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quigonejinnCompletely random Quinlan Vos and Obi-Wan Kenobi fic. No Quin/Obi-Wan, but Obi-Wan has a wee crush on his Master. AND UH, SIRI TACHI? SIRI TACHI WHO?
Quinlan Vos is the most heterosexual person that Obi-Wan Kenobi knows.
It's true. Maybe it had something to do with having Tholme as a master. There were plenty of people who thought that Qui-Gon was scary, what with the size and the face and the look of irritation that he always had when he was trapped at the Temple, but from what Quinlan had told Obi-Wan, Tholme's sense of humor involved stories about black-market arms deals that went wrong because someone farted at the wrong time.
It was, even Quinlan admitted, slightly scary, so yes, Obi-Wan supposed, maybe it was theoretically possible that having a male master who was like that could turn you off of men and/or keep you from having a crush on your master.
Maybe.
...
"So you don't think, say. Master Qui-Gon is attractive?"
Quinlan looked at him like Obi-Wan had just suggested licking in between a Hutt's wrinkles. "No."
"Not even a little bit?"
"No. Obi-Wan, he's all yours. You can keep him."
This was one of the many reasons that Obi-Wan liked Quinlan.
...
Another reason was that Quinlan had absolutely no fear of anything: fear was not something that Jedi were supposed to experience, but there were, as Obi-Wan saw it, an enormous number of timid Padawans. Padawans didn't meet each other all that much; there were too few Jedi for any but the most vital missions to have two full Jedi assigned to them, and thus, as Obi-Wan saw it, any time that two Padawans bumped into each other and had leisure time, there was almost a Code mandate to have a little fun.
But no, most Jedi Padawans spent their time skulking around the same corridors, trying to find edible bits in whatever space cafeteria junk they were being served or chewing over the same tired Temple gossip. Whenever Obi-Wan suggested anything in the least bit interesting -- exploring the local area, attending a native cultural festival, trying something from a planet-side restaurant, even going up on the deck of the ship to look at the stars -- they would shrink back and suddenly remember a kata they had to practice or an errand they had to run for their masters.
Quinlan, on the other hand, had guts. If Obi-Wan wanted to go hiking, Quinlan wanted an expedition up the side of the nearest mountain. If Obi-Wan proposed going swimming at a nearby waterfall, Quinlan wanted to play gymnastics on the sharp slippery rocks while the water thundered down all around them. As he put it, he had a master who liked to play Identify the Torture Implement! on long hyperspace journeys.
With the scars that they had left on his own, wrinkled body.
Each wrong answer would earn Quinlan an extra thirty-minute meditation period, so Quinlan had to actually look and remember, and as a result, he was more than happy to go match Obi-Wan, antic for antic.
After all, there was no terror left in the universe for a boy who had, for the better part of a year, accompanied his aged, ancient master on no fewer than five week-long hyperspace journeys.
...
"Does your master ever frighten you?"
Obi-Wan considered this for a moment while he sucked down a few more Harleen noodles. They were actually pretty good if you didn't look at them and realize that they looked remarkably like human fingers. And the soup was fantastic. Just the thing after two weeks of protein bars.
"Master Qui-Gon does really stupid things all the time, like offer himself up as a hostage or go charging into the middle of a fight. He likes to defy the Council a lot, too."
Quinlan looked down at his bowl. "That's different. I mean. Are you ever scared of him?"
Obi-Wan stared at him, wide-eyed, while he slurped down the rest of his noodles and then reached for Quinlan's untouched bowl.
...
Tholme would, every once in a while, drop Quinlan off with Qui-Gon for babysitting. There were missions where he could not take Quinlan; it might be particularly dangerous, or it might be such a sensitive situation that he could not bring another person.
Plus, from what Obi-Wan could figure out, Tholme also approved of Qui-Gon. Most other Jedi respected Obi-Wan's master and were deferential to him, but they were wary. They had heard of how Qui-Gon's master defied with the Council and of Qui-Gon's own heretical tendencies. While they would happily bow and chatter with him, there was always a distance. They always reserved judgement.
Tholme, on the other hand, could barely be bothered to hide his distaste for most of the rank-and-file. "You're less like those hra'dla sheep that make up most of the Order these days," Tholme had said once to Qui-Gon when Obi-Wan was within eavesdropping distance. "It's why I trust you to take care of Quinlan."
"Even though I can never be bothered to make a proper plan?" Qui-Gon's tone was amused. He liked Tholme, too.
"Even though you are incapable of making a proper plan. Or even dressing neatly."
