
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/786366.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Star_Wars_Prequel_Trilogy
  Relationship:
      Bruck_Chun/Obi-Wan_Kenobi, Qui-Gon_Jinn/Obi-Wan_Kenobi
  Character:
      Bruck_Chun, Obi-Wan_Kenobi, Qui-Gon_Jinn, Original_Characters
  Additional Tags:
      Angst, Hurt/Comfort
  Series:
      Part 6 of The_Warrior's_Heart,_Volume_2,_Trials_and_Errors
  Collections:
      Master_Apprentice_Archive
  Stats:
      Published: 2001-01-02 Words: 15060
****** 6-From a High Place ******
by WritestuffLee
Summary
     Bruck learns how much the past can shape the present.
Bruck set his tray down at the end of a table full of padawans he knew only
distantly. They were quite a bit younger than he and appeared to be agemates
and friends, from how closely they were clotted together at the other end,
laughing and hooting, discussing something intently—probably the upcoming
combat competitions; he didn’t want to disturb them, but the refectory was
crowded at the moment and this seemed like one of the few comparatively empty
spots at the padawan tables. Ben would be joining him shortly and they wanted a
relative amount of privacy—or at least he did. After last night, he was still
uncertain of Ben’s response, especially since he had only contacted Bruck late
this afternoon with a message to meet for dinner. He’d expected a face-to-face
call earlier in the morning, and when it hadn’t come by the end of his first
class, he’d begun to worry. It wasn’t like Kenobi to leave him dangling like
this, not after what had gone on between them during the last few days.
The other end of the table went silent as he sat down and he looked over to see
thirteen eyes staring at him as though he’d suddenly grown a third one himself.
Disgust and repugnance was clear in some of the more readable faces and what
countenances didn’t show it, body language did, as several of them turned their
backs on him. Low murmurs replaced laughter.
Suddenly none of the food on his tray looked very appetizing.
The padawan holonet had always been fast, but he’d never seen it this fast.
He’d have to do what he’d always done and bluff it out. He dug in, not waiting
for Ben. The food, normally at least savory if not extravagant, tasted like
sand in his mouth.
Then Garen Muln, one of Ben’s oldest friends, walked by, giving him a look that
froze him like a startled animal in a spotlight. Muln loomed over him for a
moment, whispering, “You’re a disgusting piece of offal, Chun. The Council
should never have let you become a padawan,” and walked on.
It was starting again, he thought in a sick panic, just when he thought he’d
gotten past it, when he thought they’d all outgrown it, that he’d outgrown
being bothered by it. It wasn’t right. He was 22 now—so were they, mostly—too
old for this sort of pettiness. He felt the adrenalin surge through him,
roiling his stomach and the food in it, and took a deep breath to dispel the
rage he felt rising in him. Closing his eyes, he let the emotions roll through
him and out into the Force until he felt calm again, if not at peace. When he
opened them again, the first thing he saw was Bant, Tianna, and another of
Ben’s friends, Norika Dan, all staring at him from another nearby table,
expressionless.
Tianna. That explained it. She was a healer’s apprentice and she’d been there
when he and Qui-Gon had brought Ben into the Halls that day, sobbing, wrecked,
finally broken at the end of his pain trials. She would at least suspect what
he’d done, if she’d seen the injury reports, and know for certain what effect
it had had on Ben. All of them would have seen the results of the last tenth on
Kenobi, but only Tianna would have been in a position to guess the
circumstances and the people involved. And she needed to learn to keep her
mouth shut.
He started to rise from the table intending to say a word or two to that
effect, felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up into Ben’s face, finding
that slight, gentle, irritating, mischievous smile on it. Kenobi sat down next
to him, scooting him over on the bench and putting his tray down beside Bruck’s
own, not making a show of it, but not hesitant either. Before picking up his
utensils, he reached up and ruffled Bruck’s hair roughly, then dug into his
food. After a stunned moment, Bruck followed his example and began to at least
pick at his own meal. It took everything he had not to look up at the multiple
eyes he could feel watching them from both the end of their own table and from
across the room. Ben seemed grandly oblivious.
“They don’t understand, Bruck,” his lover said quietly between bites. “None of
the others have gone through their pain trials yet. You and I were among the
first in our year. Garen will probably be next. Bant and Nori have got a ways
to go yet, I think, and Ti doesn’t have to do it at all. And the little ones
down here,” he nodded toward the end of the table, “don’t even imagine they
exist. All they know is that some rumor’s going around that you did something
terrible to me. Ti shouldn’t have said anything to anybody. Let me take care of
it, though, not you. She won’t hear it from you.”
He nodded quietly, unable to find his voice for the moment, and concentrating
on getting down the next mouthful. “She may not hear it from you, either,” he
said after a time.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make it quite clear that it’s far better she hear it from me
than her master; he’ll have to reprimand her if this doesn’t stop soon. She
must know that.”
“Don’t count on it,” Bruck warned, doubting still that she’d see it that way.
While it was true that Ben was one of the most respected senior padawans, Bruck
was one of the least liked and knew it, and he doubted even Ben would have much
influence on anybody’s opinion in this case.
“This was one of the reasons I wanted to meet you for dinner here,” Ben went
on. “It wasn’t like this at midmeal, but it was building.”
“Yeah, in classes everything was fine,” Bruck agreed. After a moment, he ran
his hand lightly down Ben’s spine and was rewarded with a barely perceptible
shiver. “You okay?” he asked quietly. “All right for the meet tomorrow?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t contact you sooner. We slept late,” Kenobi grinned,
addressing the real question, and Bruck couldn’t help joining him, feeling
relief blossom in his chest, erasing some of the tension. “Qui spent half what
was left of the night healing everything.”
“What did he say?”
“What you knew he would, smart boy: that it wasn’t something he could give me,
but it wasn’t really an issue.”
“So how are you now?”
The grin faded and the other padawan’s expression turned serious, a little
troubled. “I don’t know yet. I thought it would be all right in the morning,
but it’s going to take me a little longer than I thought to absorb and work it
all out. But that’s not your fault,” he was quick to add. “I couldn’t have
gotten through this without you.”
“You could have if you didn’t always have to make everything such a freaking
crisis,” Bruck chided, elbowing him.
“I only do that to keep you occupied and out of trouble,” Kenobi shot back.
“Didn’t exactly work this time, did it?” Bruck pointed out, stabbing something
unidentifiable on his plate rather savagely.
Kenobi put one hand over his. “That’s not your fault either. Look, they’re my
friends. They’re just being overprotective. Don’t let it get to you. Your
friends aren’t—”
“My friends don’t even know the Jedi do this, Ben,” Bruck snarled suddenly,
hands curling into fists, the heat and manner of his response startling both of
them. “I don’t supposed you’ve really noticed, but the only friends I’ve got
now are outside the Temple. When I’m here and you’re not, I go out most nights
with people from the university or one of the other districts, or I stay home
alone. You’re the only one of my peers in the Temple who’ll have anything to do
with me. This just gave everyone a reason to be openly hostile.” He closed his
mouth suddenly, as though he had somehow said something wrong, and turned away.
Kenobi looked at the other young man with a stunned expression that turned
rapidly to confusion. “But Davrin and Aalto—”
“Davrin and Aalto were never really my friends,” he mumbled, shoving his tray
away, arms folding across his stomach. He felt sick now, lightheaded, almost
feverish, his heart pounding. Why had he started this? Why hadn’t he just let
it lie? But now that it was coming out, he couldn’t seem to stop it. “Where
were they when Leth died? Or afterwards, when I was masterless?” he went on
bitterly. “And your friends have never liked me, with good reason, since I made
your life hell when we were kids, and nearly killed you and Bant. Haven’t you
noticed they don’t hang around you when we’re together? They’ll stop hanging
around you at all, if you stay with me.”
Ben stroked heavy fingers through the white thatch of Bruck’s padawan haircut
and down his bare neck, cupping it. “I don’t notice much of anything else when
I’m with you,” he said gravely, resting his forehead against Bruck’s temple.
“And if my friends are that biased, well, they were never my friends, either,
were they? I’m not going anywhere, B-Boy.”
“Don’t say that,” Bruck shivered, still hugging himself, feeling worse by the
minute. It was just the kind of thing Ben would blurt out and hold himself to
later, his own sense of loyalty making it impossible for him to understand why
Davrin and Aalto had dissociated themselves from Bruck’s taint—especially
Aalto, who was probably bound for a bad end himself. Bruck never wanted Ben to
have to feel abandoned that way, certainly not because of him. Should have kept
your mouth shut, you fool, he told himself. He’d never meant to say any of this
to Ben. It wasn’t his problem, wasn’t something he should have to worry about
it. But Garen had really unnerved him.
Bruck stood up abruptly, face ashen. “I have to go, Ben. I—I’ll talk to you
later,” he whispered, looking panicked and sick, leaving his tray behind.
 
===============================================================================
                                        
 
Bruck felt as though he’d been in the Room of a Thousand Fountains for days,
though it was in reality only a few hours. It was his own thoughts that had
drifted through a lifespan, not time itself, though it made him feel just as
weary. The sun was just going down now and the lights in the garden mimicked
the shift to red, throwing everything into the stark relief of stage lighting,
making it feel more artificial than it usually did, a precarious illusion like
his own right to a place in this life.
