Lack of Desire.
Feb. 15th, 2006 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quigonejinnOld fic of mine that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imadra_blue wanted to rec on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
crack_van, and that I freaked out about because it, um, sucks and is really rough. Hence, the changes in this, though it's still not what it should be. Pacing is still off, characterization is still crappy, Obi-Wan is still the biggest emo baby ever, but alas, I cannot figure out how to make it better. *stupid*
The secondary title is still "Obi-Wan's Life Would Have Sucked So Much More if Qui-Gon Hadn't Died," though. XD
There are few formal rules governing the relationships between Masters and Padawans. It is intended that way; it is why initiates are chosen by particular Knights or Masters. Flexibility and variance are built into the system, and for the record, yes, Obi-Wan is aware of the crush that he had on Qui-Gon.
He has grown past it, though. He has accepted it just like he accepted the fact that Qui-Gon essentially abandoned him for Anakin. They were hard truths. It took him years to learn them, and even longer to master, but a dozen years later, he has done it. When he returns to examining his feelings about Qui-Gon and Anakin, he finds that they don't stir him in the way that he might have expected.
Not the mental images of Qui-Gon on top of Anakin or the ones of Anakin on top of Qui-Gon.
A flash of jealousy, yes, when he makes himself imagine Anakin lifting Qui-Gon's hair so that he could lick the side of his Master's neck. Anakin, naked, face pressed to the bed and waiting for his Master to come fuck him.
Qui-Gon with his hand wrapped around Anakin's cock. Anakin down on his knees in front of Qui-Gon, sliding his tongue over and under, up and down Qui-Gon's cock before taking it into his mouth. Anakin on Qui-Gon's bed, legs spread and hands braced on the wall, moaning with three of Qui-Gon's fingers inside of him and trying not to beg for more.
But no. Obi-Wan questions himself over this. He meditates on it. There is a little jealousy, the ache of an old, frustrated desire. These are things he will certainly work on when there's time, but for now, he is going to have to address the furious, heart-pounding Force anxiety that he feels when he sees his old Master look at his new Padawan.
...
New is, admittedly, a misnomer. Obi-Wan is aware of it. Anakin has been Qui-Gon's apprentice for almost twelve years now. He, himself, was only a Padawan for thirteen, so Obi-Wan knows that he has no business calling Anakin the new Padawan. After all, it has been over a decade since he had a braid and trailed after Qui-Gon.
In fact, the word generally is that Qui-Gon has finally found himself a Padawan who truly suits him. Obi-Wan has heard it from more than one person; Obi-Wan has seen more than one report on the disciplinary duty that Qui-Gon and his Padawan have been assigned. There are benefits to being the heir apparent for the next open Council seat, after all, and at Yoda's suggestion, Obi-Wan had begun reviewing summaries and records of Council proceedings to prepare for becoming a Council member. As a result, he has seen, time after time, video of Qui-Gon bow stiffly to the Council while Anakin snuck an angry look at Mace Windu.
Obi-Wan has, for the record, in the dozen years in which he's been a Knight, yet to take a Padawan.
...
Obi-Wan loved and respected Qui-Gon when they were Master and Padawan, and even now, despite everything, Obi-Wan still loves and respects him. In fact, he hasn't seen Qui-Gon nearly enough in the past ten years; they haven't had occaision to send each other a letter from the field since both time and priority on Republic channels are precious, but there has been time for an occaisional message on the internal framework of computers that Jedi had access to while in Temple.
A wish of good luck on a forthcoming mission. A tip for dealing with the parasitic winged insects on a certain, particularly unpleasant jungle planet. A few, amused words about revisiting a planet that they had gone to when they were Master and Padawan.
At some point, even before the gut-wrenching anxiety about Anakin, Obi-Wan must have programmed the Temple system to alert him if he were ever on Corsucant while his master was there. He doesn't remember doing it, but at some point, he must have because he walks into his temporary quarters one Corsucant. He has no Padawan with him, so he is alone, and the lights are off. He tabs them on. He puts his satchel down on the floor; there are no sheets on the bed, a musty smell in the air. When he goes to the refresher, he finds that the room has been unoccupied so long that water line has been shut off.