Obi-Wan rather approved of Tholme's fondness for plans and detail. He had heard Tholme giving Quinlan his instructions for drills, and they were always remarkably methodical: spend so much time practicing this kata. Learn this other drill thoroughly, and if you have time, master these other two and prepare a form to show me. You should also know the systems and political regimes by the time I return. Forty-five minutes a day doing this, an hour doing that followed by fifteen minutes of this sort of cool down.
Qui-Gon's were far more vague. They would practice whatever Qui-Gon decided that Obi-Wan needed to learn that day, and while Obi-Wan knew that he was receiving an education that was as good or even better than most -- there was a reason he could spar most of his agemates into the ground, and it was thanks to Master's pathetic lifeforms that he could talk them into the ground when discussing xenobiology or the ecosystems of non-Corsucant planets -- he thought he'd rather like that sort of order in his life. And there was no denying that Master Tholme's work was fascinating. Spies and intrigue, secret negotiations. It was more interesting. Glamorous. Obi-Wan envied Quinlan in this.
And then, one night, when they were the Trandill VI space station, there was a muffled pounding on their door.
Obi-Wan turned over in his sleep, but he heard Quinlan sit up in the bunk next to him. Qui-Gon was down the hallway in a room of his own, and Obi-Wan heard Quinlan call out, softly, just loudly enough to be the ventilation systems, "Master?"
There was silence. The pounding had stopped, apparently, and Obi-Wan was about to roll towards the wall and go back to sleep when the door whooshed open, and some sort of figure stumbled through. It reached one hand up to the light-plate, tabbed it on and --
Obi-Wan and Quinlan were both standing on the floor, their lightsabers called into their hands, but what had come through the door didn't even look like a man. There blood dripping down his face and soaked into its clothes; it was hunched over, and it smelled like it had just rolled out of a garbage can. There was a blood smear on the lightplate where is fingers had touched.
It raised its head and made a gaspy noise. Blood bubbled on its lips, and Quinlan shoved Obi-Wan. "It's Master Tholme. Go, bring the medics. Get your master."
Quinlan dropped onto his knees to catch the man as he swayed and slumped to the floor. It looked like there were fingers missing from the man's right hand, and it didn't look like had a nose anymore, his face was so bashed out of all shape. Obi-Wan didn't move because he had just caught the sight of some white hair, hair that hadn't been stained with blood and looked like Master Tholme's.
There were tears in Quinlan's eyes. His master's blood was dripping down his arms, and he was trying to get a firm enough grip through the blood to power on his lightsaber.
Quinlan turned and screamed at Obi-Wan. "Go! If you don't want my master to die, go!"
...
"Is that what you meant when you said you were scared of him?"
"No."
"What did you mean?"
"A couple weeks ago, he told me that he was training me to take his pla --"
"That's fantastic, Quinlan. You were so worried las -- "
"We were in his quarters, and he was calling me 'Padawan Quinlan', so I knew I was in trouble, but then, he took out this box that I knew he kept in one of the locked drawers, and he showed me what was inside. He said that for Jedi like us, life could be a hard, ugly thing. We couldn't afford to be as removed and high-minded like the ones on the Council, but we were the ones who really kept the Republic going."
A pause.
"Obi-Wan, that box was where he kept all different sorts of things that you can use to torture people. The real things, not models, because I could see the blood stains and corrosion on some of them. I thought that he was going to ask me to put my hands on them and read their recent pasts. Learn how they had been used, which was bad enough, but then he went to one of the cabinets and brought out two full bacta packs and set them on the desk in front of me. He told me that we were going to learn what it was like to be interrogated with Antidarian bars, and he wanted to know whether I could be trusted to keep quiet during it or whether he would have to use the Force to keep me from screaming."
Another pause, and Obi-Wan thought that Quinlan would be crying, but he was completely dry-eyed, and his voice was absolutely steady.
"Those bacta packs were for me. It didn't really hurt all that bad because he talked me through it and told me how to resist that kind of pain, but Obi-Wan. He knew how to use each of the things. They were things that he'd used actually used himself, on people who weren't willing. On people who would have rather died than tell him some of the things that they ended up telling him."
...
Quinlan Vos was the most heterosexual person that Obi-Wan knew. He was also the Padawan that Obi-Wan grew to be the closest to, though in all truth that he was the only other Padawan that Obi-Wan had any chance to know while he was a Padawan.
Also. Long before Obi-Wan learned of Quinlan's past before he came to the Jedi and long before Quinlan fought his battles with the Dark Side and Obi-Wan was the only one who would vouch for him -- long before all that, Quinlan was also the person that Obi-Wan respected most in the universe after his own master, Qui-Gon.
