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padmeonpaper2009-05-05 09:21 pm
padme_kenobi) wrote in padmeonpaper2009-05-05 09:21 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: "To Ignite the Stars" (Star Wars, Obi-Wan/Padmé, 32/?)
Title: Moments of Peace
Author:padme_kenobi
Previous Chapters: Can be read here.
Characters/Pairings: Obi-Wan/Padmé, others
Word Count: 5,108
Rating: NC-17 (explicit sexual scenes)
Summary: “Oh, is that so?” Padmé’s hands went to her hips. “Then who’s your friend?”
Author's Notes: This is a sort of "bridge" chapter after all the recent angst, and although it's definitely in my Outline of Doom and has a role to play in the plot, it is almost 100% fluff (and sex-filled fluff to boot). Apologies to those of you who don't go for that kind of thing, but I think both the characters and I needed a break. ;) This is the first of three consecutive chapters that will be posted tonight, the product of an unprecedented writing spree last Friday during which I produced 22 typed single-spaced pages of TIS. To those of you who have been bugging me for updates, consider it an early holiday gift. :D And yes, this chapter features a pillow fight. Told you it was fluff!
“You were gone a long while,” Obi-Wan noted.
She couldn’t suppress a chuckle as she gazed at him. “Too long for you?”
He returned her smile, genuinely so, and it warmed her heart to see it. “No, I just wondered. I didn’t sense that they woke up.”
“They didn’t.” Padmé shook her head. “I was just … thinking.”
Obi-Wan combed his fingers through her hair. “About?”
“The future, mostly,” she said. “And … what Qui-Gon said today, about how the twins have a destiny.”
His smile faltered. “You heard — I mean, you remember what went on?”
“Most of it, yes.” Padmé nodded.
“Ah.” Obi-Wan sighed.
“I’m sorry if I … if it was an intrusion,” she murmured apologetically. “I’d say I couldn’t help it, but I guess I would be lying.”
“No, no, it’s all right,” he assured her quickly. “Some of those events I just wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
She pulled him closer; the motion was almost involuntary. “I’d seen the security tapes before, Obi-Wan. I knew what happened. Besides, remember what my mother says …”
“A burden shared is a burden lessened,” Obi-Wan completed. “Yes, I know.”
“And you can’t shield me from everything, much as I know you’d like to,” Padmé said. “Nor would I want to be. I can’t help you unless I understand what’s troubling you.”
“I know that too.” He ducked his head, tucking it under her chin and burrowing further into the semicircle of her arms.
“Anyway, Qui-Gon was saying Luke and Leia can follow one of two destinies; either they’ll defeat Palpatine or they’ll fall to the Dark Side. And I was thinking … even though I know those two possibilities exist, I don’t want our lives to be ruled by them.”
“The twins will need to be trained, darling,” Obi-Wan pointed out.
“I know that too,” she echoed his words from a few moments earlier. “And I understand everything else as well, how they are the last hope of the Order and by extension the galaxy. But I don’t want them to grow up like that. I want them to have a chance to be children. I want to teach them to swim and to have picnics and to run in the fields and to ride shaaks …” Padmé broke off as another memory assaulted her, that of Anakin laughing in the Lake Country as he stood up bareback on one of the grazing creatures, then toppled and rolled with her in the grass. She shut her eyes, momentarily gathering her composure. “I just don’t want us to have any regrets. For a time after I miscarried, that’s all I had: regrets. I couldn’t help thinking of what could have been, what you would have done if I had carried that baby to term, all the ways our lives would have been different. I don’t want us to look back and to wonder … what if.”
Obi-Wan was silent for a long moment. “I think,” he said finally, “that there will always be certain things we’ll wonder. I imagine the answers to those questions as well, especially with regard to my own actions. In a very real sense, I believe that was the Force’s way of attempting to draw us together. Nothing happens by accident. But I wish I could have reacted differently beforehand so the sacrifice wouldn’t have been necessary.”
“You weren’t ready, darling,” Padmé objected. “And to be honest, neither was I. We were in love, but we weren’t ready to make the sacrifices that came along with that. I wasn’t ready to let you go, to let you be whoever you decided to be, to love you selflessly from a distance if I had to. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. And you weren’t sure how to integrate love with the part of the Jedi Code that prohibited attachment.”
“That’s a very wise way to put it, yes.”
“So perhaps the sacrifice was necessary, in a sense,” she continued. “Not that either of us could see it at the time. And I couldn’t see it for a long while afterwards. Now, I just want to let the twins become who they will be naturally, without doing it because they feel their parents are relying on them to finish what they couldn’t.”
“But they will be finishing what we couldn’t,” Obi-Wan said. “At least, if they become Jedi, or politicians, and work to defeat the Empire.”
Her eyes widened in mock surprise. “You’d be willing to let your children become politicians?”
“Well, of course I — oh, be quiet,” he muttered as her grin spread and she began to laugh. “As long as whatever they do serves the good of the galaxy, I’ll be happy.”
“Obi-Wan Kenobi, I should record this moment!” Padmé chuckled. “Where’s my datapad?”
“Oh, no, no, no, come on —”
“Let’s see.” She mimed typing in midair. “On the second tenday of the eleventhmonth, Obi-Wan Kenobi said, and I quote, ‘At least, if they become Jedi or politicians, and work to defeat the Empire —’”
“Hey!” He ran his fingers up her side, smiling as she shivered. “I’ll tickle you into submission if I must,” Obi-Wan threatened.
“Oh, you wouldn’t!” she exclaimed.
“I would!” He curled his fingers threateningly into talons and got to his knees, stretching his arms toward her. Padmé shrieked and tried to move away, but Obi-Wan’s Jedi reflexes were too fast for her and he began tickling until she was laughing almost too hard to speak.