The framework access node is online, though, and there are a few messages for him. A reminder that the Gardens would be unavailable during their scheduled seasonal maintenance. Confirmation that he would be briefing the Council thirty-six time units after his arrival. A few words, dark blue on a lighter blue background, to the effect that Master Qui-Gon would be planet-side for the next eight.
Obi-Wan suspects that the Council does not know that Qui-Gon is fucking his Padawan.
...
Here is how Obi-Wan knew that Qui-Gon was fucking Anakin: he had been watching the video of their briefings, and there had been a faint idea that there was something between them, something unusual. Anakin would have a way of looking at Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon would have a certain way of indicating that Anakin should follow him or that Anakin should be quiet, and it would have meant nothing to anyone else, but Obi-Wan had spent thirteen years memorizing Qui-Gon's entire catalogue of non-verbal expression. Every hand movement, every drop of the shoulder, every shift of posture.
Those particular ones had not been there when he was with Qui-Gon. When Qui-Gon gestured for Anakin to follow him, his arm was held more closely to his body. He inclined his hand in a different way, and the fingers moved in a way that they had not when he was summoning Obi-Wan. It was more intimate, more physical.
A few weeks later, Obi-Wan bumped into Qui-Gon and Anakin in the Nar Dhaal space station. Qui-Gon suggested that they go to the cantina and talk while they ate; there was no time for anything more, and Qui-Gon sent Anakin to stand in line to bring back food for all of them so that Obi-Wan could concentrate on telling Qui-Gon about his recent adventures.
"I have not seen you for too long, Obi-Wan. Sit and talk to me."
Qui-Gon's order to Anakin still stood, and after a long moment of silence where Qui-Gon was smiling at Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan was eying Anakin, Anakin got up.
He looked at Obi-Wan. He looked at his master. Qui-Gon turned, lifted his eyebrows at Anakin, then smiled in the corner of his mouth, and Anakin flushed. He bent his head, went to stand in line like a dutiful, commanded Padawan, and Obi-Wan would have thought that it was just another fit of jealousy and possessiveness like what he had as a Padawan whenver Qui-Gon favored somebody who didn't deserve it, would have a felt a flash of sympathy for Anakin, but then he saw the look that Qui-Gon cast over his shoulder at Anakin before settling in to listen.
An angle of the head, an expression on the lips. An eagerness that hadn't been there. He had missed Obi-Wan, but he wanted Anakin to come back soon.
When Obi-Wan had been Qui-Gon's Padawan, it hadn't been lack of desire on Obi-Wan's part that kept them from fucking.
...
Obi-Wan's tongue on Qui-Gon's skin. Obi-Wan's hand on his Master's hair, lifting it up and putting it over Qui-Gon's shoulder when he climbed up behind Qui-Gon to fuck him. What it would have been like to be fuck Qui-Gon, how his shoulders would have been almost as broad as his Master's even though his hips were narrower and his arms were shorter. Obi-Wan would have had to stretch to cover Qui-Gon. How their bodies would have fit together, how Obi-Wan wanted his first kiss to have been with Qui-Gon and how, even after he'd had his first kiss and learned what it was all about and had bad sex and good sex and all sorts of in-between variants, he still dreamed about someday having sex with Qui-Gon.
He wouldn't have seduced Qui-Gon by kissing on the mouth to start with. Instead, in his dreams, he would have started with Qui-Gon's hand. He would have kissed the back, then turned Qui-Gon's hand over and kissed him on the wrist, where the pulse was. Dragged his tongue down the center of Qui-Gon's palm, down to the very end of the fingers, then kissed his way back up, pressing his mouth aganst each joint.
He already knew where the lightsaber calluses would have been because they were modeled, in a smaller scale, on his own hands; Obi-Wan had built his lightsaber to match Qui-Gon's.
Obi-Wan is fairly sure that Qui-Gon know how badly Obi-Wan wanted to fuck him when they were Master and Padawan.
