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sweetprinceTitle: Those Who Do Not Know Love
Disclaimer: Oh, God, the only character I own in like the entire damn thing is the crazy stalker. Seriously, you can have her.
Summary: Anakin Skywalker misbehaves and gets sent to teach padawans as punishment, setting off a chain of events that will completely change history.
Pairing: Anakin/Obi-Wan, Wincest
Chapters: One-Shot, baby! Like you could forgive me if I made this longer
Genre: AU, x-over between Supernatural and Star Wars
Rating: NC-17
Acknowledgements: Thank You![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xtinethepirate for the beta job and for being so nice even when I thought I was going nuts.
Notes: So to make a long convoluted story short I basically decided to write a x-over between SPN and Star Wars. It truly is allxtinethepirate's fault though. She not only didn't stop me, she totally enabled me. You minx!
Anakin had done it again. He wasn’t even sure what exactly it had been but you never knew with Mace Windu (Obi-Wan of course would claim that Anakin knew exactly what it was he did, but that was a complete falsehood). The tall Jedi master had lost his patience with Anakin before he’d even met him; it was little wonder that Mace hadn’t devised an even harsher punishment. Well, okay, teaching Padawans was pretty harsh, especially with that Oreli Nuer’she staring at him avidly as he stood in front of them. The rest of them looked about as bored as he remembered being back when he had to sit through this junk.
“So…” he said slowly, wondering how it was exactly one started these things. “String Theory,” he threw out there hoping that it would provoke some reaction. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, certainly not uncontainable joy at the subject of physics. Only Oreli looked vaguely interested and Anakin had the extremely uncomfortable feeling that it had more to do with his backside than with hard science.
Anakin sighed and turned to the board, wondering if he could rewire the holo-computer to teach the damn class for him. Probably not. He could hear the students shifting restlessly in their seats, maybe he could just leave them to it. It couldn’t be any more boring than what he had to say. And then he felt it, a little tickle in the back of his mind. Ahah, a student was writing a note! Abominable, in his class too! Granted, if Anakin was honest his outrage was more over the fact that the little idiot thought he could pull a fast one on Anakin, who was so clearly one of the most force-sensitive people in the whole damn temple.
Anakin looked over his shoulder at the boy who was still utterly clueless, and schooled his face into a suitably stern (a look he borrowed from Obi-Wan) expression. Although Anakin hardly realized that his ‘stern-face’ was more likely to set the female padawan-learner’s hearts on fire than chasten the criminal note-writer. With a graceful about-face (Anakin did nothing without grace, people who said otherwise, read: Mace Windu, were liars) Anakin stomped down upon the student in question.
His robes swept out behind him (a look well perfected over time) as he stopped in front of him and picked up their data-pad with his gloved durasteel hand.
‘“Meet in north speeder hanger, will have Corellian wine with me’” he read off it, before looking down at the student with raised brows. “Oh, good! You’ve shown the class that it is possible to use the tablet function! Although I dare say you spelled hangar wrong.”
The entire class erupted into laughter and Anakin finally found his equilibrium. It’s not like he was trotting out diplomacy at the edge of a blade in a place he was unaware of the customs. They were only Padawans, hardly unconquerable.
“Well, since you so desire to be helpful, why don’t you tell me what String Theory is?”
The student blushed hotly, his face turning an unattractive red. “I—I don’t know, Master.”
Anakin set the data-pad down. “Wrong! And you would do well to remember that I am no master!” He glanced around the room. One boy with wavy dark hair pressed his lips together to hide a smile and Anakin crossed his arms.
“You—” he pointed at the teen.
“Sameth,” the boy interjected.
“Yes, Sameth,” Anakin replied brusquely, “you look like you have a brain in your head. Tell us about String Theory?”
Sameth sat up in his seat. “String theory is a model of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects—strings—rather than the zero-dimensional points—particles—that are the basis of the Standard Model of particle physics.”
Anakin couldn’t help the impressed grin that curved his lips upward. “Indeed.” He noted with interest the way the dirty-blond boy beside Sameth smiled around the stylus he had his lips wrapped-round. Sameth colored prettily.
“And why is this important?” Anakin barreled on before anyone could answer, not like they’d know anyway. “String theory appears to be able to "unify" the known natural forces—gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong—by describing them with the same set of equations.”
He walked back up to the board. “The point of all this is that String Theory allows for more than just the four dimensions, it allows…”
As he talked and drew diagrams and illuminated holos he kept an eye on the two boys seated in the third row, Sameth and Denar. They never spoke to each other, not once, not even to whisper, but Anakin, who knew forbidden love for another Jedi, saw the connection immediately. He was also pretty sure that Denar was sucking on that stylus because he knew it put him at great advantage with Sameth. Surely Sameth was having to tear his eyes away again every time Anakin asked him another question.
Anakin really had no tolerance for Padawans, not even when he had been one—well in all actuality Anakin had little tolerance for people. Beautiful Senator Amidala with her idealistic prose and grand schemes and ever-expanding wardrobe that probably could have financed all of those unrealistic plots was really the worst. Obi-Wan had made fun of him for two solid weeks about his fond memories of the former Queen being so er—well, absolutely wrong. But there was something about this Sameth, something about him that was rather allowing him to enjoy this hour in hell, although that could possibly be that he was the only one conversant in higher-level science where all the others fiddled about with their data-pads like he was a clueless bantha herder without sight or brain.
Sameth also seemed to have a knowledge of computers, droids, and hi-speed mechanics to rival Anakin’s own, which was really something because it was not knowledge that the Jedi wasted much time fostering in their followers. Although Anakin wasn’t sure why. If Obi-Wan had told him about the Planet Kamino being missing from the Jedi Archives when it was known to exist, Anakin would’ve easily been able to have found the deleted data. But that was beside the point.
When the wretched class was finally over Anakin could’ve done a dance. What he really did was back himself up against the board to make sure that Oreli would never have the opportunity to walk behind him.
Sameth was just about to leave when Anakin detained him. “Walk with me for a minute, Padawan.”
Sameth blushed again. “It would be an honor, Knight Skywalker.”
“I’ve seen you before in the droid hall, haven’t I?” Anakin asked as they made their way down one of the long corridors.
“I—yes, I had heard that you built a protocol droid at only eight?”
“Nine,” Anakin corrected. “Is that what you’re interested in?”
Sameth shook his head. “I want to make better transportation devices, to make it easier to get to one planet to another.”
“And so the interest in M-theory?”
“Yes.”
“I’m impressed, if you could ever use a helping hand?” Anakin offered with a grin. Sameth blushed again. “But that is not why I asked you to walk with me.”
Sameth looked startled. “May I ask what is then?”
Anakin smiled and stopped walking, crossing his arms into his sleeves. “You and Padawan Denar Andrilek have a relationship?”
Sameth shut down, all good humor gone from his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Anakin sighed. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
Sameth looked up at him, surprise evident in his eyes. “I don’t—but it’s in violation of the code.”
“Only when it becomes selfish obsessive love,” Anakin said quietly, repeating back the words that Obi-Wan had said to him such awhile ago now. “But if I were to tell, I might as well take my saber and cut my other arm off.”
“You?” Sameth asked and then his expression changed. “Of course! With Master Kenobi!”
It was Anakin’s turn to blush and duck his head. “Yes, with Master Kenobi.”
“Why approach me?” Sameth asked, fidgeting in his robes.
“You are soul-bonded, as far as I knew that only ever happened with Padawan and Master?” Anakin replied and then shrugged ruefully. “I was curious.”
“I—we don’t know either,” Sameth answered slowly. “When I was ten our Masters were sent on a mission to Alba. Negotiations went badly, Denar saved my life and after—”
“Mmhm, I think I understand.” Anakin started walking again, Sameth, who was taller than he was, to Anakin’s great discontent, and he easily caught up. “Do your masters know?”
“If they know, they have not said anything.”
“You’ve done a good job hiding it. Although I fear Denar’s stylus might be your undoing.” Anakin stopped again when he reached the door to his quarters. “Well, Sameth, perhaps I will see you sometime in the droid hall.”
“I would like that.” Sameth nodded and smiled. He waved as Anakin stepped into his quarters and then left in search of Denar, wondering all the while how his lover would react to this bit of news.
*
“Anakin, you’re late!” Obi-Wan called from the kitchen as he fixed dinner, force prevent Anakin from ever touching something in the kitchen.
“I am not!” Anakin replied as he cast aside his robe. “I came straight here from class, which I still argue that I did nothing to deserve.”
“Calling Master Windu a ‘shiny bald egg’ is nothing?” Obi-Wan replied dryly as he mixed some spices together.
“Was that what it was about?” Anakin asked, genuinely surprised. “Well, he deserved it, he was being deliberately obtuse.”
Obi-Wan turned around to look at him. “You say that about everybody who disagrees with you!”
“That’s because I’m right and they’re not!”
“Ah yes, the world according to Anakin.” Obi-Wan snorted and pulled out two glasses from the cupboard.
“I met someone very interesting today, Sameth Novo,” Anakin said as he leaned back against one of the counters.
“See, so teaching that class did yield benefits.” Obi-Wan thrust one of the glasses under the tap.
“Hardly!” Anakin glared at his former Master. “Anyway, he’s somehow soul-bonded to a fellow padawan.”
“What?” Obi-Wan cried out, unaware that the glass under the tap was so full that the water was sloshing over the rim and his hand.
Anakin reached around him and turned the tap off. “It’s quite true, they don’t know how it happened, and apparently I’m the first to know about it.”
“Let me take one guess! You encouraged them, didn’t you?”
“At soul-bonding? Hardly, that was six years ago, my guess, and six years ago we were definitely not posted to Alba.”
“Don’t be cute, Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “What did you suggest they do about it?”
“What could I say without being a hypocrite? Besides I wouldn’t care if they were hanging upside down in the room of ten thousand fountains singing huttese bawd house songs!”
Obi-Wan turned back to dinner. “Maybe you should care, Anakin.”
“Why?” he asked his lover softly.
Obi-Wan gripped the counter, his shoulders tense. “Breaking the code: it’s a weakness I can’t stop myself from, but that doesn’t mean that others should not avoid such weakness.”
Anakin sighed. He could reason with Obi-Wan till he was blue in the face, but all Obi-Wan would ever see was that he wasn’t strong enough, strong enough to resist his feelings for Anakin. Anakin pressed in close behind his former master, wrapping his arms around the shorter-man’s waist. He pressed a soft open-mouthed kiss to the back of Obi-Wan’s neck.
“How is this weakness, Obi-Wan? Tell me? Because I can’t see it.” He rested his chin on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “All I feel for you, it feels so beautiful, so perfect I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes slid closed. “I—”
“Obi-Wan, I know I’m not going to change your mind.” He stepped back and away. “But it never feels like weakness.”