“O-Obi-Wan — please —” Padmé giggled. “Please — please — stoooop —”
“Say you take it back.” He was laughing too, in spite of himself, and so the threat came out in the midst of chuckles.
“You — you — you said it,” she gasped. “Why — why should I — take it back?”
He couldn’t come up with an answer to that one, so he simply continued his assault, moving his fingers up and down her sides and across her stomach to the sensitive spots directly under her breasts. At this she finally squeezed out, “All right — all right, I give up — I give up — you didn’t say — say anything …”
“And I did not say one word in support of Luke and Leia becoming politicians, did I?”
“No — no — you didn’t —”
“Very well.” Obi-Wan allowed her to roll away from him to one side and catch her breath.
They both continued to chuckle for several minutes before Padmé murmured, “Funny how you’re so opposed to the twins becoming politicians when in fact you fell in love with one.”
“That’s the Force’s fault,” Obi-Wan shrugged. “It brought us together. Who am I to refuse its promptings, even if you are a politician?”
Padmé sat up, a smile spreading slowly over her features. “But that means you trust me, correct?”
He blinked, momentarily wrongfooted. “Of course I trust you, darling.”
“Well —” She got to her knees. “Maybe you — shouldn’t!” In one smooth motion she grabbed her pillow, swung around with it and hit him full on the side.
“Padmé!” Obi-Wan exclaimed.
“Your senses lied,” she grinned, whacking him again. “Isn’t it poor strategy to trust an opponent when she’s down?”
“I —” He put his arm up, attempting to deflect the raining blows from her pillow. “Not when that opponent is so convincing and, er, beautiful!”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Padmé said cheerfully as she kept up her assault. “This is payback!”
Obi-Wan vaulted off the bed and out of her reach, grinning. “I beg to differ — this, m’lady, is war!”
Padmé leapt off the bed too, running around to deal him another blow, but before she could, Obi-Wan sank into the Force and wiggled his fingers slightly behind his back.
Unseen by his fellow combatant, another pillow rose off the bed seemingly of its own accord and followed her as she circled around. Then, as she was about to hit him again, the renegade pillow dealt her a swift whack to the side of the head.
“What —?” She spun, trying in vain to see what had hit her, and the Force brought the pillow into the air, once more out of her field of vision, to smack her again.
“Hey!” Padmé cried, whirling to face him. Obi-Wan quickly assumed an air of innocence. “Did you just —”
“Me?” He held up his empty hands. “What are you talking about?”
“Something hit me when I wasn’t looking!” she told him.
“Did it?” Another quirk of his finger lifted the pillow from where it had fallen and kept it moving, always managing to duck it just out of her field of vision as she turned around and around. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Obi-Wan!” she started, but was interrupted as the floating pillow slammed into her again. “You did do it!”
“Really? Now why would I ever want to do something like that?” He brought the pillow around to hover near his shoulder.
“Oh, is that so?” Padmé’s hands went to her hips. “Then who’s your friend?”
Obi-Wan turned and widened his eyes in apparent surprise. “Goodness! Now how do you suppose that could have gotten there?”
“I think I know,” Padmé began, but before she could go on, the pillow rocketed across the room, crashing straight into her.
Obi-Wan could no longer restrain himself and burst out laughing. “You — you shouldn’t trust me either,” he managed to say.
The pillow fell to the floor.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi!” Padmé exclaimed. She scooped up his discarded weapon and rushed forward, pelting him with both. “No — fair — using — Force — tricks!” She punctuated each of her words with a pillow whack.
“All right, all right, I confess!” He held up his arms, trying once more to shield himself from her relentless attacks. “The opportunity was too good to pass up!”
“Oh it was, was it?” She continued to hit him. “That, Master Jedi, is what’s known as not — fighting — fair!”
“Oh, yes? Well, neither is this!” He lowered his arms suddenly and grasped her wrists to still her. She dropped both pillows as he tugged her down with him onto the bed.
Padmé shrieked again, laughter beginning to crack her stern façade. “Obi-Wan!”
“Come here.” He pulled her down even further until they were nearly nose-to-nose, their chests heaving with exertion and sweat beginning to bead their brows. He wrapped his arms around her back and pressed his lips to hers, turning their laughter into a desperate kiss.
She responded after only a moment’s hesitation, bringing her fingers up to tangle in his hair. He let out a soft moan of arousal as Padmé’s hands went to the top of his tunics, seeking the fastenings.
“I believe you were going to prove something to me,” she whispered breathily into his neck.
“I did, didn’t I?” Obi-Wan raised his hand to caress her cheek.
She captured each of his fingers in a soft kiss, her brown eyes alight with passion. “And just how shall we go about obtaining this proof?”
The question was legitimate, much as he wanted to pretend otherwise. He remembered she’d agreed to “help” him after their last failed encounter, but he felt stupid and incompetent for even needing to think about such assistance. Obi-Wan doubted that only one meditation would solve all his problems, but … was it unreasonable to place his faith in the Living Force? Qui-Gon had always counseled him to be conscious of it, though he didn’t think his Master had been referring to a circumstance such as this one.
He could feel himself blushing deeply, but sensed only kindness and concern from Padmé. “Let’s … try,” he said finally.
“All right,” she agreed instantly, running her hand down his cheek as he had done to her moments before. “This will be fulfilling for both of us, darling. No matter what, I promise you.”
Obi-Wan kissed her again, concealing his own nervousness, hating the idea that his body might betray him again. He had never been one to complain about fairness and unfairness; you could only follow the dictates of the Force, and if matters worked out in your favour, so much the better. If not, it was useless to protest. But his situation now seemed precisely that: unfair. He had gone through so much — they both had — that to deny them happiness in the few moments when they could seek it … well, wasn’t that the very definition of unfair?
