#waving your hands at automatic doors like a jedi also counts

[tearlessrain]

you have to pretend to be a wizard sometimes, for your health. the obvious method is d&d, but you can also open the dishwasher on cold mornings and raise your arms dramatically as you're enveloped in the steam, or you can find a really good stick to walk around in the woods with, or you can run a bizarrely dedicated rp blog on tumblr. but it's an important component of human well being to occasionally pretend to be a wizard.

[no-droids]

Dove

Part 2 of 2 of The Locked Door Series

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 19.7K i apologize for NOTHING

Warnings: DUBCON ELEMENTS, SMUUUUUUT, religion kink, virgin kink, authority kink, degradation kink, praise kink, age gap, ohhhhh the list goes on y’all been here long enough

A/N: I have nothing to say for myself this time im sorry

***

Obi-Wan feels like he’s going to be sick.

Dinner in the grand hall was difficult enough, forking down mouthfuls of expensive food he’s sure was absolutely marvelous, if he could’ve tasted it.  The s’Ziscari clearly splurged on the celebrations—expensive food, expensive decor, expensive everything, down to the silk napkin he studied and fiddled with under the table as he awkwardly waited for you to finish your plate.

He felt uncomfortable, absolutely.  He’s felt uncomfortable ever since he shuffled into this blasted, Maker forsaken robe not long after he left your quarters earlier.

Not black, no.  Not like yours.  Not like what appears to be an overwhelmingly vast majority of the people he’s encountered so far this dreadful evening.

No, his robes are blue.

A strong, eye-catching royal blue, covering his body in waves of fabric—softer than anything he’s ever worn before and leaving him feeling incredibly exposed.  The far more practical robes he traded for these atrocious garments are made of a thick, scratchy wool, a testament to the Jedi’s philosophical rejection of fine or expensive materials.  And, against all logic—to somehow make matters even worse, the sash tying this uncomfortable piece of attire closed has no place to clip his saber, unlike the leather belt he usually wears.  As a consequence, he’s left simply carrying it around by his side.

Granted, for some unknown reason, his robes are still far thicker and longer and more protective than the… stars, the ultra-thin black silk wrapped around your body, but Obi-Wan is so self-conscious about his appearance that he’s not even allowing himself to look at you.  Obviously that doesn’t stop him from refusing to leave your side the entire night, and he finds himself rather grateful that only a very few number of s’Ziscari are fluent in Basic, if only to provide him with a valid excuse to socially detach.

Of the very few people he’s noticed wearing robes resembling his, they’re all far younger than him—much closer to your age than Obi-Wan’s, and stars, everything about this celebration is unbelievably unnerving to him—including, if not most of all, your response to it.  One of the reasons he knows the food was grand, apart from the immaculate plating and lavish dinnerware of course, is because you momentarily excused yourself from the seat next to him to dish yourself out a second helping.

Even now, even in the skybox seats of this distressingly packed arena, Obi-Wan struggles to keep down what little food he could eat while you stand tall next to him and seem completely unbothered by the situation—and by the Maker, it bothers him.  He isn’t used to this.  He’s used to you being the emotionally turbulent one, the one whom he has to pacify, and it twists his stomach with the way the roles have suddenly found themselves reversed.

“I think the blue looks nice, by the way,” you lean sideways to mention casually to him, and he knows.  He knows you’re just jesting, just trying to lighten the mood, but he feels the bile rising up his throat at the fact that you even commented on it aloud.  “Fitting.  Matches your saber.  Your face, though.”  The smallest hint of a smile tugs at your cheeks.  “It’s beginning to match the color of mine.”

“Thank you for that, young one; your sense of humor is positively delightful,” Obi-Wan gripes, clutching the metal hilt tightly in front of him with both hands while he gazes out at the stadium before him, bustling with black hooded figures and a rare flash of blue.  It does not escape his notice that in complete contrast, your arms are loosely meeting behind your back, your saber dangling in one hand while the other lazily holds your wrist.  Your body is… open.  Draped in garments somehow equally as opaque as they are revealing, presented to the wide panoramic view of the audience and stage with no qualms whatsoever.

“Wonder who I got it from,” you ponder with a tilt of your head, and… fair point.  “How long is this thing supposed to last anyways?”

“Stars—‘this thing’ can’t get over with soon enough,” Obi-Wan grumbles, his eyes anxiously flicking down at the empty stage in the center of the audience.  He’s struggling with butterflies and nausea like he himself is meant to have a starring role in this debauchery.  “They’ll have… acts.  Plural.”

“Heavens,” you sigh under your breath, and oh yes.  He agrees.

He’s also painfully aware that he should be using this free time to continue contemplating his decision about… matters concerning later this evening with you, but he’s already feeling massively overwhelmed as it is.  Right now, it’s all he can do to just breathe and attempt to face one trial at a time.

But then, as if the Maker is feeling just particularly malicious this evening, Obi-Wan’s stomach drops when something quiet flashes in the Force and the roar of the enormous crowd instantly falls to dead silence.  The ominous sign rockets through him and while a Jedi should not know fear, this might be the closest he’s ever felt to truly terrified.

“Ooh, dramatic,” you whisper, but regardless of your laissez-faire attitude, his heart is positively pounding as he watches the figures of robed Force sensitives slowly file out onto the stage, and everything inside him lurches at the realization that—

They’re all wearing blue.  Every single one of them is clothed in fabric that matches his current attire, the one that made him feel like a blot on the landscape the entire dinner and subsequent mass pilgrimage to the arena.  A bright splash of color in the midst of an almost inescapably giant ring of black.

You’ve stopped talking.  Truly, he has no idea if that’s a good or bad thing, not right now.  The Force sensitives join hands and create a ring in the center of the stage while every single person in the arena sits in perfect silence, and Obi-Wan feels dizzy.  He’s not getting enough air right now, but he doesn’t even want to breathe too loudly and somehow draw even more attention to himself.

Two of the blue robes break off from their fellow acolytes and meet in the middle of the circle, and to simply avoid having a heart attack, Obi-Wan very purposefully chooses to ignore—like he’s done multiple times this evening—the subtle flicker of curiosity he experiences at the significance of the color blue and what it symbolizes to the s’Ziscari.  He can’t even bear to watch the way the two of them slowly lean in and allow their lips to touch from under their hoods.

Maker, if he turned his saber on and stabbed himself with it, could he convince you it was an accident?  Probably not—no, definitely not, what a stupid thought to have—

“How does she wipe?”  He hears your voice whisper, and Obi-Wan’s facial expression immediately screws up in confusion.

He turns to you, his tone equally hushed but the bewilderment sharpening his consonants.  “How does who what—?”

Only—you’re not even looking at the scene unfolding in front of you.  Your expression is just as confused as his is, but instead of looking down, your chin is lifted and you’re staring directly across the arena at the viewing booth opposite to yours.  He still has no idea what you’re talking about though, not until he follows your line of sight and sees the way s’Zerthia has her jaw propped up in her hands on her throne, looking bored as usual, and how the length of her newly manicured fingernails curves halfway up her scalp from this angle.

“That’s dangerous,” you remark quietly.  “They’re like talons.  Gaudy little weapons she always has attached to her that she decorates, makes them seem less vicious than they actually are.  I see them.  I certainly don’t envy whoever she picks tonight to—”

You cut yourself off with a bit lip smile and turn your face away from him, and Obi-Wan is almost mystified by how casual you’re able to be about this. 

“Whomever she picks to…?”  He trails off with a sigh.  “Do I… Do I want to know?”

“Never mind,” you tell him quickly, lifting your chin once more while still clearly trying not to laugh.  You’re trying not to laugh, while… while that is happening in the center of the audience.  “It was, uh… tasteless.”

He blinks, wondering what that could possibly mean.  Everything about this is tasteless, the entire thing is just an absolute nightmare coming to life.

Though, after a moment of silence, Obi-Wan soon realizes he much prefers it when you fill the void.

“Members of the Royal Court take turns doing it for her,” he eventually replies, decidedly looking anywhere but where the man is slipping the blue robe from the woman’s body.  It takes you a second to register to what exactly he’s referring, but when you finally do, you snort.  It’s too loud.  A few heads closest to your isolated seats turn as Obi-Wan very quickly thrusts his elbow into your ribs.  “Quit being disrespectful,” he hisses under his breath.

“You just—!”  You quickly clamp your mouth shut and face forward again, trying not to smile in an appalled sort of way.  But then—“Oh,” you blurt, not loud enough for anyone else to hear in this open setting but still loud enough for him to glance around and be slightly anxious about it.  “Oh.  Wow.  I wasn’t… expecting…”

Obi-Wan’s eyes automatically flick down to the couple, only just long enough to catch a quick glimpse of stark nudity in the center of the arena before his gaze immediately bounces back up again and focuses on the incredibly interesting steel beam currently propping up the Queen’s viewing box, clearing his throat.  “I… did warn you.”

“Well, yeah, I expected them to…”  Your hushed voice trails off and you stay quiet for too long, too long to imply you’re still formulating an end to your thought.  You’re distracted by something, but then you appear to snap back to your senses and immediately clear your throat.  “I just wasn’t expecting… the, uh.  The… positioning.”

He says nothing in response.  It… it doesn’t give him great comfort, wondering how you could possibly know enough about this type of profanity to have expected a different sort of positioning.  The stark contrast between the color of his ceremonial robes and yours still remains completely unspoken, but it quietly pulls at the back of his mind nonetheless.

“What about it?”  Obi-Wan immediately hears himself prompt and oh, no, this is completely inappropriate.  Not only should he not be encouraging this kind of talk with you, but he also shouldn’t feel so… so negative, not about something so personal to you and something that’s certainly none of his business.  Regardless, he… still has this buried, unexplainable desire to know the truth about it.  Regardless of the indirect way he’s attempting to go about it, he wants to know the truth about whether or not you broke your oath, and while he recognizes it’s completely improper of him, the urge is still strong enough to manifest itself using his vocal cords.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s just…  It’s…”  He doesn’t even have a visual reference for what you’re attempting to find the words to describe.  He doesn’t want to.  He just wants to know what you think about it.  “…Bold,” you finally settle on.

Bold.  It’s bold.  Perhaps Obi-Wan wouldn’t be analyzing your verbal responses so closely if he had something more interesting to look at besides the general coliseum-like structure of the large outdoor stadium, but there’s a certain horizon he just won’t let his eyes dip below right now and unfortunately for him, being so high up above the crowd, the upper hemisphere of his visual field remains relatively dull.

“Who would've thought,” he eventually sighs, blinking up at the star-splattered sky now and attempting to see if he can use the Force to break off a piece of a satellite and have it impale him in a tragic accident.  “Considering the s’Ziscari are such a conservative bunch.”

His eyes soon wander back to s’Zerthia, and—Obi-Wan startles to find her staring directly at him with a thin eyebrow dangerously quirked.  She motions two long fingers in a V shape at her eyes and then points down towards the stage, her expression expectant and waiting.

Obi-Wan’s teeth hurt at how hard he clenches them together, his jaw flexing but the thick blanket of his beard doing well to conceal it.  She’s playing with him, he realizes; he can see the hidden smile on her lips all the way from here.

Maker, maybe she’s right.  Maybe he’s—maybe he’s being ridiculous about this.  This is fine.  This is fine.  His stomach feels like it’s all his food might come up at any second, but he’ll do it, he’ll look.  He can at least just look, right?

His gaze slowly begins lowering, trying to take in just a few things at a time so as not to overstimulate himself.  Thousands of s’Ziscari lining the seats of the arena, almost every single one of them dressed in black.  Lower still—the platform leading up to the stage.  A perimeter of blue figures now sitting down in a circle and then, at its center, a… a naked man and woman.

Obi-Wan’s heart pounds as he struggles to comprehend the sight, never having laid eyes on a nude woman before.  She’s on her elbows and knees, forehead lowered and resting against the floor, and the man kneels behind her, one hand holding her hips and the other wrapping around his—

Stars, Obi-Wan wants to end it all.  Right here.  His aim will be true.

But then… oh, no, he’s an idiot.  He’s a complete dullard, because he forgot.  Consumed by his own sheer anxiety and unease, Obi-Wan stupidly forgot an extremely crucial detail of the incredibly little he’s been told about the Sh’inzith.

—the projecting.

All at once, he’s nearly knocked over by the strength of the two Force sensitives at the center of the arena as they deliberately cast their minds out across the entire audience, presenting every sensation and fleeting thought they’re experiencing in all its intensity.  Obi-Wan immediately works to reinforce his mental shields as soon as he feels the shockwave about to hit, but there’s thousands of Force sensitives present—all of them congregated into one relatively small area, all of them tuning into the same two signatures and then suddenly… amplifying them back until it’s impossible for him to shut out.

“Oh, uh—” he just manages to hear you mutter through the whirlwind, just the slightest hint of panic in your voice peaking through the symphony of whispered thoughts and pulsing sensations coming from the stage, “—that isn’t good—”

Obi-Wan abruptly stumbles backwards and gasps at the awful, wretched feeling of something brunt pressing up hard against somewhere elusive, somewhere he’s never felt before towards the lower part of his body, and his mind fights viciously against it as he feels you spin around and reach out for his rapidly retreating figure.

“Wait, no—it’s okay, M-Master, it’s okay, it’s—” your voice cuts off and your hands suddenly fist into the robes at his chest, your forehead dropping to his shoulder against the sharp sting just continuing to push and push and push, “—i-it’s okay, it’s oka—”

He trips over his feet in the chaos and falls back on complete instinct and you’re so tightly attached to him that you’re yanked forwards with the momentum, the two of you plunging to the ground in a clumsy heap of grunts and tangled limbs.  Obi-Wan immediately starts crawling backwards across the floor underneath you, still trying to escape the horrible, inescapable sensation digging into a part of his body that doesn’t seem to exist, but it’s like you’re of the same mind—you’re scrambling forwards in the same direction trying to get away from the same thing, frantically attempting to calm him and simultaneously deal with the agony yourself, and then suddenly—

Oh—oh, Maker—

Suddenly something gives and surges in, and then Obi-Wan gasps—his elbows buckling under him and as the both of you drop down onto the floor because stars, it’s nearly blinding with impression.  Not only the aching, hard fullness stretching sharp and deep somewhere in his lower abdomen—but now a new sensation.  A tight, wet silk he feels swallowing him between his legs, concentrated on a part of his body that… does exist, a body part that’s currently pressed up right between your spread thighs.

“Fuck,” you moan hot against his throat, trying to find somewhere to brace yourself next to his shoulders and push yourself up off him, and he tries—Maker, he tries so hard not to, but his hands shoot out to grab your hips before he even knows what he’s doing and then he’s dragging his lower body up into yours on instinct alone, clamping his eyes shut and groaning out a desperate sound he’s never heard himself make before as his head drops against the floor.

It’s staggering.  It hurts.  He can't even hear your muffled noises anymore, not over the roaring encompassing his mind and body.  All he knows is that your hips quickly jerk back and grind down into his in response, sending Obi-Wan reeling while you bury your twisted cry of pleasure and pain into his neck.

The sound of it breaks through everything else.

Obi-Wan’s hands shake violently as they suddenly release you and then frantically shove at your shoulders, trying to push you off without hurting you.  He can’t think, he can’t see, he needs to leave—

“Get away,” he rasps desperately up at the sky, blinking his eyes wide but somehow not seeing anything in front of him but blackness.  “St-stars, get away from me—”

Suddenly you’re flipping off his body and onto your back next to him, too quick for it to be a mechanical movement alone, and he doesn’t even have the space in his mind nor the processing capacity to figure out if he Force pushed you off him or if it was you who did it to yourself.  He just clambers to his feet and stumbles away in a terrified, graceless retreat, bent in half, limping and gasping and fighting for every step he takes.

***

Your Master was right to leave as soon as possible, you think.  You were wrong to linger here for just a second to try and gain your bearings, because the more you work to grasp and attempt to organize them, the more mindless and disorienting they become.

You eventually have to heave over and drag yourself after him.