Obi-Wan turned around and drew Anakin to him, digging his fingers into Anakin’s unruly curls and pulling his mouth down for a kiss. Anakin kissed back, flicking his tongue against Obi-Wan’s. Obi-Wan ran his finger down Anakin’s before stopping to cup Anakin’s cock through his pants. Anakin’s hips jerked against his palm and he kissed Obi-Wan deeper, harder, in the way that continually reminded Obi-Wan why he could not live with out this. Drawing back and pecking Anakin’s forehead, he turned back to dinner, industrially chopping up a root. Anakin, behind him, was standing frozen in the same position, his mouth gaping wide open.
“I—you’re just going to leave me like that?” Anakin choked out.
“Yes, although I fully intend to continue it after dinner.” Obi-Wan replied over his shoulder. “Do close your mouth, Anakin.”
Anakin snorted and stomped out of the kitchen muttering something about teases and stupid red-haired jedi knights who ate souls. Obi-Wan couldn’t help laughing as he continued his dinner preparations. Anakin was just too easy sometimes.
*
Sameth walked into the abandoned training room that they often used when they wanted to meet, his eyes adjusting to darkness that was like a slap in the face. He couldn’t make out Denar anywhere, but he could feel him, like an itch in the back of his mind and he knew without a doubt that he was somewhere behind him.
Unseen unearthly hands ran up his body, pausing to stroke his neck. “Master Kenobi says we should never make unnecessary use of the force.”
Denar smiled. “Oh, this is highly necessary.”
Continuing to use the force, he touched Sameth through his clothes, soft light touches across his back and chest, before long Sameth was quivering with tension, feeling completely unsatisfied as Denar insisted upon avoiding all the areas that most required attention. Denar walked up behind him, his arms enveloping him.
“What did Skywalker want, Sammy?”
Sameth leaned back into his shorter companion. “He knows.”
“What?” Denar’s arms tightened around him. “What does he know?”
“About us, he took one look at us and he just knew…”
Denar abruptly let go of him and stepped hurriedly away from his companion. “What do we—what do we do?”
Sameth smiled, reaching out to cup Denar’s face. “He’s not going to tell anyone.”
“Why not?” he asked, his eyes troubled and his body tense.
“Well, firstly Skywalker is the biggest rule-breaker in the temple, why do you think he was teaching a class of padawans today?” Sameth replied. “Secondly, him and Kenobi, they’re like us!”
“Skywalker and Kenobi? Together?” Denar asked, his expression incredulous for just a second before it melted into amusement. “Of course! Now that I think of it, I’m surprised nobody’s guessed.”
“Yeah, I thought about that too.” Sameth replied as he pressed a chaste kiss to Denar’s lips. “Now that I know, it just seems so obvious. Remember last year when Kenobi got so injured they had to put him in Bacta for a week?”
“Right, and Skywalker practically set up shop right there in the same room, not even Master Windu threatening him with custodial duty for months on end could get him out of there.”
Sameth laughed as he started undressing Denar. “Master Windu did that? Why does that not surprise me?”
Denar’s lips quirked, his eyes dancing merrily. “I don’t care why it doesn’t surprise you, we haven’t been able to do this for two weeks.”
He rapidly inhaled a breath when Sameth flicked a newly bared nipple. Sameth smiled and ducked his head to repeat the action with his mouth. Denar felt hot sensation shoot through him—it had been too long, too long— and pulled the taller padawan to reconnect their mouths, framing his face in his hands. Denar had been the recipient of a lot of kisses in his life time, but it was Sameth that would continually prove his undoing. Sameth kissed him like he could touch Denar’s soul if he did it just right, he kissed him with an earnestness, he kissed him like he was appreciating just what it was he had. It was wet, sloppy, and desperate, their teeth clicking together as they worked furiously to rid themselves of their clothes.
They were both teenagers, it didn’t come as any surprise that the steady hum of desire they constantly walked around with had now completely overtaken them. Sameth’s body felt itchy and too tight with it, just looking at all that bared skin and the firm muscles of Denar’s torso are doing crazy things to his brain. Doesn’t matter how many times he’s seen it. Doesn’t matter that he’s burned that body into cortex by taste and touch as well as sight, it always hits him in just the same way.
Denar pulled away to pull off his boots and then tripped in his hurry, falling flat on his back. The furious mood is suddenly broken, although Denar all sprawled out over the floor is pretty damn mouth-watering. Sameth couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of him though, taking more care with his own boots, before coming to straddle Denar’s lap, thigh muscles clenching around his hips. “Some Jedi, eh?”
A force grip whispered up his cock and slowly stroked him to full hardness, forcing a moan out of Sameth and bringing a grin to Denar’s own wicked face.
Denar propped himself up on one of his elbows. “You were saying?” he smirked, running his fingertips up Sameth’s legs, stopping and curling just underneath the waistband of his tight trousers. Sameth would’ve made a face, but he was too busy enjoying the delicate touch, and unknowingly his hips shifted against Denar’s cloth-trapped cock. Denar licked his lips, his head listing to the side, trying not to simply lose it now that Sameth was moving with more intent.
Sameth loved that dark-eyed heavy-lidded look Denar always assumed when he was enjoying himself, reaching forward to trace the outline of Denar’s perfectly formed features he worked his hips against Denar’s in short bursts. Anything to keep that expression in place.
“Still shouldn’t make unnecessary use of the force,” Sameth finally said, as if remembering himself. Slowly he ran his fingertips down Denar’s chest, pausing at each notch of muscle. Pushing the blond fully back against the ground, he followed the path his fingertips made with his lips and tongue, until Denar was writhing and twisting underneath him, demanding more, now, anything.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Sameth whispered against his skin.
Denar snorted, full lips twisting. “Oh, here we go.”
Sameth chuckled again as he slid down Denar’s body, biting gently at the soft skin below Denar’s navel. Denar’s hips stuttered against his face and Sameth had to press them hard into the ground to avoid getting knocked in the nose. He laved his tongue over the mark he left, keeping his eyes trained on Denar, whose head was thrown back exposing the long column of his throat. Denar’s entire body was taut with tension and his glass-green eyes were narrow slits as he watched Sameth’s ministrations.
Holding Denar’s gaze, he dipped his tongue into the padawan’s navel, tasting salt and sweat and the scented soaps Denar would never admit to using. He watched with fond amusement as Denar’s breath tripped and his hands scrabbled on the floor as Sameth swirled his tongue repeatedly around the indentation of flesh.
Sameth was still amazed that he could do this, make contact with Denar’s skin in so simple away and watch as he completely lost himself. Before he and Denar had started their relationship, his friend had been with countless other initiates. His charm and pretty-boy face (one that rivaled Skywalker’s own, although Skywalker wasn’t half so aware of his good looks as Denar was) had well assisted him in that regard. Sameth would sit for hours in his quarters, his knees winched up to his chest, as he felt Denar’s pleasure with another wash over their bond. He would furiously tamp down his own distress, repeating over and over inside his head, ‘let him have this, let him have what he cannot take from me.’
But Denar had thrown caution to the wind, and it was with Sameth that he spent countless dark illicit nights, not some faceless padawan he was only working off tension with.
“Don’t,” Denar choked out, bringing Sameth back to the present. “Or this’ll be over too soon.”
He reached down to grip Sameth’s shoulder, weakly and ineffectually attempting to shove him a way.
“What if that’s what I want?” Sameth asked against his skin, as he began peeling the tight leather of Denar’s trousers off his legs. He swore to the force that Denar wore these purely to drive him round the bend. Denar himself thought that the sight Sameth’s long-fingered hands on his skin as he tugged those pants off was just about the sexiest thing ever
He made a small bitten off sound in the back of his throat when Sameth blew a breath over his nearly freed erection. “Then I’d say you were truly depraved.”
“Oh yes, this is clearly the biggest sin I have committed: making you come!” Gripping Denar’s hips tightly, he slowly licked the flushed head of Denar’s cock. The high-pitched noise that came out Denar’s throat he fully intended to deny later, but for now he simply hoped that Sameth wouldn’t suck his brain out through his dick. The other boy seemed determined to employ every trick he’d learned to make Denar come as quickly as possible. It was working. The younger padawan was playing him like a harp.
Denar couldn’t help moaning and twisting beneath Sameth, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his teeth sunk deep into his lower lip. With his free hand, Sameth stroked Denar’s balls, practically forcing all of his weight down on him so that he wouldn’t knock him out with an upward thrust of his hips.
“Oh force, so good,” Denar breathed out, biting his lips bloody to reign in the pleasure that threatened at any minute to overtake him.
Sameth pulled off, continuing to stroke Denar’s dick in a tight swooping grip that was guaranteed to do the trick every time. “Come on, let go.”
“No,” he replied back, trying to sound determined as he trembled under his lover.
Sameth bent back down to suck on Denar’s hip bone. He loved that spot, every time he saw Denar without a shirt, in his low slung pants, it was a wonder he managed to refrain from assaulting him. Denar certainly teased him about it mercilessly, but then he would spend hours tonguing his way along Sam’s spine to the small of his back, so it wasn’t like he could really talk.
“Sameth!” Denar cried out when he tightened his grip and teased the flesh at Denar’s hip.
“You’re going to come for me, long and hard. You’re going to make that little hitching gasp that drives me mad every time, and then you’re going to come,” Sameth said, his voice smoky sweet and his expression very similar to temple cats when they’d just gotten hold of a particularly delectable bit of fish.
He shook his back and forth furiously, hips rising and falling with Sameth’s hand on his cock. Sameth wanted to stop for a second and take a holo of this moment. He would hang it in a place of pride above his bed. But instead he reached up and dragged nails over Denar’s nipple.
Denar practically gurgled. “Not going to—”
Sameth huffed. Figured that he’d be a stubborn bastard about this, but he had a few more tricks up his sleeve.
It was the long delicate fingers just brushing at his entrance that did it. Suddenly Denar’s back was arching up off the floor, his muscles all tensed-up, as he came in thick white jets all over Sameth’s fist.
Sameth wiped his hand on Denar’s abandoned robe and then crawled his way up Denar’s body.
“W-what about you?” Denar whispered into his hair when his wits finally returned.
“We don’t have time, I just wanted to give you that,” Sameth replied, his voice muffled into Denar’s throat.
“Did Skywalker say anything else?” Denar asked suddenly, as he nuzzled Sameth’s forehead.
Sameth breathed deep, taking in the scent of Denar’s short spiky hair. “Not really, just that it wasn’t really breaking the code unless it was selfish obsessive love.” He reached up and tugged on Denar’s braid. “I told you, he’s not going to tell anyone else.”