He didn’t come to these gardens often, and this was the first time he’d been to
this particular spot since . . . so many years ago when Ben had first saved his
life. He’d nearly fallen from the bare rocks of this waterfall, fighting Kenobi
for Xanatos, years ago. He’d been a fool then, and thought he hated Ben,
thought he’d never be chosen as a padawan, thought it was somehow Kenobi’s
fault and not his own. And even though they’d fought in earnest, both their
lives at stake, when Bruck had teetered on the edge of the rocks in the bed of
the falls, Ben had reached out and grabbed him. Despite the risk and the ill
will between them, Ben had reached out as though they had been friends, pulling
Bruck away from the edge and into his arms.
Everything had changed in that one moment. Bruck was certain of it, though Ben,
as usual, was unaware of the magnitude of his gesture, so natural had it been.
Spinning him out at arm’s length, he’d hit Bruck hard with the butt of his
saber, enough to knock him out, tied him with his own sash, then freed Bant—who
was standing over him with his own lightsaber when he came to—and went on with
Qui-Gon to get the Healing Crystals out of the Temple’s fusion furnace. It
should have been all over for him then. They should have stripped him of any
affiliation with the Temple and turned him out, or sent him back to his father.
But they didn’t.
Instead, another of Qui-Gon’s friends, Knight Tahl, had spoken for him, from
what motive he never knew, and urged the Council to let her find him a master.
For a tenth he’d been confined to his room, under guard, shunned, shamed,
miserable and afraid. Only Ben had come to see him. And he had hurt so much
that he’d only lashed out at Ben until he went away again and didn’t come back.
One day, Knight Tahl had appeared in Bruck’s quarters with Leth, who had been
the padawan of yet another friend. Leth, it turned out, had been watching Bruck
for quite some time and regretted not having spoken sooner. Could she make it
up to him now by taking him as her padawan learner? she asked. He had been so
desperate not to lose everything that he had said yes, despite some small
misgivings he’d later dismissed as his own feelings of inadequacy holding him
back. He knew now that was probably the future disaster teasing his Force
sense, but he also knew he would have gone with her anyway. She’d been his only
way out.
He and Ben hadn’t seen each other for another seven years, when they had
literally run into each other. Kenobi had been surprised that he’d gotten
himself a master in the meanwhile, but seemed glad enough of it. And still he’d
thought he hated Ben, thought so right up to the moment he came to sit with
Bruck when his master had killed herself. Even then, he’d been in too much pain
to admit it. If they hadn’t kissed, finally, almost a halfyear later . . .
Now he had another kind master, one he missed very much at this moment. He’d
always thought Lannik were hard little nuts, like Councillor Piell with his
missing eye and his warrior’s tail and humorless expression. There was some of
that in his new master, Andreth Rallin, but he was also a friend of Qui-Gon’s,
so Bruck should have known he’d have another side to him. After a few tenths
he’d discovered his new master laughed frequently, and liked his beer, and had
a taste for really atrocious puns.
They had only been a training pair for about a year, and so were still learning
each other’s ways, but they clearly liked each other, for which Bruck was
grateful. More importantly, Rallin seemed to respect him as well, not because
he’d been perfect, but because he’d made mistakes and learned from them. He was
also grateful his new master had had a padawan before and knew the ropes. Even
though Bruck was bigger and taller than the little Lannik, there was no
question who the master. He didn’t coddle Bruck as Leth had, or tip-toe around
his feelings. His voice was a little gruff and he could be stern, but never
cold. He was blunt in his appraisals, but fair. Very blunt. Bruck knew he
wouldn’t think much of his student’s sulk at the moment.
But there was no one to go to to talk himself out of it. Leth was dead, his
former friends deserting him when she killed herself, as though he were somehow
tainted by her death; his new master was gone on a sensitive mission and
wouldn’t be back for at least several more tenths; and none of his friends
outside the Temple could even begin to understand what was going on here. He’d
never meant to mention this lack of Temple friends to Ben at all. Most of the
time, it didn’t bother him. He was either with Ben or with one or more of the
friends he’d made outside the Temple in the halfyear he’d been without a
master. Even his master had not really noticed Bruck’s lack of friends inside
the Temple. He was usually on civil enough terms with his fellow padawans that
it didn’t matter. But now it was likely to become an issue, and he’d be in the
middle of it again. At least this time it was no fault of his own. Not really.
Was it?
Somehow it didn’t seem to matter. Bruck felt as though he’d used up most of the
tolerance and grace he might have started with as a child, and used it up very
early on in his life. He’d been a stupid, bullying braggart for so much of his
childhood and adolescence, too scared of failure to admit it even to himself,
too jealous of Ben’s abilities to clearly see his own. Leth had at least given
him some sense of his own worth, and just as badly shattered it with her death.
Then Ben, of all people, had come along and loved him, giving it back to him
again.
And as a reward, Bruck had strung him up in a practice room one day and
brutalized him.
That it was sanctioned, that both the Council and Qui-Gon himself had known
about it and even been observing, didn’t make it right anymore. He’d thought it
would, but too much of his old self had come out in the scenario, whether
anyone else recognized it or not. There had been too much hostility he hadn’t
been able to curb, too much old frustration, too much misplaced and long-
unvented rage—too much of his own insecurity turning to resentment. Afterwards,
he’d felt as though he’d been some other person, wondered if he hadn’t somehow
slipped into the Dark without realizing it, the way he nearly had with Xanatos.
Afterwards, at the club, he had tried to make up for it, but that was something
else and no matter what he did, nothing would make him forget what he’d done to
Ben—or that it had been so easy to do. It had been his trial in a small way
too, and he had failed. That was what the other padawans knew, whether Ben
recognized it or not.
That was really why he was sitting here now. He knew that now. It was not about
the fact that he had no friends inside the Temple. In the years he had been
with Leth he had learned how to be alone, to look inward for his own comfort,
to sit inside the Force and just be with himself, and he was comfortable there
now. He had blurted that secret out to Ben not looking for sympathy, but trying
to push Kenobi away, to say See? I’m not fit for anyone else’s company. Why
would you really want me, especially after all the times I’ve hurt you? If
anything, he was, perhaps, looking for absolution.
Not that he deserved it. Part of the conversation he’d had with Ben’s master
came back to him then: I’ve been a bastard before. It won’t be so hard to be
one again, he’d told Master Jinn.
Even Jinn had misread him. It had been so easy to slip back into his old
persona that he suspected that was who he truly was, and everything else a mask
he had learned to wear. He scrubbed his hands over his face as though trying to
peel it away. “Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to
suffering.” He murmured the litany almost automatically. It sounded almost like
a prayer, even to his own ears.
But what was he afraid of? What had led to the anger he’d taken out on Ben in
that practice room?
“Bruck?” he heard someone say, with some surprise in the voice, over the quiet
roar of the waterfall.
Startled, he looked up from the blind study of his own hands and then started
to scramble to his feet, finding himself confronted with almost two meters of
uncloaked Qui-Gon Jinn. Speak of the Sith, Bruck thought. The older man touched
his shoulder, stilling Bruck’s movement before he was halfway off his knees.
“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you, Master Jinn,” he said, sinking back onto his
heels uncomfortably. The last thing he wanted right now was a conversation of
any sort with Ben’s master.
“I was just on my way back to our rooms, Bruck. You look as though you’ve been
here some time,” Qui-Gon commented, sitting down next to the young man, not in
a meditation posture, but casually crosslegged on the grass, very much at ease.
“You’ve picked a good place to meditate. I hope I haven’t disturbed you.”
“No, Master Jinn. I wasn’t really meditating. Just thinking.”
“I think it’s past time you started to call me by my first name, Padawan,” Qui-
Gon smiled. “Obi-Wan does most of the time now, and so do most of his friends.
It seems a little odd to me that his other lover doesn’t. What were you
contemplating? The competitions tomorrow?”
“What? Oh. No. I—I’ve decided to withdraw. I know Ben’s entered, isn’t he?”
“Yes, in the saber competitions. Why are you withdrawing? You’ve taken several
prizes in the combat matches before.”
Bruck shrugged, wondering why Ben’s master seemed concerned with whether or not
he competed. In truth he’d planned to because he enjoyed it, and hadn’t
realized he’d changed his mind until Master Jinn—Qui-Gon—asked. He hadn’t
actually withdrawn yet, but it would be the first thing he did when he returned
to his quarters. “Time to let someone else win for a change. There are others
as good as I am.”
“But you’ve fought them before and won.”
“I’ve won every unarmed combat competition in the senior division for the last
three years,” Bruck affirmed. There should have been pleasure in the admission,
if not the pride Jedi eschewed, but it was only a statement of fact, nothing
more. “I’ve got enough awards.”
“Perhaps that would be true,” Qui-Gon agreed, “if that were really the object
of the competitions. The awards you’ve won are acknowledgments of skills you’ve
worked very hard to learn. As a senior padawan, you have a duty to teach those
less skilled than yourself, as knights and masters have an obligation to pass
on their knowledge and abilities, and to offer yourself as an opponent against
which they can hone themselves. Every time someone spars with you, whether they
win or lose, Bruck, that person learns something, just as you do when you fight
a new opponent. Because so many of us are gone so often, the competitions may
be the only opportunity some of your fellow padawans have to spar with you. If
you don’t compete, you’re robbing others of the chance to learn from you, no
matter which one of you wins.”