Quinlan Vos is the most heterosexual person that Obi-Wan Kenobi knows.
It's true. Maybe it had something to do with having Tholme as a master. There were plenty of people who thought that Qui-Gon was scary, what with the size and the face and the look of irritation that he always had when he was trapped at the Temple, but from what Quinlan had told Obi-Wan, Tholme's sense of humor involved stories about black-market arms deals that went wrong because someone farted at the wrong time.
It was, even Quinlan admitted, slightly scary, so yes, Obi-Wan supposed, maybe it was theoretically possible that having a male master who was like that could turn you off of men and/or keep you from having a crush on your master.
Maybe.
...
"So you don't think, say. Master Qui-Gon is attractive?"
Quinlan looked at him like Obi-Wan had just suggested licking in between a Hutt's wrinkles. "No."
"Not even a little bit?"
"No. Obi-Wan, he's all yours. You can keep him."
This was one of the many reasons that Obi-Wan liked Quinlan.
...
Another reason was that Quinlan had absolutely no fear of anything: fear was not something that Jedi were supposed to experience, but there were, as Obi-Wan saw it, an enormous number of timid Padawans. Padawans didn't meet each other all that much; there were too few Jedi for any but the most vital missions to have two full Jedi assigned to them, and thus, as Obi-Wan saw it, any time that two Padawans bumped into each other and had leisure time, there was almost a Code mandate to have a little fun.
But no, most Jedi Padawans spent their time skulking around the same corridors, trying to find edible bits in whatever space cafeteria junk they were being served or chewing over the same tired Temple gossip. Whenever Obi-Wan suggested anything in the least bit interesting -- exploring the local area, attending a native cultural festival, trying something from a planet-side restaurant, even going up on the deck of the ship to look at the stars -- they would shrink back and suddenly remember a kata they had to practice or an errand they had to run for their masters.
Quinlan, on the other hand, had guts. If Obi-Wan wanted to go hiking, Quinlan wanted an expedition up the side of the nearest mountain. If Obi-Wan proposed going swimming at a nearby waterfall, Quinlan wanted to play gymnastics on the sharp slippery rocks while the water thundered down all around them. As he put it, he had a master who liked to play Identify the Torture Implement! on long hyperspace journeys.
With the scars that they had left on his own, wrinkled body.
Each wrong answer would earn Quinlan an extra thirty-minute meditation period, so Quinlan had to actually look and remember, and as a result, he was more than happy to go match Obi-Wan, antic for antic.
After all, there was no terror left in the universe for a boy who had, for the better part of a year, accompanied his aged, ancient master on no fewer than five week-long hyperspace journeys.
...
"Does your master ever frighten you?"
Obi-Wan considered this for a moment while he sucked down a few more Harleen noodles. They were actually pretty good if you didn't look at them and realize that they looked remarkably like human fingers. And the soup was fantastic. Just the thing after two weeks of protein bars.
"Master Qui-Gon does really stupid things all the time, like offer himself up as a hostage or go charging into the middle of a fight. He likes to defy the Council a lot, too."
Quinlan looked down at his bowl. "That's different. I mean. Are you ever scared of him?"
Obi-Wan stared at him, wide-eyed, while he slurped down the rest of his noodles and then reached for Quinlan's untouched bowl.
...
Tholme would, every once in a while, drop Quinlan off with Qui-Gon for babysitting. There were missions where he could not take Quinlan; it might be particularly dangerous, or it might be such a sensitive situation that he could not bring another person.
Plus, from what Obi-Wan could figure out, Tholme also approved of Qui-Gon. Most other Jedi respected Obi-Wan's master and were deferential to him, but they were wary. They had heard of how Qui-Gon's master defied with the Council and of Qui-Gon's own heretical tendencies. While they would happily bow and chatter with him, there was always a distance. They always reserved judgement.
Tholme, on the other hand, could barely be bothered to hide his distaste for most of the rank-and-file. "You're less like those hra'dla sheep that make up most of the Order these days," Tholme had said once to Qui-Gon when Obi-Wan was within eavesdropping distance. "It's why I trust you to take care of Quinlan."
"Even though I can never be bothered to make a proper plan?" Qui-Gon's tone was amused. He liked Tholme, too.
"Even though you are incapable of making a proper plan. Or even dressing neatly."
