Category: PWP, First Time, Romance. Angst, sort of.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: character death, but not in detail.
Spoilers: Reference to events (well, event) in TPM
Summary: On the severe, lovely world of Takalel, Qui-Gon
discovers some things about his Padawan. One of which is the
fact that Obi-Wan is a musician.
Feedback: Anything. An 'I loved it!' is just as appreciated as
a detailed crit, and I'll be thrilled with any level of
critique.
Notes: Thanks first of all to my dear beta, Flarn, who is a
massive help in both encouragement and critique. Also, I have
to give credit to my two inspirations: the writings of
Francesca Lia Block (whose style I always wind up miming after
I read her writings; wonderful stuff) and Ovid's 'The
Metamorphoses'. It's a strange combination, but some other Ovid
stuff is speaking to me, so it *may* become a series.
The night I became Obi-Wan's lover was also the first night I
discovered that he was a musician, and the second revelation
was almost as much of a surprise and a delight as the first.
On Takalel, the deserts are rainbows, with swirling sands in
white and pink and green and blue and gold. The dunes shift
with color as if the sun is a prism, and all its light refracts
before it strikes the world. The Takaleli ride great desert
beasts, kukeliptix who slip and slump over the ridges and
slippery-sandy dunes. They are a wild people, clad in silks
dyed as brilliant as the sands, wearing black wraparound shades
that seem incongruous with their primitive costumes. It is easy
to forget that they keep to their lives the desert by choice,
not by force of birth.
Obi-Wan and I went there once, seeking information. The
Takaleli specialize in information. Those who leave the
homeworld to vagabond in the stars--for vagabonds they are even
there, it being in their blood--gather every bit of gossip,
every snippet and sideways-spoken word, and relay it back to
their families. They say the Takaleli know everything, if only
you can get them to tell you.
We traveled with them, and they accepted us quite cheerfully.
Astonishingly cheerfully, considering that we did nothing to
help them. To our credit, they would not let us: when I
attempted to help pack a kukeliptix, they removed the gear from
my hands. Obi-Wan was the same. Almost they unseated two of
their own to give us beasts to ride, though we did not ask for
it. Obi-Wan wanted to insist to offer his aid, but I forbade
it. Sometimes, forcing aid is more offensive to a culture than
being lazy.
So it went, with the pair of us walking in the hot sun, until
night fell and the stars came out. The Takaleli brought out
their clean-burning heat source and ignited it. The blue flames
sent glimmering light out as the kukeliptix were hobbled and
unloaded. The young men unwrapped the upper layers of their
clothing. It was still hot, because the sands retained unusual
amounts of heat, but with the sun set they no longer feared
sunburn.
The Takaleli made a meal of lentils, heavily spiced, and flat
bread, and some kind of wine. The wine was clear and cold, and
very mild, and perhaps I drank more of it than I really ought.
Obi-Wan didn't touch it, which surprised me.
Then the nikinelon, the clan leader, turned to Obi-Wan and I
once the meal was over. She was a woman of middle years, with
long black hair mottled gray. "Now you will pay us for our
information."
"Oh?" I asked. I held out my hands in a gesture of
supplication, and said, "I am unfamiliar with your customs, I
do not know how you expect to be paid."
"I know." Her eyes sparkled. "You--or your Padawan, it matters
not at all which--will entertain us. Do either of you play and
instrument, perhaps? Or sing?"
"No--" I began, but my Padawan interrupted, and surprised me
beyond all reason.
"I do, Master," he said. He got up from where he had been
sitting and went around the fire. Kneeling, he made a request
of the nikinelon. She grinned, and removed something from a bag
beside her.
It was a small drum, the head perhaps as wide as my two hands
and quite round. It tapered a little to a flat bottom. The wood
was something dark and shiny-lacquered, the leather thin and
yellowish, and the whole thing bound together with thin thongs
of leather.
Obi-Wan tapped it a couple of times, testing it, then nodded.
He sat and bent one knee until his food rested flat on the
sand, and brought the drum in until it touched his inner thigh.
The other leg curved around the drum until it rested securely
in his lap. He bent his head, and the firelight caught him: the
way his tunic clung to his chest with sweat, the way his leg
curled around the drum, the glitter of his coppery hair.