“I hadn’t really thought of it that way, Master Jinn,” Bruck replied with
genuine surprise. “But I still think it’s better if I withdraw from this
particular meet.” Truth was he didn’t think he could focus well enough now to
get his boots on the right feet, let alone win a match—or even survive one
without getting hurt—or worse yet, hurting someone else.
“Does this have something to do with what happened in the refectory this
evening?” Ben’s master asked bluntly but not unkindly. It reminded him of his
own master. “Obi-Wan told me he had to speak to Healer’s Apprentice Iolan.”
Bruck didn’t reply right away, and Qui-Gon sat patiently beside him, making a
comfortable silence he need not fill. Not so long before, he’d wanted someone
to talk to, but this wasn’t quite what he’d bargained for. Ben’s master
intimidated him—not purposely, but just because of who he was: former padawan
of the Order’s oldest and wisest master; a brilliant diplomat; a great
swordsman with an acute and unusual connection to the Living Force; Ben’s very
masculine and experienced lover . . .
. . . former master to a fallen apprentice who had turned to the Dark; a
servant of the Order who had been censured more than once for his own conduct,
a loner by nature, and something of a rogue, by some people’s standards. Bruck
looked up into the deep-set blue eyes, seeing compassion, kinship, and a little
sadness.
“I suppose it does. I expected Ben to hate me for what I did, but I knew he
would never tell anyone else about it, and I didn’t expect Tianna to spread it
around either.”
“No, she should not have spoken as she did, even to only imply your role,” Qui-
Gon agreed. “In some ways that’s far worse; it leaves so much to the
imagination.”
“Yes,” Bruck nodded, and fell silent again. After another short pause he added,
“I can stand being ignored, people just being civil and nothing else. I’ve
gotten used to it and it doesn’t really bother me anymore. It’s the, it’s—” he
heard himself choking up and stopped, just waving a hand in frustration.
“Being actively ostracized by people who should be your family,” Qui-Gon
finished for him. Bruck didn’t trust himself to do anything but nod and had to
look away when Ben’s master put a large hand on his shoulder and squeezed
gently. “You’ve walked a rocky road since coming to the Temple, haven’t you?”
Bruck shrugged. “My own fault, if I have. Most days I feel pretty lucky to
still be here.” He looked up again, swallowing heavily. “May I ask you
something, Ma—Qui-Gon?”
“Of course, Bruck.”
“Why did Knight Tahl speak up for me after what I did?”
“Did you ever ask her?”
“No. I was too ashamed even to thank her properly. Now it’s too late.”
Qui-Gon rubbed the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath. “I suspect she
spoke up for you for the same reasons the Council only put Obi-Wan on probation
when we parted ways on Melida/Daan: you were young, inexperienced, desperate,
and you made a mistake that anyone might have made with Xanatos—you thought he
had your best interests at heart. I also suspect Tahl thought it was because
you were ill-guided. Xan was always good at exploiting other’s fears and
someone should have seen those fears in you long before and countered them.
This is only my interpretation, you understand. I can’t speak for Tahl, but we
were friends for many years and I think I knew her well enough to guess what
she was thinking then. Whatever her reasons, she was right about you. You’re
going to be a fine knight.”
“If I am, it’ll be none of my own doing,” he said sourly.
“Is that really how you feel, Bruck?” Qui-Gon asked him gently. “You shouldn’t.
No amount of guidance or help or training or interest by or from anyone else
can make you something you’re not—any more than I could make Xan into someone
who wished to serve the light. Tahl would not have spoken for you if she had
not seen someone worth speaking for.”
 “I wonder—”
“What she saw in you?” Qui-Gon finished for him. “After all these years as an
apprentice, you still don’t know?”
“No.”
“What do you think I see in you? What does Obi-Wan, or Andreth? What did Leth
see in you? Or the Council, for that matter. They’re not easily persuaded.”
“I don’t know!” he cried. “Someone to be pitied, at best,” he said more
quietly, ashamed of his outburst.
“Don’t be a fool, Padawan!” Ben’s master snapped. “You’ve more brains than
that. No one would make you an apprentice simply because they pitied you.”
“No, I do know that,” he agreed. “But it’s all I do know. You and Obi-Wan and
Andreth see one thing in me, Leth saw another, and the rest see something else.
The Council—who knows what they see? Who’s right?”
“What do you see?”
“I—I don’t think I can trust my own perceptions.”
“Why not?”
He went silent then, finding it almost impossible to speak what came to mind
first: that he didn’t know which person he truly was: the one Xanatos had found
so useful in his eagerness to belong somewhere or the one Ben loved and
believed in.
“What does your heart tell you?” Qui-Gon prompted gently. “Trust your feelings,
as Tahl trusted hers when she spoke to the Council in defense of a young boy
who had always received too little praise and valued himself so little that he
would follow anyone who gave him some sense of worth.”
“How did she know?” Bruck said, feeling his chest and throat tighten. “How
could she? She’d never met me before, didn’t know me from the hundreds of other
initiates. Why did she trust me when no one else did?”
Qui-Gon let out a heavy breath and paused before he replied. Bruck remembered
suddenly that Obi-Wan had once told him Qui-Gon had been in love with Tahl,
that they had pledged themselves to each other when Obi-Wan was first an
apprentice. The older man had been devasted when she died. It must still be
hard for him to talk about her. Bruck was about to say something to give him a
graceful way out of doing so when he went on.
“Tahl was very good at seeing into the hearts of others, even before she lost
her sight,” Qui-Gon said, leaning back on his hands and smiling.
“Afterwards—well, you must know that when someone loses one sense, the others
become sharper to compensate. This is as true of Jedi as it is of anyone else,
but we have an extra sense to give us input; we have our Force-sensitivity, and
all it tells us. She told me once that what she saw of others afterwards was
not their physical shape, but the light or darkness inside them. What I suspect
she saw of you then was a layer of dark fear and anger smothering a bright
core. What I see now is doubt trying to do the same. Obi-Wan is a good judge of
character. Trust his judgement. If he finds you worthy of love, I suspect he is
right. Is there anyone who knows you better?”
“No. Not now. Not here.”
“Then perhaps it is time you learned to believe in yourself as he believes in
you. You’ve learned to take responsibility for your mistakes and your actions,
Bruck. Take credit for your successes as well: another reason you should
compete tomorrow. ”
Somehow, he managed a rather lame smile. “I’ll think about what you’ve said,
Qui-Gon. Thanks for the advice.”
Though Jinn’s expression remained neutral, Bruck could tell Ben’s master didn’t
care for the ambivalent reply. “You must do what you feel is best, of course,
but I think your master would urge you to compete tomorrow. Consider what you
might learn, not just what you might teach someone else.” Jinn got to his feet.
“I’ll tell Obi-Wan we ran into each other. Good evening, Bruck. Sleep well.”
“Good evening M—Qui-Gon.” Shit, Bruck thought, watching him go, everything
clear as crystal suddenly.
He was jealous.
The only reason he hadn’t seen it before was . . . well, because he hadn’t
wanted to. What terrified him was losing Ben, knowing that he was only Ben’s
lover by the grace of Ben’s master, that, if forced to chose between them, Ben
would chose Qui-Gon.
Bruck found himself laughing suddenly, though it was more bitter than amused.
Little gods, people were perverse. He’d hurt Ben to push him away because he
was afraid of being abandoned. Better to say I left him than he left me. As if,
in a few years, it would matter at all. In a few years, Ben would be knighted,
he would be knighted, and neither of them would be at Temple for more than a
handful of days each year, possibly not crossing paths more than once or twice.
Coming and going, as it were. He smiled sourly. Already he and Ben hardly saw
one another. After knighting, all three of them would be alone, as most Jedi
were until they took padawans, or retired—if they lived to. No wonder the
outside world so often viewed them as an order of celibates.
But Ben had never done anything to make him jealous. Neither Ben nor Qui-Gon
flaunted their relationship in public. Very little of their behavior had
changed even at Temple since they’d become lovers. The two padawans were much
more demonstrative with each other. They often walked through the halls
together with their arms around each other, kissed unselfconsciously wherever
the urge took them, occasionally not-so-discreetly felt each other up. With
Qui-Gon it was confined to a look or a brief touch of hands, a caress of Ben’s
braid, at most a quick hug or a kiss on the cheek or forehead, all very chaste.
And never intentionally in front of him. When he and Ben were together it was
almost as though Qui-Gon did not exist as anything but Ben’s master. Even Qui-
Gon did not allude to his relationship with Ben, though he freely acknowledged
Bruck’s. Stupid, selfish, insecure little prick, he berated himself.
So. Bruck sighed. So. He had some work to do.
“Might as well start now,” he muttered, settling himself in for some deep
meditation as the twilight settled into darkness around him.
 
===============================================================================
 
Morning—and Kenobi—found him in the exhibition hall, warming up for the coming
competitions, much to his own surprise.
“Where did you disappear to last night? Didn’t you get my message?” Ben
demanded, practically snorting steam in irritation. “Qui said you were at the
falls in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. I was worried about you. Especially
when I couldn’t find you there.”
“I was meditating,” Bruck replied calmly, “in another part of the gardens.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Kenobi said sheepishly. “I thought you might be sulking, and need
a kick in the arse. Or a kiss.”
Bruck grinned. “I could always use one of those,” he agreed, stealing one.