Denar nodded, knowing that Sameth would see it even in the darkness. What was selfish obsessive love? Was that when you put it before everything else in your life? Forgot duty and honor all because of one person? Denar was afraid he had already transgressed there. He loved Sameth with everything he had, he realized with a sick feeling that he wasn’t sure he could ever really put the Jedi way and the republic above that.
*
As Anakin ran through his morning kattas in the garden, the sun just beginning to light the horizon with its burning colors, he felt eyes on him. Not Obi-Wan’s, whose presence he’d recognize anywhere.
“You might as well come out,” he finally said as he weaved his saber through floating lotus.
Sameth clambered out from behind a Telamine bush, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody move like you,” Sameth said as he folded his long frame into a sitting position. Anakin depowered his saber and hooked it to his belt. His skin was shiny in the early dawn light and he felt slick and uncomfortable.
“What about Master Windu?” he said as he sat beside the younger boy.
“Master Windu is power and darkness all under tight control,” Sameth replied, looking off into the distance. “It’s something else, but I wouldn’t call it beautiful. You—what you do, that’s beautiful.”
“Obi-Wan would accuse you of over-inflating my ego.” Anakin looked down at his palms.
Sameth laughed. “Too late for that, I think.”
Anakin swiped at Sameth lightly with fingertips. “I can see already that you are going to get on with Obi-Wan famously.”
“I wouldn’t know, he’s only taught a few of my classes.”
Anakin looked at him. “Someday, you should join us for the evening meal.”
“Could I bring Denar?” he asked, looking at Anakin sidelong.
“No, you terrible person. How dare you suggest such a thing!” Anakin laughed. “Of course you can. I hear he’s hell on a speeder.”
Sameth fell back against the grass with a loud groan. “Is he ever!”
“Best not let Obi-Wan ride with him then. Obi-Wan would go five miles per hour in a speeder if the speed of traffic would let him.”
“Really?”
“To my eternal consternation, I do not lie.”
Sameth laughed again.
*
A month later, Master Windu tracked Anakin down in the hall of droids. He looked incredibly smug and that immediately put Anakin on his guard.
“What can I do for you, Master?” Anakin asked as he fiddled with the circuitry of a battle droid. His durasteel hand wasn’t quite capable of the dexterity needed for the task and he was already getting quite frustrated over it.
“Master Luwin will no longer be able to teach advanced physics to the Padawans. When asked they said they wanted you for their teacher.”
Oh, Sith hells!
He got to his feet and hoped that his horrified expression didn’t show.
“So I took the liberty of adding it to your roster.” Mace granted Anakin one of his rare smiles and it was truly a sight to behold. Anakin felt like yanking all of Mace Windu’s even white teeth out, one at a time, with rusty pliers.
That bastard!
Before he even had the chance to protest Mace was striding off to go intimidate somebody else. Anakin barely noticed that the thin little tool he’d been working with practically shattered in his robotic palm.
He dropped the now useless pieces of metal to the ground and pursed his lips. One day, One day, he’d get Master Egg-head back. With that comforting thought he blew out a breath that puffed sweat-bedraggled curls out of his eyes and knelt, once again, before the battle-droid
*
Denar was knighted on his 19th birthday and suddenly he was off on more missions than Sameth could count. Sameth, whose own master was a healer, rarely left the temple. Suddenly he was spending more and more time with Masters Skywalker and Kenobi. The two master Jedi welcomed him; they’d been sparring with each other as much as with the enemy of late.
“I don’t understand why you decided to do it…” Sameth asked as he fiddled with a particularly small piece of work that Anakin’s own limitations prevented him from simply doing himself. “Master Yoda himself looked near livid.”
“Livid or constipated?” Anakin asked, propping his long legs up on the balcony railing from the reclining chair he sat in.
Sameth shot him a dry look. “Obi-Wan is right. You’re completely irreverent.”
“That may be, but it’s still not why I decided to do it.”
“I’m not ever sure why Senator Amidala wanted you of all people—” he broke off when the tiny machine sparked and then practically exploded in his lap. Sameth thrust it aside with a frustrated grunt.
Anakin laughed and ignored the jibe. “I told you it was delicate work.”
“So, why did you do it?” Sameth asked again, leaning back in his own chair. The view from Anakin and Obi-Wan’s balcony was far better than the one from the quarters he shared with his master.
Anakin shrugged. “It felt right.”
“IT FELT RIGHT?” Obi-Wan shouted from inside over the clanging of pots and pans. “THAT is your entirely pathetic excuse?”
Anakin cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. Sameth had to smile. Sometimes the two Jedi were so like an old married couple he was surprised the entire temple hadn’t been shouted to the ground with the news.
Sameth shot Anakin a look, side-long, his expression just shy of wicked. “Still sleeping on the couch?”
Anakin reached over and flicked Sameth’s ear. “Don’t be cute, Padawan.”
Senator Amidala had asked Anakin to be a surrogate father to the children she wanted to have, nearly three months ago now. Anakin had only told everyone after she had gotten pregnant and Obi-Wan didn’t seem to be any closer to forgiving him, first for the oversight of not telling him sooner and second for even considering such an idiotic plan. Anakin himself had claimed that there was nothing in the code that said that Jedi could not have children, simply that there could be no marriage. Senator Amidala and he were never going to be married, he argued before the entire council, so it was his decision to make and they could stay the hell out of it.
Obviously Mace Windu had been less than pleased (not to, you know, put too fine a point on it) and Anakin found himself teaching Padawan classes again.
“You don’t even like Senator Amidala!” Sameth put forward as Anakin lounged in his chair and sipped at a half-full glass of brandy.
“Yes, I—no, I definitely don’t.” Anakin sighed. “Well, she’s growing on me.”
“What? Like Berweed?” Sameth couldn’t contain a laugh.
Anakin looked at him through narrowed eyes and took another swallow of the potent brandy. “I was very strongly compelled to say yes.”
Sameth looked down at his palms. “What if it was the dark side?”
“What?” Anakin scoffed. “The dark lord saying ‘Go forth, Anakin, and propagate?’ I hardly think so!”
Well, when Anakin put it like that the notion did seem a little ridiculous.
“But you don’t know that,” Obi-Wan’s soft voice drifted through the open sliding-door.
Anakin and Sameth both craned over their shoulders to look at him. His expression was drawn and the grip he had on the glass pane was white-knuckled.
“No, I don’t know, but like I said, it felt right.”
Obi-Wan let out a disgusted snort. “Sometimes, Anakin, I think you are so bent in stretching the code completely thin!”
Sameth got to his feet and excused himself quietly. Anakin let out a breath and shook his head, before gesturing at the chair that Sameth had vacated. Obi-Wan couldn’t help feeling suddenly desperately angry that Anakin was being the calm one while he felt like tearing Coruscant’s walls down.
Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, before finally taking the proffered seat. “Why, Anakin, tell me why? I deserve a better answer than ‘it felt right!’”
“I have no better answer, Obi-Wan.” Anakin shifted again in his seat so that his entire black-clad body was facing his lover. “I have no particular desire for children, Obi-Wan. If anything, I would want to have them with you, but—”
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan started, his voice tight with strain and his face a stony impenetrable mask.
“No, Master, listen to me,” Anakin said, Obi-Wan’s old title falling easily off his padawan’s tongue. “Something told me that this would be the way to restore balance.”
Obi-Wan made an unpleasant sound in the back of his throat, his expression finally displaying some of his inwardly murderous feelings. “We both know you are not overly gifted with the ability of fore-sight.”
“You cannot ignore my dreams, Master.” Anakin laid his flesh hand on Obi-Wan’s knee, squeezing gently. Obi-Wan would never forget the trouble Anakin had gotten in over his last prophetic dream when he’d gone raring after his dying mother only to arrive too late. The glove-clad steel resting in Anakin’s lap was in some ways a constant reminder of that adventure.
“How can this—children, Anakin!” Obi-Wan bit back, nearly incoherent. Obi-Wan needed, craved, desired control with every fiber of his being. As was so often the case with his lover, this was not control, it was only madness. He couldn’t bear it if it harmed Anakin in some way.
Anakin smiled softly and suddenly he was tugging Obi-Wan in for a very deep, very hot kiss. Obi-Wan wanted to rage and beat his fists against Anakin’s broad chest, but, for the first time, since Anakin had told him, he finally just gave in. Anakin’s finger’s slid into his hair and he sucked Obi-Wan’s tongue into his mouth. Obi-Wan could not help the filthy moan that spilled past his lips and Anakin relished it, drawing him closer across the great divide between their two chairs.
Anakin finally drew himself away, only to lean in again to press chaste lips to his Obi-Wan’s brow, his palms cupping his former master’s face. “I love you, Master” and he pressed another to Obi-Wan’s right eyelid “I love you, Master” and another one to his left “I love you, Master” and then finally once again on his mouth. “You should never doubt it, Obi-Wan.”
Anakin’s blue eyes were bright with it and his expression was soft and sweet.
“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan let out a breath and bent his head. “I do not, but nevertheless, you make me worry for you.”
*
Denar would never forgive Sameth for growing taller and broader than he was himself, but as he lay between his lover’s thighs, his back to Sameth’s bare chest, taking in the morning sun in the temple gardens he figured it was good for something. Sameth’s fingers lightly traced patterns over his shoulders, sending tingly sensation through his tired muscles.
It had long been established that Sameth loved to touch him, map out his skin with his hands. Denar certainly never had any reason to complain, especially as they ran over his skin with barely a hint of pressure, sliding around to glide across his chest. He made a soft sound and arched back against Sameth, feeling his lover’s hardness beginning to stir against his back.
Sameth had been Knighted only yesterday and they’d spent the entire night in the gardens slowly sliding against each other, relearning each other’s bodies as the cool outdoor wind brushed over them and the moon delineated every muscle with light and shadow. It was wonderful, they’d never had so much time just for themselves.
Nevertheless, Denar found himself crying as he sank himself into Sameth’s body, his strong thighs wrapped tight around Denar’s waist like a vice.
“What’s wrong?” Sameth had whispered as he brushed away the tears Denar tried uselessly to hide in his shoulder.
Denar had leaned in and kissed Sameth gently, his hips still rocking inexorably against his lover’s, and the tears only fell harder, sobs choking him even as his body was wracked by his impending orgasm. “Be safe, Sammy, be safe.”
Sameth had smiled beatifically and held him close, rolling his hips upwards and forcing out between moans of pleasure, “If the force chooses to take me, someday we will be one again.”
Denar had yelled his voice hoarse as he came, all the while thinking, it is not enough. It is never enough.
