Archive of Our Own

Qui-Gon isn’t sure what he had been expecting of Dex’s friend of a friend of a friend. Someone unsavory, perhaps. Or rough around the edges. Or blatantly breaking seven different laws at once. It wouldn’t be the first time, anyways, and the war has only increased the amount of those operating outside of the law.

The man who slides into the seat across from him, however, is none of those things. He is clean-shaven, with eyes that are alert and focused and hands that are steady and manicured. He does not have the jitters of an addict, or the bags of an insomniac, or the breath of a drunk. His clothes are patched and faded, but they blend in perfectly with the rest of the other seedy patrons here, and his boots are of excellent make.

“You know, my eyes are up here.”

Qui-Gon drags his gaze back up to the man’s face. He doesn’t bother to play at being embarrassed; he’s been sizing up everyone who enters, and so has everybody else. It’s just that type of place, where you keep one hand on your blaster and another on your ship beacon.

“My apologies,” Qui-Gon says. “But you can’t blame a being for being careful.”

The man grins. His teeth are shiny and straight – yet another sign that he, just like Qui-Gon, generally dwells in far higher levels of Coruscant. It’s not a forced grin either; Qui-Gon can sense his sly pleasure in the Force.

He also subtly and briefly splays his hand on the table in the four-fingered arrangement Dex told Qui-Gon to expect, so that means this is the “Ben” Qui-Gon has been waiting for.

“Suppose I can’t,” Ben drawls. “Honestly, I was surprised that you agreed to meet here.”

“Would you have preferred I insisted on meeting in Judicial headquarters?”

“I think we’re both aware that I wouldn’t have come. But your . . . kind doesn’t generally frequent the lower levels.”

“My kind,” Qui-Gon repeats in amusement. It’s not the worst name he’s ever heard, but there was a wealth of meaning the man impressed into that word, and none of it was good. “And you have much experience with my kind?”

Ben’s grin widens, and he leans back. It’s more of a sprawl, really, as though he feels entitled to not only his seat but the table and Qui-Gon’s seat and half the bar.

“You’re a lot hotter than your billboards make you out to be,” Ben says, deliberately not answering Qui-Gon’s question. “That armor really doesn’t do you justice.”

Qui-Gon blinks. Of course, he has been flirted with before – many beings are under the mistaken impression that Jedi means virgin, which leads to many awkward situations – but normally the flirting happens when he is full ceremonial regalia for a special Senate event or has just pulled off a tricky rescue in a disaster zone. It usually doesn’t happen when he’s dressed in his most worn-out clothes in a seedy bar and has bags under his eyes from not sleeping for two days.

He clears his throat. “Well, to be fair,” he replies, “the armor is meant to keep me alive. Not add to my appearance.”

“I didn’t say it detracted from your appearance,” Ben says cheekily. “Especially those gauntlets . . .”

Qui-Gon has the strangest urge to take his hands off the table and hide them out of sight. He doesn’t, mostly because he’s no longer an awkward Padawan still growing into his limbs and struggling to keep his voice from cracking, but also because he has the distinct impression that that would just encourage Ben even more. And Qui-Gon can appreciate the flirting, but he didn’t give up the opportunity to face-plant on his bunk for that.

“I’m afraid I left my gauntlets behind,” Qui-Gon tells him. “But I have what was requested. If you have what I requested.”

“Why, General,” Ben says, widening his eyes innocently, “do you think I’m not a being of my word?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“On how disappointed you are when I filter out that drug you just slipped into my drink,” Qui-Gon says, and takes a nice long draught of his truthfully very watery and subpar liquor.

To be fair to Ben, if Qui-Gon hadn’t been a Jedi, he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have noticed. It had been a masterful sleight of hand, with barely a flicker of fingers over his drink for half a second as he spread his arms and leaned back. Only Qui-Gon’s danger sense going off had alerted him, and even then, he’d only realized that the danger was related to his drink when he had scanned it with the Force before sipping – a habit that, sadly, the war has made quite necessary.

Ben doesn’t seem the least bit disappointed or angry, which is a good sign. If he had turned angry and defensive, it would have meant that he had no information at all, just a desire to try and trap a Jedi, and Qui-Gon really doesn’t want to file yet another report about an almost-kidnapping.

If anything, Ben actually seems even more pleased by the fact that Qui-Gon caught him.

“So the rumors are true,” Ben says. “You can drink poison and not die from it.”

Qui-Gon takes another sip and grimaces at the taste. “Well, I might die,” he admits, “but it’ll be from the terrible liquor, not your drug. Out of interest, what would it have done to me?”

“Just a mild case of lung paralysis, nothing horrible.”

“Hmm. I’ll pass. If the Healers have to regrow me another set of lungs, they’ll be quite put out.” Qui-Gon sets down his drink and pushes it to the side. He’d only ordered it to pass the time until Ben arrived anyways, and the information Ben promised to bring is more than enough to cover the cost of his tab. “So. A friend of a friend of your friend said you had information.”

“That I do. But it’ll cost you,” Ben warns. “And this cheap liquor isn’t going to be enough to buy me.”

