This Feeling Inside

by Lady Salieri (ladysalieri@aol.com)

Category: PWP (my very first! I'm so excited!)

Warnings: none

Spoilers/Series: none Archive: M/A, anyone else who wants it

Feedback: Yes, please! ... to ladysalieri@aol.com

Notes: Thanks to Ruth Gifford for such a cool first-line challenge! Virtually nothing in this story is mine :> .... the opening line belongs to B. Taupin and E. John, the characters belong to G. Lucas, and the poem QG recites (much as I wish I could claim it as mine) was written by Pablo Neruda.

"It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside."

The words were so at odds with the Padawan's stiff posture and flat delivery that the Jedi sitting before him on the couch couldn't help himself. He laughed.

"I'm not--... Master!" Obi-Wan broke off his dutiful recitation and scowled at the lone member of his audience. "You're not helping matters any!"

Qui-Gon swallowed his laughter with some difficulty and schooled his features into reasonable semblance of remorse. "I'm sorry, Padawan," he said, wiping a stray tear from his eye, "but you looked so... Well, you can't possibly call that a dramatic reading!"

Obi-Wan drew himself up in an even more forbidding stance, the very picture of bruised dignity. "May I remind you, Master," he huffed, "that taking this poetry class was not my idea. You said a Jedi Knight should be as well-read as possible, and you told me an understanding of the arts could lend valuable insights into the psyches of the beings we serve."

Obi-Wan's voice raised in volume as his indignation bubbled to the surface. "Now I'm stuck with the task of reciting a love poem to a class of 200 other Padawans, and I think the very least you could do, after forcing me into all this, is sit through my attempts to emote this tripe without falling down into hysterical laughter!"

Qui-Gon stroked his moustache in a sadly transparent attempt to disguise the smile on his face. "Perhaps your problem lies in the particular poem you've chosen," he put in, when he could trust his voice not to show his amusement. "What made you decide on the one you're reading now?"

Obi-Wan waved his hand about in a dismissive gesture. "Ber-Ni Taupin is one of the most popular poets of the modern era," he replied, with a shrug. "He seemed as reasonable a choice for this assignment as anyone."

Qui-Gon shook his head at the younger man's response. "You're missing the whole point of the exercise, my Padawan. The point is to feel passionate about your reading... to find a poem that speaks to you on an emotional level and then communicate that emotion to your audience. Reason shouldn't enter into the equation at all."

"But, Master," Obi-Wan protested, "most of the poetry I've read is not truly emotional at all. It's artificial sentiment... just a smattering of cliches, thinly covered with vague metaphors and flowery language. How is it possible to be moved by something so ridiculously overblown?"

Qui-Gon leaned forward slightly on the couch, his eyes gleaming with a strange intensity. "Perhaps you need a demonstration of how... persuasive... good poetry can be."

Obi-Wan's eyes widened at the silky tones of his Master's voice. Was Qui-Gon merely offering to show his dramatic talents, or was he... could he possibly mean the fulfillment of every fantasy and hidden longing Obi-Wan had cherished for his Master since the moment his body had first awakened into manhood?

"Perhaps I do, Master," Obi-Wan rasped, through a throat gone suddenly tight with anticipation.

Qui-Gon studied his Padawan for a long moment, then his mouth curved in a contemplative grin.

"I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair," he said, his voice dipping to a sensual purr. "Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets."

Fitting action to words, the Jedi Master rose to his feet and closed the distance between them with slow, purposeful steps. "Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps."

He stopped a mere hair's breadth apart from the Padawan, the sheer magnitude of his presence consuming Obi-Wan's senses, driving all hope of coherence away. The Padawan's veins thrummed with amazed excitement as the Jedi's breath tickled his ear, Qui-Gon's voice a near whisper as he continued.

"I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest... hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails."

Qui-Gon reached down and grasped one of Obi-Wan's hands in his own, placing a soft kiss on the younger man's palm before guiding it up to his cheek. The Padawan moaned faintly as his fingers encountered the soft hair on his Master's jaw and the warmth of the skin underneath.

"I want to eat your skin like a whole almond," Qui-Gon murmured huskily.

"Master!" Obi-Wan gasped, transfixed by the strong line of Qui-Gon's collarbone, dazed and entranced and wanting nothing more in this universe than to lower his head the inch that separated them and taste the skin in the hollow of his Master's throat.

Qui-Gon's head bent again, his lips brushed Obi-Wan's temple, his nose, then blazed a scorching trail down the Padawan's cheek and neck. "I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body, the sovereign nose of your arrogant face."

Obi-Wan's knees weakened perilously, the strong arm that slid round his waist and the hand that splayed itself across his back all that kept him from collapsing in a molten heap on the carpeted floor below him. His hands clutched desperately at the older man's tunics; he swayed, and Qui-Gon groaned at the feel of his Padawan's cloth-covered erection against his own.

"I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes," Qui-Gon rasped, his voice almost intelligible as he fumbled with Obi-Wan's belt and sash, "and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight."

Obi-Wan's hands were now active, too, frantically pushing at Qui-Gon's clothes in mindless need for the heat of bare skin.

"Hunting for you, for your hot heart, like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue."

With a feral growl, and a strength of will summoned from the very depths of his soul, Obi-Wan pushed Qui-Gon backwards to fall onto their couch. He worked loose the ties of his Master's trousers and freed the throbbing erection he found there. Qui-Gon's head fell back with a wordless cry; his hands grasped his Padawan's rear to grind him mindlessly against his own hardness... and then they were both screaming, as almost at once, they exploded in glorious bliss.

In the aftermath, Obi-Wan lay his head against his Master's broad chest, while Qui-Gon trailed a gentle hand up and down Obi-Wan's arm. "Still finding it hard to feel passionate about poetry?" the older man asked languidly.

Obi-Wan turned his face into his Master's chest, inhaling the scent of Qui-Gon's skin beneath the smell of sex about them. "Give me some more time, Master," he replied, with a smile. "You may make a convert of me just yet."