Actually, he felt worse for Padmé than for himself. She put up with so much: raising the twins, letting go of her own family and her former life, dealing with him — for he knew he hadn’t been the easiest person to live with over the past months — and, of course, grappling with her own memories of and grief for Anakin. Yet through all of that, he had never once heard her complain. Since the boat ride through the Lake Country to the resort, she hadn’t raised a single objection to the life they were now forced to lead. She went about her daily business with the same fervor and dedication she’d shown towards her work in the Senate. Perhaps Padmé knew it would be pointless to pine for something that did not and could not exist any longer, but be that as it may, Obi-Wan had a sense that most sentient beings in her position would have carried on a long discourse about everything that was wrong and all that they’d been made to sacrifice. Living a life of simplicity and concealment might not have been alien to the Jedi, but it certainly was to most civilians, Padmé included.
Then again, he reminded himself, she’d had a lot to conceal even before the end of the war. Their relationship, for a start, and the twins once she became pregnant.
“What are you thinking about so seriously all of a sudden?” Her voice and touch brought him abruptly back to the present; she was smiling down at him as they kissed, combing her fingers lightly through his hair.
“You, of course.” Obi-Wan smiled stupidly.
“I should hope so!” Padmé laughed, teasing. “You just looked —” she twisted her face and her tone downwards “— very austere.”
“Oh?” He drew her closer, pressing his lips over her collarbone. “Well, I suppose I was just considering — how you’ve never complained. You know, about our situation, our new life.”
“Mmm.” She reacted to his touch, but the sound was also an acknowledgement. “I’ve never been one to do that, I suppose. Complaining about how our old lives are over now isn’t going to make them come back. It isn’t going to change anything. Reality is reality. You just need to accept that and move on.”
“But …” Obi-Wan bit his lip, sensing that he was inching perilously closer to soliciting her opinions on what it was like to live with him. “We’re not the same — well, people we once were.”
“Of course not,” Padmé said. “How could we be? But everyone is shaped by their experiences. Sometimes even for the better.”
Speak for yourself, he thought bitterly. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if that’s true.”
Her features softened; he sensed she was beginning to grasp what he was getting at. “Perhaps not in all cases. But I think eventually, if you’re a good person and if you’ve tried your best to do good things, your experiences will better you. Even if it’s a long road to get there.”
The question What if I’m not a good person? hovered on his tongue, but he forced it down, unable to bear speaking the words. He’d tried. But in the end, wasn’t a person also defined by their actions? And there, the question had a far more complex answer. He’d been given no choice. But there was always a choice. In the end he could have made a different decision. He could have done what was merciful, and spared many other innocent lives in the process. But to commit murder, which was essentially what killing the Sith (he refused to think Anakin and then thought it anyway) would have been, was against the Jedi Code. One did not kill unarmed and helpless prisoners.
But Yoda had ordered him to do so.
But one did not have to follow orders if those orders were not in line with one’s conscience.
But the entire war had been predicated on him doing things against his conscience. Why should this be any different?
It was. He couldn’t say why or how, only that it just was.
“Are you all right?” Padmé asked softly.
Obi-Wan couldn’t begrudge her the question. “Fine,” he mumbled. “I’m fine.”
“We don’t have to do this tonight. We could just go to sleep instead,” she suggested.
The idea of sleep sent a chill slithering unwillingly down his spine. It used to be such a pleasant word, the reward he’d earned after a difficult day, but it now meant something entirely different.
Screams. Self-recrimination. Fires. Death.
“No!” he blurted, more harshly than he’d intended to. She arched an eyebrow and Obi-Wan hurried to atone for his outburst. “I mean — I’m fine, I just — I was thinking, that’s all. Like you said.”
She sighed, still looking skeptical — though not, he soon realized, for the same reason. “When we do go to bed, you are going to sleep, aren’t you?”
“I —”
“Darling, you need your rest.” Padmé bit her lip, a guilty look crossing her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to — to bother you.”
“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh of his own.
She eased herself down next to him, her back against his chest. “I worry about you, that’s all.”
“I know.” It felt better, embracing her like this. Subtly she had placed the control in his hands, allowing him to proceed at the time and pace of his choosing. Yet another example of how she gave him so much and expected little in return … which was why he couldn’t ever blame her for her concern. “I shouldn’t act the way I’ve been acting.”
“You have a right.”
They both chuckled as Obi-Wan began to ease the light robe off her shoulders. “Let’s not do that again,” he said with a small smile. “We’ll get into another argument over who’s most to blame for the fact that we’re arguing.”
“Sounds like my sister and I,” Padmé smiled, wriggling against him in a way he suddenly found irresistible. “We’d be fighting and Mom and Dad would tell us to stop, so we would start arguing about whether or not we’d been arguing.”
“And I bet you won every time.” His breath hitched as she repositioned herself, the robe now discarded, and he felt his trousers becoming almost painfully tight.
“Most often, yes,” Padmé replied, rising to relieve him of the pants. “I didn’t become a politician for nothing, you know.” She turned and they kissed briefly, passionately, desperately, losing themselves in each other as her brown curls brushed his chest intimately.
For that moment, he could forget, and it seemed so simple. So easy, as she lay down again and he ran his fingers lightly over her breasts, eliciting a needy moan. Everything else was secondary, had evaporated entirely in fact, when he was here with her and she was making those sounds … there was nothing but Padmé, and their love. That was how it should always be.
“Darling, if you’re ready … please …” Padmé whispered.
Obi-Wan had been waiting, and at this he took a long breath, angling her gently so that they aligned, and slowly slid inside, pressing soft kisses to the back of her neck. They shivered at the contact and she arched into him, delighting in his gasp. She took his hand, bringing it to her mouth and kissing the fingers lightly.
He set up a slow rhythm, always keeping her against him, listening to the pant of her breath in the silence. After the initial rush of sensation Obi-Wan now felt oddly detached, as though he was watching a holovid that really didn’t have much to do with him at all. He hated his mind for that thought, and immediately sought to banish it, speeding up his thrusts and trying once again to lose himself within Padmé. Her breathing quickened and she tensed slightly, the precursors to her inevitable climax.