Now in the sun, the monsters of last night had faded to the edges of his vision. There was only Sameth’s quiet strength and the calm solitude of the garden. Sameth, who could never seem to stop touching him with all the wonder of the first time, Sameth who would be sent off into the midst of all the worst battles repairing droids and ships and X-wings, Sameth who he realized more and more he couldn’t really breathe without. The only way Denar knew to keep him safe was to follow him to the ends of the galaxy and back. The Jedi way that had been so important to him before he met Sameth had been long pushed aside, in favor of this, here and now.
Sameth lips moved against the shell of his ear, long streams of nonsense that only had him pushing his body into his dark-haired lover’s touch, seeking all the comfort he could reach for. The future looked very grim indeed.
They were so locked up in the moment that they were both startled by soft cough above them.
Sameth suddenly felt icy jets of fear run down his back. This was it then, the jig was up and they’d been discovered. Maybe they should scramble away from each other, pretend that Denar had been grievously injured during sparring practice, but Sameth couldn’t let go. If he was going to be found, he was going to do it with his head held high.
“Perhaps you should find a more private place?” Obi-Wan said slowly, appearing round a corner with young Luke Skywalker in his arms. He was blushing profusely and refusing to meet their eyes, but three-year-old Luke was pointedly staring.
Denar, who had tensed up like a rock in Sameth’s arms at the first hint of another presence, relaxed and huffed out a laugh. “You’re right, of course, Master Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan shook his head, a somewhat traumatized expression still lingering about his features, and then disappeared back into the greenery.
“Ben, Sammy and Denar are just like you and Daddy!” Luke’s high piping voice drifted back to them. “All cuddly!”
Denar made a face as he picked himself up. Cuddly? Him? Hardly! When he turned to look back at Sameth, the other young man was grinning so hugely he was like to split his face.
“What?” Denar asked, his voice curt.
“Face it, Andrillek, you like to cuddle!” Sameth replied, standing up and brushing grass from his low-slung white pants (Denar loved those pants: the stark white against Sameths’s velvety golden skin was truly quite spectacular). “Even the kid thinks so!”
*
Luke Skywalker had incredibly good genes on both sides, although he definitely took after his father in looks and temperament. Han Solo should have known he wouldn’t stand a chance against the Jedi Apprentice. However, Han, who’d had little time for Jedi in his life of smuggling, could be forgiven this lack of foresight.
Luke, who was by far the most controversial padawan ever to be trained and this included his own father, was something else. He had been raised almost independently of his mother and sister, although he had a good relationship with both, and Yoda (much to the shock of Mace Windu who thought Anakin should’ve been black-balled for even producing another Skywalker let alone training said Skywalker) chose him as his Padawan.
Yes, Han really should’ve known better. Or so Anakin thought as he watched his son with the young smuggler. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan thought their interaction was hilarious, much to Han’s consternation. He was a man to be taken seriously, damn it, so he frequently insisted.
After the Corellian pirate had assisted them in the rescue of Leia Amidala Organa when she managed to get herself captured yet again (Padme claimed that it was Anakin’s fault that their daughter couldn’t keep her mouth shut at the right times, but Anakin could cite a page of examples longer than his arm saying that it was, in fact, Padme’s own influence) there had been a frightening time when it looked like his daughter would fall head first into Solo’s bed.
Anakin knew, however, that this would probably tear his young son’s heart asunder, so he took matters into his own hands (Obi-Wan called it meddling, but Anakin believed it was highly necessary). Han didn’t stand a chance. Not with Anakin, Sameth, and Denar quietly working behind the scenes (although you were in danger of getting your eyebrows singed off if you alluded to Denar’s involvement in such plans in public, only several years and much experience with Master Windu saved Anakin from such a fate). Obi-Wan had said the three of them were developing into crotchety old spinsters with all their plots and plans, which hadn’t ended well (mostly Denar shouting, “who you callin’ old, you geezer?”).
Denar had been all for spiking the punch and locking them in a room together, which both Anakin and Sameth had soundly vetoed (Sameth also had pointed out that Han was both Corellian and a pirate and therefore unlikely to be very susceptible to such tactics). They had eventually settled on sending them off on some hare-brained mission into Naboo’s lush green forests with a navigator that very handily broke when they were quite a distance away from their starting point. Anakin, with Obi-Wan at his side (protesting vociferously one might add) followed the two from a discreet distance to make sure nothing went wrong. Say what you will about Anakin’s reckless nature, he did not play around with his children even when they were just shy of their Knighting and their 20th birthday.
When the rain started falling and Luke and Han finally traded in their hurled insults for desperate kisses and firm touches, Anakin turned back to Obi-Wan to find him leaning against a tree arms crossed and eyebrows nearly lost in his hair-line.
“I suppose you’re quite proud of yourself,” Obi-Wan stated dryly. Anakin smiled fondly at his old Master, who aside from the occasional gray streak in his auburn hair looked barely older than 35.
Anakin had disturbing dreams about a world where he was strangely missing and Obi-Wan, who looked far, far older than any Jedi should, raised Luke from afar. He woke from these nightmares very thankful for the warm body of his Master entwined with his own.
“Indeed, Indeed.” Anakin nodded his head and they turned and made their way back to the Palace.
“If Master Windu knew how it was exactly you spent your time I’m sure he’d find a way to kick you off the council,” Obi-Wan attempted to chasten his lover as he fell into step beside him.
Anakin laughed. “He’s tried once every day since my appointment last week.”
“Only because you insist upon blurting out ‘Master Egg-head’ at every available opportunity!” Obi-Wan shook his head and tugged on the sleeves of his robe. “Really, Ani, you’re over forty!”
Anakin smiled and reached out his hand for Obi-Wan’s, his old comparably unwieldy durasteel arm had been traded in for one of metal surrounded by living tissue (Anakin and Sameth’s joint design—Denar would never forgive Anakin for the time spent in the lab on that project) and he never stopped relishing being able to touch Obi-Wan with it.
“Doesn’t mean, Obi-Wan, that all the fun has to go out of life.”
“Although it would be a blessing for the world if it did!” Obi-Wan retorted. “Seriously, Anakin, what you consider fun the majority of people consider vaguely tortuous.”
Anakin tugged Obi-Wan toward him, stealing a kiss and sliding fingers over Obi-Wan’s face. “Master, you don’t mean to tell me you find that tortuous.”
“You’re evil, you know that?” Obi-Wan looked at his lover through narrowed eyes.
“Master Windu tells me so at least five times a day, although usually not for the same reasons.”
*
No one was surprised that it was Sameth who survived to see Denar’s funeral pyre and not the other way around. Obi-Wan was long dead by then and Anakin had lost his sight nearly a decade ago. Not that you would know, as his uncanny ability with the force seemed to more than make up the difference. He frequently scared Padawans quite out of their heads, when they thought to pull one over on him.
Sameth wasn’t sure how he got through the first couple months afterwards, probably only because Anakin had shouted and poked and prodded him into living, and it was never far from his mind that he’d had a long good life with Denar.
Nevertheless, Sameth had never even considered what it would mean to survive his lover, partner, friend. But he went on. He became the favorite of the Padawans who learned any of the sciences (Anakin had long ago wriggled out of that duty) and he was frequently urged to take on an apprentice. Sameth couldn’t though. Wherever he went Denar was with him, be it walks in the garden where they’d spent so many illicit nights or through dark stretches on far-distant planets. Sameth wouldn’t share his life with anybody else in that way. Anakin understood, Obi-Wan had never taken an apprentice after him, and Anakin himself had been considered far too unstable to be trusted with one (not that he would’ve relished the prospect of somebody else to look after anyway).
Luke visited with him often and slowly Sameth learned to live without Denar. From the few talks he had with Yoda, he was pretty sure the aged and venerable master knew exactly the nature of his relationship with the late Jedi. As far as he could tell Yoda didn’t even seem to mind, but nevertheless, after so many years of keeping it under wraps, Sameth didn’t feel he was ready to go shouting his relationship from the rooftops.
The years passed, Leia Organa’s children’s children’s children came to be fostered at the temple and only then did Sameth really think about how much the world had changed since he was a boy. Luke Skywalker was slowly but surely completely revolutionizing the Jedi way and while some Masters clung to the old ways, the changes were relatively seamless.
One day Sameth went to visit Anakin to talk about the latest developments in gene therapy when he found his old friend lying motionless on the floor of his quarters, black robes strewn about him and a smile upon his face. Sameth couldn’t help crying over him. Quiet tears for this Jedi master who had given him hope in a time when all he could see were the crimes he couldn’t keep himself from committing.
Anakin had remained handsome even in his old age, and he’d cut quite a dashing figure in his ever-present black up until the time of his death. His mobile ever grinning face was strangely odd and still in death, though. It pained Sameth just a little to see him like that.
There was a week long memorial for him. People who barely remembered the dark times of Darth Sidious and Count Dooku and General Grievous turned out to mourn him. Ever stoic Mace Windu had broken down during the ritual pyre and Sameth had always suspected that Master Windu felt more than just despair in regard to the half-crazy enigmatic Skywalker.
“When he was young he wanted to be the greatest Jedi that ever lived,” C-3PO recounted as he watched his creator burn.
Sameth certainly thought that even if that were not the case, Anakin Skywalker certainly would never be forgotten.
When it was his own time, Sameth knew in the same way that he knew his eyes were hazel and he was six foot five. As the dawn broke over Coruscant he walked out into the garden, knowing that he would never again be parted from Denar again. It was peaceful and quiet, the death that all of them, surprisingly, had been granted.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them he saw Denar standing before him, muscular and lithe with youth. He wondered as they came together why it was that people feared death so.
*
Many centuries later, the Jedi Archivists would wonder what had made Skywalker and Kenobi and Andrillek and Novo such brilliant teams. They would wonder if it was something about the times they lived in or the way they were trained, although Master Yoda would claim continually that it was not. They would wonder about the one holo they found of Sameth and Denar in one old and dusty unused storage room, standing with their sabers lit and their hands just close enough to be clasped together. But never would they truly know, for an entire order that does not embrace love cannot know the power of it.
****
So that was that, please don't try to kill me. I'm actually kind of proud of this thing.
Recommended listening:
"Paper Tigers"-Caesars
"Scream"-IMA Robot
"Live and Learn"-The Cardigans
"The Fuse"-Bruce Springsteen
"2000 Light-Years of Darkness"-The Ark
"Tesselation, Formerly Plateau One"-Mahogany
Disclaimer: Oh, God, the only character I own in like the entire damn thing is the crazy stalker. Seriously, you can have her.
Summary: Anakin Skywalker misbehaves and gets sent to teach padawans as punishment, setting off a chain of events that will completely change history.