The further away you get from the arena, the easier it becomes to block the projection, but Maker, it’s exhausting.  You’re resigned to start out with a crawl—one of those Jedi Core crawls you haven’t had to do since the Academy but this one exponentially slower, forehead dropped down and eyes closed, just focusing on alternating shifting your elbows and your knees forwards and dedicating the rest of your mental energy to just isolating your mind from the debilitating assault.

Consulars don’t usually see much of war—you tend to do absolutely everything in your power to avoid it.  It’s the Guardians who experience the horrors of combat most often, who deal with ambushes and onslaughts from enemies of the Republic.  But Maker above, every merciless thrust into that poor little virgin at the center of the arena is like a blaster shooting directly at you, but then couple it with the thousands of reflections and ricochets in robes lining the bleachers?  You’re in the trenches of a deadly battle you had no idea was even about to break out and you have no weapon of defense besides retreat.

When you finally get far enough away to be able to push yourself upright as much as possible and continue staggering back to the palace on two feet, you have no concept for how long it’s been.  You can still feel the projection vibrating and clawing sharply at the edges of your consciousness, but at least the majority of your thoughts are your own now, and it gradually becomes easier and easier to focus and speed up to a clumsy run.

Though, no matter how successful you eventually are at muffling the vibrant sensations and thoughts of the two Force sensitives behind you—when they cum, you stumble down to your knees again and have to bite the back of your fist to keep from screaming.

Maker, it takes you a minute to recover.  You don’t even cum, you just feel it—the burst of energy from the Force in every direction, the violent explosion from the stadium that feels like it should fracture the ground beneath you.

You’re able to get up after a moment, if only because they decide to take mercy and finally cut off the projection.  You know that it’s a temporary relief, that they’ll likely be at this all night, but you hope the palace will be far enough away from the arena to block out the sensations completely.  You wonder if Master Kenobi felt that through the Force or whether he was too determined to block it out that he was able to simply ignore the nuclear missile that just detonated less than a few miles away from him.

You force yourself forwards and you want to hurry, you do—but strangely, in your wild state of exhaustion, stark reality is almost as debilitating as swimming through that endless madness was.  It’s quiet around you but the noise of still air pulses deafeningly in your eardrums after breaking free from such a thick mental filter separating you from your surroundings.  You still have your lightsaber clutched in your hand, Maker rejoice, and your thin robes are skewed awkwardly across your body, but you eventually find your way to the doors of the palace.

Though, trying to navigate the empty halls back to your Master’s chambers takes you longer than it should.  His signature is cloaked spectacularly, concealed to a mere speck you wouldn’t even know was there if you weren’t so closely acquainted with it for more than a decade.  You follow the flickering pixel of blue light through the obstacle ridden darkness, adjusting the front of your robes with one trembling hand while you wipe your brow with the other, closing your eyes and doing your best to take deep breaths.  He’ll be spiraling right now.  He’ll need a boulder to cling to in this tsunami, solid ground to stand on while the stars are falling out of the sky.

You… find him in your quarters instead.

The door is open and his handsome profile is to you, the thick fabric stretching over his broad shoulders now an agreeable light cream, familiar and telling of his intentions.  His hands are moving.  Setting something down on your bed—your robes, you soon realize.  He’s laying out your Jedi robes neatly for you across the fur blanketing the large mattress.

Master Kenobi begins speaking as soon as you step foot into the room, the tone of his voice very clearly impatient after having waited for you for so long.

“Change out of those ridiculous garments,” he tells you hastily, neatly laying out your leather belt across your dark tunic without even turning his head to look at you properly.  “We must leave.  Quickly.  Also—tell me you didn’t forget your saber at the arena, because if so, I’m afraid it’s lost to us forever now.  Ilum is only three days from here, perhaps we can stop there on the way back to Coruscant to find you another kyber cryst—”

You drop the hilt of your lightsaber on the floor and step forward, cautiously reaching out for his figure as he continues to ramble.  “Master, I—”

Your hand is thrown to the side with a subtle flick of his wrist and you instantly jerk to an abrupt halt, holding your palms out in front of you and keeping completely still while he spins around, his jaw slack and staring at you wide-eyed.  He takes a few steps away from you in shock.

“I’m sorry—” he immediately gasps, reaching out towards you even though the rest of his body is still desperately evading yours.  “Stars, I’m so sorry—that was just… That was excruciating, young one.  Why would anyone ever willingly—?”

“It—it doesn’t always—” you cut yourself off just in time, clamping your jaw shut before you can finish your sentence.

“We must leave,” he says once more as he turns back to your mattress, not appearing to hear you at all and shaking his head, far too frantic to sound like he’s just reminding you alone.  “We can’t do that.  I can’t do that—”

“It doesn’t always have to be—”  Maker, what is wrong with you?  Your heart kicks up in your chest and somehow stutters to a halt at the same time.  It’s the lingering effects of the assault your mind just experienced coupled with your desperate urge to console him that’s making you so utterly careless, you realize, it’s making your tongue loose.

“Stars, what do you mean?”  Master Kenobi finally snaps, and your blood runs ice cold.  “How do you know that?”

It takes the sum of all your years of training to keep the raging hurricane of emotion from showing in any capacity.  You feel like he’s holding his saber to your neck with how dangerously little you’re even allowing yourself to breathe right now, how utterly and completely still you’re holding yourself in front of him.

Lie, a little voice in your mind supplies quietly, the little voice you keep locked inside an impenetrable box of everything you are but have never been allowed to confront, haven’t been allowed to openly think just in case someone is listening too closely.  Lie.  Lie, right now.  Your silence is giving you away.

Only—you can’t.  You shouldn’t.  It’s not fair to keep this from him, not when you’re asking him to do something so structurally compromising to his belief system.  If… if you tell him the truth, perhaps he won’t judge you too harshly.  Perhaps he’ll feel… reassured, knowing he’s certainly not the first Jedi to break a sacred vow when he felt times were desperate enough.

Besides.  This might be the only secret that could potentially get you kicked out of the Order, but… it still isn’t your worst one.

“Because.”  The word is out of your mouth before you can rethink it, barely above a whisper.  “I… know.”

He doesn’t respond, and no.

No, you were wrong.  You were wrong to tell him the truth, and the look on his face immediately shoots panic through your whole body.

He doesn’t look reassured.

He looks… alienated.

“‘It doesn’t always?’”  Your Master eventually repeats back to you, and fuck—the implication is instantly clear.  The implication is made so clear from the sharpness in his tone, the hard edge to it as he rounds out the vowels in the last word that makes your heart twist and throb in your ribcage.  He might as well have just asked you how many times you must’ve violated your code of honor to know the difference.

“It’s not.”  You clear your throat and flick your gaze up to the ceiling, feeling like he’s using the Force to squeeze your chest in on itself.  “That was the absolute worst possible sensation that can be felt during… It’s—it’s not like that.  It won’t… be like that.  Not.”  Are there tears coming to your eyes?  “Not… with me.”

Utter quiet.  So quiet that if you really concentrate, you can hear the distant sounds of the arena continuing on with the Ritual without you.  You bite hard at your lip and wait for him to say something, anything.  Yell at you, tell you how disgusted he is, banish you from the Order.

Instead, Master Kenobi quite suddenly… deflates.  He sighs—not a heavy, exhausted one, but a soft one.  A quiet, accepting sort of sound.

He slowly lowers himself to the edge of the mattress and closes his eyes, running both hands through his hair, and it’s just enough to give you pause.  You glance over at him, trying not to let tears fall beyond the plateau of your lower lids with the frantic downward movement of your eyes, and you’re only just barely successful at it.

“It’s alright,” he says gently.  “It’s… it’s alright, young one.  I… suppose I am in no place to judge.  Quite… quite literally,” he murmurs, gesturing to the space around him with a lazy wave of his hand.  Maker, his figure is too watery and unfocused to make out his facial expressions, but you don’t want to blink to clear your vision just in case a sudden downpour escapes.  “It’s none of my business and I shouldn’t have asked.  You’re… not my Padawan anymore.  I should have no reason to… even care at all, really.”

There’s something that feels… major in that, something monumental yet incredibly well hidden, but you’re still too full of blind panic to interpret it further.  Your breathing is shaky and you wonder, quite stupidly and not for the first time in your life, if it’s somehow possible to use the Force to evaporate the water in your eyes before it turns into tears.

“I am certain it took place in your younger years, a long time ago,” he continues calmly when you don’t immediately say anything.  “You did always have a… a rather unconventional relationship with the rules.” 

Your only response is a quick jerk of a nod.  Yes.

“Yes,” you immediately agree, hoping your tone sounds convincing enough through the lingering tremors.  “It was… a long time ago.  I’ve changed, since then.  Grown up in many ways.”

It’s his turn to nod, and you manage to calm down just slightly.  You’re still breathing too hard and you’re a bit too braced, too much of a stance to truly feel like relief, but your heart rate is beginning to settle back into a somewhat acceptable rhythm.

Master Kenobi looks over at you, and he says absolutely nothing about the traces of water still glistening along your eyelashes.  He just smiles softly and pats the space next to him.

You cautiously make your way over to him after a moment, feeling more unsure now than you’ve felt this entire mission.  You leave at least a half a foot of space separating the two of you once you carefully sit yourself down on the mattress, and you can’t even look in his general direction.  You just focus on the long, draping sleeves of your black robe as you look down at your hands and wait for him to speak first.

“Sometimes,” he eventually sighs.  “Sometimes I… feel like you’re the person I know best in the entire galaxy, you know.  I’ve… I’ve known you far longer than I ever knew my own Master, young one.  I picked you out of thousands, and I’d do it thousands of times again.  Sometimes—especially since the day of your accolade and subsequent absence, I feel like I can know exactly what you’re thinking, even from across an entire star system.  And yet somehow, you… always surprise me.  Even after all these years, I am just.  Consistently surprised by you.”

You don’t know how to take that.  You just sit there in a guilty silence, still unable to turn your head or offer any sort of response.

“I chose you as a Padawan because you surprised me, you know,” he reminds you quietly.  “I had certain expectations for you, and you did not meet those expectations.  Instead, you presented an alternative I’d never before considered, an alternative that forced me to reevaluate you—and by extension, myself—far beyond what I had previously.  That is not a bad thing.  It has never been a bad thing.  As is made blatantly obvious by the fact that I’m the one currently standing in the way of saving lives, and you’re…not.”

Maker, this is thin ice.  You don’t know what to say that’ll express hesitant agreement with his sentiment without making it sound like you’re not apologetic for breaking your oath.  You’re… well, you’re not, not really.  His response itself is causing you to feel far more turmoil than any legitimate regret for your actions.

“It was—” On instinct, you almost say it was a mistake regardless of the conflicts you’re just so happening to encounter on this mission, but something stops you.  You suddenly remember your place here, your goal.  To save the galaxy from the Separatists’ reign.  And, by extension… sleep with your Master.  You can’t call it a mistake if you’re going to ultimately try to convince him to do the same thing.  So instead, you scramble to finish your sentence with a different thought, knowing his full attention is pinned to you right now.  “…A long time ago,” is all your exhausted mind is able to come up with.

“Yes,” he gives you a small, companionable smile.  “It’s alright.  Your prior lapse—or, well… lapses in judgement… will forever be safe with me.”

And still, you don’t feel relief.  Not when Master Kenobi very quickly appears to look uncertain.

“I… apologize,” he offers after a moment, “if.  If I ever made you feel like… like you could not confide in me about any struggles or… or urges you may have been experienc—”

“Maker,” you suddenly interrupt with a frantic wave of your hands, everything cringing inside you, “Maker, we don’t have to do this.  None of it, it’s okay.  Know what?  Let’s just go home—screw the galaxy, I don’t care, just stop talking.”

He snaps his eyes over to you, a sudden bark of laughter escaping him before the rest of his face even seems to register something was funny.

It evolves.  Eventually he’s covering his face and stifling ridiculous little snorts behind his hands, trying to apologize in between the chuckles but laughing even harder.  It’s almost like… just a form of pure stress relief for him.  So far beyond traumatized that it’s revealing itself in a slightly hysterical way, even if what you said wasn’t hysterical at all.

“Now you have a mere glimpse into what my experience has been like today,” he finally tells you with a sparkling grin once he composes himself, lifting his chin as he looks at you and scratching his beard with a quiet flicking sound.  “Shall I keep going?  If this mission has taught me anything, it’s that no matter what, things can always get worse.”

“They don’t have to.”  You say it without thinking, the gentle reprieve caused by his laughter flowing through you in waves and making you throw caution to the wind.  The four words serve to shut him up quite quickly however, even though it was the opposite of your intent, and your smile drops.  Maker, just freely conversing with him about these things is navigating a minefield for his mental state.

“You… you say that, and yet even—” Master Kenobi eventually responds, cutting himself off with a cough.  “Even the things I’ve heard are meant to feel… pleasant, were just.”  He shakes his head and blinks his crystal blue eyes over at you.  “By all accounts.  Agony.”

“I know,” you nod.  “I know.  Projecting that specific situation was… sadistic of them.  A distortion of the truth.  Probably rooted in deep tradition, but also a great scare tactic if I ever saw one, playing with us by presenting the absolute worst of it before anything else.  It won’t hurt.  At all.  I promise.  In fact—I-I can make it feel—”

Maker, you don’t even finish your sentence, but you must think the general idea loud enough for him to understand.  You don’t actually have a specific word in mind—good, great, amazing, euphoric?—and yet, something quiet settles over you two at the silent implication, the mere whisper of the possibility of you pleasuring him.

And him… allowing it.

“Master, I—”

“Don’t,” he quickly tells you.  “Don’t call—You don’t have to… call me that.  Just for right now, it’s.  I don’t—” he takes a breath that sounds shakier than it looks, and then he paints an easy, fake smile on his face following the exhale.  You recognize that smile anywhere, though.  While you’ve never seen him wear it before, it’s the smile that politicians make when they’re about to present a lesser truth to you, a smile shown to you in negotiations all the time that signifies something… hidden.  He’s hiding something, something important, and you have no idea what it could possibly be.  “I don’t feel like I even deserve to be called that right now, young one.  Perhaps you should be the Master, and I the learner.”

“Ah yes, the circle is now complete,” you can’t help but jest in return, wanting to keep the tone light even though the subject matter is heavy.  “Is now when we trade lightsabers?”

“Indeed,” he smiles, this time more sincere, and… you can’t pinpoint when exactly it happened, but it appears you’re physically closer to each other now than you were when you first sat down.

“Do they, uh… actually expect us to…”  You clear your throat and wave a hand around, “…Project the entire time like that?”

Master Kenobi quickly shakes his head.  “No.  s’Zer—Queen s’Zerthia informed me that.  Ah.  For us, projection will only be necessary during the… well, she called it the ‘closing ceremonies.’”

Your eyebrows shoot up and you nod.  “I… see.”

It’s like you can physically feel his body start to break out into a cold sweat next to you at the sudden… realness of it all, the realization that it has to be getting late.  Close to midnight, if you’re not already pushing it.  It’s come time to make a final decision, you both know it.  You want to console him, offer him some kind of solace or reprieve, but stars, you just don’t know how, not when you’re this much of a mess about this, too, but for entirely different reasons.  You don’t have a single clue how to make him feel better about any of this.

“I just,” you rush before you lose the nerve, “I want you to know that—e-even if you feel like you’re somehow alone in this, you’re not.  Okay?  I’m… I’m really nervous, too.  I don’t… I don’t actually know what to do at all right now.  I don’t know whether to respect your apprehension or tell you it’s unfounded.  I don’t know if I should remind you what’s at stake here or whether I should avoid mentioning it at all costs.  I have no idea what position I should take, but I’ll—I’ll take whichever one you want me to.”

And it’s odd, because when you first launched into your confession, Master Kenobi gradually began to look more and more relieved, but at a certain point, something just goes horribly wrong.  You don’t know what you said, but whatever it was, it seems to rocket through your Master and suddenly his breathing stutters.

For a moment, you think he’s going to reach back, yank your neatly folded Jedi robes up from the mattress and push the dark fabric into your hands.  Tell you he’ll meet you at the docking bay posthaste, tell you not to linger, tell you that the mission was a failure.  But then—

“Before,” he suddenly says, the word almost startling you with how abrupt it comes out sounding.  Almost like he wasn’t quite expecting himself to say it either.  “Earlier today, you asked… you asked if there was anything you could do to… make this easier.”