“I figured as such,” Qui-Gon says. He drops a hand to his belt and withdraws a credit chip – small, innocuous, and distinctive enough for any information broker to know what it represents on sight. “If the information is what you promised it would be, then the price you named is on here.”

Ben blinks. “Just like that?”

“Would you prefer me to haggle?”

“Well, no. But that’s normally how these things go. You . . . have done this kind of thing before, right? Or do I get to pop your – ”

“Ben.”

“Fine, fine. Spoilsport,” Ben says, rolling his eyes. He leans forward, and even though his posture remains loose and easygoing, his eyes go sharp and his voice goes down. “I don’t have a lot – apparently lords of the whatever are hard to pin down. But I do have a home planet. And a family holding.”

“And what makes you think it belongs to them, rather than just something they bought?”

“Because I do my homework. And this particular planet has a tradition about family holdings that means they can’t be bought, they have to be passed down.”

“And the planet’s name is?”

“Ah, ah,” Ben scolds, wagging a finger like he’s a misbehaving tooka cat. “Not without my money.”

“Not without a name,” Qui-Gon replies. “And you can stop thinking about shooting me and taking the chip off my corpse; I have to unlock it for the funds to be unfrozen.”

Ben sighs dramatically. “Worth a shot,” he says, and pulls a chip out of his own belt. “Fine. It’s all on here.”

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow. It’s not exactly surprising that Ben is reluctant to talk openly about the information he has found, and it might actually be helpful if he’s compiled all of his research into one place. That being said: “And how do I know that chip isn’t blank?”

“Well, how do I know yours has money?” Ben asks. “We’ll just have to trust each other, General.”

“Trust is a hard thing to come by in this war.”

“And yet you came here. So I would think you already trust me somewhat.”

“I trust you about as much as I trust every other person in this bar,” Qui-Gon says. “Which is, shall we say, about as far as I can throw them.”

“I don’t know, General. I think you could throw me pretty far. The question is,” Ben says, leaning forward, his entire body turned to Qui-Gon in an open invitation, “would you want to?”

Qui-Gon sighs and pinches his nose. What he really wants, actually, is to get the information, pass its contents onto the Council, and then go sleep in an actual bed for a few hours, but he rather suspects Ben wouldn’t appreciate such a blunt answer. And the worst part is that Ben is actually very lovely – if they weren’t embroiled in a terrible war and Ben wasn’t an informant more used to shooting at Jedi than working with them, Qui-Gon might have welcomed Ben’s flirting.

But they are at war, and Ben is an informant, and Qui-Gon has a duty to fulfill. So he says, “Very well. A trade, then?”

“A trade of . . .?”

“Chips,” Qui-Gon says, ignoring the way Ben slides his leg forward to touch Qui-Gon’s own legs. “Mine for yours. And we open them at once.”

“That’s much less exciting than what I thought.”

“And you’re far less professional than our friend of a friend had lead me to believe. Is this your first time running intelligence, or do you flirt with everyone who hires you?”

Ben tilts his head, so that the light catches on his eyes, and smirks. “Only the handsome ones,” he answers. He sets his chip on the table. “On three?”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

Qui-Gon pulls Ben’s chip to him at the same time that he sends his own flying to Ben. Ben catches it neatly, with hardly a moment’s hesitation at the use of the Force, and immediately makes it vanish. It is surprising – even those who have fought alongside Jedi are still startled by displays of the Force – but Qui-Gon sets aside his curiosity in favor of turning his attention to Ben’s chip.

A cursory inspection with the Force proves it to be free of traps and poisons, which is nice. And when Qui-Gon touches it to his comm, it beeps, signaling that there is information on it. He pulls it away before it can begin downloading and inclines his head to Ben.

“Then our business is concluded,” he says.

Ben, who has returned to his sprawling posture, raises an eyebrow. “You’ve read all of that information already?”

“My kind are fast, but not that fast. Besides, did you really expect me to read it here?”

“Hmm. No. But I also didn’t expect you to cut and run the second the transaction was complete. It makes things look . . . fishy.”

“I’m sure you can handle yourself,” Qui-Gon says in amusement. He rises to his feet. “Good day, Ben.”

“Good day, General,” Ben murmurs. He raises his own drink to Qui-Gon, as if toasting him, and his eyes glitter as he drinks. “See you around.”

“I hope not,” Qui-Gon says. “Then I might actually have to arrest you.”

“As if you could.”

Qui-Gon snorts and starts walking away. He absolutely could arrest Ben, if he wanted to, but that would rather put a damper on Dex’s ability to get him information if word got out that the ones who came forward kept getting arrested by Jedi. Besides, there’s no point in correcting Ben; it’s very likely that Qui-Gon will never see him again.

But that is the way of life for a Jedi: to flow in and out of people’s lives as easily as water. And there is no rule that Qui-Gon cannot think of Ben from time to time – his blue-green eyes, his beautiful hair, his playful smirk.