“Both, actually. I was sulking, for a while. Then I got a kick in the arse from
Qui-Gon.”
Ben grinned. “He’s good at that. Listen, I talked to Ti last night, right after
you left the refectory. She—”
“Let’s just forget it, okay? At least for right now. I need to focus if I’m not
going to get my ass kicked here. Warm up with me?”
Kenobi let a sly grin cross his features and bumped his hip gently against
Bruck’s, eliciting a similar grin. “Whenever and wherever.”
“You’re so easy,” Bruck responded fondly, stealing another kiss as he leaned
into a stretch, grateful he’d managed to distract Ben. He really did need to
focus if he wanted to win today.
And he’d already spent most of last night thinking, looking inside himself for
the bright core Tahl must have seen, and finding it for the first time. A bit
at a time, afraid he might accidentally snuff it out somehow, he examined it,
let himself believe in it, though it felt strange to see himself in that light,
and to see that light in himself. For the first time, he laid out all his
accomplishments and strengths and weighed them against his failings and
weaknesses: his academic honors in history and archaeology against his
desultory efforts in other subjects and real difficulties with languages; his
skills in close combat against his mediocre performance in gymnastics; his
accomplishments in swimming and running against his failures in team sports;
his ability to take on convincing disguises against his lack of diplomatic and
negotiating skills; his talent for drawing against his off-key voice—and
realized with a shock that he was still measuring himself against Ben. Still,
after all this time, though neither their abilities nor their mistakes were the
same. Ben had left the order for a worthy cause he believed in, Bruck had
betrayed it in the desperate need to belong, to be useful, to serve.
And that was one of his own strengths, that he wanted to serve, wanted that so
much that he would do anything, give anything, to be useful to the Order,
having been given this second chance. Looking inside, he found a now-
unshakeable loyalty to the Jedi, found that he wanted more than anything to
complete his training and take his place at the side of people like Ben and
Qui-Gon and his own master. Surely that made him valuable.
He put the comparisons aside then and simply examined the things he knew he was
good at. They made him a different kind of Jedi than either Ben or his master,
but no less utilitarian, he realized. There was certainly room for who he was
in the Order. And realizing that, his jealousy of Qui-Gon faded. He was not the
man who was Ben’s master, and he never would be, but Ben loved both of them
anyway. That was enough.
He went off to the exhibition hall with a lighter heart than he’d had in some
time.
 
Now, hours later, he faced his last opponent in the final rounds. It had been a
grueling day gone into without sleep, but he had managed to do well,
nonetheless. None of his matches had been easily won but, as Qui-Gon had said,
all of them were instructive.
He stepped onto the mat as another, younger padawan left it, having won her own
match. Bruck recognized her as one of Qui-Gon’s second-gen padawans, Isa
Kassir. Briefly, he wondered when she’d grown up so much. In passing, she held
up her hand for the traditional slap, surprising him. Aside from Ben, no one
else had offered. He returned the gesture, their palms meeting smartly, and the
younger Padawan grinned at him, her short red hair in dark, sweaty tufts of
curl. “Force be with you, Chun. I hope you take Muln down quick. He needs a
lesson today.”
Muln. Heart skipping a beat, Bruck looked to the opposite side of the mat. Sure
enough. His last opponent for the day was Ben’s best friend—his worst enemy.
For years, Garen and Ben had been about the same size, both of them coming into
an early growth and leaving Bruck behind, feeling like a runt. Bruck had caught
up eventually, and even shot past Ben, as Garen had, then somewhere in the last
couple of years, Garen had bulked out until he was broader than Ben and Bruck
put together, as powerfully built as a Gamorrean boar if a great deal taller.
His size made him look taller than Bruck but they were really about the same
height, though the other young man outweighed Bruck by a good 20 kilos, spread
across pecs and biceps and quads that were like steel. He’d beaten Muln before,
but it took strategy and finesse, not the raw strength he could often use in
place of technique with smaller or less-skilled opponents. Bruck thought it was
probably touch and go today. He’d been in less than his best form from lack of
sleep, but had managed to make it to the final rounds on points if not clear
victories.
As they bowed to one another in the center of the mats, Muln whispered,
“Offal,” grinning darkly.
“Knuckledragger,” Bruck responded, cracking his loudly, his own grin gone
feral. If he wasn’t careful, he might enjoy this.
The Temple’s Devish Combat Master, refereeing, dropped the arm separating them
and stepped back.
Muln was on him almost before he knew it. Kicking up and using the Force to
propel himself, he just managed to get his legs scissored around the other
young man’s neck as he was taken down and landed on so hard that it knocked the
breath from him. He saw stars for a moment, lost his grip on the Force, felt
Muln pinning his shoulders and twisted desperately, groping for control and
using the Force like a surface to push against. Muln had no choice but to
follow him or have his neck broken. It was a hold Ben could have slithered out
of with little difficulty, but Garen lacked Kenobi’s lithe flexibility and had
to tap out.
A sharp whistle sounded. “Break,” the referee instructed. “Point to Chun.”
Bruck let his opponent up and Muln got to his feet working one shoulder and
rubbing his neck, scowling. Good. Get pissed, Bruck thought, reaching for his
own calm center as he rose.
“Lucky,” Muln growled.
“Competent,” Bruck corrected coolly.
“Take him down, Garen!” someone shouted from the sidelines, raising a swell of
echoing support. He listened for Ben’s voice, but heard nothing. There was no
outright derision, but he heard no one call his name with any intent but to
encourage Muln to make him the object of defeat. It had been like that all day,
was like that at every match. He shut it out, went inside and wrapped the
knowledge of Ben’s love around him. Bruck knew Kenobi was watching, as he had
watched Ben’s saber bouts that morning, when they didn’t conflict with his own,
but he would not be shouting encouragement and support now as he had earlier
when Bruck faced opponents who were not also Kenobi’s friends. During this
match, Ben would remain carefully silent, all his diplomat’s training keeping
whatever emotions he was feeling from his face. It stung a little, but he knew
as well as Ben that it was the right thing to do, and he would accept it
without resentment.
He and Muln faced each other again, crouched until the Combat Master dropped
his hand and stepped back. His opponent wasn’t so quick to lunge in this time
and they circled for a moment before Bruck thought he saw an opening and went
for it, trying to sweep Muln’s legs out from under him. Garen stumbled then
danced back a step and took a swipe at Bruck’s head with an enormous paw,
trying for a headlock. Lightning quick, Bruck grabbed Muln’s wrist and hand,
twisted, bent, levered, felt the floor shake as his opponent went down, stepped
over, up and pulled on the arm he held by wrist and elbow. Muln grunted and
tried to twist away. Bruck pulled harder and got a gasp. “Tap out, stupid,”
Bruck hissed, “or I’ll break it.” He pulled a little harder on the twisted limb
and Muln’s other palm slapped the mat almost out of reflex.
“Break,” the Devish master, called. “Point to Chun.”
Bruck stepped back and Muln got to his feet again, eyes watering, face tight.
This is too easy, Bruck thought warily, watching the other young man. He’s
giving it away, trying to lull me. Keeping his features carefully neutral,
Bruck moved back into the center of the mat, facing Muln again, blocking out
more cheering for his opponent from the sidelines. It was a risky strategy and
it showed Muln’s contempt, that he would give points away on the assumption he
would later pull off a clear win. Just how little he thought of Bruck would be
revealed by how many more points he gave away.
The referee’s arm fell, opening the space between them once more.
This time they grappled right away, Muln getting his thickly muscled arms
around Bruck’s waist and bowling him backwards. As he was going over, Bruck
brought up both knees, sank them into Muln’s rock-hard stomach and hoisted his
opponent over his head with his own momentum, then twisted and got his forearm
across Muln’s throat, pressing hard. Muln’s eyes bulged, then one of those
thick arms locked around his own neck as Muln was rolling up on his shoulders,
leg flashing up to lock behind Bruck’s knee. He let himself go with the throw
and used the momentum to roll out of reach, scrambling to his feet as Muln
leaped up as well, deceptively quick for his bulk.
So. He’d stopped giving points away. That made Bruck feel better, that Muln was
being more cautious now, trying harder. Muln’s foot struck out like a lash;
Bruck blocked with an arm, feeling the strength of the blow as expanding
pressure as his opponent’s heel made contact with a badly placed elbow. Bruck’s
arm went numb and then exploded into pain, making him gasp and flinch. Much as
it hurt, he didn’t let it paralyze him. Instead, he channeled it and used that
impetus to buy himself time. He turned the flinch into space in which to draw
back for a blow, came up with the heel of his other hand and hit Muln’s nose,
making him take a step back and shake his head, blinded with tears. Then it was
Bruck’s turn to kick out, catching Muln in the solar plexus, hearing breath
whoosh out of him as he slid to his knees, gasping, clutching his midsection.
Bruck barely heard the referee’s whistle over the roaring in his ears. Pain
radiated up his arm, arcing directly into his head and stomach. No puking, he
told himself sternly and bent over, breathing deeply and calling the Force to
concentrate in his roiling stomach and throbbing elbow. Then Qui-Gon came out
on the mat with a water bottle and ice pack while Garen’s master appeared with
the same.
“You’re doing very well,” Qui-Gon told him, holding the ice pack to his elbow
and rubbing his back as he drank. “I think perhaps Padawan Muln has
underestimated you.”