“Yes,” you prompt immediately.  He won’t look at you, and for some reason your heart begins beating faster and the inside of your thighs are getting warm.

“I… I’m not sure I’ll be able to go through with this,” he admits with a whisper, his voice sounding so quietly reluctant, like he doesn’t want to say the words aloud but is forcing himself to.  “But… the Council put you in charge of negotiations.”

Your eyebrows furrow, trying to understand his implication.  What does that have to do with anything?  Is he saying that you’re supposed to be in charge, and therefore he’s defaulting to you?  “I’m not sure I—”

“The Galactic Republic…”  Master Kenobi enunciates very, very pointedly, still unable to look at you, “…put you in charge of negotiations.”

Specifying—or in this case, generalizing—doesn’t help much.  “I’m still not—”

“Maker, for—for the good of the Republic, young one,” he presses under his breath and finally flicks his gaze up to meet yours, sounding urgent and torn in equal parts.  “Negotiate.”

Stars, negotiate with who?  With—with him?  For the good of the…?  Is he asking you to somehow reason with him beyond what you’ve attempted to do already, or persuade him to do what’s right for—?

Maker—Master Kenobi is asking you to seduce him.

Shock paints your expression blank and his eyes instantly evade yours once more.  You have to sit there for just a second and double-check that you’re not dreaming.  None of this seems real.  All of it seems like an incredibly elaborate illusion of the Force, ever since you first laid eyes on him at the start of this mission.  You know you missed him but stars, did you truly miss him this terribly?  Your longing must rival something fierce to unconsciously conjure this wild of a scenario.  Is he actually here right now?  Have you been speaking to a ghost?  Are you actually here right now?  Are you going to wake up any second and remember he’s thousands of lightyears away and has been for years, risking his life on the front lines of galactic war while you’re left to play politics and negotiate treaties behind the scenes?

These thoughts aren’t safe to have in normal interactions with him, but nothing about this situation is normal, and while you know Master Kenobi has years of experience reading your signature, he most likely won’t be able to gauge the specific details of your thoughts when you can sense how intensely he’s focused on guarding his own chaotic mind from you.

So you let yourself think.  If only for a second, you sit next to him and allow yourself to just… think about him.  About how much you care for him, how desperately you ache for him—you let all these improper longings finally have their moment with you.  You let yourself confront it, crack the lid of the hidden box tucked away behind your consciousness and brave it, because if there was ever a moment to do so, it’s right now.

Your heart starts slamming up against your ribcage and your hands feel like they’re tingling.  He wants you to convince him to have sex with you.  He’s asking you to corrupt him.  He wants you to negotiate the galaxy’s survival with the last man standing in the way of its prosperity—a good man with strong, immovable morals, a man who understands the consequences that follow integrity around and won’t be easy to tempt.

“This was a bad idea,” suddenly comes Master Kenobi’s voice, quickly backpedaling after too long of a silence.  “I shouldn’t have said that.  Forget I said that, we should just g—”

“Would you like to meditate?”  You immediately ask him on a complete whim, shuffling back towards the middle of the mattress for the second time today.  You’re careful to make sure he doesn’t see you carelessly flick your neat robes to the floor with the Force, clearing the top of the large mattress.  “Let’s meditate.”

“Stars,” he breathes, shyly his head turning to follow you, “I’d love nothing more, but there truly just isn’t any time—”

You find it easier than you thought it’d be to pull a playful face at him, crossing your legs and straightening your spine.  “Please, you’re a Guardian.  You blue sabers practically invented battle meditation, did you not?”

He looks skeptical for a moment, as he has a valid right to be.  “Is this a battle?”  He eventually asks over his shoulder.

You say nothing in response to that, instead using the Force with a flex of your finger to tug at the loose cream fabric of his robe at his elbow.  “Come on, it’ll do us good.”

He looks conflicted for a second, but then ultimately decides to humor you.  “Alright,” Master Kenobi finally agrees, turning around and crawling towards you on the mattress, and you’re just quick enough to stamp down a flicker of arousal at the mere sight of it.  “It won’t hurt.”

“Of course it won’t,” you agree with just a bit too much air in your voice, but he doesn’t seem to notice it.  He just seats himself directly in front of you, facing you, crossing his legs close enough to yours that your knees barely touch, and—

—Maker, he’s lovely.

You purposefully let yourself think it as his eyes slowly fall closed and he takes a deep breath, beginning to tame the wild tempest of his mind.  You let the word flitter around your thoughts without instantly repressing it like you always do, and just the mere act of allowing yourself to acknowledge the truth is freeing.  He’s lovely.  He’s lovely.  You could scream it.

Your eyes trail down the lines of his ever softening, tranquil expression, not even bothering to pretend to meditate for his benefit this time.  Your gaze roams shamelessly across his face, the way his hair is combed back away from it.  The sandy, masculine beard leading down to the thick column of his throat, the broad lines of his shoulders draped in pale fabric, the way his chest slowly moves as he breathes.  Lovely.  Lovely.

And then you go… lower.

His abdomen is stretched long with how upright he’s sitting, his flawless meditation posture.  His thighs are spread wide in this position, pants stretched tight into an elusive drum over his crotch and preventing you from truly seeing anything—but stars is it a thrill even just letting yourself look. 

Especially knowing that the more his mind works to compose itself, the easier it’ll be for him to hear you.

You keep thinking, growing bolder the more you’re left alone with this box wide open.  You think about how lithe and strong his body is, how it would feel under your hands.  You think about all the different things you want to show him, all the… the mind shattering pleasure you can give him if he’ll allow y—

Master Kenobi says your name without opening his eyes.

It doesn’t sound the way you expect, though you don’t really know what you expected it to sound like.  A sharp, frustrated bark?  An exasperated, pleading attempt to get you to stop?

No—none of those.  It’s a quiet, low growl of a sound, and the clear warning in it absolutely burns a hole through you like he picked up his lightsaber and used it instead.

You take practiced breaths, trying to calm yourself down.  Stars, he just said your name, he’s said it so many times before, and yet hearing it in his mouth with that tone in this context feels like he just strapped rockets to your ankles and told you to stay put.  You’re impatient.  You’re turning yourself on, working yourself up, trying to get to where you can actually make a move on him after dedicating so many years to desperately repressing the longing to do so.  Once he told you to negotiate this deal with him, however, it’s as if every ounce of the impeccable self control you’ve practiced so spectacularly throughout most of your life slowly started to unravel.

Reaching out tentatively so as not to startle him, you wrap both of your palms around the bend of his knees and squeeze gently.  Master Kenobi displays no physical signs of—well, anything really, keeping his body completely rigid under your hands with no noticeable alterations in his breathing pattern.  Biting your lip, you begin to slowly rotate your thumbs, making sure to keep your movements slow and perfectly symmetrical.  Complete relaxation is your ultimate goal here—coaxing your Master into a serene state where physical contact is desired, not obligatory.  He's so uncomfortable with the concept of intimacy in and of itself though, from the way his eyebrows start to furrow and his spine begins gradually tilting back and away from you, it's almost as if your ministrations are dampening rather than fueling.

“Relax,” you murmur, and stars, even though you make it sound quiet and gentle, it’s like the melodic lull of your voice appears to startle him more than if you’d just spoken normally.  Maker—it’s counterintuitive; how are you supposed to turn someone on when the mere state of being turned on turns them off?  “Relax with me, it’s okay—”

“But I just can't, young one,” he suddenly implores, his voice pressed up tight in his throat, his cerulean eyes popping open in frustration and something else—an honest, heartfelt emotion that's strikingly less familiar to you, even after years spent by his side: deep, hot, stomach-wrenching guilt.  You watch your Master’s palms run the length of his thighs; back and forth, back and forth—almost like a nervous tick, you think—and it’s oddly endearing, if not increasingly concerning.  “I just can't, this is all so wrong.  Don't you understand?  E-Even if the Council did provide a—well, a rather admittedly ineluctable blessing for this downright ludicrous endeavor, i-it’s… I don't…”  He takes a deep breath, and visually, it looks like he's attempting to collect his thoughts and composure, but you know your Master all too well.  You know what he's really doing, and at this point, it's almost… frustrating.

“What are you so afraid of?”  You clutch his knees and whisper quietly, interrupting him before he can verbalize whatever perfectly logical reason he's trying to formulate as to why you both should leave the planet immediately, what he's going to say to the Council if they ever inquire as to why negotiations ultimately failed.  He jerks his head up sharply to look at you.

“The Jedi fear nothing,” is his automatic response, though his previously intense gaze strays slightly from yours after a second of too much eye contact.  “Fear is the path to the Dark Side, you know this.”

“And yet you are afraid,” you remark calmly, studying the way he’s turned his face away from you completely now, how you can still see his jaw clench under the thick beard with his profile shown to you like this.  “I—I’m trying to understand, Master, but I—I don’t.  Even if this mission were half as important as it is, your loyalty to the Order would follow you right into an early grave.  But this?”  You remove a palm from his knee to gesture between the two of you, the mattress beneath the both of you, “fulfilling this mission and these terms to save the entire galaxy is too ‘downright ludicrous’ for the Great Negotiator?  I don’t believe it.  Tell me what you’re really afraid of.”

Only, he’s suddenly moving—away from you.  Turning and planting his palms to fur, beginning to climb to the edge of the bed and sweep his legs around under him, and your voice has an unintentional edge to it when you address his back.

“Do you know how many lives over I owe you?”  You ask, and he jerks to an abrupt halt, feet just shy of stepping on the floor.  “Do you have any idea the stockpile of mortal gratitude you’ve amassed from me?  How many times you’ve risked your death to save me from mine over the years—can you count them?  I have.  I know my debt to you, I know the weight of my life piled on top of itself over and over again.  I remember each and every one of them like they happened yesterday, and not once did you hesitate even slightly, let alone the way you’ve hesitated today.”

”And?”  Master Kenobi quite suddenly snaps over his shoulder as he grips the edge of the mattress, sounding sharp but not necessarily directed towards you.  “What is your point?”

“My point is that if you’d so readily trade your death time and time again to prevent that of even one other person, let alone a difficult Padawan who caused the Order nothing but grief for years, then what is it that makes the deaths of trillions—” you nearly say preferable to bedding me before you realize how incredibly harsh that would sound, but something about the way he seems to tense his shoulders and curl inwards implies he was following the general cadence of your agitated signature more than the specific content of your words.

He says absolutely nothing, but he doesn’t move to drop his feet to the floor, either.  If only you could punch a proverbial hole through his practically indestructible mental barriers, you'd see the real reason he's so flustered, why he's purposely attempting to deceive you.  Unfortunately for you though, they feel like they're made of triple-reinforced beskar, a countermeasure gradually increasing in strength the more you try to probe.

But then—all at once, something clicks.  Something… fundamental.  An understanding. 

Your Master is a gifted negotiator, yes.  But more than that.

He wields a blue saber.  Not a green one.

He’s a Guardian.  A warrior.  He fights.  It’s something that has never truly been part of your nature, no matter how much you struggled with it over the years—but it is a part of his, no matter how exceptionally he’s been able to mask it for even longer.

So, all at once, you stop pushing.  Your signature abruptly pulls away from him, gives him room to breathe and simply hovers within your own personal space, unassuming and careful not to disturb him.  You see your Master lift his chin and straighten his spine slightly, immediately noticing your absence and the constant pressure you’d been applying, and you honestly can’t tell if he relaxes or tenses up even more because of it.

Finally, when you feel like it’s been long enough, you slowly reach out and gently place your hand on his arm.  This time, there’s no underlying motivation attached, no inherent desire for him to fulfill any sort of obligation.  Just a warm, companionable gesture to reinforce the simple knowledge that you’re both in this together, for better or worse.

Please tell me, Obi-Wan, you quietly whisper to him through the Force, allowing your tone and energy to transfer through your open palm and into his troubled spirit as softly and gently as you possibly can—a caress more than anything even close to a sentence or inquiry.  Your usage of his first name is entirely unprecedented however, and your Master sucks in a sharp breath in response.

I don't… But then the subconscious, half-formed thought fades away almost as quickly as it’s offered to you from behind the solid, unyielding fortress of his mind.  “W-what are you doing?”

You bite your lip, wondering how honest you should be with him right now.  Though, you suppose, if you truly want him to confide in you, you should at least meet him halfway.

“You’re the locked door,” you finally settle on.  “This is me knocking.”

Obi-Wan turns around and blinks at you, looking for all the stars in this galaxy like that was quite possibly the last thing he expected you to say.  You can see the frantic thoughts pass through his eyes almost as if the clear blue was completely transparent, likely remembering all the times you’ve leaned on him for guidance, listened intently and learned from his wisdom and experience.  And now you’re a fully grown woman patiently offering him your ear, wondering if you’ve earned enough of his trust for him to do the same.

“I’m afraid I’ll form an attachment to you.”  The words tumble from his mouth even though his body all but whips away from you in the process.  “It’s unreasonable for the Council to expect this from me.  From us.  I’m afraid our relationship will forever be tarnished from this, that neither of us will ever be able to go back to the way things were before.  I’m afraid that regardless of whatever decision I make, I won’t be able to carry the guilt on my conscience and continue to call myself a Jedi and Guardian of the Republic.  But mostly, I just—I-I—”

Your heart is pounding as Obi-Wan buries his face into his hands and his muffled voice groans raggedly, “—I’m afraid I’ll like it.  I’m afraid I’ll want it again, and again.  I’m afraid it’ll follow me back to Coruscant, that I’ll save the galaxy but spend the rest of my days aching for something I’ll never be able to keep, and that’s petrifying.  Desire, passion, selfishness, possession; all of them lead to Darkness, and I can—I can feel it right now.  Your soul is so gentle, so peaceful, and yet you… you inspire such Darkness in me, dove.”

Maker, you’re trying so hard.  So hard to keep your legs from clenching together at the utter desperation in his tone, how his breathing has picked up now that the words have ripped themselves out of his throat, like the whole thing was physical agony even just to say.  You have to take a second.  You’ve been so patient this entire time, but stars—this one makes you need a moment.  You’re so glad his eyes are clamped shut behind his fingers right now because yours lose focus trying to mask the absolutely debilitating wave of arousal that sinks down hot through your stomach.

Even when you regain the ability to speak, the ability to form a safe and proper response to the bombshell he just dropped on you completely evades you.

You purposefully don't say that you're already helplessly attached to him, that the colors of the galaxy somehow lost their brilliance the day you graduated to Knight, the day you left his side.  You don't say that you want this so badly you can feel it in your neck, that it would probably break you in half if he said no to this now.  Though it's the honest-to-Maker truth, you know discovering this information will only cause your Master to further distance himself from you, and somehow that thought alone is a million times worse than being denied the opportunity to be this close to him.  Even… even if what you end up sharing is more emotional than physical.

So you take a deep breath to center yourself, and choose your words very carefully.

“A compromise, then.”

Obi-Wan suddenly raises his head, turning around to look at you and blinking twice.  “A what?”

“You told me to negotiate.  What do we do as negotiators, hm?”  You raise an eyebrow, giving him a gentle smile and trying not to curl your fingers into the fur underneath you with how hard it is to conceal your burning arousal.  Do it for him.  Do it for your Master, you’re in l—you… care about him, and you care about the things he cares about, even if doing so feels like it’ll rip you apart.  “We compromise.  Yes?  So, let’s find one.”

He shakes his head.  “I don’t see h—”

“If you were to…”  You cut him off and look down, trying to find the most delicate way to phrase this.  “If you were to… find other means to bring yourself to completion, would you be able to convince anyone listening that I was the one doing it?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t even blink this time.  He just stares at you, holding himself like a statue in front of you.  Finally, he seems to find himself.  “I… I don’t—I don’t know if I can.”

“You’re stronger in the Force than anyone on this planet, Master,” you encourage softly, placing a hand back on his arm and squeezing this time.  “I’ve felt it.”

“N-No,” he practically hiccups.  “No, I mean I-I… I don’t know if… if I can.”

Your eyebrows narrow, a mixture of confusion and concern coloring your expression.  “If you can…?”

