[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Covalent Bonds

Chapter 15

"Obi-Wan, I won't make trouble if you're starting something with Siri, but I need to know some things. Like, like, if there's a signal you can think of so that I know when not to come into the bedroom, or maybe you wouldn't even want me to come home --- "
 
"Stars and galaxies. Stars' End." Obi-Wan saved the worst for last. "Kriff. Anakin, how you can misconstrue things. First, I love you. Second, Siri and I are friends and third, I love you."
 
Anakin made himself breathe evenly. "I love you, too, but I'm not blind. It's been a bitch living together without having sex, when what we had was so good, so right ... " 

"'Was'?" 

"All right, 'is.' All this I'm having trouble dealing with lately and I don't see where my dream-purpose comes in, though I've tried, I've tried --- " 

Obi-Wan ignored the fact that he had only one boot on and came forward to place his hands on Anakin's shoulders. "Much has happened since Trow."
 
"Stating the obvious, Master." Anakin turned away into the common room and flumped down on the sofa. "Sorry, that was rude."
 
Obi-Wan sat next to him without touching. "Yes, it was. Sarcasm can bite where one doesn't intend." He sighed. It had been a difficult two years. Sometimes their hot nights together seemed dreamlike; other times, a look or gesture or odor would remind him of Trow or Tatooine or Coruscant settings where they had enjoyed each other unrestrainedly. Even in hyperspace he had green memories. The revision of the Code, the revelation of Palpatine's Sith identity and Anakin's divorce, such a blend of ups and downs made him glad he had stopped keeping a diary. It would hurt to return to it, reading about how we were so happy, when we're in a funk right now. "But I'm happy with you, Anakin. It's a different kind of happiness, you realize." Something was using his voice to say these words. Could it be the Force? No. It's me. "As much as I loved you and in all the ways that you loved me physically ..." Obi-Wan had to look away, the memory of his last tryst with Anakin flooding his mind and his groin with yearning. If he had known it had been their last time would he have done things differently? No, that's for sure. The bedroom he shared with Anakin and shared still most nights used to resound with their cries of passion and soft declarations, particularly that time of the picnic. Their last time had been, had been, oh yes, after the annual picnic, an absolutely splendid day that had led into an absolutely splendid night, with Anakin's stump doing those remarkable things while his mechno-arm was preprogrammed to act independently and pulse electromagnetic radiation into his ... and then Anakin had upped the frequency ... oh. Hard as my thirteenth-birthday gift rock. Stang. He crossed his legs. "Erm, what I'm trying to say is that I'm not unhappy. You and I, we're all right, the war, well, it will end and you will take your Trials, be more independent. And that is what I want for you, my own." He crossed his legs the other way.
 
"I'd love to take care of that for you." Anakin's voice was strangled. 

"And I'd love for you to be able to, but let's deal in realities tonight. I like Siri, she is a good companion, she's direct and we share some interests. It's fun to visit her and come home and talk about it with you. Don't you feel the same way with your friends? Ferus, for instance? You and he have spent a great deal of time together lately and I am happy for you. He's a fine young man."
 
"Ferus wants a relationship."
 
"Anakin, you can't --- "
 
"Not with me! With someone else, he's confided in me and now that I think about, now that I think about it, this comports with the dream-purpose, Obi-Wan! You and I, we're examples of what awaits the Jedi when the war is over with and Knights and Padawans and Masters, too, can be again, rather than do. Whether or not Ferus finds anyone or Master Fisto or Master Secura go beyond lekku-holding --- "
 
"What?"
 
" --- never mind, I'll tell you later --- isn't the point, the point is that you and I are attached and are doing well enough. The Force didn't develop a rift, the sea below Coruscant's surface didn't boil away." He lay back into the deep cushions. "Whew. Alderaan Ruge made me see things in a whole new light."
 
"You had a drink?" 

"Yup. My first. Tasted good, Obi-Wan. Now I know what I was missing." Anakin patted his stomach. "Guess I can handle it." The Byss cheese snacks sat heavily inside him, however. Too rich. Need my blandness cane.
 
Obi-Wan surveyed his Padawan. Anakin seemed fine. He had not over-indulged, there had been no brawl, no trip to the planetary security forces in the middle of the night. "I'm pleased. Moderation in all things, Anakin. Drinking will never rule you, then." He settled into the plush cushions also. "Since we've both had eventful evenings, why not meditate together now and process everything?" 

"And not arise at dawn? It will seem strange." Change. I can handle change.
 
Obi-Wan replaced the antimacassar that had slipped down. "Siri and I are going to meet in the gardens to meditate at dawn, but I can cancel if --- "
 
"No. I'm all right with that, I told you." And he was. But he needed something to wrap his hands around, to feel a smooth surface to grip like he couldn't grip any part of Obi-Wan. 