Qui-Gon is, in fact, thinking vaguely about those eyes while calculating how long it will take to get back to his ship when he feels the first tremors in his leg. At first he dismisses them as either a flare up from a battle injury or weariness from not having slept for too long, but then the tremors turns to weakness and then to numbness – and that, Qui-Gon knows, is not due to injury or exhaustion.

He pulls on the Force, both to fortify his strength and to examine his leg, but that, if anything, seems to make the matter worse. The numbness increases rapidly, until his entire right leg is dead weight, as unresponsive as if someone had injected a paralytic. When he attempts to shift his balance to his other leg, he finds that the tremors have spread there, and the only reason he doesn’t fall flat on his face is that he collides rather heavily and painfully with a wall.

He runs a shaking hand down his rapidly numbing leg and his completely useless one, but the Force tells him nothing, and he can find no mark of injury. It’s almost like –

“Time-delayed poison, yes.”

Qui-Gon stiffens. He heaves himself upright against the wall as much as he can – which isn’t much, considering that the numbness is now spreading up his waist – and calls for his lightsaber –

Only for it to go flying past his fingers and into Ben’s outstretched hand.

Qui-Gon gapes, because the Force had whispered nothing to him of Ben being Force-sensitive. “What are you – ”

“I was curious,” Ben says, turning the lightsaber hilt over in his hands, “how you had constructed your saber. I mean, I’ve seen the footage, but that’s nothing to actually holding it.”

“I don’t – ” Qui-Gon cuts himself off and shakes his head. He has bigger problems than an overly curious, half-trained spy. “Give it back, please. It’s very easy to hurt yourself with it.”

“Oh, I know,” Ben says, and his smile is no longer quite so playful. Now it is sly and dangerous, like a predator just about to pounce. He shifts and up his shirt and –

And there’s a lightsaber hilt tucked at his waist.

“Or did you think only Jedi carried lightsabers, Qui-Gon?”

The numbness wraps its chilling claws around Qui-Gon’s throat and face. Or maybe it’s the fear. Because Ben is no longer playing at just being a spy; he has dropped his shields, and all Qui-Gon can sense is the burning power of the dark side, the kind he hasn’t felt since he faced off against his old Master at Geonosis.

He’d lost that duel. He had only kept his life because his old Master had not had the heart to kill him, or to kill his grand-Padawan.

Something tells him that Ben has no such compunctions about killing a Jedi.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Ben tells him, and his voice is distorted and his outline is flickering and the whole world is going dark. “I won’t kill you here. I’ve got plans for you, Qui-Gon, and you need to be alive for those plans. For a little bit, anyways.”

Qui-Gon reaches out desperately, to the Temple, to Yoda, to anyone who can hear him –

“No, no, none of that,” comes the amused murmur, and suddenly Ben is under his arm, half-carrying him through the darkness. “I don’t need all the Jedi coming down on me. Just you. Off to sleep now, Qui-Gon.

“Just sleep.”

Qui-Gon wakes up, which is rather a surprise. He’d half expected to not wake up at all, or to wake up as part of the Force. Sith Lords, after all, have no compunctions about taking advantage of unconscious or downed Jedi.

When he tries to move, he finds that he is bound to a chair – and rather thoroughly at that. His arms are secured to the back of the chair and then to each other, elbows to wrists, so that he cannot pick the lock. His legs are equally restrained to the legs of the chair. And the chair itself is weighed down or magnetized or otherwise bolted to the floor, for he cannot move it. For anyone else, it might be overkill; from a Sith Lord, it speaks of experience in terms of keeping captive Jedi from escaping.

Qui-Gon closes his eyes and reaches for the Force – and there is nothing. Not the silence of being calm, or being out of danger, or even being alone. This is the pure void of a Force-inhibitor.

There’s just one problem: Qui-Gon can’t feel a collar on his neck, or cuffs on his wrists, or even a mask on his face. And if he can’t find the inhibitor, then he can’t remove it, and if he can’t remove it –

“Ventress really did a number on you, didn’t she?”

Qui-Gon tries not to jump. He’s pretty sure he fails. “I’m not sure what you mean by that,” he says, and is proud that his voice doesn’t shake.

“Her report said that she sealed you in a Sith mask when she held you on Rattatak. Took away your sight, your smell, your hearing. You didn’t break, not even after she took away your ability to touch the Force, but I imagine it isn’t your . . . fondest memory.”

“I can’t say it is, no.”

“I thought she was lying, to be honest. All of the Jedi I’ve ever met panicked the second they lost their connection to the Force. But you,” Ben says, and he finally emerges from the darkness like a prowling wolf, “you’re not.”

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow. Gone are the sensible, well-worn clothes and sturdy boots; Ben is now clad in a shimmering silken robe. Gone too is the easygoing, carefree posture, for Ben stands as straight and proud as any noble or Senator of great importance. And gone are his beautiful blue-green eyes, for when Qui-Gon meets his gaze, he sees the fiery yellow of the dark side.

“So you’re a Sith Lord,” Qui-Gon says with a sigh, because that’s all he needs, yet another Sith Lord running around who needs to be battled.