He looks back at you almost desperately, his eyes practically begging you to figure it out so he doesn’t have to say it.  Finally, Obi-Wan sighs, seeming to collapse in on himself with its intensity.  “I—I’ve never… purposefully reached completion before,” he admits.  “I’m—I’m not sure how to.”

Your eyes widen, wanting to kick yourself for making assumptions.  Of course.  Of course he’d follow his oath to its strictest interpretation, why would you ever think otherwise?  “Oh, y-yes, of course not,” you stutter, sounding incredibly stupid and perfectly mirroring the embarrassed flush also painting your Master’s cheeks, “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“It’s alright,” he holds up a hand.  “We simply… view such things differently.  So long as you do not pass judgment, then neither shall I.”

You nod and look down at your hands, wondering how else you can attempt to tackle this predicament.  “What if I…”  You blink slowly, almost wanting to keep your eyes closed in case he’s offended by the idea but figuring you should have them open to read his responses.  “What if I… don’t touch you?”

Now he just looks confused.  “I’m sorry?”

You blush and clear your throat, obviously phrasing this wrong.  “If you can modify the context of your projection, then I can… get you there.  Without touching you.”

“How could you accomplish such a thing without tou—” Obi-Wan immediately cuts himself off when you lift your hand and close your eyes.

His thigh.  The right one—you focus on it.  There.  Right above the bend of his knee folding over the edge of the mattress, you concentrate all the energy from your fingertips and reach out, connecting the two together.  And then you take a deep breath and begin to draw your attention slowly upwards.

Your Master’s breath catches in his throat as you use the Force to delicately trail further up his leg, not laying a single hand on him as his muscles start to visibly tighten and quiver.

“Young one, I—”  His breathing stutters when you keep your hand raised but let your head tilt and drop down towards your shoulder with your energy, slinking down the inside of his thigh like water and getting dangerously close to his— “Stars, hang on—”

You blink your eyes open at him and continue concentrating right there, letting your focus melt warm and thick along the muscle and squeeze it—

“Maker—”  Obi-Wan gasps and drops his head back, his legs nearly spasming apart.  “Maker, hang on, I…”

“Do you…” You breathe tightly, flicking your eyes down to the way he’s fisting the fur under his hands and subconsciously flexing his hips up just the slightest bit.  Even though the Force, his body feels good.  Strong, sturdy, and braced tight under your attention.  “Do you want me to keep doing this?  I can… go higher.”

“You can…?  The—the Force isn’t—” Obi-Wan groans, his eyes clamping shut, “—isn’t meant to be used in such… in such… If I’m to break my oath, young one, it needn’t be so… so blasphemous—”

Trying to conceal the hot sparks of arousal deep in your stomach, you simply allow your metaphysical hand to continue resting right at the juncture of his hip and thigh, waiting for a real answer.  You bite your lip and wait for him to tell you to either cut it out or to keep going.  He doesn’t even have to say it out loud if he doesn’t want to—he can just slide it under the impassable door still separating him from you, the door you’re eventually going to get him to unlock himself.

His back is to you, so you can only see a bit of his face from this angle, but you can hear him loud and clear when he opens his mouth and whispers to you, barely louder than a breath.  “Go higher.”

Adrenaline rockets through your veins and slowly, your fingers curl in thin air while your gentle energy wraps itself around his cock.

Both of Obi-Wan’s hands instantly fly up to his face and he releases a tight, longing whimper into his palms, and you feel almost as desperate as he sounds.  You can sense the ghost of his thickness in your hand, and the way he’s already throbbing for it is like pure spice to you.

You can’t stop your crossed legs from shuffling and rotating your body to face his hunched spine more directly, just taking a second and allowing him to adjust to the sensation of you just holding him between his legs like this.  Your fingers rest gently along his pulsing skin while he hides from you, and if only to get a little bit more of a reaction for your own sake, your thumb just barely angles to delicately brush up under his frenulum.  

Obi-Wan shudders and makes a choking noise behind his palms, and oh good Maker, you really want to see his face.  You know it’ll probably never happen unless you take your own initiative, but you also don’t want to overstep and snap him out of this blissful reverie.  Still, something compels you to be so gentle about it that he hopefully won’t even notice. 

You start to slowly work the length of him and squeeze his cock a bit more firmly, but a tendril of your energy slowly slithers upwards, so quiet and full of caution that it hardly even counts.  Very carefully, you start to flatten the lifeforce from your other palm over his stomach and trail it up, gradually urging him to stretch his slouched figure upright and then eventually start to tip backwards, never once letting your focus on his throbbing erection falter.

Your courageous efforts bestow prosperous rewards.  Obi-Wan’s hands drag down the length of his face and he makes it almost too easy to keep pressing him back—back back back until his muscles give up what little fight they were putting up against it and his shoulders are dropping down to the mattress, his head falling into your lap.

“There we go,” you whisper under your breath, just loud enough to softly encourage him if he’s listening but avoiding a break in his focus if he’s not.  “That’s not so bad.”

“It isn’t,” Obi-Wan gasps up at you, his eyes tightly closed but his jaw slack and his handsome features screwed up in rapture.  “Oh, no, it’s… it’s really… rea—good.”

You bite your lip and your cunt flexes hard between your legs without your permission, feeling so empty.  If you’re being honest, only touching him through the Force causes your hand to become increasingly bold, also feeling too empty.  Obi-Wan’s head rolls to the side and he pants hot air against the thin black fabric covering your thighs as you tighten your hold around him just slightly and start to move up and down his cock in earnest.

“Fuck,” he whispers, the dirty word and rasp in his voice contrasting brilliantly with the proper Coruscanti accent and the crisp enunciation behind it.  “Fuck, this feels so good, I—”

His fingers grab at the fur covering the mattress top and pull at it, his adam’s apple bobbing sharp along the arching column of his throat as he groans and twists his head around in your lap.  He confesses it like it’s so wrong, but it can’t be wrong when he fits so perfectly in your hand?  How can this be wrong when it’s the only pleasure you can possibly give him that’s anywhere near close enough to match the way you feel when he’s around?  Even then, it’s but a fraction.

Your gaze flickers briefly from his face to check your progress with his body, and—stars, there’s a startling wet spot staining the front of his pale trousers, his cock tenting up shameless and needy for you to ache and throb just as desperately for in return.  Fuck, he deserves this, he deserves more—

“I can—I can make it better—” you can’t help but gasp, your eyebrows slanting upwards with need.  “Oh fuck, I can make it so much better than this for you, Obi-Wan—”

“You…?”  He blinks his stormy eyes open and sounds like he’s about to explode.  “This can be—” he chokes out, “—better?”

You can’t stop yourself.  Your pussy is clamped up so tight between your legs and Maker, you want to reward him for being so good to you, give him true adoration instead of phantom touches.  You don’t think before you’re moving out from under him and slinking down onto the floor, slipping in between his spread thighs.  You use the Force with a bend of your finger to tug his pants down just enough, just enough to let the swollen tip of his cock peak through the waistband, and then your head is dropping into his lap as you let it slide into your hot mouth.

Obi-Wan lifts his head and snarls at you—and something across the room shatters as you widen your throat for him and slowly sink down his length, curling your finger to stretch his hemline further as you go.  His fingers aren’t gentle when they fist into your hair and neither is the way he immediately twists it sideways, feeling like he’s trying to pull you off and shove you down on him at the same time.

You’re stuck between going as slow as you physically can to drag this out and giving him the best oral you’ve ever given to make him dream about this for the rest of his life.  You want him to want this as badly as you have for so many years.  You want him to fall into this Darkness with you, to crave you and what you can give to him so much that he’ll never want to leave you again.

So you make it wet.  You make it soft and slow and wet, switching between sucking gently at the tip and swirling your tongue around it, and then inching his length down your throat and swallowing around the thick girth of it once you can’t fit anymore in your mouth.  Obi-Wan is just an absolute mess about it—he can’t sit still, he’s tugging uselessly on your hair, whimpering out his bliss into the quiet room while you close your eyes and ignore his squirming, just taking your sweet time enjoying him and the way he feels.

He tastes exquisite.  Maybe it’s just because all your broken, stupid brain can think right now is slightly varying forms of my Master’s cock is in my mouth and it’s fucking leaking while you slowly nurse from it with your tongue, but stars—he tastes exquisite.

He’s swollen.  Throbbing.  Aching for you.  Releasing precum from the tip like his body is producing way too much of it after decades of neglect and just needs to get it all out at once.  Shifting and writhing underneath you but managing to never move his hips or cock a single inch away from the soft attention you’re giving him.  You can feel his smooth skin pulse against your tongue as you continue your lazy pleasuring, finally giving him what you’ve both been denied for so long and steadily swallowing down the spoils of your endeavors.

“—Wait, wait, Maker—stop,” you faintly hear gasped from above you not long after you even begin, and it takes the sum of all your efforts to unlodge his throbbing cock from your throat and pull away from him.

“I’m sorry,” you exhale automatically, trying not to slur your words as a bit of drool slides down your chin.  “I’m s’sorry, Obi, I should’ve asked before I—”

“Something’s… n-not right,” Obi-Wan interrupts you and lifts himself up to his elbows, his abdominal muscles heaving and a wild, frenzied look in his startlingly bright eyes.  “My stomach was—I-I felt—”

Heat blooms through you along with a realization, and your eyelids begin to droop slightly at just how sexy it is—the fact that this man, this fully grown, red-blooded, warrior of a man is currently teetering on the precipice of his very first ever orgasm, and you’re the only one with the power to give it to him.

You shuffle backwards slightly, grabbing hold of his thighs and squeezing to get his attention.  “Hey.  It’s okay, relax.”

Obi-Wan nods his head vigorously down at you, the exact opposite of relaxed.

“Listen to me,” you urge quietly, trying to ignore the sight of his thick, swollen cock twitching restlessly against his abdomen, precum still steadily dribbling at the tip.  Is your mouth watering?  “This is it.  You’ll need to start projecting when you’re ready.  It’ll be tricky, but not impossible.  You’ll just have to imagine you’re inside me when it happens.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head vigorously from side to side, vehemently opposed.

“No, I don’t—” He croaks, “—I don’t know what it’s like, I won’t be able to—”

“Doesn’t my mouth feel similar at least?”  You ask, looking down at his cock once more.

“I-I—” Obi-Wan sputters, “I don’t know, young one—you tell me!”

Okay, well.  He… makes a valid point.

You settle back on your knees even further, gazing at your Master thoughtfully.  His chest continues to rise and fall with heavy breaths, a thin sheen of sweat coating his temples and a mild flush high in his cheeks, but his eyes have regained a bit of their focus.  “You can just try to imagine the, uh,” you try, your cunt nearly convulsing with burning need at the mere sight of him, “the same positioning and sensation from… earlier?”

“Alright, I can…”  Obi-Wan nods, though his hands are shaking.  “I’ll do the best I…”

You can’t help but lean forward to press a soft, encouraging kiss to his thigh, and he jerks under your touch.  You try it again, receiving the same result, and it makes you pause for just a minute longer.

“I’m nervous,” he blurts unceremoniously after a moment of stillness, as if you hadn’t noticed.  “Oh stars, I’m nervous, I—”

“Obi-Wan,” you let your voice lull, your hands squeezing gently around the bend of his knees once more.  “Calm down.  Clear your mind.”

He hiccups and you wait.  You wait with your mouth a few inches away from his cock, waiting for his breathing to slow and for him to follow your lead.

Can you hear me?  You murmur through the Force, and he quickly whimpers and nods.  Focus your thoughts.

You gently kiss at his tensing thighs once again, and he doesn’t flinch away from you this time.  His breathing slows into a calmer, steadier rhythm, letting you trail your lips gently along the curve of his leg.

Will you let me try something?  You ask after a moment, opening your mouth just the slightest bit to brush your tongue out and taste his skin.

“Y-Yes,” Obi-Wan says quietly, his breath stuttering through the word.

And—perhaps you shouldn’t have, but you give him something; a suggestion, more than anything else.  You give him a… visual.  A reference to guide his mind through the Force.

You, still in your black robe, slowly standing up from between his legs.  Widening your stance to straddle his lap, pull you robes up just enough, and then adjust your hips just slightly over the head of his cock.

Obi-Wan inhales sharply at the vision, his eyes clamping tightly shut against it in vain.  He can close his eyes, turn away, hide his face all he wants—he can’t escape the way your body looks as it slowly begins to sink down on his.

At the exact same time, you lower your mouth around his cock once more, and you try to make it as close to the sensation as possible.  You don’t even move your tongue, you simply lift your soft palate and close your lips around his girth, beginning to carefully bob up and down along his length in time to the image you’re conjuring of you riding him.

Only, you already feel his balls tightening up and his body starting to go rigid with tension once again, and you can sense him still wanting to resist his approaching orgasm.  It’s okay, Master, you encourage quietly through the vision, it’s okay, just let it come easy.

“I—I’m not—” he shakes his head back and forth against the bed frantically, his breathing getting shallower and almost immediately picking back up to where it was before you stopped.  “I d-don’t want—”

Stop fighting, you tell him, continuing to mimic the sensation of him thrusting into your aching, neglected cunt with slow and steady movements of your throat.  Don’t run from it, let it take you.

He grits your name tightly in response and subconsciously begins to rock his hips up to match your unhurried pace, his ragged breathing gasping out into the quiet room and gradually increasing in volume and desperation the longer he stubbornly tries to hold out against it.

You know not strong enough to use the Force to coax it out of him.  You can’t alter your technique and break the illusion, either.  So you have to resort to desperate measures.

There’s enough remaining wherewithal to your mind that prevents you from permanently damaging his clothing when you tear his robes open with the Force and allow the metaphysical image of yourself to rip them apart with your hands.  Obi-Wan gasps when both versions of you reach up his bare torso at the same time and dig your nails into his chest.

Master—you demand, taking his cock down your throat as far as you can go and then clawing hard down his stomach—cum.

And thank everything good and right in the universe that he remembers at the very last second to start projecting, because being this close to someone as strong in the Force as Obi-Wan when he finally succumbs to his first taste of the Dark Side is just a fucking atomic missile straight to your nervous system.

It’s all you can do to just remember to keep swallowing.

The projection he casts out through the shockwave is utterly flawless—brilliantly composed, looking and feeling so authentic and overwhelming even from this distance that there should be no issue at all convincing any s’Ziscari in the wide vicinity who are tuning in right now.

Except—then you hear it.  Through the roaring pleasure of his thoughts, a flicker of his subconscious he’s unable to mask through the mind blowing bliss.

Is she…? Maker above, she’s drinking it—

A ragged groan tears through the silence of the room, his cock pulsing spectacularly on your tongue.  He just keeps cumming, and cumming, and so you just have to keep swallowing, and swallowing.  You suppose you should’ve expected this from a fully grown man who lived a life of celibacy, but what would typically be a rather short moment with anyone else subsequently goes on long enough to where Obi-Wan is actually able to lazily raise his head up from the mattress and simply watch you continue to swallow his load, dazed and reverent in his stare, glassy blue eyes trained on the hypnotic movements your jaw and throat make around him.  The remaining traces of whatever visual he attempted to maintain immediately flicker out of existence, replaced instead by the sight of your mouth around his cock, diligently taking down each rope of cum he gives you.

When he finally stops throbbing, you reluctantly let his cock fall from your mouth and slowly stand up as the botched projection fizzles out completely.  His gaze eventually follows the movement like he’s on a five second delay.

“So, uh…”  Your voice is hoarse.  “We… need to have sex.”

“Alright,” he agrees dreamily, his eyes lazily dragging down your body.  “Alright, we can have… I… Wait, what?”

“You, uh.  I know it wasn’t intentional, but you might’ve, uh…”  You  shuffle awkwardly from side to side, wondering why you’ve chosen now of all moments to become shy with him.  You’re literally still savoring the taste of his release in your mouth.  “You might’ve accidentally projected a very specific thought towards the end there and let everyone know that we weren’t actually doing what we’re technically supposed to be doing.”

“What did… what did I think?”  The question would likely be nonsense in literally any other situation, but you understand.  And truthfully, for the life of you, you can’t find it within yourself to feel even a little bit mad about it, not when it means you can continue doing this together.  You can’t even conjure up a single shred of disappointment in his failure, it’d just be a lie.