Again, it wasn't lack of desire on Obi-Wan's part that kept them from fucking.
...
When Anakin came back with the food, when they had bumped into each other on that space station, Qui-Gon tore a bit from the loaf of bread, offered Anakin a bit of it from his hand. Anakin used his left hand to take it from Qui-Gon, then settled down to chewing on bread and the heavily-spiced stew that he had brought back. He was pointedly ignoring Obi-Wan, it seemed.
Qui-Gon looked at Anakin, watched him eat, then turned back to Obi-Wan.
He looked concerned. "I hear you've yet to take a Padawan, Obi-Wan."
Anakin went on chewing his bread -- he was tearing it off the loaf with his own fingers -- and staring off into space. His Padawan braid trailed down his back, and images of fire and destruction filled Obi-Wan's meditations that night. Sand. Blood. Anakin with two green lightsabers in hand.
...
Now, Obi-Wan sits with Qui-Gon outside while Qui-Gon's transport finished pre-liftoff maintenance. Qui-Gon had kept his old fondness for contact with natural environments, and since the Gardens were closed during maintenance, the closest he could get on Corsucant, it seemed, was to sit in the bare sun. Both of them knew that the spectrum from the Corsucant sun had been manipulated twelve thousand years before by heavy metal bombardment -- Obi-Wan remembered doing a report on spectral results of thermogrpahic manipulation for Qui-Gon as a Padawan -- but the sunlight nevertheless puts Qui-Gon in a good mood.
A talkative one. He tells Obi-Wan some of his frustrations with the Council, the Republic. With Anakin. A previous mission that went poorly. Mundane things that every Jedi complained about mixed in with terrible, worrying things, and Obi-Wan has to frown at nothing in particular before he can get the words out.
"I hear that you took him back to Tatooine."
"He was having dreams." Qui-Gon straightens. He tucks his arms together underneath his robe, and Obi-Wan finds that he is studying the lines of sun and shadow that they are making on the hangar bay floor. He makes himself raise his shoulders and look at Qui-Gon.
"Visions of terrible things happening to his mother."
"Did they happen?"
Qui-Gon presses his lips together. "Some of them."
A pause. Words should not be so hard for him. The last time that he saw Qui-Gon, Qui-Gon had greeted him by calling him The Negotiator of Sadrina. Qui-Gon had also mentioned Obi-Wan's chances of a place on the Council; he had been keeping tabs on Obi-Wan, it seemed. Watching for him on the Holonet, and again, it is tempting to go back to watching the sun and shadow on the floor of the hangar bay. It will not be very long until the transport is ready, so Obi-Wan makes himself say it.
"There are some who think that Anakin is dangerous, Master."
Qui-Gon lets out a long, long breath. Obi-Wan sucks in a breath of his own. The sunlight made it hard to see clearly, but if he turns to look out at the hangar bay, he knows he would see the blaze of afternoon sun over the Corsucant skyline. Glass on windows. This conversation is difficult.
"I think he's dangerous, Qui-Gon. The incident on Malastare, reports of his discovery of Force lightning."
His master, though, will not look anywhere but a patch of shadow from the docking bay that stretched out onto the liftoff platform, and Qui-Gon does not speak for a long time.
When he finally does, there is genuine grief in his voice. His hand comes up, almost as if he wants to touch Obi-Wan as he used to do when they were Master and Padawan, and Obi-Wan cannot bear to look at his master anymore. He concentrates on the pattern of sunlight behind Qui-Gon's shoulder; out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan can see Qui-Gon's hand start to reach out, come cloes to touching him, and then drop.
"I am sorry that he dislikes you so much, Obi-Wan."
Qui-Gon's voice, containing nothing but sadness and exhaustion. Light and shadow, just beyond his left shoulder. The transport and its engines, to his right, roaring into the warmup sequence. Sunlight on them both, and the Force, aching in Obi-Wan's chest until he cannot distinguish it from the pain of his own grief.
...
"A better master for Anakin you would have made," Yoda said. His tone was sad, mournful, and Obi-Wan fixed his eyes on a patch of the room where shadow ran into light.