Bruck shook his head. “No. We’ve fought before. He’s just trying to fake me
out. Rattle me by giving points away, make me think he doesn’t think much of my
abilities.”
“You know your opponent then, Bruck. Trust your instincts. Obi-Wan says he
expects to see you win in five.” And Qui-Gon was gone with a wink, leaving him
on the mats with Muln, whose eyes were already turning black.
“Point to Chun,” the referee repeated. “Two to win.”
“C’mon Chun! Take him down!” he heard someone yell as the referee’s hand rose.
He couldn’t supress a smile and Muln took it as a challenge.
Garen came at him like fury this time, all quick strikes with hands and feet
that put Bruck on the defensive and backed him over the mat to the edge.
Stepping off it would be a clear win for Muln. Time for something unexpected.
He’d been working on this with Ben and looking for a chance to use it. As he’d
been taught, he used the Force like a springboard and launched himself over
Muln’s head, tucking and rolling, but coming down a little off-balance and
stumbling instead of whirling into the smooth kick-turn he’d planned to take
Garen off guard with. Instead, it was Muln who caught him with a reverse kick
to his chest and followed with a roundhouse in the other direction to his head.
Dimly, he heard bone crack somewhere as darkness swallowed him.
 
===============================================================================
 
The rocks were slippery under his feet and his saber was gone, shorted out in
the water. He needed a weapon, reached down into the river, tugged at one of
the slimy stones, lost his footing, teetered precariously, not sure where his
center of gravity was, then felt himself falling, wind in his face. There was
only air beneath him now, the water and wind roaring all around. He hit
something, a stone, felt as though his chest had collapsed with the impact,
bounced, hit another rock with his head, flinging it back, vertebrae snapping—
“Shhhhh.” The wind seemed to have a voice. It sounded like Ben. “Hush. It’s all
right. You’re all right.” Disembodied hands and fingers touched his cheek,
wrapped around his hand, held him still.
He woke shivering, opened his eyes, saw nothing but blurry colors whirling in a
nauseating pattern, closed his eyes tightly again and felt the ground shift
beneath him, tilting. Fingers stroked behind his ear, where his braid started,
lips pressed against his hair, grounding him. The whirling sensation slowed,
stopped, and the nausea settled, finally as the floor leveled out. He tried it
again, one eye at a time, blinked, blinked again, and saw Ben’s face above him,
brows arched in a savage scowl. Comical, really; he could bore a hole with that
look, Bruck thought, laughing, or starting to. A sheet of pain roared through
his chest with the suddenness and speed of a rogue wave and brought tears to
his eyes, making him breathe in shallow, panting gasps. He shivered again, head
pounding, sick to his stomach, chest on fire.
Someone put a blanket over him and he realized he was still lying on the mats
in the exhibition hall, Ben kneeling beside him on one side, holding his hand,
Qui-Gon on the other, tucking the blanket around him. Someone else held his
head still. Jinn’s large hand spread lightly across his chest, suffusing him
with warmth. He stopped shivering, squeezed Ben’s hand. “Tell Muln—good match,”
he gasped, wondering how just talking could hurt so much.
“Got what you deserved,” he heard a sullen voice growl.
“Shut up, both of you!” Ben snarled.
“Padawans,” Jinn said with quiet reproof.
A Rodian healer and her young human apprentice appeared then, the boy clearly
still in his teens, but exuding a calm and pleasant warmth that Bruck let drop
around him like a curtain, shutting out Ben’s fraughtness and Muln’s hostility.
He drifted into sleep. . . .
. . . Woke some time later, feeling stiff, head aching mildly. He recognized
the Healers Halls almost immediately from the faint antiseptic smell and the
sunny colors. Warm, drowsy, criminally comfortable, he considered going back to
sleep, then wondered where Ben was. Experimentally, he turned his head,
expecting pain and nausea, felt only a little dizziness, and saw Ben sitting in
a chair beside him, still scowling, this time over his datapad.
“Hey,” he said hoarsely.
Ben looked up, the scowl breaking into a radiant smile that sent tingles
through him. “—Is for banthas. How do you feel?”
“Okay, I guess. How bad was it?”
“Slight concussion, fractured sternum, three separated ribs, bad bone bruise on
your elbow,” Ben told him, frowning again.
“Huh. Had worse. Guess Muln won.”
Yes, technically. Master Muk’s not too happy with him though. ‘Pathetic,
Padawan Muln, to injure an opponent so badly in a match. Shows a sloppy
carelessness in your technique.’” Ben quoted in an uncanny imitation of the
Devish’s mournful baritone, complete with dolorous expression.
Bruck grinned. “Looks like Muln’s going to be doing some control exercises for
a while.”
“And you’re going to work on that overhead flip. Your landing stank,” Ben told
him bluntly.
“Thank you.”
“It did.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have used it yet. It just looks so good when you do it.
And I knew Garen wouldn’t be expecting it.”
“You looked good out there without it. You were doing fine without it. You
could have gotten out of that corner any number of other ways—”
“All right, all right. Point taken. Don’t harangue me. You’re making my head
hurt.”
Kenobi looked a little sheepish, then leaned over and kissed him gently,
nuzzling his cheek. “Sorry. You frightened me.”
“‘Fear leads to anger—’”
“Yes, yes, Master Chun,” Ben sighed. “Anger leads to me wanting to kick Garen’s
ass. I hope Ti’s happy with the results of what she started.”
“You can’t blame her for everything, Ben. Garen’s never liked me. He made his
own choices. Or not. It could just be I wasn’t up to my usual standards. I
didn’t sleep last night.”
“Two nights ago now,” Kenobi informed him.
“Oh. Well, the night before the meet then. And he’s good. We’ve had some close
matches before.”
“You’re much more forgiving than I am.”
“I have to be. I can’t afford to come between you and your friends, Ben,” Bruck
reminded him. “I won’t.”
“It wouldn’t come to that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve told you before—”
“That’s not the point. The point is, I don’t want you to have to choose. I
don’t want to give your friends any grounds for forcing it on you.”
Ben sighed. “He hurt you intentionally.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“I tried to. He just keeps saying, ‘Why are you defending him?’ which really
means, ‘Why are you fucking him?’ in Muln-speak, though Garen doesn’t have
balls enough to ask me that,” Kenobi replied sourly.
“You can always tell him I’m one of Qui-Gon’s lessons in being kind to pathetic
life forms,” he grinned, trying for self-deprecation and just skirting self-
pity instead, much to his own chagrin. Ben smiled a little at him, knowing very
well what he was doing. He looked away, feeling his cheeks flush. “He’s not
going to get it until after his own pain trials, Ben, if then. Let it go. I’m
not expecting a public apology or anything.”
“Well, you’re going to get one from Tianna,” Kenobi said grimly. “We had a very
long talk after you left the refectory.”
Bruck felt a little panic at that idea. It would just make him the focus of
attention again, and that was the last thing he wanted. But he couldn’t deny
Tianna the right to make her apology, either. Maybe he could talk her into a
private one instead. “You explained about the pain trials?”
“I explained everything.”
“Everything?” Bruck heard himself squeak. His voice had changed years ago, but
you’d never know it, hearing that one word. Those few syllables Ben spoke had
set his heart thumping even harder.
“Everything,” Kenobi confirmed, blushing a little himself.
“Ben, was that really necessary? I mean—”
“Apparently it was, for me. I didn’t give her any details, just . . . just the
frame. That it was something I needed to learn, something Qui couldn’t teach me
and you could. Once I explained that, she backed off right away. That was why I
was trying to find you the night before last. Ti wanted to apologize. Before
the meet. Maybe Garen wouldn’t have—”
“Ben, he’d have kicked my ass regardless,” Bruck interrupted, yawning. “He was
doing what he was supposed to. I got sloppy and lost the match. Let’s just
leave it at that, okay?”
“If that’s what you’d prefer,” Ben agreed reluctantly.
“I would. Now kiss me so I can go back to sleep.”
Kenobi complied with this request with much less hesitation. Bruck drifted off
again with Ben’s thumb stroking one eyebrow.
 
===============================================================================
 
Tianna’s apology produced exactly the result he’d hoped to avoid. Though he had
left her several messages and tried to see her while he was still in the
Healers Halls, they had not had a chance to speak before he saw her in the
refectory several days later. He had finished eating and rid himself of his
tray, intending to go home and study, when she stepped out from a table full of
her friends that included both Bant and Garen, and touched his sleeve. Before
he could stop her, she went to her knees in front of him in the middle of the
meal, in the middle of the aisle between the padawans’ and knights’ tables, in
the middle of everything and everyone, and touched her forehead to the floor
for what felt like an eternity to Bruck. A respectful silence fell in slow
ripples around them. Even so, when she came up again he could not hear her for
the roaring in his own ears. When she was through, looking up expectantly, he
had just enough sense to say, “I thank you, Apprentice Iolan. The incident is
forgotten,” and raise her to her feet. Somehow, he extricated himself from her
company without offending either her or anyone else at the table, and left the
room with what he hoped were some shreds of dignity.
And found a summons to the Council for the following morning waiting on his
commpad.