"Let's begin, then." 

"In a minute." Anakin walked briskly to the bedroom closet and rustled through its contents. "Where ... oh, here." He settled once more by Obi-Wan. 

"Master Yoda's naynabo cane. Yes. Excellent idea. Sensory reinforcement for control. Let's begin." Obi-Wan placed his hands on Anakin's as Anakin grasped the cane like a dowsing rod. For a split second, Obi-Wan flashed upon a Tatooine morning with them both trying intensely to enjoy each other without waking a pregnant Beru. Hands over each other's cocks, kneeling on what would become little Sabra's bed, following the stenciled baby banthas as the creatures crept down the stuccoed wall to the bedstead in happy abandon ... happy abandon ... Obi-Wan faltered. I cannot forget. He removed his hands from Anakin's, said, "Forgive me, it's really yours, Padawan," and tutted when Anakin started to protest. Obi-Wan led them both firmly into the Force's embrace to find forgetfulness there. It was a measure of their distraction that Obi-Wan did not remove his other boot and that Anakin did not tease him about it. After they emerged from the timelessness of meditation, they donned the pajamas they had taken to wearing while in-Temple. Using their onesy underwear as sleepwear had proven beyond both their limits, as dropseats revealed flashes of musculature with curves and lines like firm unripe shuura fruit, changing shape with various postures and driving any observer mad. 

"Good night, Obi-Wan." Anakin pursed his lips for a quick kiss and Obi-Wan obliged.
 
"Good night, Anakin." Obi-Wan fastened the topmost button of his pajamas. They lay back to back, relaxing eventually.
 
The next morning ...
 
Tholme made himself as comfortable as he could on the hassock opposite Yoda's seat. There was no back support, but there was Tholme's cane and Tholme leaned heavily on it, Yoda saw. Paid a high price for his bravery, he has. Yoda deemed a small amount of discomfort judiciously apt, given the importance of this interview. He suspected that Tholme did not care one way or the other about the revised Code; the Spymaster had broken the old Code often enough, though never with lovely fellow Master T'ra Saa, whose nature stabilized him. Tholme simply didn't consider her an attachment. After more than thirty years of steady companionship whenever possible, she was as necessary to him as breathing, an integral part of him. Their natures were blended, not attached, and Yoda knew that he would never have this with Padmé. Wondered how Force-sensitive and Force-blind relationship would be, I did. Found out, I have. He redirected his musings to what he had ostensibly called Tholme in to discuss, the state of affairs between the Neti Master Saa and Tholme.
 
"Yet sacrifice yourself for her, you would."
 
"Yes, without hesitation. As she would for me. We are Jedi." 

Yoda asked the hard question. "Think you that she will forget you when centuries pass, she lives and you are one with the Force?"
 
Tholme rarely smiled, but today he broke his habit. "My seed is in her, Master. It will never come to fruition with her, but it is in her. At my instigation, she took a Romin shape." Tholme broke out of Spymaster mode. "I admired the look, I cannot tell you why, but that was on a mission thirty Standard years ago and she has pleased me with it ever since." Her golden skin, wide mouth ... her Romin hands ... 

Yoda said, "Hmmmmph," but understood. "Attached, you say you both are not."
 
"Yes, Master." Tholme's good eye held nothing but sincerity. The opacity of his blind eye covered a half a lifetime of evasions and half-truths, all in service to the Order. "I'm aware that under the new Code we could form an attachment, but neither she nor I want to rock the boat." 

"Why visited you our deepest storeroom?" From personal conversation directly to attack, Form 345, the Ibasaw Maneuver. 

"I didn't --- "
 
"Know you were there, I do." Not even with you will I discuss our plan. End this war, we must.
 
"Master, I did not." 

Yoda gleaned all the intent he could from Tholme, glossing over incidents that would only clutter up his psyche. There was pure truth in his sieve when he finished. "Apologize, I do." Tholme inclined his head and they both tapped their canes thoughtfully in the ensuing silence.
 
"An impostor," they said as one.
 
"I'll get right on it, Master." Yoda explained his trip to the storeroom as part of Madame Nu's performance review, his tone suggesting that she had some issues to explain to him. Ordinarily, this information would have resulted in a sardonic raised eyebrow on Tholme's scarred face, but the man frowned instead. "Jocasta wouldn't be our spy. She's not capable of duplicity. Obtuseness, yes, inordinate pride in her Archives, yes, conniving, no." 

Misdirect him, I must not. "Anyone is suspect in this. Your best, I expect." Tholme's durasteel knee creaked as he made a deep bow of farewell. 

TBC

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