"Curbed his rebellion, you would have. Risk of two Jedi lost to the Dark Side, we would not be facing."
...
Obi-Wan remembered Anakin, as a boy with a round face and a gift for racers. Obi-Wan remembered the Anakin that he had seen in the Cantina on Nar Dhaal, sullen and sulking because his Master was paying attention to someone else. Obi-Wan remembered, too, standing in the darkness of the hangar bay and watching as Anakin boarded the transport with Qui-Gon. Halfway up the gang plank, he produced a small red flower, exotic and stolen from the closed Gardens, and presented it to Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon frowned down at it and gave Anakin a long, hard look.
He went up into the ship by himself, leaving Anakin to stand by himself in the light with the flower in hand and their travel satchel on his shoulder. Anakin looked down at the flower, then looked into the shadows, straight at Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon had taught him enough of the Living Force, it seemed, for him to see through the invisibility and Unifying Force that Obi-Wan had pulled around him.
Obi-Wan remembered all that, and he would remember, too, his old vision of sand and heat and death when he was on Mustafar and watching Anakin fire up two lightsabers. One was red, but the other was green. It was hard to see in the poor light of the environment, but it looked like there was dried blood around the grip of the green lightsaber. If it was, it would likely be dull brown. The lava underfoot was bright red, and Anakin slid into the opening stance of a form that Obi-Wan knew and recognized very well.
"He loved you," Obi-Wan said.
His voice was hoarse because of the fumes. He had to shout to be heard over the roaring of the furnaces. "Your master loved you."
...
Obi-Wan is sure that Qui-Gon did not, before the end, fall into shadow and the Dark Side. He is sure of it. He finds it inconceivable.
...
There are, in the end, few formal rules governing the relationships between Masters and Padawans. It is intended that way; it is why initiates are chosen by particular Knights or Masters. Fexibility and variance is built into the system.
These days, living out the death of the Republic and without any hope, scraping an existence out of the planet where the man who ended it all was born and became free, Obi-Wan is aware of the grief and the painful limitations built into it, too.
imadra_blue wanted to rec on crack_van, and that I freaked out about because it, um, sucks and is really rough. Hence, the changes in this, though it's still not what it should be. Pacing is still off, characterization is still crappy, Obi-Wan is still the biggest emo baby ever, but alas, I cannot figure out how to make it better. *stupid* The secondary title is still "Obi-Wan's Life Would Have Sucked So Much More if Qui-Gon Hadn't Died," though. XD
There are few formal rules governing the relationships between Masters and Padawans. It is intended that way; it is why initiates are chosen by particular Knights or Masters. Flexibility and variance are built into the system, and for the record, yes, Obi-Wan is aware of the crush that he had on Qui-Gon.
He has grown past it, though. He has accepted it just like he accepted the fact that Qui-Gon essentially abandoned him for Anakin. They were hard truths. It took him years to learn them, and even longer to master, but a dozen years later, he has done it. When he returns to examining his feelings about Qui-Gon and Anakin, he finds that they don't stir him in the way that he might have expected.
Not the mental images of Qui-Gon on top of Anakin or the ones of Anakin on top of Qui-Gon.
A flash of jealousy, yes, when he makes himself imagine Anakin lifting Qui-Gon's hair so that he could lick the side of his Master's neck. Anakin, naked, face pressed to the bed and waiting for his Master to come fuck him.
Qui-Gon with his hand wrapped around Anakin's cock. Anakin down on his knees in front of Qui-Gon, sliding his tongue over and under, up and down Qui-Gon's cock before taking it into his mouth. Anakin on Qui-Gon's bed, legs spread and hands braced on the wall, moaning with three of Qui-Gon's fingers inside of him and trying not to beg for more.
But no. Obi-Wan questions himself over this. He meditates on it. There is a little jealousy, the ache of an old, frustrated desire. These are things he will certainly work on when there's time, but for now, he is going to have to address the furious, heart-pounding Force anxiety that he feels when he sees his old Master look at his new Padawan.
...