Pairing: Anakin/Obi-Wan, Wincest
Chapters: One-Shot, baby! Like you could forgive me if I made this longer
Genre: AU, x-over between Supernatural and Star Wars
Rating: NC-17
Acknowledgements: Thank You
xtinethepirate for the beta job and for being so nice even when I thought I was going nuts. Notes: So to make a long convoluted story short I basically decided to write a x-over between SPN and Star Wars. It truly is all
xtinethepirate's fault though. She not only didn't stop me, she totally enabled me. You minx!Anakin had done it again. He wasn’t even sure what exactly it had been but you never knew with Mace Windu (Obi-Wan of course would claim that Anakin knew exactly what it was he did, but that was a complete falsehood). The tall Jedi master had lost his patience with Anakin before he’d even met him; it was little wonder that Mace hadn’t devised an even harsher punishment. Well, okay, teaching Padawans was pretty harsh, especially with that Oreli Nuer’she staring at him avidly as he stood in front of them. The rest of them looked about as bored as he remembered being back when he had to sit through this junk.
“So…” he said slowly, wondering how it was exactly one started these things. “String Theory,” he threw out there hoping that it would provoke some reaction. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, certainly not uncontainable joy at the subject of physics. Only Oreli looked vaguely interested and Anakin had the extremely uncomfortable feeling that it had more to do with his backside than with hard science.
Anakin sighed and turned to the board, wondering if he could rewire the holo-computer to teach the damn class for him. Probably not. He could hear the students shifting restlessly in their seats, maybe he could just leave them to it. It couldn’t be any more boring than what he had to say. And then he felt it, a little tickle in the back of his mind. Ahah, a student was writing a note! Abominable, in his class too! Granted, if Anakin was honest his outrage was more over the fact that the little idiot thought he could pull a fast one on Anakin, who was so clearly one of the most force-sensitive people in the whole damn temple.
Anakin looked over his shoulder at the boy who was still utterly clueless, and schooled his face into a suitably stern (a look he borrowed from Obi-Wan) expression. Although Anakin hardly realized that his ‘stern-face’ was more likely to set the female padawan-learner’s hearts on fire than chasten the criminal note-writer. With a graceful about-face (Anakin did nothing without grace, people who said otherwise, read: Mace Windu, were liars) Anakin stomped down upon the student in question.
His robes swept out behind him (a look well perfected over time) as he stopped in front of him and picked up their data-pad with his gloved durasteel hand.
‘“Meet in north speeder hanger, will have Corellian wine with me’” he read off it, before looking down at the student with raised brows. “Oh, good! You’ve shown the class that it is possible to use the tablet function! Although I dare say you spelled hangar wrong.”
The entire class erupted into laughter and Anakin finally found his equilibrium. It’s not like he was trotting out diplomacy at the edge of a blade in a place he was unaware of the customs. They were only Padawans, hardly unconquerable.
“Well, since you so desire to be helpful, why don’t you tell me what String Theory is?”
The student blushed hotly, his face turning an unattractive red. “I—I don’t know, Master.”
Anakin set the data-pad down. “Wrong! And you would do well to remember that I am no master!” He glanced around the room. One boy with wavy dark hair pressed his lips together to hide a smile and Anakin crossed his arms.
“You—” he pointed at the teen.
“Sameth,” the boy interjected.
“Yes, Sameth,” Anakin replied brusquely, “you look like you have a brain in your head. Tell us about String Theory?”
Sameth sat up in his seat. “String theory is a model of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects—strings—rather than the zero-dimensional points—particles—that are the basis of the Standard Model of particle physics.”
Anakin couldn’t help the impressed grin that curved his lips upward. “Indeed.” He noted with interest the way the dirty-blond boy beside Sameth smiled around the stylus he had his lips wrapped-round. Sameth colored prettily.
“And why is this important?” Anakin barreled on before anyone could answer, not like they’d know anyway. “String theory appears to be able to "unify" the known natural forces—gravitational, electromagnetic, weak and strong—by describing them with the same set of equations.”
He walked back up to the board. “The point of all this is that String Theory allows for more than just the four dimensions, it allows…”
As he talked and drew diagrams and illuminated holos he kept an eye on the two boys seated in the third row, Sameth and Denar. They never spoke to each other, not once, not even to whisper, but Anakin, who knew forbidden love for another Jedi, saw the connection immediately. He was also pretty sure that Denar was sucking on that stylus because he knew it put him at great advantage with Sameth. Surely Sameth was having to tear his eyes away again every time Anakin asked him another question.
Anakin really had no tolerance for Padawans, not even when he had been one—well in all actuality Anakin had little tolerance for people. Beautiful Senator Amidala with her idealistic prose and grand schemes and ever-expanding wardrobe that probably could have financed all of those unrealistic plots was really the worst. Obi-Wan had made fun of him for two solid weeks about his fond memories of the former Queen being so er—well, absolutely wrong. But there was something about this Sameth, something about him that was rather allowing him to enjoy this hour in hell, although that could possibly be that he was the only one conversant in higher-level science where all the others fiddled about with their data-pads like he was a clueless bantha herder without sight or brain.
Sameth also seemed to have a knowledge of computers, droids, and hi-speed mechanics to rival Anakin’s own, which was really something because it was not knowledge that the Jedi wasted much time fostering in their followers. Although Anakin wasn’t sure why. If Obi-Wan had told him about the Planet Kamino being missing from the Jedi Archives when it was known to exist, Anakin would’ve easily been able to have found the deleted data. But that was beside the point.
When the wretched class was finally over Anakin could’ve done a dance. What he really did was back himself up against the board to make sure that Oreli would never have the opportunity to walk behind him.
Sameth was just about to leave when Anakin detained him. “Walk with me for a minute, Padawan.”
Sameth blushed again. “It would be an honor, Knight Skywalker.”
“I’ve seen you before in the droid hall, haven’t I?” Anakin asked as they made their way down one of the long corridors.
“I—yes, I had heard that you built a protocol droid at only eight?”
“Nine,” Anakin corrected. “Is that what you’re interested in?”
Sameth shook his head. “I want to make better transportation devices, to make it easier to get to one planet to another.”
“And so the interest in M-theory?”
“Yes.”
“I’m impressed, if you could ever use a helping hand?” Anakin offered with a grin. Sameth blushed again. “But that is not why I asked you to walk with me.”
Sameth looked startled. “May I ask what is then?”
Anakin smiled and stopped walking, crossing his arms into his sleeves. “You and Padawan Denar Andrilek have a relationship?”
Sameth shut down, all good humor gone from his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Anakin sighed. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”
Sameth looked up at him, surprise evident in his eyes. “I don’t—but it’s in violation of the code.”
“Only when it becomes selfish obsessive love,” Anakin said quietly, repeating back the words that Obi-Wan had said to him such awhile ago now. “But if I were to tell, I might as well take my saber and cut my other arm off.”
“You?” Sameth asked and then his expression changed. “Of course! With Master Kenobi!”
It was Anakin’s turn to blush and duck his head. “Yes, with Master Kenobi.”
“Why approach me?” Sameth asked, fidgeting in his robes.
“You are soul-bonded, as far as I knew that only ever happened with Padawan and Master?” Anakin replied and then shrugged ruefully. “I was curious.”
“I—we don’t know either,” Sameth answered slowly. “When I was ten our Masters were sent on a mission to Alba. Negotiations went badly, Denar saved my life and after—”
“Mmhm, I think I understand.” Anakin started walking again, Sameth, who was taller than he was, to Anakin’s great discontent, and he easily caught up. “Do your masters know?”
“If they know, they have not said anything.”
“You’ve done a good job hiding it. Although I fear Denar’s stylus might be your undoing.” Anakin stopped again when he reached the door to his quarters. “Well, Sameth, perhaps I will see you sometime in the droid hall.”
“I would like that.” Sameth nodded and smiled. He waved as Anakin stepped into his quarters and then left in search of Denar, wondering all the while how his lover would react to this bit of news.
*
“Anakin, you’re late!” Obi-Wan called from the kitchen as he fixed dinner, force prevent Anakin from ever touching something in the kitchen.
“I am not!” Anakin replied as he cast aside his robe. “I came straight here from class, which I still argue that I did nothing to deserve.”
“Calling Master Windu a ‘shiny bald egg’ is nothing?” Obi-Wan replied dryly as he mixed some spices together.
“Was that what it was about?” Anakin asked, genuinely surprised. “Well, he deserved it, he was being deliberately obtuse.”
Obi-Wan turned around to look at him. “You say that about everybody who disagrees with you!”
“That’s because I’m right and they’re not!”
“Ah yes, the world according to Anakin.” Obi-Wan snorted and pulled out two glasses from the cupboard.
“I met someone very interesting today, Sameth Novo,” Anakin said as he leaned back against one of the counters.
“See, so teaching that class did yield benefits.” Obi-Wan thrust one of the glasses under the tap.
“Hardly!” Anakin glared at his former Master. “Anyway, he’s somehow soul-bonded to a fellow padawan.”
“What?” Obi-Wan cried out, unaware that the glass under the tap was so full that the water was sloshing over the rim and his hand.
Anakin reached around him and turned the tap off. “It’s quite true, they don’t know how it happened, and apparently I’m the first to know about it.”
“Let me take one guess! You encouraged them, didn’t you?”
“At soul-bonding? Hardly, that was six years ago, my guess, and six years ago we were definitely not posted to Alba.”
“Don’t be cute, Anakin,” Obi-Wan replied, looking at him through narrowed eyes. “What did you suggest they do about it?”
“What could I say without being a hypocrite? Besides I wouldn’t care if they were hanging upside down in the room of ten thousand fountains singing huttese bawd house songs!”
Obi-Wan turned back to dinner. “Maybe you should care, Anakin.”
“Why?” he asked his lover softly.
Obi-Wan gripped the counter, his shoulders tense. “Breaking the code: it’s a weakness I can’t stop myself from, but that doesn’t mean that others should not avoid such weakness.”
Anakin sighed. He could reason with Obi-Wan till he was blue in the face, but all Obi-Wan would ever see was that he wasn’t strong enough, strong enough to resist his feelings for Anakin. Anakin pressed in close behind his former master, wrapping his arms around the shorter-man’s waist. He pressed a soft open-mouthed kiss to the back of Obi-Wan’s neck.
“How is this weakness, Obi-Wan? Tell me? Because I can’t see it.” He rested his chin on Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “All I feel for you, it feels so beautiful, so perfect I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes.”
Obi-Wan’s eyes slid closed. “I—”
“Obi-Wan, I know I’m not going to change your mind.” He stepped back and away. “But it never feels like weakness.”