“Well,” Ben says, cocking a hip against a nearby table, “I’m not quite a lord yet. An apprentice, really. But you’ve got the Sith part right. Even if it did take you an awful long time. And you’ve met us before.”

“Most times when I meet your fellow Sith, they’re trying very hard to kill me. You didn’t.”

“On the contrary, I did try to kill you. You just filtered out my poison.”

“That seemed like a very . . . half-hearted attempt,” Qui-Gon observes.

Ben grins at him. “Think of it as a test,” he says. “I needed a Jedi. If you were fool enough to be felled with one sip of poison, then you would be useless for what I needed. I’m glad you passed; I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

Qui-Gon blinks. He hasn’t exactly made a point of keeping track of the various Sith that have popped up, but – well, he is the only known Jedi of this age who’s managed to kill one, and so, for better or for worse, he’s generally notified when anyone comes across a new one. And in this war, there have been a lot of new ones.

He’s never heard of one matching Ben’s description though.

“You have the advantage over me,” Qui-Gon says cautiously. “I was not . . . aware of you.”

“I mean, it’s not like I was shouting it from the rooftops. The point of my Order is secrecy, unlike yours. Still,” Ben says, pouring himself a generous portion of what looks and smells like very expensive Corellian wine, “our Master always spoke very highly of you. I’ve always been curious if you lived up to all of those tall tales.”

It comes together like a puzzle box, then: Ben’s familiarity with Ventress, his Serenno silken robe, his fondness for Corellian wine, his sleek and unsettlingly familiar lightsaber hilt design.

“You’re one of Dooku’s apprentices.”

Ben bristles. “I’m my Master’s only apprentice,” he says icily.

“Ventress seems to hold a very different opinion.”

“Ventress is a lost girl playing at being warlord,” Ben says dismissively. “And the less said about Grievous, the better. No. I’m the one who was chosen. I’m the one he trained to fight Jedi. I’m the one who will carry on his lineage.”

All at once, the iciness leaves him. He tilts his head and adds casually, “In another life, I suppose we might have been brother Padawans.”

Qui-Gon snorts before he can stop himself. “I doubt that. Perhaps our Master hasn’t told you, but he declared that he would never take another Padawan not long after he Knighted me. In fact, he hardly set foot in the Temple at all. It’s very unlikely he would have apprenticed you.”

“What did you do to him, bleach his clothes and dye his hair?”

“Oh, no, I committed a far worse crime. I,” Qui-Gon says with amusement, “disagreed with him.”

Ben stares at him. There is no hint of that sly playfulness or the dangerous cockiness; he seems genuinely confused. Even his half-filled glass is dangling, forgotten, from his fingers. “ . . . On what?”

“Everything.”

“He said you were a great Jedi. And a great apprentice – better than anyone else he’d ever trained.”

There is almost a hint of jealousy in Ben’s voice as he speaks. It’s the first weakness Qui-Gon has seen in him, so he makes note of it. And plays along, of course. It’s what Dooku trained him to do, once upon a time.

“That’s not a terribly high bar,” Qui-Gon says mildly. “Given that your choices are Rael and me and Komari.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Ah. So he didn’t mention them. Well, Rael – Knight Averross – he is the Watchman for Pijal. Our Master considered it a waste of his talents. And Komari . . .”

Ben narrows his eyes. “What about her?” he demands.

Qui-Gon sighs. “She is no longer with us.”

“And that means – what?”

“Exactly that. She left the Temple and the Order. What happened to her . . . if our Master ever discovered what happened, he never said, but I suspect that she is dead, either by his hand or another’s.”

“You Jedi make a habit of misplacing apprentices?”

“As opposed to the Sith, who kill them?” Qui-Gon counters, because it’s that or give into the wince the mention of misplaced apprentices brings up. He’s pretty sure Ben meant it lightly, for his words were not laden with meaning, but Xanatos is still a painful memory.

“Well, I’m not dead.”

“Then my old Master must think you are useful. As soon as that usefulness ends, however . . .”

Ben tilts his head. Without the Force, Qui-Gon cannot tell if Ben is open to his warning or not, but Ben does not seem angered or act like he thinks Qui-Gon is lying to provoke him.

In fact, Ben remarks, “You speak rather coldly of him. Strange. I was under the impression that Jedi pairs were very close. You seem quite fond of your apprentice, for example.”

“Jedi relationships are like any other,” Qui-Gon says. “Some people get along. Some do not. Dooku and I had many . . . disagreements.”

“Yes, he mentioned that.”

“Did he mention why?”

“Not in detail, no.”

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow. Dooku had been very eager to tell Qui-Gon, often and loudly, about the weakness of the Living Force and Qui-Gon’s choice to follow it. If he has not had those same concerns about Ben: “Then you must be strong in the Unifying Force.”

“What makes you say that?”

“What do you think?”

To his credit, Ben puts the pieces together rather rapidly. “Ah,” he says. He sets down his glass and leans back on his hands, smirking at Qui-Gon. “So you must be a follower of the Living Force, then. A man of the moment, not the future. That explains a lot about your mission reports and battle plans.”