New is, admittedly, a misnomer. Obi-Wan is aware of it. Anakin has been Qui-Gon's apprentice for almost twelve years now. He, himself, was only a Padawan for thirteen, so Obi-Wan knows that he has no business calling Anakin the new Padawan. After all, it has been over a decade since he had a braid and trailed after Qui-Gon.
In fact, the word generally is that Qui-Gon has finally found himself a Padawan who truly suits him. Obi-Wan has heard it from more than one person; Obi-Wan has seen more than one report on the disciplinary duty that Qui-Gon and his Padawan have been assigned. There are benefits to being the heir apparent for the next open Council seat, after all, and at Yoda's suggestion, Obi-Wan had begun reviewing summaries and records of Council proceedings to prepare for becoming a Council member. As a result, he has seen, time after time, video of Qui-Gon bow stiffly to the Council while Anakin snuck an angry look at Mace Windu.
Obi-Wan has, for the record, in the dozen years in which he's been a Knight, yet to take a Padawan.
...
Obi-Wan loved and respected Qui-Gon when they were Master and Padawan, and even now, despite everything, Obi-Wan still loves and respects him. In fact, he hasn't seen Qui-Gon nearly enough in the past ten years; they haven't had occaision to send each other a letter from the field since both time and priority on Republic channels are precious, but there has been time for an occaisional message on the internal framework of computers that Jedi had access to while in Temple.
A wish of good luck on a forthcoming mission. A tip for dealing with the parasitic winged insects on a certain, particularly unpleasant jungle planet. A few, amused words about revisiting a planet that they had gone to when they were Master and Padawan.
At some point, even before the gut-wrenching anxiety about Anakin, Obi-Wan must have programmed the Temple system to alert him if he were ever on Corsucant while his master was there. He doesn't remember doing it, but at some point, he must have because he walks into his temporary quarters one Corsucant. He has no Padawan with him, so he is alone, and the lights are off. He tabs them on. He puts his satchel down on the floor; there are no sheets on the bed, a musty smell in the air. When he goes to the refresher, he finds that the room has been unoccupied so long that water line has been shut off.
The framework access node is online, though, and there are a few messages for him. A reminder that the Gardens would be unavailable during their scheduled seasonal maintenance. Confirmation that he would be briefing the Council thirty-six time units after his arrival. A few words, dark blue on a lighter blue background, to the effect that Master Qui-Gon would be planet-side for the next eight.
Obi-Wan suspects that the Council does not know that Qui-Gon is fucking his Padawan.
...
Here is how Obi-Wan knew that Qui-Gon was fucking Anakin: he had been watching the video of their briefings, and there had been a faint idea that there was something between them, something unusual. Anakin would have a way of looking at Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon would have a certain way of indicating that Anakin should follow him or that Anakin should be quiet, and it would have meant nothing to anyone else, but Obi-Wan had spent thirteen years memorizing Qui-Gon's entire catalogue of non-verbal expression. Every hand movement, every drop of the shoulder, every shift of posture.
Those particular ones had not been there when he was with Qui-Gon. When Qui-Gon gestured for Anakin to follow him, his arm was held more closely to his body. He inclined his hand in a different way, and the fingers moved in a way that they had not when he was summoning Obi-Wan. It was more intimate, more physical.
A few weeks later, Obi-Wan bumped into Qui-Gon and Anakin in the Nar Dhaal space station. Qui-Gon suggested that they go to the cantina and talk while they ate; there was no time for anything more, and Qui-Gon sent Anakin to stand in line to bring back food for all of them so that Obi-Wan could concentrate on telling Qui-Gon about his recent adventures.
"I have not seen you for too long, Obi-Wan. Sit and talk to me."
Qui-Gon's order to Anakin still stood, and after a long moment of silence where Qui-Gon was smiling at Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan was eying Anakin, Anakin got up.
He looked at Obi-Wan. He looked at his master. Qui-Gon turned, lifted his eyebrows at Anakin, then smiled in the corner of his mouth, and Anakin flushed. He bent his head, went to stand in line like a dutiful, commanded Padawan, and Obi-Wan would have thought that it was just another fit of jealousy and possessiveness like what he had as a Padawan whenver Qui-Gon favored somebody who didn't deserve it, would have a felt a flash of sympathy for Anakin, but then he saw the look that Qui-Gon cast over his shoulder at Anakin before settling in to listen.