Obi-Wan turned around and drew Anakin to him, digging his fingers into Anakin’s unruly curls and pulling his mouth down for a kiss. Anakin kissed back, flicking his tongue against Obi-Wan’s. Obi-Wan ran his finger down Anakin’s before stopping to cup Anakin’s cock through his pants. Anakin’s hips jerked against his palm and he kissed Obi-Wan deeper, harder, in the way that continually reminded Obi-Wan why he could not live with out this. Drawing back and pecking Anakin’s forehead, he turned back to dinner, industrially chopping up a root. Anakin, behind him, was standing frozen in the same position, his mouth gaping wide open.
“I—you’re just going to leave me like that?” Anakin choked out.
“Yes, although I fully intend to continue it after dinner.” Obi-Wan replied over his shoulder. “Do close your mouth, Anakin.”
Anakin snorted and stomped out of the kitchen muttering something about teases and stupid red-haired jedi knights who ate souls. Obi-Wan couldn’t help laughing as he continued his dinner preparations. Anakin was just too easy sometimes.
*
Sameth walked into the abandoned training room that they often used when they wanted to meet, his eyes adjusting to darkness that was like a slap in the face. He couldn’t make out Denar anywhere, but he could feel him, like an itch in the back of his mind and he knew without a doubt that he was somewhere behind him.
Unseen unearthly hands ran up his body, pausing to stroke his neck. “Master Kenobi says we should never make unnecessary use of the force.”
Denar smiled. “Oh, this is highly necessary.”
Continuing to use the force, he touched Sameth through his clothes, soft light touches across his back and chest, before long Sameth was quivering with tension, feeling completely unsatisfied as Denar insisted upon avoiding all the areas that most required attention. Denar walked up behind him, his arms enveloping him.
“What did Skywalker want, Sammy?”
Sameth leaned back into his shorter companion. “He knows.”
“What?” Denar’s arms tightened around him. “What does he know?”
“About us, he took one look at us and he just knew…”
Denar abruptly let go of him and stepped hurriedly away from his companion. “What do we—what do we do?”
Sameth smiled, reaching out to cup Denar’s face. “He’s not going to tell anyone.”
“Why not?” he asked, his eyes troubled and his body tense.
“Well, firstly Skywalker is the biggest rule-breaker in the temple, why do you think he was teaching a class of padawans today?” Sameth replied. “Secondly, him and Kenobi, they’re like us!”
“Skywalker and Kenobi? Together?” Denar asked, his expression incredulous for just a second before it melted into amusement. “Of course! Now that I think of it, I’m surprised nobody’s guessed.”
“Yeah, I thought about that too.” Sameth replied as he pressed a chaste kiss to Denar’s lips. “Now that I know, it just seems so obvious. Remember last year when Kenobi got so injured they had to put him in Bacta for a week?”
“Right, and Skywalker practically set up shop right there in the same room, not even Master Windu threatening him with custodial duty for months on end could get him out of there.”
Sameth laughed as he started undressing Denar. “Master Windu did that? Why does that not surprise me?”
Denar’s lips quirked, his eyes dancing merrily. “I don’t care why it doesn’t surprise you, we haven’t been able to do this for two weeks.”
He rapidly inhaled a breath when Sameth flicked a newly bared nipple. Sameth smiled and ducked his head to repeat the action with his mouth. Denar felt hot sensation shoot through him—it had been too long, too long— and pulled the taller padawan to reconnect their mouths, framing his face in his hands. Denar had been the recipient of a lot of kisses in his life time, but it was Sameth that would continually prove his undoing. Sameth kissed him like he could touch Denar’s soul if he did it just right, he kissed him with an earnestness, he kissed him like he was appreciating just what it was he had. It was wet, sloppy, and desperate, their teeth clicking together as they worked furiously to rid themselves of their clothes.
They were both teenagers, it didn’t come as any surprise that the steady hum of desire they constantly walked around with had now completely overtaken them. Sameth’s body felt itchy and too tight with it, just looking at all that bared skin and the firm muscles of Denar’s torso are doing crazy things to his brain. Doesn’t matter how many times he’s seen it. Doesn’t matter that he’s burned that body into cortex by taste and touch as well as sight, it always hits him in just the same way.
Denar pulled away to pull off his boots and then tripped in his hurry, falling flat on his back. The furious mood is suddenly broken, although Denar all sprawled out over the floor is pretty damn mouth-watering. Sameth couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of him though, taking more care with his own boots, before coming to straddle Denar’s lap, thigh muscles clenching around his hips. “Some Jedi, eh?”
A force grip whispered up his cock and slowly stroked him to full hardness, forcing a moan out of Sameth and bringing a grin to Denar’s own wicked face.
Denar propped himself up on one of his elbows. “You were saying?” he smirked, running his fingertips up Sameth’s legs, stopping and curling just underneath the waistband of his tight trousers. Sameth would’ve made a face, but he was too busy enjoying the delicate touch, and unknowingly his hips shifted against Denar’s cloth-trapped cock. Denar licked his lips, his head listing to the side, trying not to simply lose it now that Sameth was moving with more intent.
Sameth loved that dark-eyed heavy-lidded look Denar always assumed when he was enjoying himself, reaching forward to trace the outline of Denar’s perfectly formed features he worked his hips against Denar’s in short bursts. Anything to keep that expression in place.
“Still shouldn’t make unnecessary use of the force,” Sameth finally said, as if remembering himself. Slowly he ran his fingertips down Denar’s chest, pausing at each notch of muscle. Pushing the blond fully back against the ground, he followed the path his fingertips made with his lips and tongue, until Denar was writhing and twisting underneath him, demanding more, now, anything.
“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Sameth whispered against his skin.
Denar snorted, full lips twisting. “Oh, here we go.”
Sameth chuckled again as he slid down Denar’s body, biting gently at the soft skin below Denar’s navel. Denar’s hips stuttered against his face and Sameth had to press them hard into the ground to avoid getting knocked in the nose. He laved his tongue over the mark he left, keeping his eyes trained on Denar, whose head was thrown back exposing the long column of his throat. Denar’s entire body was taut with tension and his glass-green eyes were narrow slits as he watched Sameth’s ministrations.
Holding Denar’s gaze, he dipped his tongue into the padawan’s navel, tasting salt and sweat and the scented soaps Denar would never admit to using. He watched with fond amusement as Denar’s breath tripped and his hands scrabbled on the floor as Sameth swirled his tongue repeatedly around the indentation of flesh.
Sameth was still amazed that he could do this, make contact with Denar’s skin in so simple away and watch as he completely lost himself. Before he and Denar had started their relationship, his friend had been with countless other initiates. His charm and pretty-boy face (one that rivaled Skywalker’s own, although Skywalker wasn’t half so aware of his good looks as Denar was) had well assisted him in that regard. Sameth would sit for hours in his quarters, his knees winched up to his chest, as he felt Denar’s pleasure with another wash over their bond. He would furiously tamp down his own distress, repeating over and over inside his head, ‘let him have this, let him have what he cannot take from me.’
But Denar had thrown caution to the wind, and it was with Sameth that he spent countless dark illicit nights, not some faceless padawan he was only working off tension with.
“Don’t,” Denar choked out, bringing Sameth back to the present. “Or this’ll be over too soon.”
He reached down to grip Sameth’s shoulder, weakly and ineffectually attempting to shove him a way.
“What if that’s what I want?” Sameth asked against his skin, as he began peeling the tight leather of Denar’s trousers off his legs. He swore to the force that Denar wore these purely to drive him round the bend. Denar himself thought that the sight Sameth’s long-fingered hands on his skin as he tugged those pants off was just about the sexiest thing ever
He made a small bitten off sound in the back of his throat when Sameth blew a breath over his nearly freed erection. “Then I’d say you were truly depraved.”
“Oh yes, this is clearly the biggest sin I have committed: making you come!” Gripping Denar’s hips tightly, he slowly licked the flushed head of Denar’s cock. The high-pitched noise that came out Denar’s throat he fully intended to deny later, but for now he simply hoped that Sameth wouldn’t suck his brain out through his dick. The other boy seemed determined to employ every trick he’d learned to make Denar come as quickly as possible. It was working. The younger padawan was playing him like a harp.
Denar couldn’t help moaning and twisting beneath Sameth, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his teeth sunk deep into his lower lip. With his free hand, Sameth stroked Denar’s balls, practically forcing all of his weight down on him so that he wouldn’t knock him out with an upward thrust of his hips.
“Oh force, so good,” Denar breathed out, biting his lips bloody to reign in the pleasure that threatened at any minute to overtake him.
Sameth pulled off, continuing to stroke Denar’s dick in a tight swooping grip that was guaranteed to do the trick every time. “Come on, let go.”
“No,” he replied back, trying to sound determined as he trembled under his lover.
Sameth bent back down to suck on Denar’s hip bone. He loved that spot, every time he saw Denar without a shirt, in his low slung pants, it was a wonder he managed to refrain from assaulting him. Denar certainly teased him about it mercilessly, but then he would spend hours tonguing his way along Sam’s spine to the small of his back, so it wasn’t like he could really talk.
“Sameth!” Denar cried out when he tightened his grip and teased the flesh at Denar’s hip.
“You’re going to come for me, long and hard. You’re going to make that little hitching gasp that drives me mad every time, and then you’re going to come,” Sameth said, his voice smoky sweet and his expression very similar to temple cats when they’d just gotten hold of a particularly delectable bit of fish.
He shook his back and forth furiously, hips rising and falling with Sameth’s hand on his cock. Sameth wanted to stop for a second and take a holo of this moment. He would hang it in a place of pride above his bed. But instead he reached up and dragged nails over Denar’s nipple.
Denar practically gurgled. “Not going to—”
Sameth huffed. Figured that he’d be a stubborn bastard about this, but he had a few more tricks up his sleeve.
It was the long delicate fingers just brushing at his entrance that did it. Suddenly Denar’s back was arching up off the floor, his muscles all tensed-up, as he came in thick white jets all over Sameth’s fist.
Sameth wiped his hand on Denar’s abandoned robe and then crawled his way up Denar’s body.
“W-what about you?” Denar whispered into his hair when his wits finally returned.
“We don’t have time, I just wanted to give you that,” Sameth replied, his voice muffled into Denar’s throat.
“Did Skywalker say anything else?” Denar asked suddenly, as he nuzzled Sameth’s forehead.
Sameth breathed deep, taking in the scent of Denar’s short spiky hair. “Not really, just that it wasn’t really breaking the code unless it was selfish obsessive love.” He reached up and tugged on Denar’s braid. “I told you, he’s not going to tell anyone else.”