“Doesn’t matter,” you assure him, your heart continuing to pound.  You know you should make your next move now while he’s still so loopy, the post-orgasm bliss causing his signature to vibrate with pulsing endorphins as he blinks up at you slowly from the bed.  “Though we won’t be able to do it for a little bit, just uh.  Just for general… anatomical reasons.  But that should’ve at least counted for… initiating the Ritual, so I don’t think we have to worry about time anymore.”

Obi-Wan just stares at you, his Force signature feeling more serene and spaced out than you’ve ever sensed before.  Oh Maker, how you wish you felt the same.  You swallow thickly, still tasting his hard orgasm on your tongue, and then try not to clamp your thighs together with how embarrassingly turned on you are.  Anyone with any experience whatsoever would know exactly what you’re going through with just a mere glance—you’re biting your lip with your entire body is subtly crumpled in towards your swollen, neglected pussy—and your Master has been watching you struggle through it this entire time.

“Are you alright?”  He asks dumbly, finally managing to at least push himself upright, still completely unaware or unconcerned at his softening cock on full display for you and your starving libido.  “You’re… shaking.”

“I—won’t die,” is the only serious assurance you can make to both him and yourself right now that’ll ease your suffering the smallest bit.  The last thing you want right now is to come on too strong and snap him back to his senses, bringing everything back to square one.  “Just, uh… r-really worked—worked up.  Trying to just.  C-Cool it?”

Your fingers flex at your sides because no matter what you try, you just can’t stop thinking about his.  They’re right there.  They’re so close, so strong and thick and—

“Aren’t you…”  He trails off, letting his head tilt and then drop to his shoulder with a combination of confusion and exhaustion.  “Aren’t you going to…?”

“To what?”  You prompt shortly, your hands suddenly clenching into fists to deal with another violent wave of arousal at how unbelievably drunk he still looks.  Maker, you did that.  That’s all you.

“s’Zerthia said all—” Obi-Wan murmurs, blinking long lashes lazily up at you, “—all Jedi must… participate.”

Fuck. Just hearing him provide you an excuse to give into the boiling arousal causes you to suddenly break out into a sweat.  You don’t know if he wants you to get yourself off or if he’s indirectly implying he wants to help, but you’re so far beyond desperate that you jump at the chance as soon as he so much as hints at the opportunity.

Very slowly, you move forward and lift one trembling knee to brace next to his thigh on the mattress, and then carefully swing your other leg over his lap, lowering yourself into a straddle in the same exact position he attempted to project earlier.  You’re so unbelievably cautious about his cock, making sure you don’t accidentally touch it and jolt him awake.  Instead of your newfound proximity scaring him away like you feared though, he stays so… docile.  Still so relaxed from his very first orgasm that he even rests his large palms over the thin fabric covering your thighs, letting the loose silk drape and fold over his hands as he drags them up and down.

His eyes follow your trembling fingers as you work at the knot tying the material around your body, your cunt throbbing between your legs at how he’s just… staring.  His eyelids are dipped slightly, breathing so calm and slouched under you, pliant and waiting.

The thin fabric slowly parts only enough to reveal the valley between your bare chest to him, and you watch his eyes fall down the thin strip of skin and catch on the dark line of your panties riding low on your hips.  Maker, you can’t help but remember his terror at even glimpsing the two acolytes taking off their robes earlier—the way his eyes bounced around and how his cheeks lost whatever color they had left to them as soon as he finally made himself look.  Now, though.  Now he can’t seem to drag his eyes away from the soft flesh of your tummy, the way your nipples are still covered by the thin fabric of your slightly parted robe but are impossible to miss while your breasts subtly move with your breathing.

You gently call one of his wrists to your hand with the Force and Obi-Wan is either mentally or physically too weak to resist your will.  He allows you to catch his hand and slowly lead it downwards with both of your smaller ones to the part of your body that’s longed for his attention for years, though now it’s absolutely weeping for it.

You don’t want to scare him.  You don’t want to scare him.  Oh Maker, you need him to be brave for you right now, or at least just continue to be stupefied.  You can work with stupefied, but you cannot work with panic, especially when you feel your own wanting to rise up the more you drag this out.

When the tips of his fingers brush against the waistband of your panties, Obi-Wan’s hand pushes under it without your guidance.

You’re throbbing.  It’s been years in the making.  Unable to stop the way your thighs contract and you lift your hips against his palm as it steadily curves down the slope of your soft curls, the sight of the finish line so within reach makes you reckless and too quick.  You can’t help it.  When he gets hesitant and eventually slows down to a halt right above your slit, you don’t even think before you’re suddenly giving his wrist an abrupt shove with the Force, pulling his hand down before he’s ready and forcing his middle finger deep through the soaking cleft of your pussy.

Your shameless moan of his name comes out sounding so grateful—you pour everything you have into it and sag into Obi-Wan’s chest at the feeling, but he startles and all but rips his hand out of your underwear before you can stop him.  He was a hair’s breadth from touching your clit and the denial of it—the sudden turnaround from your goal is just so massively overwhelming that tears suddenly spring to your eyes.

You can just barely make out the sight of him staring down at his trembling hand between the two of you, your slick shining wet and hot along the length of his finger. 

“Stars,” he rasps, blinking his wide, sapphire gaze up to yours—and then he quite suddenly looks alarmed.  “Did I—Did I hurt you?”  Obi-Wan gasps, his energy beginning to outright seize with distress while you blink rapidly and try not to crumble on his lap.

“No—I’m sorry, it’s just—I’m just… oh, fuck, I n-need it,” you stammer.  “Oh fuck, I need it Master, I’m so sorry—I’m trying to be calm but—”

“What is it, little dove?”  He urges, reaching his hand up to your face and flicking his eyes back and forth between yours, sounding almost as panicked as you do from your desperation.  “What do you need?”

“Oh stars, Obi-Wan, I need you to just—” You can’t fit anything into words, a tear finally making its way down your cheek when you clamp your eyes shut in frustration.  You just need him to understand, to give you what you’ve been craving for so long—but when you blink your eyes back open, his troubled expression has suddenly resolved itself.

Your Master’s hands immediately grab tight to your hips and twist you around, easily tossing you back up onto the mattress.  The jostle of bouncing back into the soft fur startles you, but not nearly as much as when he climbs over your body and braces an elbow next to your head, gently placing the tips of his fingers to your temple.

He pushes carefully but firmly against your natural mental barriers, flexing the energy shields inwards gently enough to not hurt you but with enough force to let you know he’s entirely capable of breaking through should you refuse to let him in.

So you do.  You let him in without a single thought, never mind a second one.  Obi-Wan gasps as your shields all but collapse for him that easily, and then he’s finally breaching the surface of your thoughts.

“Oh—Maker above, little one,” he grits almost immediately, his forehead dropping to your shoulder and his other hand wrapping tight around your arm as he struggles to acclimate to the blinding distress you’re experiencing.  “Collect—” he groans as your cunt clamps down at the rasp of his broken voice, “—collect yourself.  I can’t—can’t think—”

Oh, no, it’s too much.  It’s way too much, even just having him inside your head without being able to read him in return—it’s too much for you.  You start hyperventilating and instead of wanting him out, you just want to drown out the sensation of everything else.  The endlessly pulsing, aching throb between your legs that you’ve been dealing with for so long, the way you can feel his cock dragging against your tummy from this angle and how much you already want it in your mouth again, the way your nipples are so hard right now that even this soft fabric feels so rough and sharp against—

Your robe suddenly rips itself off your chest, and you whimper up at the ceiling as you dig your fingers into thick fur and writhe under him, almost completely naked and just desperate for him to do something, to at least just use his hands or his mouth to make you feel bet—

Obi-Wan’s head drops and his blazing mouth opens hot around your nipple, his tongue rolling soft and slick up under the hard bud.

You choke out the first part of his name and you barely even have a flicker of a thought—a brief flash of a rabid, baser desire you’re not even able to consciously recognize before you feel his jaw opening and his teeth closing gently around it, biting down just hard enough to make you spasm bright and urgent between your legs.  “Oh, fuck—”

As soon as you feel the pleasure and twisting ache spark deep in your core, Obi-Wan flutters his eyes shut and wedges his hand back into your panties, humming low in his throat when your legs jerk apart for him.

This time, your clit is the very first thing he touches.

He zeroes in on it.  The tip of his finger starts to rub it exactly how you’d do it to yourself, exactly the right angle and speed and pressure that your body suddenly feels massively overheated and dizzy from it.  It blindsides you.  It makes sense he’d be able to do this, after all, but for some reason, the whole thing just absolutely blindsides you.

“Maker,” you whimper at the ceiling, soft and pitched high in your throat, eyes rolling back when Obi-Wan gently bites down on your nipple again and continues to work to relieve you even as every muscle in your body feels like it’s tightening up.

“Stars—” he whispers when he pulls away, “This—this feels incredible, Padawan.”

You moan and roll your hips against his hand, on cloud nine at just how he’s slowly allowing himself to become filthier with you, to lower himself in all his righteous beliefs and descend into delicious sin with you, and—

—wait, did he just…?

Your cunt clamps down hard with realization as he continues massaging your clit better than you’ve ever even done it yourself.  Maker, it shouldn’t turn you on so much but it does, hearing that word in this context.  Padawan.  Padawan, holding her legs open while her Master explores her pussy.  Padawan, moaning desperately as her orgasm buzzes deep down inside with a rising, threatening resonance.  Padawan, Padawan, Padawan—

“Oh, you liked that,” Obi-Wan remarks tightly, taking a second to tug on your clit.  You nearly start to cry again, your insides pulling up and going rigid at the sensation.  “I heard it, little one.  You like it when I call you that?”

“Oh I like it when you do f-fucking anything,” you choke out helplessly, your words starting to slur together.  “Oh fuck, you’re so amazing, you’re so good at everything, you’re the best Jedi in the whole entire galaxy Master, you’re so much better th—”

“My, you’re agreeable like this, aren’t you?”  Obi-Wan grits, his touches growing stronger and quicker and rocketing you straight to the edge of madness.  “Shall I take that to heart, my darling little Padawan?  Or did you say such flattering things to the oth—”

“Wait!”  You suddenly exclaim, desperately trying to push his hands away.  “Oh, nonononono—wait, wait, wait, I—I-I’m about to cum—I need to—”

His hand yanks itself out of your underwear once more and you take giant, gasping breaths and try to compose yourself at least somewhat, but then your Master is quickly scrambling down your body and using the Force to rip your panties down your hips—

“Obi-Wan, wait—” you choke out, “that isn’t—you don’t… h-have to…”

He looks up at you, dark brows furrowed in confusion.

“I’ll be able to—y-you don’t—”  You have to take a few gasping breaths and remember how to speak Basic.  “I used my mouth on you before because I… I wanted to.  If—If you don’t want to do that, you don’t have to.  It’s not… oh fucking stars above, it’s not n-necessary.”

“Are you telling me this because you don’t want me to?”  He immediately asks, though you both already clearly know the answer to that considering how exposed your wild thoughts are to him right now.

“Ah, no I, uh… I just.”  You try to clear the thickness from your throat and you feel your body tremble while you focus as much effort as possible into trying to explain.  “I just want to be sure I’m not taking advantage of you, that’s all, I—I want you to know the truth about these things.  It’s not… necessary, b-but.”

“But.”  He repeats the word meaningfully as he glances back down at your weeping cunt, nodding slowly to himself.

And then your Master leans in, flutters his eyes shut, and slides his warm tongue deep into the seam of your pussy with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever.

“Obi—Wan—!?”  You gasp, somewhere between a squeak and a squeal, your entire upper body launching upwards around his head as your clit is immediately enveloped into a slick, dexterous furnace.

Hold still, you hear his voice warn through the Force, sounding so much closer than you’ve ever heard him before.  Whether that can be attributed to the fact that the command came directly from wherever he is inside your head or whether it’s simply because his tongue is now tracing gentle circles around your clit as you whimper pitifully into the quiet of the dimly lit room, you’re not sure.  All you know is that his mouth feels like velvet between your legs and his beard is scraping across your thighs and your fingers have buried themselves in his hair without your conscious permission.

Hold still, young one, he urges once more, but you just close your eyes and moan shamelessly at it this time, opening your legs wider for him.  His voice, it’s… it’s maddening like this, coming directly from your own thoughts.  Deep, precise, somehow sounding so true, so much clearer and full-bodied without your pesky ears in the way.  Your hips are subconsciously rolling slowly against the lower half of his face when Obi-Wan apparently decides he’s had enough.

An invisible energy wraps around each of your individual limbs and snaps them against the mattress without any warning.  You whimper high in your throat, arms and legs held so firmly against the bed with the Force that your internal struggles aren’t able to be translated outwardly; he doesn’t allow your body a single centimeter to move under him, no matter how hard you fight it.  Which means you have to lay there and just take the way Obi-Wan’s hot mouth continues to lick and kiss at your clit slowly, taking all the time in the universe to properly explore you between the legs he’s forced apart.

“Obi—” you croak breathlessly at the ceiling, feeling a familiar heat start to burn hot and tight through your core, “Obi, I—I have to p-project—before I—ah!—before you—before you ma-make me cu—ugh, f-fuck—I have t-to—”

Then project, he encourages simply, gently fluttering his tongue over your clit.  You gasp and he hums, murmuring through the Force once more to you.  We’re not hiding anymore.  They’ll all know I’m using my mouth on you like this.  It’s alright.  Let them know.

You realize you’re going to cum the second you hear your Master’s voice say the words using my mouth on you like this while he slowly sucks on your clit, and you barely have enough wherewithal to gulp in a giant breath and begin projecting your signature as far across the palace and surrounding city as physically possible before your body shatters hot into searing euphoria under him.

Obi-Wan groans deep in his throat and holds you perfectly still under him as you cum with a ragged, hoarse wail of his name, giant waves of white hot bliss beginning to radiate through the Force from you with spectacular power.  The contractions are so much more pronounced when it’s one of the only sets of muscles in your body he’s granted permission to move.  It’s like everything is concentrated and multiplied there because of it.  You can feel each individual spasm your floor muscles make as they convulse against his tongue, how each blazing shot of ecstasy that shatters through your body wrings more and more wetness from your cunt into your Master’s mouth.

Never.  Ever ever ever.  Has anyone done something so mind blowingly sexy to you.  Nobody.  Ever.  He’s a virgin, you frantically remember as Obi-Wan purrs softly into the folds of your pussy while it cums all over him.

Your thoughts, young one, you can just barely make out his voice remind you gently, just as gently as he sucks on your clit through the aftershocks, somehow sounding even more aroused than he did before.

After allowing your projection to flicker out of existence with a putter, you’re completely dazed.  Incapable of moving regardless of the way he keeps you pinned with the Force long after he pulls away, slowly moves back up your body and waits while you work to regain your bearings.  You don’t even want to open your eyes right now, knowing he’s looking down at your peaceful expression while you work to catch your breath.  You’re too stupid with pleasure you almost don’t even process the soft touch of something against your lips.

You’re lovely.

The thought is so quiet you don’t even recognize it isn’t your own.  Not until he keeps pressing his lips to yours so sweetly, not knowing to do anything else when your mind is too fractured with ecstasy to unconsciously act as his compass like before.  Everything is innocent and gentle and not reminiscent of the fact that the robes you’re both wearing are wide open and your mouths tasted of each other even before he kissed you.

Instead of melting into the soft touches, though, they just start to burn you alive, the thick fog of your orgasm clearing more and more with each gentle press of his lips and your need for him steadily growing.  He’s kissing you.  Master Kenobi is kissing you for a few precious, heart stopping seconds at a time before pulling away, pausing to look at your face each time to make sure your eyes are still closed, before leaning down and carefully pressing his lips to yours again.

The only part you can’t stand is that he won’t even let you move your jaw to kiss him back.

Kiss me, Obi-Wan, you urge desperately through the Force, not wanting to interrupt to speak.

“I am, little one,” he replies between kisses, and the sincerity in his tone tells you he’s not purposefully teasing you.  No, this is him kissing you, genuinely, the only way he knows how to.