An angle of the head, an expression on the lips. An eagerness that hadn't been there. He had missed Obi-Wan, but he wanted Anakin to come back soon.
When Obi-Wan had been Qui-Gon's Padawan, it hadn't been lack of desire on Obi-Wan's part that kept them from fucking.
...
Obi-Wan's tongue on Qui-Gon's skin. Obi-Wan's hand on his Master's hair, lifting it up and putting it over Qui-Gon's shoulder when he climbed up behind Qui-Gon to fuck him. What it would have been like to be fuck Qui-Gon, how his shoulders would have been almost as broad as his Master's even though his hips were narrower and his arms were shorter. Obi-Wan would have had to stretch to cover Qui-Gon. How their bodies would have fit together, how Obi-Wan wanted his first kiss to have been with Qui-Gon and how, even after he'd had his first kiss and learned what it was all about and had bad sex and good sex and all sorts of in-between variants, he still dreamed about someday having sex with Qui-Gon.
He wouldn't have seduced Qui-Gon by kissing on the mouth to start with. Instead, in his dreams, he would have started with Qui-Gon's hand. He would have kissed the back, then turned Qui-Gon's hand over and kissed him on the wrist, where the pulse was. Dragged his tongue down the center of Qui-Gon's palm, down to the very end of the fingers, then kissed his way back up, pressing his mouth aganst each joint.
He already knew where the lightsaber calluses would have been because they were modeled, in a smaller scale, on his own hands; Obi-Wan had built his lightsaber to match Qui-Gon's.
Obi-Wan is fairly sure that Qui-Gon know how badly Obi-Wan wanted to fuck him when they were Master and Padawan.
Again, it wasn't lack of desire on Obi-Wan's part that kept them from fucking.
...
When Anakin came back with the food, when they had bumped into each other on that space station, Qui-Gon tore a bit from the loaf of bread, offered Anakin a bit of it from his hand. Anakin used his left hand to take it from Qui-Gon, then settled down to chewing on bread and the heavily-spiced stew that he had brought back. He was pointedly ignoring Obi-Wan, it seemed.
Qui-Gon looked at Anakin, watched him eat, then turned back to Obi-Wan.
He looked concerned. "I hear you've yet to take a Padawan, Obi-Wan."
Anakin went on chewing his bread -- he was tearing it off the loaf with his own fingers -- and staring off into space. His Padawan braid trailed down his back, and images of fire and destruction filled Obi-Wan's meditations that night. Sand. Blood. Anakin with two green lightsabers in hand.
...
Now, Obi-Wan sits with Qui-Gon outside while Qui-Gon's transport finished pre-liftoff maintenance. Qui-Gon had kept his old fondness for contact with natural environments, and since the Gardens were closed during maintenance, the closest he could get on Corsucant, it seemed, was to sit in the bare sun. Both of them knew that the spectrum from the Corsucant sun had been manipulated twelve thousand years before by heavy metal bombardment -- Obi-Wan remembered doing a report on spectral results of thermogrpahic manipulation for Qui-Gon as a Padawan -- but the sunlight nevertheless puts Qui-Gon in a good mood.
A talkative one. He tells Obi-Wan some of his frustrations with the Council, the Republic. With Anakin. A previous mission that went poorly. Mundane things that every Jedi complained about mixed in with terrible, worrying things, and Obi-Wan has to frown at nothing in particular before he can get the words out.
"I hear that you took him back to Tatooine."
"He was having dreams." Qui-Gon straightens. He tucks his arms together underneath his robe, and Obi-Wan finds that he is studying the lines of sun and shadow that they are making on the hangar bay floor. He makes himself raise his shoulders and look at Qui-Gon.
"Visions of terrible things happening to his mother."
"Did they happen?"
Qui-Gon presses his lips together. "Some of them."