The pulse of the drum started out loud and slow and steady,
like the heartbeat of a mountain or a monster. It swept up my
heartbeat in it, and I think the others as well; it thrummed
like the molten center of the earth. In that steady rhythm, we
were drawn together as if with a net, a net of powerful sound
that dragged us into synchronicity.
It was then that his other hand took up the melody of his
drumming: a lighter staccato beat. It ticked like a clock, beat
like the wings of a bird; it was as wild as the splash of water
on the banks of a stream and as gentle as the rustle of leaves
in the wind. It crashed and crescendoed, a wild counterpoint to
the relentless, steady beat of his other hand. And suddenly, in
a moment of infinite clarity, I understood exactly how
brilliant it was.
My Padawan had learned from birth of the Four Poles of the
Force: Dark and Light, Unifying and Living. Though the Jedi
walk the patterns of the Light, we are free to explore the
entire range of potential between the Unifying and Living
Force. I have always been strongest in the Living Force, my
Padawan in the Unifying, and I fear at times neither of us
understood the other very well. But in this moment....
The steady, stone-heartbeat was the Unifying Force, with all
its stability and power. The fluttering staccato was the Living
Force, with all its flexibility and possibility. Together they
wove a symphony of sound that arched like a rainbow between us,
a moment of perfect understanding. Obi-Wan raised his head and
looked at me, his eyes reflecting the blue flame of the heater,
and I understood another thing. This was a song to me.
A love song.
I was on my feet before I realized what I was doing, and even
then I didn't care. His eyes and lips threw sparkling dust into
the air, and with every breath I drew it into me, into my
lungs, into my blood. With every breath, with every beat of my
heart, the path became more certain. I was around the fire
before I knew what I was doing, and my Padawan stopped playing
and looked up at me.
I saw myself in his eyes, myself, backed with the dark, starry
sky. I held out my hand, and he took it without hesitation, and
there was absolute understanding in his eyes. I drew him to his
feet, and he came willingly, leaving the drum.
Neither of us led. We left together, and we left swiftly--the
speed of my passage sent my hair rippling out behind like my
cloak. I think the Takaleli were whooping and cheering at it,
but I cannot say.
We crossed the multicolored jewel-dust dunes, hardly looking at
each other, until we were far out of sight of the camp and
standing on a crest of pale-red sand. Obi-Wan stopped, and
turned to me, and said, "I love you." There was no prelude. I
hadn't expected it. Forthright indeed, is my apprentice.
"I love you," I said solemnly. He grinned, his teeth brilliant
white in the dark of the night, and reached up, and touched my
face. He kissed me. I kissed him. We kissed each other. The
wind whipped at my cloak and I ignored it, sliding my tongue
into his mouth, tasting the texture of his palate. He drew back
a little, closing his lips around my lower lip, drawing it out.
He tasted of the spices at dinner, and of something minty, and
I liked it very much. I drew him closer, one hand sliding up
the back of his neck. His mouth flowered open to mine again,
and this time he was exploring me as well, the brush of tongue
on tongue like velvet or satin.
We were kneeling, then; I'm not sure how we got that way. I
tugged at Obi-Wan's undertunic, which was all he wore, until it
came away in my hands. His skin was hot, hotter than the sun or
the sand. He struggled with the layers of my robe and stola and
tunics. How we managed to undress each other so quickly, out of
so many layers of chaste Jedi clothing, I cannot say. I can
only say that in a very short period of time, we were kneeling,
facing each other, on a nest of discarded garb.
I leaned back, drawing Obi-Wan with me, until we lay chest to
chest. We were both breathing hard. Obi-Wan shifted to straddle
my thighs, and braced his forearms against my chest. I trailed
one finger over a nipple, which hardened under my touch, then
trailed a line up his breastbone, up his throat, up his cheek,
to the place where his Padawan braid grew. I tugged it gently,
and he whimpered.
Then down again, over the flat of his belly, and he trembled.
My own body tensed in response, the breath catching like ice in
my throat, melting into liquid fire in all my veins. Down,
further, to what I sought.
I stroked the length of him. He groaned aloud, throwing back
his head, settling on my thighs as I indulged the desire to
touch, to explore. My own erection quivered in response,
hungry. I ticked along the underside with a forefinger, and he
moaned, a cascade of quicksilver sounds that rippled and
tumbled. I took the head between my thumb and forefinger, and
his moans became more insistent. He was very close; I was not,
was trying to calm my own excitement, because I wanted to make
this memorable for him. Concentrating, I hardly noticed when he
moans turned into words.