Studying was now out of the question and sleep unlikely. Somewhere near
eleventh hour, Ben pinged him and left a message when he didn’t answer, but he
didn’t play it either. He didn’t want to embroil Kenobi in this and couldn’t
stand explaining anything just yet. Better to lie low and try to meditate and
keep his wits about him—and try to purge himself of the anger he felt at Tianna
for starting all this. He knew that wasn’t entirely rational. The ultimate
cause was his own behavior, not just with Ben, but beginning long ago, the
pattern of it since he’d been a boy. Over the years, he had learned to accept
that, but there were still times when it seemed unfair that he was never
allowed to forget it.
When the doorkeeper summoned him into the Council’s chambers the next morning,
he went in with his head bowed and eyes fixed on the floor, as he had walked
through the halls that morning with his face concealed in his cowl. Once in the
center, he dropped to his knees and bowed as Tianna had the day before,
forehead to the floor, hands pressed to cold stone on either side of his head.
Nausea gnawed at him as he remembered sitting this way years before, waiting to
be told he was a disgrace to the order and summarily dismissed from it. What
had happened instead was almost worse, though it had taken him some years to
figure that out.
He’d been asked, then, to kneel in front of Saesee Tiin, who had placed his
delicate and powerful hands on Bruck’s head and . . . split open his mind.
Even now he didn’t remember all of what they’d done, rooting around in there,
only those two moments they’d brought to light: the moment when he’d changed,
and the moment he had decided to do Xanatos’ bidding. He remembered coming to
in Knight Tahl’s arms with a blinding headache, sick and weak, waking again a
long time later in his room with Master Koth sitting beside him, offering him
an apology for making him ill—and the conditions of his continued association
with the Jedi. He’d been too sick to fully realize the consequences—not that it
would have changed anything if he had, then. A few days later, Leth had come to
him.
Master Windu broke the silence this time.
“Are you recovered, Padawan?” he asked in a kindly tone Bruck hadn’t been
prepared for. He sat up, confused, but kept his gaze fixed on the floor.
“Yes, My Master. Thank you, My Master.”
“You fought well. I was sorry to see you lose.”
“Thank you, My Master.” What in all the Sith hells did Windu and the Council
want, and why was he being so friendly?
“Perhaps you could tell us why Apprentice Iolan made a public apology to you
last night in the middle of nightmeal?” Ki-Adi-Mundi asked him with an
apparently innocent curiosity that didn’t fool Bruck.
“Please, My Masters, for starting a rumor that I’d—” He choked suddenly and
couldn’t say it. The phrase ran through his head like a glitch in a holo but he
couldn’t make himself form the words. Not the ones he really meant. Finally, he
managed: “—that I’d intentionally injured Padawan Kenobi.”
“During his pain trials, you mean?” the Cerean went on.
“Yes, My Master.” Bruck tried not to mumble like a guilty initiate.
“It wasn’t precisely a rumor, was it?” Councillor Billaba said dryly. Mace’s
former padawan hadn’t been on the Council when he’d first appeared before them
as an initiate, but no doubt she knew his records as well as the rest.
“No, My Master. I did hurt him.” But Qui-Gon knew all about it—you all knew. We
discussed it in detail, he wanted to say, hoped he wasn’t broadcasting it.
“Why did you volunteer to complete the trial for Padawan Kenobi?” Even Piell
asked him, suspicion clear in his voice. Hard to believe Piell and his own
master were both Lanniks, they were so different, Piell sharp and incisive as a
piece of shrapnel, Master Andreth getting under his skin and into his head much
more painlessly—like sunlight spreading into a dark place.
“Because B—Padawan Kenobi—is such a private person, My Master. I thought it
would save him some embarrassment later if I were the only one of his agemates
who knew how it had really gone. I thought it would be easier for him in the
long run, My Master.” In retrospect, it seemed a pretty weak explanation, even
to himself. But why had they let him do it, then?
“And for you?” Saesee Tiin said softly. “Easier to control what happened to
him? So that what happened to Initiate Grifalis did not repeat itself?”
Bruck shivered hard, as though he’d been stripped naked and made to stand in a
cold wind. Councillor Tiin’s voice always did that to him. And the memory he’d
called up made him just as cold all over.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way, My Master,” he managed finally, sounding
stunned even to himself.
“I’m sure some part of you did, Padawan, whether you are aware of it or not.
The scenario was nearly the same, after all.”
Bruck made some small noise of horror, squeezing his eyes shut, as he realized
it was true. And it hadn’t occurred to him. Not until it was pointed out to him
seconds ago. Gods, how could he be so blind? He wasn’t sure which fact unnerved
him more.
“Is that so, Padawan?” Windu asked him gently. “Did you not realize you were
recreating what you witnessed with Initiate Crellin and Initiate Grifalis?”
“I, I haven’t thought about it in years, not really. It was so long ago! I, it
didn’t, I wasn’t trying to—” he stammered.
“No one’s accusing you of anything, Bruck,” Eeth Koth reassured him, or tried
to, though he felt quite beyond the reach of any kind of reassurance. He felt
more than stripped bare now. With a few words, Councillor Tiin had turned him
inside out again. “We’re simply asking you to think about your own motives and
actions.”
“And your emotions,” Windu added. “Master Jinn indicated that you were quite
distressed yourself afterwards. How did you feel, Padawan?”
“Please, My Master, if you’re asking me if I enjoyed it, the answer is no.” It
was suddenly very important to Bruck that everyone in this room understand
that.
“I’m asking you what emotions you experienced, Padawan,” Windu said a little
more sharply.
Oh gods oh gods, they’d drag this out forever if he didn’t just spit it out.
This is what they were really after. Ti’s apology was just an excuse to haul
his sorry ass in here an grill him again like they had when Ben had broken his
collarbone. Better to have it over with than screwed out of him millimeter by
millimeter.
He looked up then, meeting Windu’s gaze almost defiantly. “I hated it,” he
snarled. “And I hated who I had to become to finish it. I was afraid I wouldn’t
be able to, and that would have been worse. I was afraid of hurting him too
much, of having to hurt him at all. I was afraid I couldn’t do it. And I was
disgusted that I could.” He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, felt like he was
sobbing for air.
“Not afraid for yourself, hmmm, Padawan?”
Bruck had wondered when Master Yoda would chime in, in his sly, insinuating
voice. And he was silent then, for a time, remembering, breath slowing. “No, My
Master,” he said finally, almost in control again. “Not for myself. Only for
Ben.”
“Not even of losing him? Lovers, you are, yes?” the little green master
prodded.
Bruck smiled then, feeling much calmer suddenly. He was on much more certain
ground here. “Yes, My Master. We are. But I wasn’t afraid of losing him. I was
sure I would when I volunteered. I was wrong.”
Yoda stamped his stick against the polished floor. “Sure you should be that
become your destiny your own prophecies do not, Padawan. Guide you in all
things should the Force.”
“Yes, My Master,” Bruck murmured, lightheaded now with relief, recognizing the
meeting was at its end. And they did let him go then, with only a cursory
reminder that his actions were both closely observed and carefully scrutinized
by the Council. He wondered later if he had actually staggered out of the
Council’s chambers, or if it had only felt that way.
He was halfway to the lifts before he realized he didn’t know where he was
going and was overcome by a wave of exhaustion that decided his destination,
classes or no classes. He headed back to his own quarters, staggered inside,
and was asleep on the couch within moments of taking his boots off.
Bruck knew he should have been back in the initiates hall already, and in fact
had less than six minutes to be in his room before curfew, but he had to find
his comm unit and he was certain it had fallen out of his belt pouch as he was
coming out of the practice room on his way to latemeal. He never broke curfew
but this was the third comm unit he’d misplaced and there would be
“consequences,” in Creche Master Angadi’s words, if he lost this one too, so it
seemed worth the risk to recover it. Besides, there was a long stretch of
nearly deserted hallway between the practice rooms and the creche he could
Force-run through if he had to—
The sound stopped him dead, impending curfew and lost comm unit forgotten. A
high, keening sob of pain seeped like some poisonous gas from behind the closed
door he was passing, something cloying and thick and dark with it, an almost-
visible shadow. Bruck froze, listening, hackles raised and quivering, hearing
nothing now but a low murmur from behind the same door. Had he imagined—no,
there were words now, in that same voice, awful words: “Don’t” and “Please” and
“Hurts” and “Stop—”
He pressed his ear to the wall beside the door where the air pocket of the door
track acted as something of an amplifier, heard another voice, a little shrill,
a little cruel, one he knew very well: Pesh Crellin’s voice, four years older
and scourge of the initiates, taunting.
“Stop it!” again through the wall, all of a sudden, muffled a little but
clearly Col’s voice—Pesh’s favorite victim: big, gentle, slow Col Grifalis,
with his goofy sweetness and shy smile, and Pesh half his size with all the
meanness Col had never had.
Bruck stood paralyzed outside, limbs frozen in fear in the act of reaching for
the door’s override as another terrible wordless scream leaked through the
door, followed by a truly ominous silence and the smell of scorched flesh. Then
the door opened so fast it seemed to disappear. Pesh stared at him for a
frenzied moment, grey eyes wide and wild with terror, then shoved him out of
the way and ran past him. Bruck got up and hurled himself through the door to
help Col—
He was retching when he woke up, and someone was holding his head over the side
of the couch, hushing him. For a moment Bruck didn’t know where he was or how
old he was. For a moment he was eight years old again, throwing up in the door
of the practice room with the stink and cold and terror of the Dark Side around
him. Then he was 22, in his own quarters, and it was Ben wiping his mouth,
rubbing his back, getting him a glass of water to wash away the taste of bile,
telling him to breathe slow and deep.