Momentarily distracted, Obi-Wan focused on his partner, on her fulfillment. It had always been thus for him, simply because he could not imagine behaving otherwise — not showing any concern for other beings or refusing to put their welfare above his own. He could never understand those holovids in which the man climaxed first, to the exclusion of his lover. It seemed terribly selfish to him.
Padmé bucked her hips against him and with a final cry, clenched in her release. He held her while she shuddered, burying his face in her hair.
“Are you close?” she whispered as she finished.
He knew without needing to assess himself that he was not. He kept waiting for the familiar signs, the signals that had assailed him in every other encounter with her, but they were absent. Even as he reached, even as he thrust faster, even as he hoped desperately for the warmth to spread through his belly and his balls to coil up in their sac, he felt himself moving farther away from what was needed rather than closer.
“No,” Obi-Wan ground out from between clenched teeth. Again he knew that humiliation was etched on his face, making the situation infinitely worse.
A few more moments changed nothing, and finally he was forced to admit defeat. He pulled out with a jerk and rolled away from her, annoyance swelling within him.
“Darling?”
He sensed her over his shoulder, but said nothing.
Her hand reached his back in a gentle caress. “I’m sorry,” she murmured softly.
“I am too. Sorry that I was foolish enough to believe it would work.”
“You had to try,” Padmé objected.
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan grumbled. “It would have been better if we’d waited.”
Her hand withdrew and the mattress shifted as she moved. “I don’t want to fight about this. It’s no one’s fault.”
“Well, you needn’t take the blame, darling.” He flung the endearment at her like an epithet. “Last I checked, the malfunction was completely mine.”
“No, Obi-Wan,” Padmé said firmly. “It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Perhaps one meditation just isn’t enough.”
“Yes, and of course I’ll be very anxious to continue now I know Mustafar’s waiting for me,” he snapped.
She ignored this. “Or maybe we’re going about it the wrong way. Maybe instead of focusing on both of us, we should focus only on you.”
Obi-Wan punched his pillow in frustration and abruptly realized how upset he was getting. This wouldn’t do; in fact it was dangerous. He took a few deep breaths, relinquishing the emotions to the Force.
“What do you suggest?” he asked at length.
“Well …” Padmé trailed off, and he felt the mattress dip again with her motion to the end of the bed. “How about this?”
Her hand was on his inner thigh, moving upwards. A short gasp of air escaped him as she reached a particularly significant area.
“You mean —” He swallowed.
“Yes. If you’ll let me.”
Obi-Wan considered. “What makes you think this will work any better than …?”
“You won’t have to worry about me,” Padmé reminded him. “I’ve already been satisfied. Perhaps that would take some of the pressure off.”
“Perhaps,” he said. In fact, he didn’t believe her plan would succeed, but it might be best to give her the benefit of the doubt if only to provide the illusion that she was helping him. (Help I should not require in the first place, Obi-Wan thought bitterly.) “All right. Go ahead.”
She smiled reassuringly and repositioned herself so that she was sitting beside him. “I think,” Padmé said contemplatively, “that it’s time to continue your massage.”
She began from the top, running her fingers lightly over his shoulders and down his biceps to his arms and hands, stroking each finger softly and rubbing each of his hands between hers. Then back up to his right shoulder, pausing at a particularly vivid scar.
“When did you get this?” she asked worriedly.
“Lava rock,” he muttered. “They tend to cause burns.”
She made a little “oh” of concern and bent to kiss the spot, laving it softly with her tongue. This turned into a brief embrace as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly. He returned it, using her warm weight and comforting presence to rid himself of the unwelcome memories that had suddenly sprung to the surface.
“I love you,” Obi-Wan whispered.
“And I you,” she promised.
Padmé kissed his lips gently and then moved on, brushing her fingers over his chest, pausing to circle each nipple and rub it into a peak. She continued those circular motions on his stomach, around his navel and then lower, pausing at the line of auburn hair leading downwards.
“Relax, darling,” she encouraged. “You’re stiff as permacrete.”
“Sorry,” Obi-Wan said, realizing he’d indeed been holding himself rigid as though anticipating some sort of torture.
To his surprise she bypassed the area he believed needed the most attention, heading instead for his inner thighs and trickling her fingers down his legs. His breath hitched as she circled his thighs again.
“Padmé,” Obi-Wan whispered, pleadingly. He knew without even needing to look that he had hardened again.
“Patience,” she replied. Again her hands maddeningly circled his groin, pausing only briefly to comb through the soft hair before moving on.
Perhaps I was wrong, he thought with every remaining scrap of brain power. Perhaps I am being tortured.
He became almost certain of that assessment when she took him in hand, simultaneously running a finger lightly over his sac. He shuddered and gritted his teeth; the pleasure-pain was amazingly stimulating. Her touch was so light, so soft, that there was barely anything to feel — and therein lay its appeal.
Again Padmé made a fist around him and stroked upwards, barely touching, while she used her other hand to fondle him.
His hips came up to thrust almost without his consent, but the pleasure increased exponentially and he gasped.
“No, darling,” Padmé said gently, and next second she had placed one hand squarely on his left hip, not digging into his skin but more than enough to prevent any motion upwards. “Let me do this. Just relax.”
“Padmé —” he protested.
“You can do it.” Her smile was serene, but her words clearly dominant. His brow furrowed; he had rarely seen her like this.
He decided he liked it.
Padmé simply continued her ministrations, keeping one hand on his hip while the other continued to fist around his flesh, softly but insistently.
Pinpricks of pleasure darted up Obi-Wan’s spine, cutting off any objections his conscious mind might have tried to make. He knew without question that he had not experienced such sensation in his recent interludes with Padmé … perhaps relaxation and a removal of pressure really was the key.