“You know,” Qui-Gon says cautiously, “I’m starting to think that perhaps my old Master spoke a little too much about me, if you’ve gone so far as to end up studying my old mission reports.”

“If anything, our Master spoke too little of you,” Ben disagrees. He slides off the table and begins moving towards Qui-Gon, each step a sinuous flowing moment, like a predator on the prowl. “He definitely didn’t mention how hot you were.”

Qui-Gon opens his mouth. Qui-Gon shuts his mouth.

“What, no witty reply? No self-deprecating comment? Not even a refusal of the truth? Why,” Ben teases, tracing a finger down Qui-Gon’s throat, “have I rendered the infamous Negotiator speechless?”

Qui-Gon jerks his head away. “I hate that name,” he grumbles.

“Your adoring public seems quite enamored with it. Didn’t they even christen a battlecruiser with it?”

“Don’t remind me. Also,” Qui-Gon asks warily, as Ben slides a hand under his tabards, “what are you doing?”

Ben smirks down at him. This close, Qui-Gon can feel the heat radiating off of him like a Mandalorian forge, a sign of his strength in the Force or his connection to the dark side or both. The yellow has left his eyes, or perhaps he’s hid them through some clever illusion, for all Qui-Gon can see is Ben’s normal blue-green, shifting and shimmering like the currents of a deep ocean.

If he wasn’t a Sith, and Qui-Gon wasn’t tied to a chair, and he hadn’t just been poisoned some hours ago, he might even find it arousing.

“Why,” Ben purrs, “I’m negotiating, General. Can’t you tell?”

“Ah – Negotiations, they usually – usually don’t involve this much – much skin,” Qui-Gon says, trying and failing to keep his composure as Ben yanks off his belt, pulls away his sash, and begins the process of peeling away his tabards.

“Well, I think they should. They’d be much more interesting that way.”

Ben gets impatient with Qui-Gon struggling against him rather quickly, and as soon as he does, Qui-Gon finds himself immobilized with the Force. The Force-grips keep him still and easy prey as Ben, in short order, pulls down his trousers and strips him of his overtunics, and it is very disconcerting to be disrobed like a unconscious patient when he is, in fact, very conscious – of both the skin Ben is revealing and the incredibly sharp knife Ben is using to reveal said skin.

When Ben finally gets to his final layer of undertunics, he makes a triumphant noise. “Finally!” he says, setting his knife to the weave like a chef eager to dice the final ingredient. “By the stars, you Jedi really do wear too – what the kriff is that?”

Ben’s tone of voice goes from sultry and amused to alarmed so quickly that Qui-Gon can almost feel his adrenaline skyrocket. War-hardened battle instincts drive him to reach for the Force and for his lightsaber, but the inhibitor and the restraints keep him where he is, which means he is in the perfect position to watch Ben as he reaches one pale hand to touch his chest.

Or rather, to touch the scar on his chest.

“That – That’s a lightsaber scar,” Ben says, and for the first time, he actually sounds uneasy. “You were – how did you even survive – ”

“I got lucky,” Qui-Gon tells him. “If Maul hadn’t drawn his blade back because he wanted to gloat, I wouldn’t be here.”

“I knew you had defeated him, but I didn’t know – I thought your time in the Halls of Healing had been because you got a minor injury or something. Not because you took a lightsaber to the chest.”

“It wasn’t my choice, believe me.”

Ben traces the edge of his scar. It’s a strange feeling, because Qui-Gon can only feel half of the touch, like an echo down a very long tunnel, and after the Healers had declared him ready to return to the field, very few had ever touched the scar again.

“Is this why you began shifting to Soresu? Our Master mentioned it . . . but never why. I had thought it was strange that he did not deride it, though.”

“I’m not sure how much Dooku knew about my injury, to be honest. He never came to visit – in fact, he never returned to the Temple at all, and shortly thereafter tendered his resignation from the Order. But I’m not surprised he thought poorly of my choice of style. He never did think very highly of Ataru, and that, at least, has offensive capability.”

“All of those flips and jumps and twirls,” Ben says, a curl of amusement quirking his lip up. “I used to try and copy them.”

“I can’t imagine Dooku was pleased by that.”

“He was very much not. He stated that if I was to study anything of you, it should be your negotiation skills. The one thing he said you actually learned from him.”

“High praise,” Qui-Gon says dryly. “So are you going to continue staring at my scar or are we moving onto the torture phase of this?”

Ben gives him a look. “Who said anything about torture?”

“Ventress – ”

“Ventress is a blunt instrument, and not even a very good one,” Ben says dismissively, straightening once he has Qui-Gon’s tunics cut away to his satisfaction. “Our Master trained me to be better.”

“And better involves . . . taking your clothes off?” Qui-Gon asks with a raised eyebrow.

Ben looks up from where he’s pried his sash free. He smiles and lets his robe fall open, revealing that he is wearing absolutely nothing underneath. “Well, I don’t have to take them all the way off if you’re going to be shy about it,” he says.

“I’m not shy, just – well, confused.”