Denar nodded, knowing that Sameth would see it even in the darkness. What was selfish obsessive love? Was that when you put it before everything else in your life? Forgot duty and honor all because of one person? Denar was afraid he had already transgressed there. He loved Sameth with everything he had, he realized with a sick feeling that he wasn’t sure he could ever really put the Jedi way and the republic above that.
*
As Anakin ran through his morning kattas in the garden, the sun just beginning to light the horizon with its burning colors, he felt eyes on him. Not Obi-Wan’s, whose presence he’d recognize anywhere.
“You might as well come out,” he finally said as he weaved his saber through floating lotus.
Sameth clambered out from behind a Telamine bush, scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody move like you,” Sameth said as he folded his long frame into a sitting position. Anakin depowered his saber and hooked it to his belt. His skin was shiny in the early dawn light and he felt slick and uncomfortable.
“What about Master Windu?” he said as he sat beside the younger boy.
“Master Windu is power and darkness all under tight control,” Sameth replied, looking off into the distance. “It’s something else, but I wouldn’t call it beautiful. You—what you do, that’s beautiful.”
“Obi-Wan would accuse you of over-inflating my ego.” Anakin looked down at his palms.
Sameth laughed. “Too late for that, I think.”
Anakin swiped at Sameth lightly with fingertips. “I can see already that you are going to get on with Obi-Wan famously.”
“I wouldn’t know, he’s only taught a few of my classes.”
Anakin looked at him. “Someday, you should join us for the evening meal.”
“Could I bring Denar?” he asked, looking at Anakin sidelong.
“No, you terrible person. How dare you suggest such a thing!” Anakin laughed. “Of course you can. I hear he’s hell on a speeder.”
Sameth fell back against the grass with a loud groan. “Is he ever!”
“Best not let Obi-Wan ride with him then. Obi-Wan would go five miles per hour in a speeder if the speed of traffic would let him.”
“Really?”
“To my eternal consternation, I do not lie.”
Sameth laughed again.
*
A month later, Master Windu tracked Anakin down in the hall of droids. He looked incredibly smug and that immediately put Anakin on his guard.
“What can I do for you, Master?” Anakin asked as he fiddled with the circuitry of a battle droid. His durasteel hand wasn’t quite capable of the dexterity needed for the task and he was already getting quite frustrated over it.
“Master Luwin will no longer be able to teach advanced physics to the Padawans. When asked they said they wanted you for their teacher.”
Oh, Sith hells!
He got to his feet and hoped that his horrified expression didn’t show.
“So I took the liberty of adding it to your roster.” Mace granted Anakin one of his rare smiles and it was truly a sight to behold. Anakin felt like yanking all of Mace Windu’s even white teeth out, one at a time, with rusty pliers.
That bastard!
Before he even had the chance to protest Mace was striding off to go intimidate somebody else. Anakin barely noticed that the thin little tool he’d been working with practically shattered in his robotic palm.
He dropped the now useless pieces of metal to the ground and pursed his lips. One day, One day, he’d get Master Egg-head back. With that comforting thought he blew out a breath that puffed sweat-bedraggled curls out of his eyes and knelt, once again, before the battle-droid
*
Denar was knighted on his 19th birthday and suddenly he was off on more missions than Sameth could count. Sameth, whose own master was a healer, rarely left the temple. Suddenly he was spending more and more time with Masters Skywalker and Kenobi. The two master Jedi welcomed him; they’d been sparring with each other as much as with the enemy of late.
“I don’t understand why you decided to do it…” Sameth asked as he fiddled with a particularly small piece of work that Anakin’s own limitations prevented him from simply doing himself. “Master Yoda himself looked near livid.”
“Livid or constipated?” Anakin asked, propping his long legs up on the balcony railing from the reclining chair he sat in.
Sameth shot him a dry look. “Obi-Wan is right. You’re completely irreverent.”
“That may be, but it’s still not why I decided to do it.”
“I’m not ever sure why Senator Amidala wanted you of all people—” he broke off when the tiny machine sparked and then practically exploded in his lap. Sameth thrust it aside with a frustrated grunt.
Anakin laughed and ignored the jibe. “I told you it was delicate work.”
“So, why did you do it?” Sameth asked again, leaning back in his own chair. The view from Anakin and Obi-Wan’s balcony was far better than the one from the quarters he shared with his master.
Anakin shrugged. “It felt right.”
“IT FELT RIGHT?” Obi-Wan shouted from inside over the clanging of pots and pans. “THAT is your entirely pathetic excuse?”
Anakin cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. Sameth had to smile. Sometimes the two Jedi were so like an old married couple he was surprised the entire temple hadn’t been shouted to the ground with the news.
Sameth shot Anakin a look, side-long, his expression just shy of wicked. “Still sleeping on the couch?”
Anakin reached over and flicked Sameth’s ear. “Don’t be cute, Padawan.”
Senator Amidala had asked Anakin to be a surrogate father to the children she wanted to have, nearly three months ago now. Anakin had only told everyone after she had gotten pregnant and Obi-Wan didn’t seem to be any closer to forgiving him, first for the oversight of not telling him sooner and second for even considering such an idiotic plan. Anakin himself had claimed that there was nothing in the code that said that Jedi could not have children, simply that there could be no marriage. Senator Amidala and he were never going to be married, he argued before the entire council, so it was his decision to make and they could stay the hell out of it.
Obviously Mace Windu had been less than pleased (not to, you know, put too fine a point on it) and Anakin found himself teaching Padawan classes again.
“You don’t even like Senator Amidala!” Sameth put forward as Anakin lounged in his chair and sipped at a half-full glass of brandy.
“Yes, I—no, I definitely don’t.” Anakin sighed. “Well, she’s growing on me.”
“What? Like Berweed?” Sameth couldn’t contain a laugh.
Anakin looked at him through narrowed eyes and took another swallow of the potent brandy. “I was very strongly compelled to say yes.”
Sameth looked down at his palms. “What if it was the dark side?”
“What?” Anakin scoffed. “The dark lord saying ‘Go forth, Anakin, and propagate?’ I hardly think so!”
Well, when Anakin put it like that the notion did seem a little ridiculous.
“But you don’t know that,” Obi-Wan’s soft voice drifted through the open sliding-door.
Anakin and Sameth both craned over their shoulders to look at him. His expression was drawn and the grip he had on the glass pane was white-knuckled.
“No, I don’t know, but like I said, it felt right.”
Obi-Wan let out a disgusted snort. “Sometimes, Anakin, I think you are so bent in stretching the code completely thin!”
Sameth got to his feet and excused himself quietly. Anakin let out a breath and shook his head, before gesturing at the chair that Sameth had vacated. Obi-Wan couldn’t help feeling suddenly desperately angry that Anakin was being the calm one while he felt like tearing Coruscant’s walls down.
Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, before finally taking the proffered seat. “Why, Anakin, tell me why? I deserve a better answer than ‘it felt right!’”
“I have no better answer, Obi-Wan.” Anakin shifted again in his seat so that his entire black-clad body was facing his lover. “I have no particular desire for children, Obi-Wan. If anything, I would want to have them with you, but—”
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan started, his voice tight with strain and his face a stony impenetrable mask.
“No, Master, listen to me,” Anakin said, Obi-Wan’s old title falling easily off his padawan’s tongue. “Something told me that this would be the way to restore balance.”
Obi-Wan made an unpleasant sound in the back of his throat, his expression finally displaying some of his inwardly murderous feelings. “We both know you are not overly gifted with the ability of fore-sight.”
“You cannot ignore my dreams, Master.” Anakin laid his flesh hand on Obi-Wan’s knee, squeezing gently. Obi-Wan would never forget the trouble Anakin had gotten in over his last prophetic dream when he’d gone raring after his dying mother only to arrive too late. The glove-clad steel resting in Anakin’s lap was in some ways a constant reminder of that adventure.
“How can this—children, Anakin!” Obi-Wan bit back, nearly incoherent. Obi-Wan needed, craved, desired control with every fiber of his being. As was so often the case with his lover, this was not control, it was only madness. He couldn’t bear it if it harmed Anakin in some way.
Anakin smiled softly and suddenly he was tugging Obi-Wan in for a very deep, very hot kiss. Obi-Wan wanted to rage and beat his fists against Anakin’s broad chest, but, for the first time, since Anakin had told him, he finally just gave in. Anakin’s finger’s slid into his hair and he sucked Obi-Wan’s tongue into his mouth. Obi-Wan could not help the filthy moan that spilled past his lips and Anakin relished it, drawing him closer across the great divide between their two chairs.
Anakin finally drew himself away, only to lean in again to press chaste lips to his Obi-Wan’s brow, his palms cupping his former master’s face. “I love you, Master” and he pressed another to Obi-Wan’s right eyelid “I love you, Master” and another one to his left “I love you, Master” and then finally once again on his mouth. “You should never doubt it, Obi-Wan.”
Anakin’s blue eyes were bright with it and his expression was soft and sweet.
“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan let out a breath and bent his head. “I do not, but nevertheless, you make me worry for you.”
*
Denar would never forgive Sameth for growing taller and broader than he was himself, but as he lay between his lover’s thighs, his back to Sameth’s bare chest, taking in the morning sun in the temple gardens he figured it was good for something. Sameth’s fingers lightly traced patterns over his shoulders, sending tingly sensation through his tired muscles.
It had long been established that Sameth loved to touch him, map out his skin with his hands. Denar certainly never had any reason to complain, especially as they ran over his skin with barely a hint of pressure, sliding around to glide across his chest. He made a soft sound and arched back against Sameth, feeling his lover’s hardness beginning to stir against his back.
Sameth had been Knighted only yesterday and they’d spent the entire night in the gardens slowly sliding against each other, relearning each other’s bodies as the cool outdoor wind brushed over them and the moon delineated every muscle with light and shadow. It was wonderful, they’d never had so much time just for themselves.
Nevertheless, Denar found himself crying as he sank himself into Sameth’s body, his strong thighs wrapped tight around Denar’s waist like a vice.
“What’s wrong?” Sameth had whispered as he brushed away the tears Denar tried uselessly to hide in his shoulder.
Denar had leaned in and kissed Sameth gently, his hips still rocking inexorably against his lover’s, and the tears only fell harder, sobs choking him even as his body was wracked by his impending orgasm. “Be safe, Sammy, be safe.”
Sameth had smiled beatifically and held him close, rolling his hips upwards and forcing out between moans of pleasure, “If the force chooses to take me, someday we will be one again.”
Denar had yelled his voice hoarse as he came, all the while thinking, it is not enough. It is never enough.