Sweat beaded his brow and he grunted as her grip tightened, fingers continuing to move from head to base without pause, then reaching down to grasp briefly at his balls.
“Good, Obi-Wan,” Padmé murmured.
He looked at her questioningly and realized that the tip of her finger glinted with liquid. She lowered her hand and swirled it around the head of his cock; it came away wet once more with pre-cum.
A flush bombarded his cheeks, embarrassment rising at the idea that she should have to praise him for such a normative function.
“Sorry,” she sighed, licking her finger once more. “Touchy subject.”
He shook his head, not caring what she said as long as she continued her ministrations. His hands found the sheets and wadded them in fists, while his teeth sank deeply into his lip.
Padmé smiled encouragingly and picked up the pace slightly. And suddenly he felt it — the warmth, spreading throughout his stomach, drifting lower, his balls coiling within their sac. At the last moment she sped up, firming her touch and rolling him between her fingers. And he knew, knew it would happen, knew she had been successful, and only in that last moment did he relax.
And then it was over. With a grunt his climax was upon him, white pinwheels of sensation bursting behind his eyes as she milked him carefully. He kept his eyes closed for several minutes, enjoying the waves as they continued to crash over his body.
“Thank you,” he whispered presently, raising his eyelids to half-mast.
She had already found a cloth and was cleaning him gently. “Why are you thanking me? I hardly did anything.”
“It was your idea,” Obi-Wan pointed out.
“Not really.” Padmé shrugged. “It was just logic. You don’t respond well to pressure, darling. You never have, since I’ve known you. So I thought, maybe if I took some of that pressure off …”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’re a wonderful partner, Obi-Wan.” She drifted the cloth over his stomach a few more times. “You’re thoughtful and you care about the woman you’re with, such that you delay your own pleasure in favour of hers. And that’s a great thing — for your partner. But it’s like your attitude towards other things. You never put yourself first. You’re selfless, you’re the consummate Jedi. But sometimes one needs to think only of oneself. I agree with you that your connection to the Living Force is probably weakened. I also believe that once this problem started, you couldn’t stop ignoring my needs in favour of your own. So you resisted, and by the time you actually wanted it to happen, it was too late.”
“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan said bleakly. Privately he thought her assessment was an accurate one, but that begged a question: how to break the cycle?
Padmé crawled to the head of the bed, pulling him close. “It’s just something else we have to work on. Together.”
He nodded, too relaxed now to really worry much. His eyes drifted open and closed as he pillowed his head against her chest. “I’m afraid you know far too much about me, darling.”
“Do I?” She stroked his hair, positioning the blankets over them. “I’d make the same accusation of you, for me.”
“Mmm,” Obi-Wan murmured sleepily. His hand found hers under the covers and squeezed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Oh?” Padmé replied, kissing his cheek. “I must have misspoken.”
He still hadn’t let go of her hand when he drifted to sleep.
Author:
padme_kenobiPrevious Chapters: Can be read here.
Characters/Pairings: Obi-Wan/Padmé, others
Word Count: 5,108
Rating: NC-17 (explicit sexual scenes)
Summary: “Oh, is that so?” Padmé’s hands went to her hips. “Then who’s your friend?”
Author's Notes: This is a sort of "bridge" chapter after all the recent angst, and although it's definitely in my Outline of Doom and has a role to play in the plot, it is almost 100% fluff (and sex-filled fluff to boot). Apologies to those of you who don't go for that kind of thing, but I think both the characters and I needed a break. ;) This is the first of three consecutive chapters that will be posted tonight, the product of an unprecedented writing spree last Friday during which I produced 22 typed single-spaced pages of TIS. To those of you who have been bugging me for updates, consider it an early holiday gift. :D And yes, this chapter features a pillow fight. Told you it was fluff!
“You were gone a long while,” Obi-Wan noted.
She couldn’t suppress a chuckle as she gazed at him. “Too long for you?”
He returned her smile, genuinely so, and it warmed her heart to see it. “No, I just wondered. I didn’t sense that they woke up.”
“They didn’t.” Padmé shook her head. “I was just … thinking.”
Obi-Wan combed his fingers through her hair. “About?”
“The future, mostly,” she said. “And … what Qui-Gon said today, about how the twins have a destiny.”
His smile faltered. “You heard — I mean, you remember what went on?”
“Most of it, yes.” Padmé nodded.
“Ah.” Obi-Wan sighed.
“I’m sorry if I … if it was an intrusion,” she murmured apologetically. “I’d say I couldn’t help it, but I guess I would be lying.”
“No, no, it’s all right,” he assured her quickly. “Some of those events I just wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
She pulled him closer; the motion was almost involuntary. “I’d seen the security tapes before, Obi-Wan. I knew what happened. Besides, remember what my mother says …”
“A burden shared is a burden lessened,” Obi-Wan completed. “Yes, I know.”
“And you can’t shield me from everything, much as I know you’d like to,” Padmé said. “Nor would I want to be. I can’t help you unless I understand what’s troubling you.”
“I know that too.” He ducked his head, tucking it under her chin and burrowing further into the semicircle of her arms.
“Anyway, Qui-Gon was saying Luke and Leia can follow one of two destinies; either they’ll defeat Palpatine or they’ll fall to the Dark Side. And I was thinking … even though I know those two possibilities exist, I don’t want our lives to be ruled by them.”
“The twins will need to be trained, darling,” Obi-Wan pointed out.