“Really? You can’t figure it out?”

“Ah,” Qui-Gon stutters, as Ben climbs onto his lap and straddles him, a warm and incredibly distracting weight. “I’m not really sure – ”

Ben nips at his ear. “Ventress tortured you for weeks on end, and you never broke under the pain. And now I know Maul stabbed you in the chest, and still, you found the strength to slay him. So I always knew that the way to you was not pain, Qui-Gon Jinn. But let’s see how long you can last against pleasure, shall we?”

If he were free, Qui-Gon might have bucked Ben off in surprise and shock when those warm, clever fingers close around him and begin to move. As it is, with the restraints, he only manages an abortive kick.

“Ben – ”

“Our Master really didn’t talk enough about you,” Ben says, ignoring him. “Force, if I’d known this was what you were hiding underneath all of those Jedi robes. . . I would have jumped you a lot sooner.”

“It’s not – It’s not exactly something – that comes up in casual conversation,” Qui-Gon forces out between gritted teeth.

“Pity. Oh, and you can struggle as much as you like. Those restraints are Serenno steel of the highest grade. If they can hold a Wookie, they can hold you. I came, shall we say, prepared.” Then Ben looks down at him again and amends, “Well, mostly prepared. I wasn’t quite expecting to need a plug so large. But I’ll make do.”

“You’ll make – No, you’ll tear yourself,” Qui-Gon protests. He pulls against his restraints again, but all his efforts are for naught as Ben raises himself up.

“Your concern is touching,” Ben says. He takes one hand away from holding Qui-Gon in place and fumbles between his legs. After a grunt and a yank, he tosses away what looks like a fairly sizeable plug, although Qui-Gon can tell, even from a brief glance, that it isn’t nearly enough. “But also: dismissed.”

“You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“Maybe I like the pain,” Ben purrs, and then he is sinking down before Qui-Gon can protest anymore.

And – well, between the chaos of the war and trying to wrangle an overactive Padawan, it’s not like Qui-Gon has had a lot of time to focus on much beyond staying alive. Most of the time, when he has five minutes to himself, he’s chowing down a ration bar or passing out on the nearest semi-horizontal surface. He can’t even remember the last time he’s jerked off.

He tells himself that that is why Ben taking him feels so overwhelming. Why he is so easily bowled over by the tight, slick heat that takes him almost entirely in one smooth lunge. Why, when he jerks at his restraints, his instinct is to pull Ben down even faster, and not to buck him off.

“Stars above,” Ben gasps, once he is sitting completely in Qui-Gon’s lap. “Forget jumping you sooner, I should’ve tackled you the second I met you.”

Qui-Gon shudders when Ben clenches around him. Somehow, he manages to say, “Exhibitionism is not something I enjoy.”

“It’s cute that you think I care about that,” Ben smirks.

He puts his hands on Qui-Gon’s shoulders, lifts himself up, and slams back down, hard enough that the chair itself shakes. It’s certainly enough to drive the breath out of Qui-Gon’s lungs. And Ben – with a hint of sweat glittering at his brow and his hair loose and his pupils big enough to cover the yellow tint of darkness – is beautiful enough that Qui-Gon can almost, almost forget that he’s being tormented by a Sith.

Right up until Ben licks a stripe up his cheek and says, “Tell me how to get into the Archives.”

It’s like being splashed with ice cold water. Qui-Gon jerks his head back, even if he’s unable to stop Ben from clenching deliciously and painfully around him.

“What?”

Ben smiles at him, playful and sly and dangerous. “Tell me how to get into the Archives,” he repeats.

The Jedi Archives on Coruscant contains all of the knowledge of the Jedi Order – their history, their culture, their people, the planets they’ve been to, the missions they’ve been on, the species they’ve made contact with. It is a repository of all their past, upon which they build their future. It is the safe haven where they store things too dangerous or too delicate for anyone who is not a Jedi.

Including Sith holocrons, which Qui-Gon has never been interested in, but he knows reside there because of Dooku.

Qui-Gon says, “No.”

Ben pouts at him. He drapes his arms around Qui-Gon’s neck and nuzzles at his neck, like a cat trying to befriend a stranger who’s afraid of cats. “Come on, it’s not like I’m asking for the keycards to the galaxy here,” he coaxes. “I’m not looking for access to your brats or the old farts you call Councilors. Just a little sneak peek into your library.”

Qui-Gon spares a moment to be amazed that Ben has read him so well that he knows Qui-Gon’s primary concern would be the younglings, and then he musters his concentration. “No,” he repeats. “Because you’d do more than peek.”

“Maaaybe,” Ben allows. “I mean, I am a Sith Lord. Mischief is what I’m good at.”

“Mischief,” Qui-Gon agrees, “and lies.”

Ben’s eyes snap open. He jerks his head back and glares at Qui-Gon, looking as affronted as though Qui-Gon had insulted his ancestry. “I am not a liar!” he says. “I haven’t lied once.”

“Lies of omission are still lies.”

“They’re not omissions if you didn’t ask. Or didn’t realize that a Sith was sitting under your nose. That is your own blindness.”