“All right?” Ben said when he’d emptied the glass.
Bruck nodded and scrubbed at his face with his palms. Force visions and
memories didn’t come to him often, unlike Ben, and after this one, the less he
saw of them, the better, he thought.
“What was it?” Ben asked gently, warm hand resting in the middle of his back.
“How did you get in here?” Bruck evaded.
“Very easily. You put my palm print on the door, remember?” Kenobi replied with
just a touch of irony. “What’s wrong, love? You look as though you’ve seen
hell.”
“Just its council,” Bruck muttered.
“Is that where you were this morning?”
“This morning? What time is it?”
“After secondmeal. You’ve been asleep for quite a while, it seems. What did
they want?”
“Gods you’re a nosey bastard!” he snapped. “Lay off, will you? You’re making my
head hurt.”
“Well, it’s going to hurt for a while then,” Ben insisted. “Because I’m not
going to lay off until you answer me. You’ve become very secretive all of a
sudden and I don’t like it. You don’t want me to talk to Garen about going
after you. You don’t even want an apology from Ti, and when she does apologize,
you rocket off like she’s offered you a thermal detonator you have to dispose
of instead, and then disappear afterwards. You don’t answer my calls and don’t
return my messages. This morning you’re not in class and not in the salles and
no one knows why. What’s going on? Are you in trouble, love?”
“No more than usual,” he muttered. “Let’s just say I’m not the Council’s
favorite padawan and leave it at that, okay?”
Kenobi got up and stood in front of him, crossing his arms. “No. We won’t leave
it at that. If you hide things from me, how am I supposed to trust you? What’s
going on? You can start with what you were doing with the Council this morning,
all alone.”
Really, Ben was being very patient with him, and it wasn’t as though he were a
total stranger. “I don’t suppose I could just whammy you to forget all about
this, could I?” he said wearily, waving his hand.
“No.”
“Well don’t loom over me like that, then. It makes me feel like I’m back in
that chamber on my knees again.” Kenobi sat beside him once more, a little more
stiffly and a little farther away this time, and that hurt. Bruck slumped in
his seat and shoved his hands into his sleeves. “The Council just wanted to
remind me that I’m not a knight yet and I need to keep my nose clean.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They wanted to know what Ti’s apology was all about—”
“Ti’s apology? Why? That’s not the kind of thing the Council usually concerns
itself with. That’s nothing. That’s just—” Ben waved his hand. “It happens.
People disagree, have an argument, say the wrong thing and apologize. End of
story.”
“Except that things involving me have a tendency to get out of hand sometimes,
or haven’t you noticed? Didn’t take that rumor long to get around, did it?
Look, Ben, I know you find this hard to understand, but you’re about the only
person in the Temple who really—who doesn’t think I’m—who— Shit!” he muttered
and started again. “You’re the only person who really does trust me. And
sometimes I don’t understand why you do. To everyone else here I’m the kid who
betrayed the Temple into Xanatos’s hands and almost killed Bant. I’m a thief
and a liar and a traitor and a bully, and about one step away from the Dark.
I’m a throwaway, an experiment in mercy, and if I don’t work out, well, no one
would be real surprised, and it wouldn’t be any big loss. I’m here on
sufferance and the Council likes to remind me of that every now and then.
“When you broke my collarbone, one of the reasons I was so pissed at you was
that I was terrified I was going to be thrown out on my ass, finally, after
seven years of really trying to do the right thing. You got a year’s probation
out of it, but I’ve been on probation since before I was taken as a padawan.
Those demerits could have ruined me—could still ruin me, even if I pass my
trials.” Ben started to speak and Bruck stopped him. “I’m not blaming you for
them. I got what I deserved for goading you. In the end, I guess it wasn’t so
bad. I mean, look what I ended up with.” He grinned and slid his hand under
Kenobi’s ass, giving one buttock a squeeze, making him jump a little.
“Talk about rewarding bad behavior,” Kenobi muttered, pulling his hand away and
lacing their fingers together.
“Yeah,” Bruck agreed, mildly abashed.
“I can’t believe that’s all they’d haul you in for, Bruck. Or that you’d be so
worried about avoiding talking to the Council about a misunderstanding that
you’d act the way you have the past few days, or let Garen get away with what
he did. It’s not like you. That’s not all, is it? That’s not what had you
curled up on the couch retching a bit ago. Was it something else they said?”
Bruck looked away then, chin drawn down against his chest, one hand plucking at
the material of his leggings, and said nothing. Kenobi reached out and tugged
his braid, coaxing.
“It’s just me, Ben. I’m just—I’m getting cautious, I guess. Maybe I’m finally
growing up. I feel like I’ve got a lot more to lose now than I did before.
You’ve been good for me that way. I’m not so reckless . . .” He trailed off, as
Kenobi shook his head, obviously unconvinced and disbelieving.
“That’s not it. Tell me. Tell me what came to you. What did you see?”
He felt the color drain out of his face. This was the one person he couldn’t
seem to school his reactions around. “Please, Ben. Don’t. Just let it lie,” he
whispered.
Kenobi let go his hand and climbed into his lap, straddled his legs and held
his face gently, thumbs stroking the line of his brows. “Let me help, Bruck.
Let me help you the way you helped m—” and was swiftly tumbled onto his ass on
the floor as Bruck struggled out from beneath him in something that seemed a
lot like panic to both of them.
“No! It’s not like that. Ben, just don’t. Please. Just leave it alone. All
right? Please. Don’t make me explain it.”
But Kenobi was after him now the way he gone after Ben in that practice room,
on his feet and in Bruck’s face, pushing him back down on the couch and
straddling him again, pinning his arms and body. “No, I won’t just leave it.
You woke up heaving, Bruck. You woke up scared and disoriented. I know what
that’s like. When they’re that powerful, you can’t ignore them. The Force won’t
let you ignore them.” Bruck struggled as he would have in a bout, but Kenobi
shifted his weight in the awkward position and kept him effectively pinned.
“Tell me. Is it past or present or future? Do you know?”
Finally, he let himself go limp under Ben’s hands and body. Part of him wanted
to stop carrying this story around by himself, to let it go, even to someone on
whom the implications would not be lost. “Past,” he whispered, looking away.
“Fourteen years ago. I was eight. I didn’t even know you existed then.”
“Ah, Bruck’s life B.K.” Ben teased gently, kissing his forehead.
“B.K.?”
“Before Kenobi, dummy.”
That made him smile, despite himself. “A long, dry period,” he managed to joke.
“Go on, love,” Kenobi coaxed, taking his weight into his knees and bringing his
hands up to cup Bruck’s face gently, stroking the brows once more.
He swallowed heavily and took a deep breath, as though he were going under for
a long time. “Do you remember Col Grifalis? He was our age, but big for it—a
heavy-world human growing up in lighter gravity.”
“The masters were always telling him to watch his own strength, so he was
always overly careful, like he might break you? I liked getting paired with him
in tumbling. He was really good at making you fly. Really nice, too.”
Bruck nodded. “We were friends. Don’t know why. I just liked Col and he liked
me. There was another kid, Pesh Crellin—”
“‘Pest’ Crellin, you mean,” Ben added, making a face. “I remember him, too.
Four or five years older than us, right? Personality like a rancor with a sharp
stick up its arse? I used to call him Pus. Behind his back, of course. And not
very loudly.”
“Yes,” Bruck laughed again, but even he could hear the bitterness in it. “Very
accurate. Do you remember him disappearing kind of suddenly? He and Col?”
“Vaguely. It was smoothed over somehow, made to seem very normal. Something we
shouldn’t bother asking about.”
“Yeah, well, it was anything but normal,” Bruck growled. “Crellin liked to hurt
people. If he’d been anywhere but at Temple, I think, he would have been the
kind of shit who tortures small animals. He used to pick on Col all the time,
instead.”
“Because Col would never fight back.”
Bruck nodded. “Do you remember how insufferable Crellin got after he built his
saber?”
“I don’t remember much about him at all, truthfully, Bruck. I tried to stay as
far away from him as I could.”
“I think everyone did. Some people were just more successful than others. Col
couldn’t ever seem to avoid him somehow. One night right before curfew I
stumbled across the two of them in one of the practice rooms. . . .” The story
spilled out of him slowly, by fits and starts, collecting momentum as he went
on. Ben listened quietly, touching him gently though he hardly felt it, so lost
was he in the memory. By the time he’d rushed into the practice room in the
telling, Ben was holding him, rocking him a little, and a gag in his mouth
couldn’t have stopped the words rushing out. “Col was trussed up between the
parallel bars, Ben, and Crellin had shoved his saber—he did the same thing to
Col that I did to you. Except that he didn’t disconnect the power source
beforehand. The blade had switched on and spitted Col. It came out—” He retched
again, felt Ben pushing healing warmth into him to ease his stomach, pulled the
other young man to him and held him tightly as he shook, eyes squeezed tight as
though he could block out the memory of that scene.
“I hadn’t remembered, Ben,” he choked, still gagging, “until the Council
reminded me this morning. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.
I never—oh gods oh gods oh gods please believe me. . . .” he gasped, fingers
digging into Kenobi’s flesh, his head resting against his chest.