Let me— you start to struggle in earnest against his hold on you, —please, let me—

The warm breath from his nose puffs softly against your cheek with a quiet little sound from far back in his throat, and then you suddenly gain the ability to move from the neck up.

You immediately part his lips with yours and Obi-Wan pulls back just the slightest bit in response, but your neck lifts up to compensate as you lick deep into his warm mouth.  He gasps at the foreign sensation and loses his concentration for a split second, enough for you to break free of it completely.  Your hands quickly fly up to cradle his face as soon as they can move and your fingers hook around the thick beard blanketing his sharp jawline, urging him back down into you.

Your legs come up to wrap around his lower back and he sags against your strong will with a needy groan, dropping down closer and obediently keeping his mouth open for you to taste.  As soon as he presses his body into yours, his cock strains and drags against your lower stomach, already throbbing hot and leaking precum along the soft hills of your skin.

Maker, you want it but somehow you… you don’t.  You just want to savor tonight as long as you physically can, keep holding him and kissing him like this for another few hours at least before you try to take his cock, but he’s unintentionally grinding it against you while his tongue shyly dances with yours, needy and already raring to go in his own timid way.

Do you want it, Master?  You finally murmur to him, running your fingers through his hair and gently biting his bottom lip, scooting your hips up to let him rub himself against something better than your tummy.  You feel… ready.

The only response you get from him is a shuddering, helpless moan into your mouth and you hold him tighter to you, grinding your still sensitive cunt up against his cock while he pulls hard at the soft fur next to your head.  Your feel your soaking pussy lips part around the solid curve of his length and gradually coat the underside of him in slick with every gentle circle and roll your hips make, and Obi-Wan finally pulls away from your mouth to drop his forehead to your neck.

“Yes, I—” he moans into you skin, “Oh stars, I want it.”

With a gentle wave of your hand, you use the Force to drop his hips down to the proper angle and tilt the head of his cock to line him up perfectly.

And now this is the part you don’t want to rush.  This is when you take Obi-Wan Kenobi’s virginity.  You’ll savor just being able to remember this for the rest of your fucking life.  You’ll see him in Council meetings years from now and be reminded that you’re the only person in the galaxy to know the thickness of him as he rests heavy up against your entrance, the way his voice presses deliciously tight in his throat as he gasps out into the quiet room.  You’re the only one who will know that sound, that sound is yours, that sound belongs to—

“Padawan,” he grits, hips stuttering into you while you wrap your arms around his shoulders, “your thoughts—”

You groan up at the ceiling and your pussy tightens at the reminder that he can still hear you, but your body is just too bold and desperate for it.  Your thoughts begin to flare bright, growing more possessive by the second, and you can’t even wait for him this time.  Every single muscle in Obi-Wan’s body goes rigid when you tighten your grip around him and roll your hips up into his cock, letting it break you open nice and slow.

It stretches you wide with a deliciously sharp fullness and pleasure rips through you as Obi-Wan instinctively tries to lift off you and away from it, but you’re clinging too tightly to him.  Your whole body hovers off the mattress to stay with him. 

“You said—” he gasps, “—it wouldn’t h-hurt—oh—”

“It doesn’t,” you groan, continuing to tighten your legs and hoist yourself up, lifting your hips to take his cock deeper inside you.  “Oh, Maker, it feels so fucking good, Obi—feel it—”

His elbows shake where they’re locked and braced against the mattress but he drops his head and holds strong like this while you work your muscles to take him as far as you can from this shameful angle.  Your body feels like it’s on fire while you desperately cling to him and the length of your robe brushes against the mattress while you just keep trying to get him deeper inside you—

Suddenly something grabs hard at your hips and tries shoves you downwards and off his cock, but you want it too badly.  You summon the hidden strength of your energy and then channel it into your legs where they’re hooked around the curve of his lower back.

Obi-Wan chokes at the unexpected resistance and his elbows buckle, dropping you both down to his forearms with a jolt, but you’re too busy mentally clashing with each other for it.  The result is… well, it’s maddening.

Every time your pussy is able to swallow him more than halfway, you pull back and let his energy shove you down his length—but then dig back in right before you drop completely and use the Force to bend your legs and fight the uphill battle to his cock once more.  Your Master gasps, beads of sweat gathering at his temples while you fight him with every ragged breath in your body to keep fucking him.

Except—he’s the fighter.  And you should’ve known.

You’re no match for the sudden blast of energy from him, easily hinging your legs apart from around his back and then ripping you down off his cock with a wet sound, bouncing back down into the mattress once more.

In order to stop the desperate tears of defeat from coming to your eyes, you immediately clamp them shut and twist your face away from Obi-Wan’s, but he makes a low growl and uses the same ferocious royal blue energy to keep your knees pinned open and wide against the bed. 

And then drops his hips and rocks back into you, giving you those last few precious inches of his thickness you weren’t able to get at before.  It hits sharp nirvana up inside you with his thighs pressed tight to your hips like this.  His name rips itself from your throat while Obi-Wan clenches his jaw and starts to lose himself in the pleasure, holding you down into the bed with the Force while he allows your desperation to guide him to the perfect angle and speed to sate you. 

He’s so gifted, so strong in the Force, he’s able to use your mind as his anchor and give you pleasure beyond anything you’ve ever experienced.  And in return, you want to do the same to him.  You want to read his thoughts, instantly be able to give him everything he never knew he needed—

“You do,” your Master chokes out, “darling, you already—”

Everything inside you surges up at the admission, aching that much harder to hear him, to hear everything the way he can hear you.  The tips of your fingers find his temple, slick with sweat, and you press just hard enough to tell him your intent.

“Let me in,” you whisper, wicked arousal swirling tight in your lower muscles as they start to bear down on his cock.

“I—I can’t—” Obi-Wan gasps breathlessly, “I can’t—”

“Open—open the door, Master,” you beg, “please, open th—”

“Fuck,” he cuts you off, his voice rising in pitch while his his hips snap just a little harder against yours and his rhythm falters, “—It’s too good, Padaw—I’m going t-to—stars, are you—are you r-ready?”

Some terrifying, swirling darkness manifests itself deep in your thoughts.  It rises up, part of the desperate, hidden subconscious that you’re typically capable of stifling.  No, it says, don’t let this be over.  Not yet.  You don’t want to go to sleep alone, wake up and remember you’ll never have this again.  You need there to be a next time, and a time after it.

You try your hardest to push the longing downwards when you recognize it, but your Master is too quick, too talented to deceive when he’s this close to you.  He easily plucks it from your mind and expands it, enlarges the chaotic string of thoughts until you feel them pulsing at the edges of your consciousness.

And then Obi-Wan sees it all, immediately playing out in your memories as you helplessly watch on.  Every desire you buried for him unearthed, every whimper you stifled with the back of your hand when you touched yourself at night and thought of him amplified.  The years of repression, the blind hope that simply ignoring it would make it go away.  How hard you worked to deaden the burst of affection that radiated through the Force when you finally saw him after two years apart.  The circumstances behind the night you lost your virginity—not a long time ago, as he suggested before, but only just last year.  So desperate in your loneliness and longing for his presence that you began routinely sneaking around and fucking other Knights—Guardians with blue sabers whose souls were just marginally close enough to Obi-Wan’s, and you thought of him the whole time.  Every time.

But, perhaps, worst of all.  The… fantasies.

He sees himself dropping to his knees and congratulating you for passing your trials by burying his tongue inside your warmth and telling you how proud of you he is.  He sees you opening his trousers and slowly licking his cock while he meditates, trying to get him to break his concentration.  He watches the two of you fucking in every conceivable position, how incredibly ready you always are to take him when he needs it.  Most importantly, he recognizes your inherent, blazing desire to drag this out as long as physically possible, to permanently brand every moment in your memory to get you through his impending absence.

And then… then Obi-Wan does something unexpected.  Something incredibly uncharacteristic.

You watch as he morphs the fantasies right before your eyes.  He's still on his knees with his head between your legs, but now he’s telling you how proud he is of you for negotiating the mysterious, confidential deal that ended the Clone Wars.  You’re licking his cock as the ship autopilots itself through the week-long journey back to Coruscant from s’Ziscari, letting him slowly cum in your mouth as he sprawls lazily in the captain’s chair.  He’s taking you against the wall of your quarters after a mindless and dull Council meeting; you’re riding him quietly in his bed after lights-out at the temple; he’s rubbing your clit while he sits behind you and advises you on matters concerning your own Padawan you’ll be choosing sometime soon, two fingers deep and squeezing a bared nipple when he whispers in your ear how much he absolutely adores you.

Thoughts that aren’t your own begin to fill the empty spaces of your mind, a lovely pale blue tenor to harmonize gorgeously with the soft green alto of your own consciousness.  The resulting color of your combined energies fills your soul with Light, a stunning turquoise of a color you’ve never loved more, one you wish you could live in for the rest of your life.

For every debased thought of yours he sees, he shows you one even more revealing.  The way he used to dream of you at night, especially after a close battle where many Jedi and Clones fell, and then he’d wake up in a cold sweat with an erection pulsing feverish and so terribly shameful between his legs.  How he tried to shove a pillow down there once to somehow relieve himself of the aching hardness, and then had to rip it away and launch it across the room with the Force when he realized he’d been dragging himself against it and thinking of you.

“I’m gonna—cum—” your voice scrapes across your throat, and you can already sense him throwing his beautiful consciousness out like a net.  You match him with what little mental strength you have remaining, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and your ankles around his lower back and pulling him down into you.

Obi-Wan’s energy keeps swirling a brilliant aquamarine with yours, presenting his every subconscious thought to you, one right after another, so quick you can barely keep up.  How he’ll always be with you, no matter what.  How the Maker himself won’t be able to drag him away from you now.  How quiet jealousy still tugs at his heart just thinking about the fact that you broke your oath—before you both could do it together.

Everything swells up inside you and you scream when it finally crashes over, your blended signatures sealing themselves together permanently and then detonating in a debilitating shockwave that ripples the air around you.  You’re blinded and deafened by its vivid energy, powerful and dazzling every shade between blue and green and Light and Dark, all balanced perfectly together.

You lay there in the gentle afterglow afterwards and feel your pussy still clamping tight to him, pulsing in random intervals while Obi-Wan slouches into you and every muscle in his body trembles with the comedown.  Everything is right.  Everything in you sparkles.

“Stars, Obi,” you start chuckling up at the ceiling, the sheer joy overwhelming you and bringing tears to your eyes.  “Stars, did we just—”

“We just won the Clone Wars, my dear,” he slurs into the crook of your neck while his cock still throbs inside you, and you can feel the exhaustion creeping up his spine, every single thought in his mind completely dead at the moment.

“How long do you… do you think it’ll take before it’s over?”  You ask quietly, brushing your fingers through his hair.  Obi-Wan groans and buries his face deeper into your neck.

“Few months, maybe.  Time for s’Ziscari…”

He stays like that for just a second, and you press your nose to him and breathe him in, marveling at how utterly gorgeous his signature is right now.  Clear blue with the lightest touch of teal, rippling like quiet water in a crystal calm riverbed.

Lovely.

You keep softly playing with the hair at his nape, and then quickly wrap your arms around him when he goes to try to brace his forearms next to your shoulders and lift up just the slightest bit.

“Wait, don’t—it’s—”  You bite your lip and feel him sink back down into your body without another word, clearly having only attempted it for appearances.  “This is good, let’s just… stay for a second.” 

He doesn’t respond, he doesn’t even move, and—a few months, you think.  A few months of his absence, of wondering where he is but never being able to ask.  It burdens your heart, but you understand it’s necessary.

The Council may… grant me a position with a more permanent location after this mission, he responds quietly to your dip in the Force after a moment, too tired to even talk anymore and exhaustion weaving his every thought.  On Coruscant.

Your heart pangs with sudden hope, and you know he can feel it.  “They would do that?”

I could ask to oversee the s’Ziscari’s assimilation into our ranks, he offers alongside a stifled yawn into your collarbone.

He’d… request that?  To be closer to you?  But why?

He doesn’t hesitate before offering the words to you simply, not even considering them before they’re the only thought in his mind.  Because I care for you more than there are stars in the sky.  I always have.

Lovely.

No, no, not even, that’s just.  Love.  By itself.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan murmurs softly into your neck, and your soul feels like it grows wings.

You both lay there in silence for a long time after that, and it takes you even longer to realize he hasn’t succumbed to sleep yet, even as the aching fatigue weighs heavy on his back.  He’s resisting it, keeping his eyes purposefully open against your neck while yours are blissfully shut.

“Master,” you eventually whisper up at the ceiling, and his cock twitches inside you.  Oh stars, you’ll have to remember that.  “Go to sleep.”

I have one more confession.  The thoughts are slurred and distorted, barely conscious as he desperately tries to outlast the sleep trying to pull him under.  I didn’t even want to mention it before because I didn’t know how this was all going to go, but…  He blinks slowly against your neck even as his eyes droop, only just a few seconds from passing out with exertion.  The Sh’inzith lasts six days, dove.

Your eyes pop open in shock just as his finally fall shut, and Obi-Wan stops fighting.

[hanadolphieron]

jedi!yves~

warnings; guns, death, injuries, war, space ships, swearing, suggestive content, clones, droids, heights, almost dying, lightsabers

genre; fluff, suggestive

pairing; ha sooyoung x gender neutral reader

word count; 3.8k

summary; after your supply ship receives a distress call from a neighboring planet, you and a fellow padawan, yves, are ordered to take and command a whole squadron of clone troopers to the planet’s surface. there’s a slight problem however- sexual tension

setting/time; middle of the clone wars

a/n; another space au because i’m self indulgent. have fun all you sooyoung stans that lurk on my blog. you know who you are ;) yves is such a star wars name and i used it the whole time so have fun with that <3

“all commanders to the bridge!” your comm blares at you. master luminara apparently has not heeded your warning about speaking loudly into the comm, as they are meant to be used in battle where loud voices are dangerous and could lead to discovery.

sighing, you break into a run (these ships are huge and distance is covered slowly unless you go nyoom) and head to the bridge. 

a girl comes up behind you, barely making a noise. you flinch away as she runs past you, not expecting it.

not letting yourself lose this unspoken race, you speed up, moving up towards her.

she quickens her pace as well.

catching sight of the door to the bridge, you both start to sprint at the exact same time.

neither of you speak to each other, just side-eyed glances, and failed attempts at not breathing loud.

finally, you burst through the door (you definitely won) and slow to a calm, collected walk immediately, as to not look like the wild, competitive padawans that you are.

it seems you two are the only commanders on the ship, no one else arrived at the bridge.

master kenobi and master luminara stand around the projected grid together, turning their heads and looking as you trampled each other through the door.

staring at the two of them, you and the girl, who you suppose must be luminara’s padawan, walk forward towards the projection table as well.

“what’s going on?” the girl questions, before you could even catch your breath enough to ask something first.

kenobi responds, “captain rex just contacted us from geonosis. he says the battles there have decimated their numbers, and they are in desperate need of more troops.”

you stare at them. did they think you had a plan or something?

luminara speaks, “we want you and yves to take up the job.” yves must be the girl who raced you.

“wait, aren’t we supposed to be dropping supplies off at ryloth?” you say, remembering the mission you were given yesterday that was the whole reason you were on this big hunking clunk of metal.

“yes, but we have more than enough jedi on this ship to do that. besides, the two of you need some experience in battle. this is the perfect opportunity,” kenobi says, moving to lean his back against the table and cross his arms.

“you’ll have commander cody with you as well, you’ll be fine,” he adds.

“when do we leave?” yves asks, resting all her weight on her hands, which are situated on the edge of table. this position shows off her incredible forearms which you hadn’t noticed before.

and you shouldn’t be noticing, gosh y/n, what are you doing, you think, you’re a jedi, you can’t be having any sort of romantic thoughts (not that anyone follows that rule, but still) and besides, you’ve already set your mind on competing with this girl, not romanticizing about her.

you lapse back to reality right as master luminara says, “now.”

neither of you are particularly caught off guard by this, you’ve gotten used to running all over the galaxy for emergencies, but adrenaline still starts flowing through your body at the thought of going into battle, making your stomach feel light and your blood race.