“Perhaps. But I’m not telling you how to get in for mischief either. The Archives are full of dangerous relics.”

“I like danger,” Ben says flippantly, and then he adds a twist of his hips as he sinks back down that has Qui-Gon groaning. “If you couldn’t tell.”

“This is – This is not the same,” Qui-Gon forces out through gritted teeth. “The relics could – could kill you.”

“So could a Jedi.”

“But we wouldn’t drive you to insanity, or leave you in a coma, or vaporize you instantly.”

“Huh. Interesting,” Ben remarks, and he sounds even more intrigued than before – the exact opposite of what Qui-Gon had wanted. Ben must notice, because he rolls his eyes and adds, “Don’t worry, you big softie. Our Master taught us how to handle ancient Sith artifacts correctly. He was . . . most insistent on correcting all of my errors.”

“I’m sorry,” Qui-Gon says quietly, because he remembers how Dooku punished him as a Padawan – he can only imagine what Dooku might have done now, as a Sith Lord, with so much less care for his apprentice’s wellbeing and access to so many darker powers.

“If you’re going to apologize, do it properly. Tell me how to get into the Archives.”

“Ben – ”

“Tell me,” Ben orders. His eyes flash, bright yellow even against his enlarged pupils, and Qui-Gon can feel the sickly tug of a Force-suggestion pulling on his mind and tongue.

He bites his cheek until he draws blood.

Ben sighs. “Too stubborn and strong-willed,” he says, caressing Qui-Gon’s cheek. “I should have guessed. Our Master did warn me, but I figured it was a worth a try. I suppose that means it’s time for Plan Besh.”

“What is Plan Besh?” Qui-Gon asks warily.

Ben winks at him. He tightens around Qui-Gon, clenching and relaxing in the perfect pattern to drive Qui-Gon insane. Qui-Gon tries to catch his breath and find his calm, but then Ben uses both of his hands to take a firm hold of his face as he brings their foreheads together. Ben takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, exhales –

And then he’s pushing his way into Qui-Gon’s mind.

Without the Force, Qui-Gon cannot push him away, either physically or mentally. He can’t even pull his face away from Ben, because Ben is a lot stronger than he looks. He can only desperately gather his memories together and think very, very hard about anything but the Archives.

“You’re good,” Ben says, after a long moment of him digesting everything Qui-Gon has thrown at him and Qui-Gon dredging up more in its place. “Even without the Force, you’re really good.”

“Our minds are our last sanctuary,” Qui-Gon tells him. “And you don’t need the Force to protect your thoughts. Ventress taught me that.”

Ben hums. “Yes, she did mention that she couldn’t get anything from you, even with the Sith mask. I thought she just wasn’t trying hard enough. But you . . . you hold yourself in place, like a tree, and do not allow yourself to bend.”

“Yes,” Qui-Gon says faintly, too startled by Ben’s accurate assessment to lie.

“But no tree can last through every storm,” Ben comments, “and you don’t have the Force to strengthen your roots.”

“Is that what you think of yourself as? A storm?”

Ben opens his eyes. They’re back to blue-green again, and they’re shining like newly formed stars in a nebula. He looks like the old gods of legend, whispered about in tattered flimsy slips only barely preserved in the Archives.

He is terrifying, and awe-inspiring, and beautiful beyond belief.

“Not a storm,” Ben says. “I am the storm. And I will make you bend, Qui-Gon Jinn.”

“Better Sith have tried. Better Jedi too.”

Ben smiles and shakes his head. “I am like no Jedi or Sith you’ve ever met,” he tells Qui-Gon simply. “Now let me in.”

“No.”

“Let me in,” Ben repeats, and this time he raises himself up and hovers, teasing Qui-Gon at the tip without sinking back down. “Let me in and I’ll let you come.”

“No.”

“You don’t want to? That’s strange. Most of the beings I go after usually are eager to come.”

Qui-Gon has to smile at that. In a deliberate echo, he replies, “I’m like no being you’ve ever slept with.”

“ . . . True,” Ben admits after a long pause. “But it’s also true that I was going easy on you before.”

“You call this – ” Qui-Gon starts to say, and he means to end it with easy, but that’s when Ben slams back down and really begins riding him, as industriously as a jockey racing towards the finish line on a fathier. Qui-Gon finds that he barely has to space to breathe, much less speak or think, and it doesn’t help when Ben begins pushing his own pleasure into Qui-Gon’s mind in tandem with his assault on Qui-Gon’s thoughts.

“You feel so good,” Ben groans. He writhes in Qui-Gon’s lap, sweating and panting and not taking any effort to hide how much enjoyment he’s getting out of it. “Our Master said I had to release you, that I couldn’t keep you, but kriffing hells, I should, I should leave you tied up and never let you go – ”

“Our Master – Dooku – Dooku put you up to this?”

“Well, perhaps not this,” Ben says, squeezing around him until Qui-Gon groans. “But he said to do whatever it took, and I find this way so much better, don’t you? All you have to do – ”

“No.”