A pause. Words should not be so hard for him. The last time that he saw Qui-Gon, Qui-Gon had greeted him by calling him The Negotiator of Sadrina. Qui-Gon had also mentioned Obi-Wan's chances of a place on the Council; he had been keeping tabs on Obi-Wan, it seemed. Watching for him on the Holonet, and again, it is tempting to go back to watching the sun and shadow on the floor of the hangar bay. It will not be very long until the transport is ready, so Obi-Wan makes himself say it.
"There are some who think that Anakin is dangerous, Master."
Qui-Gon lets out a long, long breath. Obi-Wan sucks in a breath of his own. The sunlight made it hard to see clearly, but if he turns to look out at the hangar bay, he knows he would see the blaze of afternoon sun over the Corsucant skyline. Glass on windows. This conversation is difficult.
"I think he's dangerous, Qui-Gon. The incident on Malastare, reports of his discovery of Force lightning."
His master, though, will not look anywhere but a patch of shadow from the docking bay that stretched out onto the liftoff platform, and Qui-Gon does not speak for a long time.
When he finally does, there is genuine grief in his voice. His hand comes up, almost as if he wants to touch Obi-Wan as he used to do when they were Master and Padawan, and Obi-Wan cannot bear to look at his master anymore. He concentrates on the pattern of sunlight behind Qui-Gon's shoulder; out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan can see Qui-Gon's hand start to reach out, come cloes to touching him, and then drop.
"I am sorry that he dislikes you so much, Obi-Wan."
Qui-Gon's voice, containing nothing but sadness and exhaustion. Light and shadow, just beyond his left shoulder. The transport and its engines, to his right, roaring into the warmup sequence. Sunlight on them both, and the Force, aching in Obi-Wan's chest until he cannot distinguish it from the pain of his own grief.
...
"A better master for Anakin you would have made," Yoda said. His tone was sad, mournful, and Obi-Wan fixed his eyes on a patch of the room where shadow ran into light.
"Curbed his rebellion, you would have. Risk of two Jedi lost to the Dark Side, we would not be facing."
...
Obi-Wan remembered Anakin, as a boy with a round face and a gift for racers. Obi-Wan remembered the Anakin that he had seen in the Cantina on Nar Dhaal, sullen and sulking because his Master was paying attention to someone else. Obi-Wan remembered, too, standing in the darkness of the hangar bay and watching as Anakin boarded the transport with Qui-Gon. Halfway up the gang plank, he produced a small red flower, exotic and stolen from the closed Gardens, and presented it to Qui-Gon. Qui-Gon frowned down at it and gave Anakin a long, hard look.
He went up into the ship by himself, leaving Anakin to stand by himself in the light with the flower in hand and their travel satchel on his shoulder. Anakin looked down at the flower, then looked into the shadows, straight at Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon had taught him enough of the Living Force, it seemed, for him to see through the invisibility and Unifying Force that Obi-Wan had pulled around him.
Obi-Wan remembered all that, and he would remember, too, his old vision of sand and heat and death when he was on Mustafar and watching Anakin fire up two lightsabers. One was red, but the other was green. It was hard to see in the poor light of the environment, but it looked like there was dried blood around the grip of the green lightsaber. If it was, it would likely be dull brown. The lava underfoot was bright red, and Anakin slid into the opening stance of a form that Obi-Wan knew and recognized very well.
"He loved you," Obi-Wan said.
His voice was hoarse because of the fumes. He had to shout to be heard over the roaring of the furnaces. "Your master loved you."
...
Obi-Wan is sure that Qui-Gon did not, before the end, fall into shadow and the Dark Side. He is sure of it. He finds it inconceivable.
...
There are, in the end, few formal rules governing the relationships between Masters and Padawans. It is intended that way; it is why initiates are chosen by particular Knights or Masters. Fexibility and variance is built into the system.
These days, living out the death of the Republic and without any hope, scraping an existence out of the planet where the man who ended it all was born and became free, Obi-Wan is aware of the grief and the painful limitations built into it, too.
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Date: 2006-09-06 03:37 am (UTC)Lovely.
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