Now in the sun, the monsters of last night had faded to the edges of his vision. There was only Sameth’s quiet strength and the calm solitude of the garden. Sameth, who could never seem to stop touching him with all the wonder of the first time, Sameth who would be sent off into the midst of all the worst battles repairing droids and ships and X-wings, Sameth who he realized more and more he couldn’t really breathe without. The only way Denar knew to keep him safe was to follow him to the ends of the galaxy and back. The Jedi way that had been so important to him before he met Sameth had been long pushed aside, in favor of this, here and now.
Sameth lips moved against the shell of his ear, long streams of nonsense that only had him pushing his body into his dark-haired lover’s touch, seeking all the comfort he could reach for. The future looked very grim indeed.
They were so locked up in the moment that they were both startled by soft cough above them.
Sameth suddenly felt icy jets of fear run down his back. This was it then, the jig was up and they’d been discovered. Maybe they should scramble away from each other, pretend that Denar had been grievously injured during sparring practice, but Sameth couldn’t let go. If he was going to be found, he was going to do it with his head held high.
“Perhaps you should find a more private place?” Obi-Wan said slowly, appearing round a corner with young Luke Skywalker in his arms. He was blushing profusely and refusing to meet their eyes, but three-year-old Luke was pointedly staring.
Denar, who had tensed up like a rock in Sameth’s arms at the first hint of another presence, relaxed and huffed out a laugh. “You’re right, of course, Master Kenobi.”
Obi-Wan shook his head, a somewhat traumatized expression still lingering about his features, and then disappeared back into the greenery.
“Ben, Sammy and Denar are just like you and Daddy!” Luke’s high piping voice drifted back to them. “All cuddly!”
Denar made a face as he picked himself up. Cuddly? Him? Hardly! When he turned to look back at Sameth, the other young man was grinning so hugely he was like to split his face.
“What?” Denar asked, his voice curt.
“Face it, Andrillek, you like to cuddle!” Sameth replied, standing up and brushing grass from his low-slung white pants (Denar loved those pants: the stark white against Sameths’s velvety golden skin was truly quite spectacular). “Even the kid thinks so!”
*
Luke Skywalker had incredibly good genes on both sides, although he definitely took after his father in looks and temperament. Han Solo should have known he wouldn’t stand a chance against the Jedi Apprentice. However, Han, who’d had little time for Jedi in his life of smuggling, could be forgiven this lack of foresight.
Luke, who was by far the most controversial padawan ever to be trained and this included his own father, was something else. He had been raised almost independently of his mother and sister, although he had a good relationship with both, and Yoda (much to the shock of Mace Windu who thought Anakin should’ve been black-balled for even producing another Skywalker let alone training said Skywalker) chose him as his Padawan.
Yes, Han really should’ve known better. Or so Anakin thought as he watched his son with the young smuggler. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan thought their interaction was hilarious, much to Han’s consternation. He was a man to be taken seriously, damn it, so he frequently insisted.
After the Corellian pirate had assisted them in the rescue of Leia Amidala Organa when she managed to get herself captured yet again (Padme claimed that it was Anakin’s fault that their daughter couldn’t keep her mouth shut at the right times, but Anakin could cite a page of examples longer than his arm saying that it was, in fact, Padme’s own influence) there had been a frightening time when it looked like his daughter would fall head first into Solo’s bed.
Anakin knew, however, that this would probably tear his young son’s heart asunder, so he took matters into his own hands (Obi-Wan called it meddling, but Anakin believed it was highly necessary). Han didn’t stand a chance. Not with Anakin, Sameth, and Denar quietly working behind the scenes (although you were in danger of getting your eyebrows singed off if you alluded to Denar’s involvement in such plans in public, only several years and much experience with Master Windu saved Anakin from such a fate). Obi-Wan had said the three of them were developing into crotchety old spinsters with all their plots and plans, which hadn’t ended well (mostly Denar shouting, “who you callin’ old, you geezer?”).
Denar had been all for spiking the punch and locking them in a room together, which both Anakin and Sameth had soundly vetoed (Sameth also had pointed out that Han was both Corellian and a pirate and therefore unlikely to be very susceptible to such tactics). They had eventually settled on sending them off on some hare-brained mission into Naboo’s lush green forests with a navigator that very handily broke when they were quite a distance away from their starting point. Anakin, with Obi-Wan at his side (protesting vociferously one might add) followed the two from a discreet distance to make sure nothing went wrong. Say what you will about Anakin’s reckless nature, he did not play around with his children even when they were just shy of their Knighting and their 20th birthday.
When the rain started falling and Luke and Han finally traded in their hurled insults for desperate kisses and firm touches, Anakin turned back to Obi-Wan to find him leaning against a tree arms crossed and eyebrows nearly lost in his hair-line.
“I suppose you’re quite proud of yourself,” Obi-Wan stated dryly. Anakin smiled fondly at his old Master, who aside from the occasional gray streak in his auburn hair looked barely older than 35.
Anakin had disturbing dreams about a world where he was strangely missing and Obi-Wan, who looked far, far older than any Jedi should, raised Luke from afar. He woke from these nightmares very thankful for the warm body of his Master entwined with his own.
“Indeed, Indeed.” Anakin nodded his head and they turned and made their way back to the Palace.
“If Master Windu knew how it was exactly you spent your time I’m sure he’d find a way to kick you off the council,” Obi-Wan attempted to chasten his lover as he fell into step beside him.
Anakin laughed. “He’s tried once every day since my appointment last week.”
“Only because you insist upon blurting out ‘Master Egg-head’ at every available opportunity!” Obi-Wan shook his head and tugged on the sleeves of his robe. “Really, Ani, you’re over forty!”
Anakin smiled and reached out his hand for Obi-Wan’s, his old comparably unwieldy durasteel arm had been traded in for one of metal surrounded by living tissue (Anakin and Sameth’s joint design—Denar would never forgive Anakin for the time spent in the lab on that project) and he never stopped relishing being able to touch Obi-Wan with it.
“Doesn’t mean, Obi-Wan, that all the fun has to go out of life.”
“Although it would be a blessing for the world if it did!” Obi-Wan retorted. “Seriously, Anakin, what you consider fun the majority of people consider vaguely tortuous.”
Anakin tugged Obi-Wan toward him, stealing a kiss and sliding fingers over Obi-Wan’s face. “Master, you don’t mean to tell me you find that tortuous.”
“You’re evil, you know that?” Obi-Wan looked at his lover through narrowed eyes.
“Master Windu tells me so at least five times a day, although usually not for the same reasons.”
*
No one was surprised that it was Sameth who survived to see Denar’s funeral pyre and not the other way around. Obi-Wan was long dead by then and Anakin had lost his sight nearly a decade ago. Not that you would know, as his uncanny ability with the force seemed to more than make up the difference. He frequently scared Padawans quite out of their heads, when they thought to pull one over on him.
Sameth wasn’t sure how he got through the first couple months afterwards, probably only because Anakin had shouted and poked and prodded him into living, and it was never far from his mind that he’d had a long good life with Denar.
Nevertheless, Sameth had never even considered what it would mean to survive his lover, partner, friend. But he went on. He became the favorite of the Padawans who learned any of the sciences (Anakin had long ago wriggled out of that duty) and he was frequently urged to take on an apprentice. Sameth couldn’t though. Wherever he went Denar was with him, be it walks in the garden where they’d spent so many illicit nights or through dark stretches on far-distant planets. Sameth wouldn’t share his life with anybody else in that way. Anakin understood, Obi-Wan had never taken an apprentice after him, and Anakin himself had been considered far too unstable to be trusted with one (not that he would’ve relished the prospect of somebody else to look after anyway).
Luke visited with him often and slowly Sameth learned to live without Denar. From the few talks he had with Yoda, he was pretty sure the aged and venerable master knew exactly the nature of his relationship with the late Jedi. As far as he could tell Yoda didn’t even seem to mind, but nevertheless, after so many years of keeping it under wraps, Sameth didn’t feel he was ready to go shouting his relationship from the rooftops.
The years passed, Leia Organa’s children’s children’s children came to be fostered at the temple and only then did Sameth really think about how much the world had changed since he was a boy. Luke Skywalker was slowly but surely completely revolutionizing the Jedi way and while some Masters clung to the old ways, the changes were relatively seamless.
One day Sameth went to visit Anakin to talk about the latest developments in gene therapy when he found his old friend lying motionless on the floor of his quarters, black robes strewn about him and a smile upon his face. Sameth couldn’t help crying over him. Quiet tears for this Jedi master who had given him hope in a time when all he could see were the crimes he couldn’t keep himself from committing.
Anakin had remained handsome even in his old age, and he’d cut quite a dashing figure in his ever-present black up until the time of his death. His mobile ever grinning face was strangely odd and still in death, though. It pained Sameth just a little to see him like that.
There was a week long memorial for him. People who barely remembered the dark times of Darth Sidious and Count Dooku and General Grievous turned out to mourn him. Ever stoic Mace Windu had broken down during the ritual pyre and Sameth had always suspected that Master Windu felt more than just despair in regard to the half-crazy enigmatic Skywalker.
“When he was young he wanted to be the greatest Jedi that ever lived,” C-3PO recounted as he watched his creator burn.
Sameth certainly thought that even if that were not the case, Anakin Skywalker certainly would never be forgotten.
When it was his own time, Sameth knew in the same way that he knew his eyes were hazel and he was six foot five. As the dawn broke over Coruscant he walked out into the garden, knowing that he would never again be parted from Denar again. It was peaceful and quiet, the death that all of them, surprisingly, had been granted.
He closed his eyes and when he opened them he saw Denar standing before him, muscular and lithe with youth. He wondered as they came together why it was that people feared death so.
*
Many centuries later, the Jedi Archivists would wonder what had made Skywalker and Kenobi and Andrillek and Novo such brilliant teams. They would wonder if it was something about the times they lived in or the way they were trained, although Master Yoda would claim continually that it was not. They would wonder about the one holo they found of Sameth and Denar in one old and dusty unused storage room, standing with their sabers lit and their hands just close enough to be clasped together. But never would they truly know, for an entire order that does not embrace love cannot know the power of it.
****
So that was that, please don't try to kill me. I'm actually kind of proud of this thing.
Recommended listening:
"Paper Tigers"-Caesars
"Scream"-IMA Robot
"Live and Learn"-The Cardigans
"The Fuse"-Bruce Springsteen
"2000 Light-Years of Darkness"-The Ark
"Tesselation, Formerly Plateau One"-Mahogany
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 03:33 pm (UTC)And dude. Luke/Han is so an OTP, I don't care what the EU canon thinks. I'm glad that your friend saw the light! Maybe you can get her retrospectively hooked on Anakin and Obi-Wan, now that the first inroads have been made into the slashing.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 03:36 pm (UTC)