“ – is let me in – ”

“No.”

“ – and tell me how to get into the Archives – ”

“No.”

“ – and I’ll let you come,” Ben finishes. He caps off the promise by going absolutely still on Qui-Gon, freezing perfectly as only someone trained in the Force can, and Qui-Gon chokes as he’s robbed of orgasm a step from the edge.

“No!” he gasps, and he can’t quite tell if it’s a refusal of Ben or a plea to Ben.

“Yes,” Ben says soothingly. “You don’t even have to do anything, Qui-Gon. Just relax and let me do all the work. Well. More of the work, anyways.”

Qui-Gon draws in a deep breath. Blows it out. “I can’t.”

“Of course you can. For our Master.”

Qui-Gon laughs helplessly. “Dooku wouldn’t care. Did you know he tried to kill me? When the war began, on Geonosis – he only didn’t because my Padawan stopped him.”

“Alright, then not for our Master,” Ben says, after a long pause. “For me.”

“I hardly know you.”

“Now that isn’t true at all. You know me very well,” Ben murmurs in his ear. “Better than most, in fact. We have the same origin, the same Master, the same blending of saber forms, the same preference for diplomacy, and, most importantly, the same goal.”

“And what’s that?”

“Coming,” Ben purrs, and he wraps his arms around Qui-Gon’s shoulder and twists his hips and kisses Qui-Gon.

And, Force help him, Qui-Gon kisses back.

Thank you, Ben whispers in his mind, and Qui-Gon realizes with a start that, sometime in the middle of their kissing, he’s let his guard falter. Just for a moment, but a moment is a lot when a trained Sith is the one taking advantage of it.

Ben breaks the kiss and grins down at him, and he is as stunning in his triumph as he had been in his tempting.

“Thank you,” he repeats out loud. “Now come.”

After fighting against Ben’s Force-suggestions for so long, Qui-Gon feels the last of his mental defenses give way. His orgasm slams into him like the storm Ben had promised, leaving him broken open and vulnerable and whimpering in its wake.

His sole consolation is that Ben appears equally wrecked.

“Well, that was lovely,” Ben pants. “I’ve never done that before.”

“Come on a Jedi?”

“Come with a Jedi,” Ben says. “Your pleasure was so strong in the Force . . . or maybe that’s just you. I’ve never sensed someone so powerful in the Living Force before.”

“My Padawan – ”

“Raw potential isn’t the same thing as power. And true power is knowing how to use it. You have that. He’s . . . well, he’s still cooking, I guess.”

Qui-Gon sighs, because Ben isn’t wrong, exactly, but: “He is only an apprentice. He’ll learn. And when he’s finished, he’ll be a great Jedi. Better than me, certainly.”

Ben taps him on the nose. “You need more self-confidence. Oh, and a new ship.”

“Why, what did you do to my – ”

“I’m stealing it,” Ben tells him cheerfully. “Spoils of war. But I do thank you for your assistance. It’s very greatly appreciated.”

“Ben – ”

“And thank you for the lovely ride. I might have to kidnap you for another round, sometime in the future.”

“Ben, I – ”

“Bye!” Ben says brightly.

Qui-Gon feels a cold needle sink into his neck. He curses, and for the second time that day, passes out.

When Qui-Gon wakes up, he is, thankfully, still alive. He is also in full possession of his clothes again, which is nice. And he is laid out on a bed, with pillows arranged thoughtfully to support his head and limbs, which is both very nice and also very surprising.

The damn chair is still bolted to the floor, though, and in full view of Qui-Gon when he sits up. It even has the stains still on it.

Qui-Gon deliberately stops thinking about that and turns his focus inward. He is relieved to find that the Force comes when he calls, as easily as though he had never been blocked from it, warming his limbs and calming his mind. He does a quick check of his memories, but he finds everything intact, with no hint of tampering, so either Ben is much better at excising memories than anyone Qui-Gon has ever met or he just didn’t bother to cover up what happened.

It seems strange, that a Sith Lord would let Qui-Gon remember him when their whole Order is built on secrecy, but as Qui-Gon rather likes his memories undamaged, he doesn’t question it. He swings his legs over the bed –

And a data chip falls on the floor with a soft ploink.

Qui-Gon frowns. He pulls the chip to his hand with the Force. To his surprise, it looks and feels like the same chip Ben waved at him when he promised him information on the Sith Lord behind the war. In fact, in the Force, the chip is saturated in Ben’s Force-presence, as though he had held it for a long time before leaving.

He knows it’s a long shot, but he still pulls out his data reader and feeds the chip into it. It beeps and begins reading it, and a few moments, the projector flickers to life to display whatever information Ben left for him to find.

The image blinks and then steadies and Qui-Gon squints –

And drops the data reader.

Because that is most certainly not the information Qui-Gon was seeking or that Ben promised he would bring. It’s not even information, really.

No, what the data reader is now displaying is a picture of Ben sprawled on the bed.

Naked.

Grinning.

And with Qui-Gon’s come glistening on his spread thighs.

Qui-Gon says, “Kriff.”

FINIS