“well, then, i guess we’ll see you later. should we meet you back here?” you ask, rolling your shoulders back.

“yes, you’ll fly all your remaining gun ships back to the hanger,” kenobi responds, “we’ll send you the coordinates whenever you’re ready. commander cody also received the message, he’ll tell you the plan.”

remaining gunships. he just had to word it that way, didn’t he?

“copy that,” you respond, “we’ll see you back here then.”

you move towards the exit, and yves follows. the doors open automatically, and you pass through them, accidentally hitting her elbow.

“watch it, honey,” she says in response.

“honey?” you exasperate, “what are you, an old woman?”

yves, apparently, was not expecting that response, and opens her mouth, then closes it, then says “i can call you honey if i want to,” in retaliation. “i mean, as long, as you’re, you know, okay with that,” she adds.

you are unsure how to respond to this as well. the two of you seem to have gotten into a pickle.

“i mean, yeah, but like, well, yeah,” you say, using the same sentence format unintentionally.

thankfully, yves doesn’t say anything else, and a tight, uncomfortable tension spreads between you. 

you reach the doors of the hanger in silence. yves pushes in front of you and opens them for you, letting you walk through first.

“simp,” you mutter.

“what did you call me?” she inquires, turning to you. the position smushes the two of in the doorway together, and the close proximity makes your knees feel a little weak.

you slip under the arm that she’s using to hold the door and scoot into the room.

she follows you, back straight and head up, now confident in her skills at flustering you.

“you never answered my question,” she states as you walk towards the squad of troopers standing around ahead of you.

“didn’t want to,” you tell her shortly, a teasing smile gracing your face. 

you reach the squad before she can say anything else, and the commander, cody, looks at you, calling the platoon to attention.

you always feel awkward when they do this, feeling undeserving of this kind of respect. you motion for them to relax and be “at ease” as they call it in military terms.

yves glances at you to see if you want her to do the talking, but you’re already speaking.

“master kenobi informed yves and i that geonosis is in danger. captain rex and his troops need our help, so we will be taking the gunships to the surface while masters luminara and kenobi will take the supplies to ryloth.”

everyone nods. it’s your turn to look at yves through your peripheral vision to see if she has anything to add. her eyes go to the side, meeting yours for a split second before she nods as well, and says, “let’s get this bread!”

the both of you march towards the ships, trying your best to inspire confidence in their tired hearts.

this war had been going on for long enough, and at this point you’re not even sure of what you’re fighting for. yeah, you know the separatists were taking over planets and enslaving people, but why should the jedi order be involved? aren’t we keepers of the peace? we’re certainly not soldiers, no matter how cool lightsaber fights look.

jumping onto the gunship farthest to the right, you watch as yves makes her way to the one next to you. 

kenobi had instructed commander cody to take two ships to another part of geonosis and unload supplies before assisting the other two squads on the battlefield. yves would be taking the two supply squads, and you would be leading the other two into battle.

you don’t know if she’s the lucky one, not having to walk into battle as quickly, or the unlucky one, having to jump in after the first wave of destruction has caused, and seeing all the bodies and injuries with a clear head, rather than one clouded and detached from conflict.

you’re sure yves will be able to handle it. she seems to have a strong mind, one that doesn’t let anything get to it. her confidence is unmatched as well, although you did manage to make it falter with your old woman comment. you feel a little bad now, but it was all in good fun.

besides, teasing and messing with attractive women is your specialty. your men, the soldiers, always make fun of you for it, remarking about how you flirt with every single padawan you’re assigned to a mission with. they always laugh, and scold you for making a commander flustered, saying, “we’re not going to follow a jedi that’s blushing and stuttering over their words. nor one that’s raising their eyebrows and winking either!” 

you smile to yourself. despite the horror and sorrow this war has caused, it has brought life-long friendships into your life, and memories you’ll keep forever.

seemingly reading your mind, one of the soldiers, chuck, leans against one of the ship walls and comments, “yves seems a little feisty compared to your normal prey.”

you chuckle at that, “do i seem caught off guard?”

“oh no, not at all commander, just commenting. you might have a little more trouble seducing her into kissing you. and besides,” chuck says, uncrossing his arms and stepping forward, a devious smile on his face, “you’ve been slacking off lately, too scared after padawan tano almost socked you in the jaw for calling her pretty.”

“stop it!” you say, your cheeks heating up and your body suddenly starting to sweat, “you’re making it sound like i’m objectifying them!” your voice raises in pitch, but not in an aggressive way. more like a, “i have no idea what i’m going to say next but i need to defend myself” way.

“i’m just appreciating the amazing goddess-like personalities, souls, and appearances of my fellow jedi,” you tell them.

“right, fellow jedi” tomato, another trooper says.

knowing what he means about “jedi” you retaliate, “hey, we all know no one follows the celibacy rule. that’s just there because the council can’t get any dates and doesn’t want anybody to succeed them in anything.”

“hey, everyone, quiet down and focus, we’re entering the war zone. including you, commander y/n,” cody says gruffly, stepping forward and opening the sliding doors on the sides of the ship.

you feel a bit offended at the interruption, but he was probably just saving you from saying anything controversial, something you’re known for, with your not-so-subtle resentment of the order’s slight corruption.

see, you really don’t mean to be a “rebel” or anything like that. you just find the system to be messed up sometimes, and want to talk about it.

and besides, most of the time your words come out harsher than you intend, or more aggressive than they sounded in your mind. despite your confident persona and flirty, teasing personality, the second the tables are turned on you you have no idea how to handle it. your plan never goes that far, and your mouth just spits out whatever thought came to your brain first. needless to say, it gets you into trouble.

moving towards the edge of the ship absentmindedly, you stare out at the clouds whizzing by. the sound of the wind screaming calms and focuses your mind. jedi mode unlocked.

jumping out of the ship, you plummet over a thirty feet to the ground, landing in a tucked position, and rolling across the dusty ground onto your feet. the gunship lands a few moments after, and your soldiers get out of it, following you through the canyon you were now trapped in.

walking forward fearlessly, you observe the canyon for future hiding spots and places to utilize in the devious plan you were inevitably going to have to make.

the walls are high, tall enough that you can’t see over the edge no matter how far away you get. however, you could possibly climb them in the event of a trap- they are covered in jagged edges and good places to station snipers.

the canyon itself is dry, dusty, and red. small tufts of grass grow here and there. not for long though, they’ll burn during the fighting. it stretches an endless distance behind you, but you catch sight of the dead end up ahead, where captain rex and his troops are supposed to be stationed. 

there’s ample fighting room in some parts, where the width is about as big as three houses standing side by side. in others, the breadth is just enough to hold four soldiers.

captain rex and three other troops emerge from the dead end, sporting muddy, ripped armor. they look exhausted.

“hello, commander y/n,” rex says, “we’re glad you’re finally here, we’ve almost reached our breaking point.”

“what happened?” you ask, now a little worried, but you try not to let it show.

“droids surrounded us, trapped us in the dead end and obliterated half of our platoon. the rest of us are either injured or about to drop dead from keeping the camp alive. we couldn’t see them coming, the walls were too high for us to spot them flying in. the sniper droids kept us in tight places, we couldn’t leave from behind the bunches of rocks we were hiding behind for cover without getting shot.”

you nod. “looks like we’ll have to be smarter than average this time, do something different. the droids have been picking up our normal battle plans, and are being programmed to counter them.”

rex’s face looks grim. he turns to walk back to the camp. you follow him.

“well, at least you’re here.”

“yep. the other half of our platoon is dropping of supplies, but they’ll be here at some point. probably to make a dramatic entrance in the middle of battle and save us all.”

rex laughs a little at that, “who’s the commander?”

“padawan yves.”

“sounds like her.”

“you know her?” you ask him, wanting to know more about this slightly mysterious jedi that has piqued your interest.

“from what people have said, yes. never met her, but everyone talks about her intimidating presence. makes droids fall over with just her stare. says she fights well, but has never taken a liking to it. prefers flying apparently.”

“hmm,” is all you say.

piloting. that’s hot. you hope there’ll be an opportunity to go on a sky mission with her- flirting while shooting ships down is such an aesthetic.

walking into the camp, your heart drops. what rex said was practically an understatement.

everyone looked exhausted- slouching, limping, lying down, frowning, all of the above. less than half the platoon was out, gone forever. someone had managed to close off a corner to put the bodies, but the smell of death was overwhelming. the supply of food in one of the tents could hardly be called a supply, more like some organized scraps. 

you can see how the ambush must have happened. the dead end was shaped in a circle, and the rolling droids with shields around them must have stationed themselves at the top of the canyon, boxing in the clones and forcing them to hide.

“we’ll have to make a plan right away, commander. the droids could come back any minute now. the only reason they left was because they heard jedi were coming, and their general wanted them to regroup before attacking in order to eliminate the jedi,” rex says grimly.

you don’t like the idea, forcing these poor soldiers to fight again, after losing so much of their brethren, but you have no other choice, “do you have a map of the canyon?” you ask, needing a visual in order to plan the attack. 

rex lifts up the flap to one of the tents and walks towards the projection table inside it, clicking a button and pulling up the map.

observing it, you don’t see many options. well, you see a lot, but most involve imminent death and sacrifice.

finally, you catch sight of something. a little niche in the dead end is near a rugged system of rock steps. if you manage to parkour up to the top, you could take out the rolling droids.

“there’s this niche here,” you say, pointing, “i could hide there while the squads station themselves at the entrance to the dead end, and attack the foot droids, keeping them occupied. once the rolling droids come, i could jump up those stairs and catch them from behind.”

rex nods, “that could work.”

the two of you survey the map for any faults, and find a lot, but most of them are nothing you can do anything about, just chance losses that could be detrimental the survival of your entire platoon.

you both sigh, thinking the same thing. 

you don’t have enough people. 

the troopers will be overrun, considering how the droid army is preparing for a jedi. and if they don’t see one, they’re going to do their absolute best to find one and eliminate them, no matter who or what gets in their way. 

“let’s go tell them,” rex says, turning around to leave the tent.

“no,” you stop him, “i’ll tell them, you get some rest.”

rex begrudgingly agrees, and you are satisfied. these soldiers are going to need as much energy as possible if this is going to work.

you tell the soldiers your plan, doing your best to cheer them up with jokes and confidence. they do their best to look less exhausted as well. 

since you didn’t know when the droids were going to appear, everyone had to get in their positions right away. 

and you all sat there. waiting for bloodshed.

and it came, taking you by surprise.

the familiar, repulsive sound of droid guns fires into your ears, grabbing your fight-or-flight instinct by the neck and jostling it up like a box of cereal.

you spur into action, poising yourself in a crouching stance, getting ready to parkour-parkour up the rocky steps. surveying the cliff for the best place to attack first, you catch sight of a small gap, right where the last step breaks off, right where you planned to jump onto the top of the canyon.

without even thinking where you’re going, your body starts moving, flowing with adrenaline and the force, a feeling you’re used to, and you relax into the movement, powering up the steps, leaping up inhuman heights.

reaching the last edge, you flip onto the surface of geonosis, using the dust to hide your form, and run, head-ducked and body crouched, towards the first droid.

lightsaber glowing green, you slide under the blue shield surrounding the sniper, and stab through the power core, rendering the sniper powerless. somehow, the other droids don’t notice you, and you keep going, making your way across the  semi-circle edge of the dead end, not even bothering to look down into the canyon at the battle raging.

the next few snipers are quick work, you slash through them like they’re made of putty, the metal cores sizzling and burning out like broken copper lightbulbs. this is too easy, you think to yourself. something’s bound to happen.

as you reach the fifth one, the other droids finally register you felling their kin, and two of the remaining four focus their fire on you. 

deflecting their shots with your blade, you sprint to one still firing at the battle below, and ruin it like all the others. and as you hide behind its flickering shield, you see what you’ve been missing all this time.

the sniper droids you’ve been destroying up here weren’t the only ones on the playing field. there are six more, heading straight for your soldiers down below. and you won’t make it in time. 

yet you have to.

legs moving faster than ever before, you hoon down the line of droids, barely glancing at the laser bullets aimed towards you before deflecting them. you try to make them hit the rolling droids down below, but it’s no use. their shields are too strong.

you fight back tears. you don’t cry a lot, but then again, you don’t mess up so bad that 30+ people are about to die because of your bad planning either.

finishing off the last droids, you turn towards the canyon. you’re too far away from the steps you came up on to go back then. and you’re too far away from the ground in the canyon to jump down.

you know the former won’t work. you’ll reach the battle and be met with dead bodies and an infinite surplus of gunshots hitting your in the face, causing to do die.

and the latter will most likely kill you as well. 

however, the odds are slightly more in your favor, and with the force of your fall, you could knock the shields enough to give the clones a chance to shoot the droids down. and even though that would mean you would be shot too, you start back-stepping away from the canyon, readying yourself.

it’s okay, you tell yourself. this is what jedis are meant to do, sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

aiming for the middle of the six droids, you start running forward. maybe the shields will stop your fall enough to save you, comes a tiny bulb of hope in your chest. you push it down and don’t listen.

your legs move faster and faster, nearing the edge of cliff before you know it, and you push off, sailing into midair, halting right above the circle of droids and falling, down, down, down into them.

wind whistles around you, and a familiar sound fills your ears. you can’t place it. it blends in with the wind, but it sounds different, more mechanical, and stable.

you don’t have time to think about it. you can barely see the ground you’re about to die on, but it’s close. too close. and getting closer. and closer. the sound gets louder. and louder. 

and then something out of the corner of your eye appears next to you, and someone grabs you hand.

the force of it almost dislocates your shoulder. you’re dragged into a ship. head spinning, everything moving fast, you barely register the features around you- but you know what it is. 

a gunship. 

a face appears in front of yours.

your focus moves completely onto it. as it becomes clearer, and your vision stops blurring, you recognize the person.

it’s yves.

“thought i lost you there for a second,” she says casually, cupping you cheek and lifting your face towards yours, meeting your eyes with hers. in your dazed state of shock you don’t see the terrified, worrisome look rippling across her features.

“they-” you stutter out, “go help rex,” you manage.

“don’t worry, we’re already on it,” she says.

you look outside the ship, your face still expressionless except for the confusion keeping your eyes wide and your mouth open, and see the droids gone, obliterated by the gunships’ firepower,

you can still see droids fighting your soldiers, as the ships can’t fire to close to your men, but the droids, the ones you were about to sacrifice yourself to end, are gone. 

you move to let yves know that you can go help them still, your mouth opening like a fish looking for food, but yves turns your face towards hers again, her hand still firmly holding your jaw, keeping you stationed in reality. “you stay here,” she says, “i’ll go help.”

and with that, she leans down, presses a delicate but protective kiss on your open lips, and jumps off the ship.

[libradusk]

5 For Fives | (1)

Chapter Title: The Weight of Duty

Word Count: 3,944

Pairing: ARC Trooper Fives x Reader

Summary: Even though he shared the same face with over a thousand brothers, you always thought that his smile shone the brightest across the galaxy.

warnings: chapter has mentions of injury but nothing super heavy, yet.

a/n: First meetings aren’t always glamorous, also sir is used as a gender neutral term. 

Chapter 2

It should have been no more than another routine inspection - another tour around one of the Republic’s numerous military bases, carried out with bordering identical technique and protocol to the countless others you had been allocated to shadow previously. Simple, painless, easy - especially considering you had been working alongside Captain Rex and Commander Cody for quite some time now and were no stranger to the tight ship they ran between them.

Initially you had considered the Rishi Moon inspection no differently to how you had its predecessors. It had been difficult to view it as more than just another extension of your duties to the Republic war effort. This form of assignment had long since devolved into an almost mundane routine, shoehorned between battles and skirmishes that required the more physical side of your prowess. You couldn’t deny that the visits were far from an unwelcome task, in an odd way they added a sense of rare sereneness to your list of duties as the war raged on. The men you encountered were always in good spirits after receiving praise for their contributions towards keeping the war effort running smoothly. This was especially true for the newer additions to each post, who practically glowed when Cody so much as looked in their direction - and struggled not to pout like scolded younglings whenever Rex pointed out the sloppiness of their barracks. More than anything though, seeing the men at each destination settled into their own close-knit brotherhoods formed a warm contrast to the overly sterilised and bordering artificial atmosphere you had come to witness on Kamino whenever your presence was required by Master Shaak Ti.