“I know that too,” she echoed his words from a few moments earlier. “And I understand everything else as well, how they are the last hope of the Order and by extension the galaxy. But I don’t want them to grow up like that. I want them to have a chance to be children. I want to teach them to swim and to have picnics and to run in the fields and to ride shaaks …” Padmé broke off as another memory assaulted her, that of Anakin laughing in the Lake Country as he stood up bareback on one of the grazing creatures, then toppled and rolled with her in the grass. She shut her eyes, momentarily gathering her composure. “I just don’t want us to have any regrets. For a time after I miscarried, that’s all I had: regrets. I couldn’t help thinking of what could have been, what you would have done if I had carried that baby to term, all the ways our lives would have been different. I don’t want us to look back and to wonder … what if.”
Obi-Wan was silent for a long moment. “I think,” he said finally, “that there will always be certain things we’ll wonder. I imagine the answers to those questions as well, especially with regard to my own actions. In a very real sense, I believe that was the Force’s way of attempting to draw us together. Nothing happens by accident. But I wish I could have reacted differently beforehand so the sacrifice wouldn’t have been necessary.”
“You weren’t ready, darling,” Padmé objected. “And to be honest, neither was I. We were in love, but we weren’t ready to make the sacrifices that came along with that. I wasn’t ready to let you go, to let you be whoever you decided to be, to love you selflessly from a distance if I had to. I thought I was, but I wasn’t. And you weren’t sure how to integrate love with the part of the Jedi Code that prohibited attachment.”
“That’s a very wise way to put it, yes.”
“So perhaps the sacrifice was necessary, in a sense,” she continued. “Not that either of us could see it at the time. And I couldn’t see it for a long while afterwards. Now, I just want to let the twins become who they will be naturally, without doing it because they feel their parents are relying on them to finish what they couldn’t.”
“But they will be finishing what we couldn’t,” Obi-Wan said. “At least, if they become Jedi, or politicians, and work to defeat the Empire.”
Her eyes widened in mock surprise. “You’d be willing to let your children become politicians?”
“Well, of course I — oh, be quiet,” he muttered as her grin spread and she began to laugh. “As long as whatever they do serves the good of the galaxy, I’ll be happy.”
“Obi-Wan Kenobi, I should record this moment!” Padmé chuckled. “Where’s my datapad?”
“Oh, no, no, no, come on —”
“Let’s see.” She mimed typing in midair. “On the second tenday of the eleventhmonth, Obi-Wan Kenobi said, and I quote, ‘At least, if they become Jedi or politicians, and work to defeat the Empire —’”
“Hey!” He ran his fingers up her side, smiling as she shivered. “I’ll tickle you into submission if I must,” Obi-Wan threatened.
“Oh, you wouldn’t!” she exclaimed.
“I would!” He curled his fingers threateningly into talons and got to his knees, stretching his arms toward her. Padmé shrieked and tried to move away, but Obi-Wan’s Jedi reflexes were too fast for her and he began tickling until she was laughing almost too hard to speak.
“O-Obi-Wan — please —” Padmé giggled. “Please — please — stoooop —”
“Say you take it back.” He was laughing too, in spite of himself, and so the threat came out in the midst of chuckles.
“You — you — you said it,” she gasped. “Why — why should I — take it back?”
He couldn’t come up with an answer to that one, so he simply continued his assault, moving his fingers up and down her sides and across her stomach to the sensitive spots directly under her breasts. At this she finally squeezed out, “All right — all right, I give up — I give up — you didn’t say — say anything …”
“And I did not say one word in support of Luke and Leia becoming politicians, did I?”
“No — no — you didn’t —”
“Very well.” Obi-Wan allowed her to roll away from him to one side and catch her breath.
They both continued to chuckle for several minutes before Padmé murmured, “Funny how you’re so opposed to the twins becoming politicians when in fact you fell in love with one.”
“That’s the Force’s fault,” Obi-Wan shrugged. “It brought us together. Who am I to refuse its promptings, even if you are a politician?”
Padmé sat up, a smile spreading slowly over her features. “But that means you trust me, correct?”
He blinked, momentarily wrongfooted. “Of course I trust you, darling.”
“Well —” She got to her knees. “Maybe you — shouldn’t!” In one smooth motion she grabbed her pillow, swung around with it and hit him full on the side.
“Padmé!” Obi-Wan exclaimed.
“Your senses lied,” she grinned, whacking him again. “Isn’t it poor strategy to trust an opponent when she’s down?”
“I —” He put his arm up, attempting to deflect the raining blows from her pillow. “Not when that opponent is so convincing and, er, beautiful!”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Padmé said cheerfully as she kept up her assault. “This is payback!”
Obi-Wan vaulted off the bed and out of her reach, grinning. “I beg to differ — this, m’lady, is war!”
Padmé leapt off the bed too, running around to deal him another blow, but before she could, Obi-Wan sank into the Force and wiggled his fingers slightly behind his back.
Unseen by his fellow combatant, another pillow rose off the bed seemingly of its own accord and followed her as she circled around. Then, as she was about to hit him again, the renegade pillow dealt her a swift whack to the side of the head.
“What —?” She spun, trying in vain to see what had hit her, and the Force brought the pillow into the air, once more out of her field of vision, to smack her again.
“Hey!” Padmé cried, whirling to face him. Obi-Wan quickly assumed an air of innocence. “Did you just —”
“Me?” He held up his empty hands. “What are you talking about?”
“Something hit me when I wasn’t looking!” she told him.
“Did it?” Another quirk of his finger lifted the pillow from where it had fallen and kept it moving, always managing to duck it just out of her field of vision as she turned around and around. “I didn’t see anything.”
“Obi-Wan!” she started, but was interrupted as the floating pillow slammed into her again. “You did do it!”
“Really? Now why would I ever want to do something like that?” He brought the pillow around to hover near his shoulder.
“Oh, is that so?” Padmé’s hands went to her hips. “Then who’s your friend?”
Obi-Wan turned and widened his eyes in apparent surprise. “Goodness! Now how do you suppose that could have gotten there?”
“I think I know,” Padmé began, but before she could go on, the pillow rocketed across the room, crashing straight into her.