"What do you want, my love?" I asked, still teasing him with
featherlight touches. He sucked in a sharp breath between his
teeth.
"I want you," he managed. "Inside me."
Oh, he was beautiful, his pale body awash in starlight, nipples
darker and so very hard. He wanted this, his body told so:
wanted it badly, but I dared not until I was sure.
"Obi-Wan... are you sure that you..."
"Master..." He was so breathless, now, his chest heaved, and
that nearly drove me beyond reason in itself. "I've...
disagreed with you in the past... many times... do you really
think... I'd do this just to... please you...?"
I felt a sudden giddy joy for his short haircut that let me see
his face. His mouth was parted, lips drawn back into what might
have been a snarl in another place, another time. His eyes were
closed, and every tendon in his neck and chest stood out. The
sight of him sent a flashfire through my blood, burning away
hesitation.
We didn't have anything for lube, but didn't need it either.
Being a Jedi has its benefits. My Obi-Wan's muscle control is
literally supernatural; he relaxed himself with a thought, and
at the same time guided my hands to his hips. Looked down at
us, my callused hands on his milky thighs, his slim fingers
covering my hands. Then looked back up at me, and I sat up just
a little, so that we could be closer: eye to eye, breath to
breath.
Then we moved together. I cannot say that I took him, or he me:
we moved in perfect harmony, myself guiding his movements, him
rising on his knees, bringing himself to my tip. He lowered
himself slowly, so slowly, and I was lost absolutely in the
heat. He had relaxed himself enough that the passage was easy,
but he was so hot and so tight I feared I was hurting him
nonetheless.
I don't know who chose to set the pace so slowly, him or me;
whether it was my hands that stilled his downward motion, or
the movement of his hips. My intentions and his were blending,
the bond between Master and Padawan opening slowly, like a
flower, so that I could feel what he felt. His shields were
coming down, and in that moment I stopped worrying about
hurting him. The slow penetration was as wondrous and
pleasurable to him as the entry into his body was for me.
It was about then that I gave up all pretense of control.
I raised my hips, and he moved downward; the bond made our
movements a mirror. I heard him cry out, distantly, and through
that selfsame bond saw pleasure skitter through him as sparks
skitter when flint is struck with steel. Myself, I was a log
thrown on the fire.
It was all heat and motion, then. He rose and fell, letting
gravity do much of his work; I moved beneath him, and both of
us made noises than neither of us could hear through the rumble
like a windstorm rushing in our ears. The pleasure washed up
and over me like a beach wave, like a tide. It could have
lasted forever, and I wanted that, but there was a wild
pressure building up within me, and I wanted that too. I closed
my eyes, finally, when I surrendered, saw lightening against
the darkness of my eyelids. The pleasure swept up, crescendoed.
I hear myself calling, hear Obi-Wan's voice very close to mine.
He collapsed against me, and both of us back onto our clothes.
We were both soaked with sweat, and my belly was wet, also,
with the evidence of his orgasm. The bond that had dilated
between us was beginning to contract again, naturally, but I
was still very aware of Obi-Wan, of his pleasure.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" I asked. "About the drum."
Obi-Wan was a long time answering. "I wanted to give you
something. A gift. But everything I have, everything I know how
to do, comes from you... so I asked one of the Masters to teach
me drumming, so I could share something with you that was a new
present." He raised his head, looking at me with gray-blue
eyes, smoky and knowing. "Did you like it?"
"I liked it very much, Obi-Wan, and you know it."
He smiled again. "The Takaleli will wonder where we got to."
"I imagine they can figure it out."
We lay there in the moonlight, sharing body warmth, until the
sun came up over the blue-green-yellow-red dunes, and we shared
that as the sky changed to match the colors of the sand.
I suppose it's quite normal to think of the first time I made
love with my beloved now, but I think it must be strange indeed
that Obi-Wan's heartbeat, as he leans over me, seems so
important. My own matches it, but mine is failing, and his must
beat on, like his drums.
Oh, would that I could stay with you, could defy death for you,
my love. My musician. The drumming of your heartbeat is music
enough to lure me back, if only it were allowed.
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