Obi-Wan rather approved of Tholme's fondness for plans and detail. He had heard Tholme giving Quinlan his instructions for drills, and they were always remarkably methodical: spend so much time practicing this kata. Learn this other drill thoroughly, and if you have time, master these other two and prepare a form to show me. You should also know the systems and political regimes by the time I return. Forty-five minutes a day doing this, an hour doing that followed by fifteen minutes of this sort of cool down.
Qui-Gon's were far more vague. They would practice whatever Qui-Gon decided that Obi-Wan needed to learn that day, and while Obi-Wan knew that he was receiving an education that was as good or even better than most -- there was a reason he could spar most of his agemates into the ground, and it was thanks to Master's pathetic lifeforms that he could talk them into the ground when discussing xenobiology or the ecosystems of non-Corsucant planets -- he thought he'd rather like that sort of order in his life. And there was no denying that Master Tholme's work was fascinating. Spies and intrigue, secret negotiations. It was more interesting. Glamorous. Obi-Wan envied Quinlan in this.
And then, one night, when they were the Trandill VI space station, there was a muffled pounding on their door.
Obi-Wan turned over in his sleep, but he heard Quinlan sit up in the bunk next to him. Qui-Gon was down the hallway in a room of his own, and Obi-Wan heard Quinlan call out, softly, just loudly enough to be the ventilation systems, "Master?"
There was silence. The pounding had stopped, apparently, and Obi-Wan was about to roll towards the wall and go back to sleep when the door whooshed open, and some sort of figure stumbled through. It reached one hand up to the light-plate, tabbed it on and --
Obi-Wan and Quinlan were both standing on the floor, their lightsabers called into their hands, but what had come through the door didn't even look like a man. There blood dripping down his face and soaked into its clothes; it was hunched over, and it smelled like it had just rolled out of a garbage can. There was a blood smear on the lightplate where is fingers had touched.
It raised its head and made a gaspy noise. Blood bubbled on its lips, and Quinlan shoved Obi-Wan. "It's Master Tholme. Go, bring the medics. Get your master."
Quinlan dropped onto his knees to catch the man as he swayed and slumped to the floor. It looked like there were fingers missing from the man's right hand, and it didn't look like had a nose anymore, his face was so bashed out of all shape. Obi-Wan didn't move because he had just caught the sight of some white hair, hair that hadn't been stained with blood and looked like Master Tholme's.
There were tears in Quinlan's eyes. His master's blood was dripping down his arms, and he was trying to get a firm enough grip through the blood to power on his lightsaber.
Quinlan turned and screamed at Obi-Wan. "Go! If you don't want my master to die, go!"
...
"Is that what you meant when you said you were scared of him?"
"No."
"What did you mean?"
"A couple weeks ago, he told me that he was training me to take his pla --"
"That's fantastic, Quinlan. You were so worried las -- "
"We were in his quarters, and he was calling me 'Padawan Quinlan', so I knew I was in trouble, but then, he took out this box that I knew he kept in one of the locked drawers, and he showed me what was inside. He said that for Jedi like us, life could be a hard, ugly thing. We couldn't afford to be as removed and high-minded like the ones on the Council, but we were the ones who really kept the Republic going."
A pause.
"Obi-Wan, that box was where he kept all different sorts of things that you can use to torture people. The real things, not models, because I could see the blood stains and corrosion on some of them. I thought that he was going to ask me to put my hands on them and read their recent pasts. Learn how they had been used, which was bad enough, but then he went to one of the cabinets and brought out two full bacta packs and set them on the desk in front of me. He told me that we were going to learn what it was like to be interrogated with Antidarian bars, and he wanted to know whether I could be trusted to keep quiet during it or whether he would have to use the Force to keep me from screaming."
Another pause, and Obi-Wan thought that Quinlan would be crying, but he was completely dry-eyed, and his voice was absolutely steady.
"Those bacta packs were for me. It didn't really hurt all that bad because he talked me through it and told me how to resist that kind of pain, but Obi-Wan. He knew how to use each of the things. They were things that he'd used actually used himself, on people who weren't willing. On people who would have rather died than tell him some of the things that they ended up telling him."
...
Quinlan Vos was the most heterosexual person that Obi-Wan knew. He was also the Padawan that Obi-Wan grew to be the closest to, though in all truth that he was the only other Padawan that Obi-Wan had any chance to know while he was a Padawan.
Also. Long before Obi-Wan learned of Quinlan's past before he came to the Jedi and long before Quinlan fought his battles with the Dark Side and Obi-Wan was the only one who would vouch for him -- long before all that, Quinlan was also the person that Obi-Wan respected most in the universe after his own master, Qui-Gon.