Obi-Wan could no longer restrain himself and burst out laughing. “You — you shouldn’t trust me either,” he managed to say.
The pillow fell to the floor.
“Obi-Wan Kenobi!” Padmé exclaimed. She scooped up his discarded weapon and rushed forward, pelting him with both. “No — fair — using — Force — tricks!” She punctuated each of her words with a pillow whack.
“All right, all right, I confess!” He held up his arms, trying once more to shield himself from her relentless attacks. “The opportunity was too good to pass up!”
“Oh it was, was it?” She continued to hit him. “That, Master Jedi, is what’s known as not — fighting — fair!”
“Oh, yes? Well, neither is this!” He lowered his arms suddenly and grasped her wrists to still her. She dropped both pillows as he tugged her down with him onto the bed.
Padmé shrieked again, laughter beginning to crack her stern façade. “Obi-Wan!”
“Come here.” He pulled her down even further until they were nearly nose-to-nose, their chests heaving with exertion and sweat beginning to bead their brows. He wrapped his arms around her back and pressed his lips to hers, turning their laughter into a desperate kiss.
She responded after only a moment’s hesitation, bringing her fingers up to tangle in his hair. He let out a soft moan of arousal as Padmé’s hands went to the top of his tunics, seeking the fastenings.
“I believe you were going to prove something to me,” she whispered breathily into his neck.
“I did, didn’t I?” Obi-Wan raised his hand to caress her cheek.
She captured each of his fingers in a soft kiss, her brown eyes alight with passion. “And just how shall we go about obtaining this proof?”
The question was legitimate, much as he wanted to pretend otherwise. He remembered she’d agreed to “help” him after their last failed encounter, but he felt stupid and incompetent for even needing to think about such assistance. Obi-Wan doubted that only one meditation would solve all his problems, but … was it unreasonable to place his faith in the Living Force? Qui-Gon had always counseled him to be conscious of it, though he didn’t think his Master had been referring to a circumstance such as this one.
He could feel himself blushing deeply, but sensed only kindness and concern from Padmé. “Let’s … try,” he said finally.
“All right,” she agreed instantly, running her hand down his cheek as he had done to her moments before. “This will be fulfilling for both of us, darling. No matter what, I promise you.”
Obi-Wan kissed her again, concealing his own nervousness, hating the idea that his body might betray him again. He had never been one to complain about fairness and unfairness; you could only follow the dictates of the Force, and if matters worked out in your favour, so much the better. If not, it was useless to protest. But his situation now seemed precisely that: unfair. He had gone through so much — they both had — that to deny them happiness in the few moments when they could seek it … well, wasn’t that the very definition of unfair?
Actually, he felt worse for Padmé than for himself. She put up with so much: raising the twins, letting go of her own family and her former life, dealing with him — for he knew he hadn’t been the easiest person to live with over the past months — and, of course, grappling with her own memories of and grief for Anakin. Yet through all of that, he had never once heard her complain. Since the boat ride through the Lake Country to the resort, she hadn’t raised a single objection to the life they were now forced to lead. She went about her daily business with the same fervor and dedication she’d shown towards her work in the Senate. Perhaps Padmé knew it would be pointless to pine for something that did not and could not exist any longer, but be that as it may, Obi-Wan had a sense that most sentient beings in her position would have carried on a long discourse about everything that was wrong and all that they’d been made to sacrifice. Living a life of simplicity and concealment might not have been alien to the Jedi, but it certainly was to most civilians, Padmé included.
Then again, he reminded himself, she’d had a lot to conceal even before the end of the war. Their relationship, for a start, and the twins once she became pregnant.
“What are you thinking about so seriously all of a sudden?” Her voice and touch brought him abruptly back to the present; she was smiling down at him as they kissed, combing her fingers lightly through his hair.
“You, of course.” Obi-Wan smiled stupidly.
“I should hope so!” Padmé laughed, teasing. “You just looked —” she twisted her face and her tone downwards “— very austere.”
“Oh?” He drew her closer, pressing his lips over her collarbone. “Well, I suppose I was just considering — how you’ve never complained. You know, about our situation, our new life.”
“Mmm.” She reacted to his touch, but the sound was also an acknowledgement. “I’ve never been one to do that, I suppose. Complaining about how our old lives are over now isn’t going to make them come back. It isn’t going to change anything. Reality is reality. You just need to accept that and move on.”
“But …” Obi-Wan bit his lip, sensing that he was inching perilously closer to soliciting her opinions on what it was like to live with him. “We’re not the same — well, people we once were.”
“Of course not,” Padmé said. “How could we be? But everyone is shaped by their experiences. Sometimes even for the better.”
Speak for yourself, he thought bitterly. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if that’s true.”
Her features softened; he sensed she was beginning to grasp what he was getting at. “Perhaps not in all cases. But I think eventually, if you’re a good person and if you’ve tried your best to do good things, your experiences will better you. Even if it’s a long road to get there.”
The question What if I’m not a good person? hovered on his tongue, but he forced it down, unable to bear speaking the words. He’d tried. But in the end, wasn’t a person also defined by their actions? And there, the question had a far more complex answer. He’d been given no choice. But there was always a choice. In the end he could have made a different decision. He could have done what was merciful, and spared many other innocent lives in the process. But to commit murder, which was essentially what killing the Sith (he refused to think Anakin and then thought it anyway) would have been, was against the Jedi Code. One did not kill unarmed and helpless prisoners.
But Yoda had ordered him to do so.
But one did not have to follow orders if those orders were not in line with one’s conscience.
But the entire war had been predicated on him doing things against his conscience. Why should this be any different?
It was. He couldn’t say why or how, only that it just was.
“Are you all right?” Padmé asked softly.
Obi-Wan couldn’t begrudge her the question. “Fine,” he mumbled. “I’m fine.”
“We don’t have to do this tonight. We could just go to sleep instead,” she suggested.