You had suspected that your attendance had never been truly needed from the start, so to say. The combined experience and respect both Rex and Cody possessed was ample - they certainly had no real need for a Jedi to oversee them evaluate the competence of their own men. Yet they never showed any sign of protest - and neither did you, outwardly at least. The two soldiers were pleasant enough company, as were the numerous waves of their brothers-in-arms that you had encountered at each stop the starship deposited you at. It had reached the point that the more months that passed by with the war, the more familiar faces you came to recognise the sight, and the absence of during your rarer return visits.

The latter of which was quickly becoming an all too common occurrence as the Separatists continued to grow stronger still and the numbers of casualties rose accordingly.

It was a fact that did little to ease the gnawing sense of guilt that had been bubbling towards the forefront of your mind with a vengeance as of late. Though you understood the importance that the inspections held, the thought that your own attributes as a Jedi would be better served fighting alongside these men - as you had many times before, had begun to rear its head with vicious frequency. As the cycles ticked by your mind had become almost overwhelmed with the sheer number of casualties and missing men you had to report back to Shaak Ti on Kamino each time. You had known how overworked your Jedi senior had become as of late, her involvement with the Kaminoans forcibly entwining closer each cycle - regardless of the outcome of each battle the Republic were faced with. Your kinship with the Togruta, as well as your longstanding dedication to the order and cause had always ensured your cooperation with whatever task you were designated. It was important to you to attempt to ease the workload of your closest peer in whatever way you could. Yet despite this, the longer you had spent within the frontlines of the army, the more you had learnt the multitude of ways that distinguished each clone from every one of his brothers - it had all affected you so deeply that it had become difficult for you to set eyes on an optimistic young rookie and to not automatically think of how the Kaminoans, and the majority of the Republic, saw them more as munitions than living men.

The thought of how the production of the army had swollen to accommodate the demands of the war now turned your stomach and the knowledge that you were due to return to Kamino in the coming few months only aided in forcing the bile further up your throat.

Cody appeared to have picked up on the spike in your uneasiness as you had boarded the Obex that afternoon. He had offered you a tight smile and the reassurance that your visit to Rishi Station would be both short and painless given the size of the base and the tranquility of its barren landscape. Rex had even chimed in to joke that the most action any of the troops ever encountered on Rishi was if one of its native fauna, the giant Rishi Eel, somehow found its way past the blast doors.

How wrong they had both turned out to be.

The atmosphere on the station when you finally disembarked on the moon’s surface had felt unbalanced, insidious even. You had held firm suspicion that there was more at play than simply the assigned troopers being “sloppy,” as Rex had so eloquently put it. The bizarre holocomm interaction a very apprehensive trooper had established while the three of you were in orbit had already made you uneasy. Even when your feet touched the ground of the Republic property you couldn’t shake the warning surge of adrenaline that had you reaching for your saber as you fell into line behind the two troopers.

Your suspicions were all but confirmed the moment the “deck officer” had stumbled disjointedly towards your group, with a pattern of speech that matched the jagged movements of his limbs. As soon as that red flare had cut its way through the navy curtain of sky above you the eerie atmosphere appeared to ignite alongside it. No sooner had Rex shot down the droid that was masquerading as one of your own did the three of you find yourself surrounded on all sides by Separatist commando droids.

You initially managed to hold your own on the small landing platform - noting between deflecting shots that their blaster comprehension and protective armour easily trumped that of an average battle droid. Despite your perceived competence however, you failed to heed Cody’s cry for you to take cover as you lifted a hand to force push an advancing flock of drones over the edge of the platform. This slip up earned you a vibrosword cleaved through the shoulder of your dominant arm, courtesy of a particularly unrelenting commando who had already withstood several shots of the commander’s blaster to ambush you from behind. The resulting blow from its blade was mercifully weakened enough to not sever the joint too deeply, but it ended up being enough to force you to drop your stance and almost your lightsaber in response. You shudder to think what may have become of you had Rex not made the tactical decision to grab your withering form and hurtle you both off the edge of the platform. You can recall the heat of an explosion rippling through the air as Rex had lowered you both to the ground with the aid of his ascension cable, the wreckage of the Obex scattering like meteorites around you as he did so - glittering in the starlight alongside the droplets of blood that trickled from your shoulder.

It was as you had watched them break from your flesh and fall that your thoughts had twisted in dark amusement despite the searing pain stippling across your upper body. Your unspoken wish to provide more hands-on support to the troopers had finally been granted once more - just not in the way you had expected.

And then you had met them. Or rather you had stood back and weakly protested as your comrade had pointed his blaster at the three bewildered men that had stumbled into the canyon space before you. One by one they had scrambled to remove their helmets at Rex’s command, revealing three almost identical faces. Cody’s body had obstructed most of your view as he attended to your injury, but even with the threat that the blood loss posed to your focus, you had easily deduced that these men were not primed for the type of combat you yourselves had barely just escaped. Rex seemed to have echoed your sentiment, as you had practically felt him smirk through the visor of his helmet at the way the rookies visibly flinched once the maws of a Rishi eel broke through the tension of the scene seconds later. The captain had made quick work of the beast, shooting it dead with flawless accuracy - face never wandering from the group of clones that stood before him. You had felt Cody’s body vibrate with a ghost of a chuckle at the way the men all but fawned over Rex’s prowess with a blaster.

Whatever serenity that had established itself was quickly shattered not long after both your groups had introduced themselves. You discovered that this “batch of shinies” was in fact the only surviving remnants of Rishi’s defence: leaving you all hopelessly outnumbered with no transport, limited weapons and medical supplies as well as a shoulder so badly injured that you were barely able to scale back up the cliffside without threatening to tear it open further - nevermind wield a saber optimally.

Eventually the six of you managed to make it back to the main control room through a tumultuous mixture of force and trickery that would have put a Jedi mind trick to shame - it had become apparent to both you and Cody then, that Anakin’s unconventional style of doing things had rubbed off on Rex more than the captain would ever admit aloud.

What small victory you had acquired however was soon dashed as you were called towards the control room’s viewing port. Staring back at you then through the murkiness of space had been an entire Separatist fleet, armed to the teeth and advancing on your location - no doubt in search of the missing signal from the battle droids you had slain prior.

A seed of doubt had planted itself within the depths of your brain at that moment, cultured with the knowledge that even an experienced Jedi knight stood little chance outnumbered by an entire fleet of commando droids likely spearheaded by Grievous himself.

And yet somehow your unlikely group had persevered.

Despite the odds being so heavily skewed against you, the resulting conclusion to the Battle of the Rishi Moon had trumped over whatever chaos the six of you had experienced at its beginning. Though you had ultimately ensured victory for the Republic by denying the Separatist invasion, your victory had nonetheless branded itself a costly one.

Fresh, hot guilt seared through you from the moment you were hauled aboard the Resolute by General Skywalker. It had been a narrow escape for you in particular, having previously resigned yourself to expending what little strength you had left on reinforcing the blast doors shut with the force while the boys attempted to set up an explosion to extinguish the threat of the droid fleet. It had been thanks to the bravery of one clone in particular - Hevy - the most rambunctious of the rookie trio, who had insisted for you all to abandon your post while he bought you the time you needed to escape.

His sacrifice had been the only thing that had ensured the rest of you had time to navigate through the station’s vent system to where your rescue had finally emerged to liberate you from the doomed outpost.

It was the type of guilt you knew would remain branded on your conscience long after the scorch marks had healed over your flesh.

------

Your skin itched as you marched through the corridors of the Resolute, thoughts buzzing so loudly in your mind you were certain you could feel them echo within your bones. You had seen men die in battle countless times before today, yet there was something particularly bitter about this incident that struck you deeper with each step you made towards the medical wing. Five rookie troopers and their sergeant had died attempting to warn you and defend a base that had been left to burn alongside their bodies. Five inexperienced soldiers whose remains were left to char and mangle alongside those of the same droids who had murdered them.

Five men whose lives had been snuffed out of existence just as they were so close to being reunited with their brothers on the frontlines - who were so close to tasting what little opportunity they would have to breathe air that wasn’t as cold and sterile as that on Kamino and Rishi.

But through it all, the thought that cut the deepest was that you knew the lives and sacrifice of these men were no more than an afterthought to the Republic and their kaminoan creators. You had simmered with that knowledge aboard the Resolute climbed upwards and away from Rishi Station, watching with a heavy heart as the outpost shrunk to a burning flicker along with the bodies of its protectors.

Your blood threatened to boil over as you had all but spat your report to Obi Wan and Anakin before the generals had kindly dismissed you to go and treat your wounds. You knew that they felt it too, perhaps for them it was hidden beneath the layers of unfaltering loyalty they held towards the Republic, but it was a bitterness that lived in both of them as well. Their faces spoke where their words did not reach you.

“These men were brave - they were born to be. Their deaths will never be in vain while the Republic still stands. They have done their greatest duty.”

These same words, uttered countless times by more figureheads than you cared to remember, were beginning to ring hollow to you now - more so than ever before. They all but slipped from you in searing strips across your flesh, pulsing in time with the blood that dribbled down your shoulder.

“You should really slap a bacta-patch on that wound, General.”

A familiarly accented voice pulled you from your thoughts. It was as though its owner had obstructed the trajectory of your march with his entire body, forcing your pace to slow as you approached the only other person in the narrow walkway. Your eyes climbed to reach his own from the floor-bound position you hadn’t even realised they had fallen to.

A clone stood to attention before you with a tight-lipped smile, his gaze flinching from your shoulder to your face in time with your movements. It took a moment for you to fight through a sudden wave of lightheadedness that protested across your vision at the abrupt movement, but you soon came to recognise him as one of the surviving rookie soldiers that had escaped alongside you.

His tone was distinctly shaken, but undeniably charismatic - almost oddly casual by clone standards.He spoke to you like you were an old friend, not a Jedi knight that he’d met and battled beside for the first and almost last time in his military career. It struck you as bizarre considering the horrors he had just experienced not even a full day beforehand.

You zoned out as the memories resurfaced. It granted him enough time to lean forward and offer you a friendly pat on your good shoulder. His breathy chuckle whipped through your ears as the contact twisted your body to a sharp halt, the nerves still buzzing even after he retracted the offending hand away with a start.

“I am not your General.”

You winced as at the sharpness of your tone, the words oozing with a venom that seemed alien to you. The shock quickly made way for another flood of shame as you watched him visibly flinch with surprise at your outburst. You knew you had no right to speak so cruelly to a fellow soldier, especially one that had just risked his own life to ensure you kept your own.

The feeling only swelled more in the silence that forced its way between your bodies as he composed himself and stood back to the attention of your tired gaze. A drawn out sigh of frustration left your lips as you mumbled an apology. Your good arm raised slowly to press its shaky digits against your temple in a futile attempt to quell the stress migraine that was knotting itself there. Since when had the ship’s lights seemed so bright that they burned you? The ache behind your eyes almost rivalled the throb of your shoulder at this point.

You squinted through the pain in an attempt to regard the trooper properly. His armour shone a sharp white as he fidgeted under the corridor’s lighting. The plastoid surface was devoid of any severe marring or decoration that you had seen numerous times on his brothers’ uniform. What grime and blaster residue did litter its surface appeared fresh and smeared, as if he had attempted to haphazardly wipe it away with the palms of his gloves in a hurry. The red ribbon of the medal signifying his recent admittance to the 501st battalion served as the only smattering of colour across the entire ensemble. Its medallion hung heavy on his chest piece, the metallic surface reflecting almost painfully in the artificial light. You were grateful to tear your eyes away from it. Instead you pulled your gaze upwards across the plains of his face, stopping once you connected with an all too familiar pair of brown eyes once more. He blinked back owlishly at you, head tilting involuntarily under your scrutiny.

Underneath the dark hairline of his crew cut sat a freshly inked tattoo of the number five, the skin around it still reddened and peeling in places. Everything about him seemed younger than the majority of the other clones you had encountered before, and it all served to twist the blade of guilt further into your stomach. CT-5555, Fives, your assumption had been correct - he was indeed one of the “shinies” that had assisted you, Rex and Cody against the Separatists targeting the Rishi Moon. The same rookie who’s first taste of real battle had resulted in the deaths of all but one of his squadmates.

The guilt twisted deeper still - now it was your turn to flinch like a wounded animal as you curled into yourself inwardly.

“Fives, I’m sorry. I had no right to speak to you like that,” you punctuated your sentence with a sigh, head bowing in apology to the wide-eyed soldier. He deserved more from you than a half-mumbled apology, “No doubt you have even more on your mind than I do after all this.”

To your surprise, the corner of his lips flickered with a playful smirk for just a moment before it pulled back once more into the composed expression befitting of a soldier. He practically buzzed with unspoken energy and you could feel the mirth blossom in his gaze as his eyes flickered between your own, posture visibly relaxing as he did.

“No hard feelings, uh, sir.”

There's still a sense of uncertainty as he addresses you, but the surprising enthusiasm with which he salutes you is somehow able to coax the wisp of a smile from you too. It's almost endearing really and you aren't completely sure how to feel about it.

“At ease, Fives. You’ve more than earned it after today.”

He grins openly then and your eyes draw to the shadow of stubble that peppers his jaw, signifying the beginnings of a beard. A reminder of his individuality, you think. Distracted, you absent-mindedly move to cross your arms until a sharp flash of pain from your shoulder reminds you that there is more to your injury than just a dull ache.

Fives’ grin falls as you cringe, hand quickly extending to brush against your forearm for a moment in concern. The warmth of his gloved fingers barely skims against you before his military protocol seems to beat him back into place this time. Fives bites back a curse as ungraciously stumbles over his own feet with the effort. His failed attempt to save his graces is so comical that you can’t help but chuckle over the sight of him. You’re not entirely sure if the blood loss has caught back up with you, or if it's just because of how animated he is - but somehow he had effortlessly become the only thing to pull a laugh from you in weeks.

The expression he shoots you when you stand back to full height is nothing less than perplexed. You can’t blame him for his bewilderment - after all you were supposed to be a Jedi Knight, a high-ranking member of the military and representative of an ancient order renowned for their serene temperament. Yet here you stood, having snapped between scolding him to laughing at him in mere minutes as you bled out onto the metal floor at your feet.

“Um, should I accompany you to the medbay, sir?” he cocks an eyebrow at you as he speaks, and you’re sure you catch the way his lips fight against the curve of a smirk once more.

A nervous habit? Or did he simply peg you as an amusing fool with overly turbulent emotions? The shake of your head answers his question, yet the smile refuses to slip from your face.

“I’m sure I’ll survive on my own. I’m positive it's nothing so serious that slapping a bacta-patch on won't fix it.”

He tilts his head with a smile as you echo his earlier sentiment, exhaling from his nose and allowing his posture to ease just slightly. It is at that moment you know everything is right between you once more. Content, you offer him a short bow of your head before turning to resume your march towards the medical bay. You continue to feel his gaze on you even as your back is turned, and you tilt slightly to catch his eye again, taking care to support your injured shoulder with your spare hand now.

“...Fives?” your tone is a tad more playful than you intend as your words are thrown across the corridor - you mentally blame his aura as being far too infectious to your weakened state,

“I hope our paths cross again now that you’ve been made part of the 501st. I’ll be watching out for you, you’re interesting.”

The last part slips out before you can halt it, but the way his smile flashes so dazzlingly under those horrible bright lights reassures you that your comment was most definitely well received.

He shoots you another eager salute and his medal clatters noisily to the ground as his arm catches it with the motion. This time the laughter that leaves you is so heavy that you’re positive it can be heard from the other side of the ship. Your bad shoulder protests with the force of it, but it just feels so good to laugh again after so many miserable months of war that you can’t bring yourself to care.

You steal another glance backwards before rounding the corner, catching his eyes one last time despite the distance. He throws you another cheeky smirk, teeth still peeking out from behind his lips as he bends to retrieve the offending medal - and as he raises a hand in a lazy wave you’re sure he flashes you a wink.

“I’ll hold you to that, sir.”