Ben was disturbingly silent, cradling Bruck’s head in his arms and rocking him
gently. Bruck pulled back and looked up into his face, catching a flash of . .
. something that was gone as quickly as it came, making him wonder if it had
been there at all. It made Bruck’s heart lurch nonetheless. “Ben, please, I’m
sorry. I never—”
Kenobi stopped his words with a kiss, breathing into his mouth in a quick light
puff, leaning back, kissing him again. “Shhhh, love,” he murmured against
Bruck’s lips. “Shhhh.” Kiss. “You’re not Pesh Crellin.” Kiss. “You’re not
anything like him.” Kiss. “You won’t ever be.” Kiss. “Couldn’t ever be.” Kiss.
“You’re not getting it,” Bruck insisted, capturing his hands and holding them
away from his face. “I changed then, Ben. I wasn’t always such an asshole. I
was a nice kid. Just a boy like the rest of us. Then I saw what happened to
Col—nice Col, sweet Col—and decided nothing like that was ever going to happen
to me. The creche master tried to make me forget what I’d seen, smooth it over
like he did with the rest of you, but I couldn’t. Even the healers couldn’t
make me. I had nightmares for tenths, even after they shipped Crellin off to
Caor Caroli. And I changed. I got hard and nasty. I pushed people away. Then a
couple of years later I met you, and I knew somehow that you were what I should
have been, and I hated you.”
“Do you still?” Kenobi asked him quietly.
“What?” Bruck said, confused.
“Do you still hate me? Is that why you—”
“No! How could you think—”
“It’s all right,” Ben said gently. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t.” He slid his
arms around Bruck again, pulled him into an embrace. “That’s too much to ask
from anybody. No eight-year-old should have felt so unprotected here. I’m so
sorry you did, love. But I don’t know how you couldn’t resent the rest of us.
You learned what evil was much younger than any of us. Why didn’t anybody help
you?”
“They tried. I wouldn’t talk about it. Kept telling them I was fine.”
“Gods, Bruck, you were eight. And it was obvious you weren’t fine, if you were
having nightmares, if you changed so drastically. How could they believe you?
No eight-year-old could handle that, Jedi initiate or not.”
“I guess I just slipped through the cracks. I think there was a shakeup in the
creche staff about that time. Do you remember? A lot of the old masters were
replaced, given other duties or transferred. I guess it was more convenient to
just bury it.”
“Bury you and Crellin, you mean.” He could hear the fury in Ben’s voice and
somehow it warmed him. “Ship the one off to the place they send all the fallen
and crazy Jedi, and just throw the other away. Then Xanatos came along and told
you that no one here really cared about you—something you must have already
known—and that he would, if you’d help him. That was what happened, isn’t it?”
Bruck nodded, breath trapped in his chest, words choking him, wondering how Ben
knew. “That’s how he worked,” Ben elaborated. “He tried to tell me the same
thing about Qui, when we were on Bandomeer. He’d take the truth and twist it
just enough to make you doubt. In your case, it couldn’t have taken much
twisting. And how could you know better?”
“You did.” Bruck gasped.
“Because I’d been loved and taken care of all my life, Bruck. Not like you.
Nobody threw me away. I had good friends. The training masters liked me. The
academic instructors liked me. I got more praise than criticism, you got
nothing but criticism. I remember. So, I knew I was meant to be a Jedi. I knew
Qui-Gon was wrong about me. I know the Council’s wrong now, about you. They’ve
set you up for failure at every turn and you’ve succeeded instead. Look at the
odds you’ve beaten, love. And I never knew. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you were so
hurt. I’m sorry no one cared enough about you to help.”
Bruck just nodded, too drained to say anything. He felt tired down to his
bones, wondered dimly if his heart wouldn’t just stop if he went to sleep, with
nothing to keep it going. Telling Ben had been like vomiting bile and poison,
and he felt like he’d been spewing for days. He hurt everywhere, muscles and
nerves and bone, and his brain felt numb. Yet he could feel the currents in the
Force moving around him in a disturbed pattern. He knew everything had changed
again, that he was in the cusp of some pivotal moment, but didn’t have the
strength to even look for let alone recognize what he should push or pull or
grasp or let go of to take advantage of it. “Shhhhh,” Kenobi breathed into his
ear, though he hadn’t realized he’d made a sound. “Let me.”
Ben leaned down and kissed his forehead, then stepped off the couch and pulled
him upright. He was too tired to protest when he was led to his room, and
gently pushed down onto his narrow bed. He let Ben strip him down to his shorts
and tuck him in and turn out the light, darkening the window as well. Ben’s
voice came to him from the other room, speaking into the comm to someone, and
he lay listening to the lilt of his lover’s voice as he made some kind of
arrangements for something. Bruck had thought he would fall asleep instantly
upon lying down, but it wasn’t until Ben came back into the room and nestled up
behind him, slipping one arm snugly around his waist and the other beneath
their shared pillow that he drifted off. “It’ll be all right,” he thought he
heard Ben whisper to him before he fell into the snug warmth of real sleep.
 
===============================================================================
 
He woke with his head in Ben’s lap, his lover sitting up at the head of his
bed, back against the wall with a datapad in one hand and the other absently
playing with Bruck’s braid.
“What’re you doing?” Bruck yawned, sitting up and rubbing the grit out of his
eyes. He felt thick, as though he’d been out all night carousing. With the
window darkened it was hard to tell what time it was, but it felt like early
evening. Great. There went his sleep schedule.
“Reading a little Temple history,” Ben replied, wearing his thunderous, hole-
boring frown.
“I love it when you look like that,” Bruck murmured in his ear. “When did you
get so interested in Temple—Oh. How recent? Like, fourteen years ago history?”
Ben tapped the tip of his nose and went on reading. The frown got deeper. Bruck
found his undertunic in the pile of clothes beside the bed, pulled it on and
leaned over Ben’s shoulder, then gawked at what he saw on the screen.
“How the hell did you get that?”
“Cracked it,” Kenobi said shortly.
“When did you get to be such a big-time cracker that you could get into Temple
records?”
“Wasn’t me. It was one of Qui’s second-gen padawans. Won’t tell you who because
what you don’t know you can’t tell. Besides, I’ve forgotten her name, or that
we’ve ever met. She did the downloads for me, onto a secure chip.” Ben grinned
briefly. “I think she likes you.”
“Me?”
Kenobi nodded, briefly amused. “Did you know they called Col’s death a
‘training accident’?”
“Nice euphemism,” Bruck said bitterly. “Is that what they told his parents?”
Ben nodded, reading on. “What’d they tell Crellin’s parents?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What do you mean? They’ve never taken any interest since giving him
up? Even my father commed now and then.”
“No. Apparently, they were glad to be rid of him. Crellin’s an Adept.”
“Adept at what?”
“Like Saesee Tiin.”
“Oh gods, Ben,” Bruck whispered, feeling sick. “No wonder they hushed it up.
The last thing the Jedi need is a rogue Adept, especially that sort. Is he
still in Caor Caroli?”
“Hard to say. We couldn’t get into those records. I would imagine so. He’ll
probably be there for the rest of his life.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“So do I. It explains why they did so little to help you though.”
Bruck shook his head. “How do you figure?”
“One death explained as a training accident. One more or less orphaned Adept
gone bad and sent off to Caor Caroli for life. And the only witness a very
troubled and untrustworthy boy.”
“Why didn’t they just kick me out when they had the opportunity?”
“They want to keep an eye on you, Bruck. Keep you running scared.”
“So I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“So you’ll keep your mouth shut. And if you don’t, fix it so no one will
believe you anyway, you dumbshit, troublemaking, pain in the ass. You did half
the work for them.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bruck thought he ought to feel angry and
wondered why he didn’t. What he felt, instead, was relief. For the last
fourteen years of his life, he had known he was part of a game, but it was a
game for which he had not known the rules. The actions of the adults around
him, even of some of his peers, had seemed sometimes incomprehensible and left
him feeling stupid and one step behind everyone else, always playing catch-up,
or else completely mystified. Now, thanks to Ben, he knew both what the game
was and how to play it. He was too grateful to feel angry. He’d gotten his
footing and he knew how to act, what to say, how to behave—who to be.
He knew what the cusp was now, too, and knew what he had to do. There was more
at stake than just his own knighthood. The Order wanted his silence. He would
give it to them. The Order wanted his loyalty. He would give them that also,
and gladly. What he would not give them was any more of his self-respect. Now
that he knew what the game was, he would continue to play, but on his own
terms.
Ben was watching him carefully, fully expecting an explosion, seeming surprised
when it didn’t come. “You all right?” he said tentatively, as though worried
about setting him off.
“More than I’ve been in a long time,” he said quietly. “Since I was about
eight. That’s twice you’ve saved me, Ben. You know that?”
“I don’t understand—”
“Once at the falls, where you kept me from going over. And today, when you put
my life back in my own hands.”
“I’m not sure that’s what I’ve done,” Kenobi said. “But I’m not sure what to do
about it. It doesn’t seem right that this was covered up; that you were made to
suffer all these years for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t know what to do about that either. It may be too late to
do anything about it for anyone but me. But knowledge is power,” Bruck told
him. “Now that I know what’s going on, things are going to be different, at
least for me.”
“Not too different, I hope,” Ben smiled.
“Not too different,” Bruck assured him, hooking him around the neck and
dragging him down onto the bed.
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