it: partnership, respect, love. It was a love bound deeply to Obi-Wan’s very identity as a Jedi: he loved his master as he loved the Order, the Code, his connection to the Force itself. And he could not doubt that for Qui-Gon, a man whose love for the world and the life around him radiated from him so powerfully, that emotion was just as strong. But to have it spoken between them, in such an intimate conversation as this, left him raw and vulnerable, without any witty riposte to speak of to a blow that had laid him so unexpectedly bare.
Qui-Gon squeezed his shoulder, as though he had heard all Obi-Wan could not say. “We make choices in response to our weaknesses, my apprentice, and I have made my own. What yours are, I cannot dictate for you. If this would be a betrayal of your code, I will not ask you to do it.”
“Thank you, Master,” whispered Obi-Wan.
Qui-Gon’s hand drew Obi-Wan in closer, sliding over his arm to tug Obi-Wan in for half a one-armed embrace. It was the greatest comfort Obi-Wan had ever found in touch: the sure hands that had positioned his own around a lightsaber, had pulled him back from dizzying drops; the broad shoulders and arms like a wall of solidity, a still presence at the center of a storm. The Force itself was calm around his master, or perhaps it was simply that Obi-Wan was, and the Force recognized the peace in him, settling itself around him into the ease of rightness.
Though all he had said before still held true, no sex act had ever come close to this: the intimacy, the vulnerability, of this conversation with the one person who knew him better than anyone ever had.
An exhale, from one of them or both of them or the Force itself, and Qui-Gon released him and shifted back into his kneeling meditation pose, thoughtful and determined and steady as a rock in flowing water.
“Well, then,” he said, and he gave Obi-Wan half a smile. “As this option is out, I suppose we’d better find another way.”