The idea of sleep sent a chill slithering unwillingly down his spine. It used to be such a pleasant word, the reward he’d earned after a difficult day, but it now meant something entirely different.
Screams. Self-recrimination. Fires. Death.
“No!” he blurted, more harshly than he’d intended to. She arched an eyebrow and Obi-Wan hurried to atone for his outburst. “I mean — I’m fine, I just — I was thinking, that’s all. Like you said.”
She sighed, still looking skeptical — though not, he soon realized, for the same reason. “When we do go to bed, you are going to sleep, aren’t you?”
“I —”
“Darling, you need your rest.” Padmé bit her lip, a guilty look crossing her face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to — to bother you.”
“It’s all right,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh of his own.
She eased herself down next to him, her back against his chest. “I worry about you, that’s all.”
“I know.” It felt better, embracing her like this. Subtly she had placed the control in his hands, allowing him to proceed at the time and pace of his choosing. Yet another example of how she gave him so much and expected little in return … which was why he couldn’t ever blame her for her concern. “I shouldn’t act the way I’ve been acting.”
“You have a right.”
They both chuckled as Obi-Wan began to ease the light robe off her shoulders. “Let’s not do that again,” he said with a small smile. “We’ll get into another argument over who’s most to blame for the fact that we’re arguing.”
“Sounds like my sister and I,” Padmé smiled, wriggling against him in a way he suddenly found irresistible. “We’d be fighting and Mom and Dad would tell us to stop, so we would start arguing about whether or not we’d been arguing.”
“And I bet you won every time.” His breath hitched as she repositioned herself, the robe now discarded, and he felt his trousers becoming almost painfully tight.
“Most often, yes,” Padmé replied, rising to relieve him of the pants. “I didn’t become a politician for nothing, you know.” She turned and they kissed briefly, passionately, desperately, losing themselves in each other as her brown curls brushed his chest intimately.
For that moment, he could forget, and it seemed so simple. So easy, as she lay down again and he ran his fingers lightly over her breasts, eliciting a needy moan. Everything else was secondary, had evaporated entirely in fact, when he was here with her and she was making those sounds … there was nothing but Padmé, and their love. That was how it should always be.
“Darling, if you’re ready … please …” Padmé whispered.
Obi-Wan had been waiting, and at this he took a long breath, angling her gently so that they aligned, and slowly slid inside, pressing soft kisses to the back of her neck. They shivered at the contact and she arched into him, delighting in his gasp. She took his hand, bringing it to her mouth and kissing the fingers lightly.
He set up a slow rhythm, always keeping her against him, listening to the pant of her breath in the silence. After the initial rush of sensation Obi-Wan now felt oddly detached, as though he was watching a holovid that really didn’t have much to do with him at all. He hated his mind for that thought, and immediately sought to banish it, speeding up his thrusts and trying once again to lose himself within Padmé. Her breathing quickened and she tensed slightly, the precursors to her inevitable climax.
Momentarily distracted, Obi-Wan focused on his partner, on her fulfillment. It had always been thus for him, simply because he could not imagine behaving otherwise — not showing any concern for other beings or refusing to put their welfare above his own. He could never understand those holovids in which the man climaxed first, to the exclusion of his lover. It seemed terribly selfish to him.
Padmé bucked her hips against him and with a final cry, clenched in her release. He held her while she shuddered, burying his face in her hair.
“Are you close?” she whispered as she finished.
He knew without needing to assess himself that he was not. He kept waiting for the familiar signs, the signals that had assailed him in every other encounter with her, but they were absent. Even as he reached, even as he thrust faster, even as he hoped desperately for the warmth to spread through his belly and his balls to coil up in their sac, he felt himself moving farther away from what was needed rather than closer.
“No,” Obi-Wan ground out from between clenched teeth. Again he knew that humiliation was etched on his face, making the situation infinitely worse.
A few more moments changed nothing, and finally he was forced to admit defeat. He pulled out with a jerk and rolled away from her, annoyance swelling within him.
“Darling?”
He sensed her over his shoulder, but said nothing.
Her hand reached his back in a gentle caress. “I’m sorry,” she murmured softly.
“I am too. Sorry that I was foolish enough to believe it would work.”
“You had to try,” Padmé objected.
“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan grumbled. “It would have been better if we’d waited.”
Her hand withdrew and the mattress shifted as she moved. “I don’t want to fight about this. It’s no one’s fault.”
“Well, you needn’t take the blame, darling.” He flung the endearment at her like an epithet. “Last I checked, the malfunction was completely mine.”
“No, Obi-Wan,” Padmé said firmly. “It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. Perhaps one meditation just isn’t enough.”
“Yes, and of course I’ll be very anxious to continue now I know Mustafar’s waiting for me,” he snapped.
She ignored this. “Or maybe we’re going about it the wrong way. Maybe instead of focusing on both of us, we should focus only on you.”
Obi-Wan punched his pillow in frustration and abruptly realized how upset he was getting. This wouldn’t do; in fact it was dangerous. He took a few deep breaths, relinquishing the emotions to the Force.
“What do you suggest?” he asked at length.
“Well …” Padmé trailed off, and he felt the mattress dip again with her motion to the end of the bed. “How about this?”
Her hand was on his inner thigh, moving upwards. A short gasp of air escaped him as she reached a particularly significant area.
“You mean —” He swallowed.
“Yes. If you’ll let me.”
Obi-Wan considered. “What makes you think this will work any better than …?”
“You won’t have to worry about me,” Padmé reminded him. “I’ve already been satisfied. Perhaps that would take some of the pressure off.”
“Perhaps,” he said. In fact, he didn’t believe her plan would succeed, but it might be best to give her the benefit of the doubt if only to provide the illusion that she was helping him. (Help I should not require in the first place, Obi-Wan thought bitterly.) “All right. Go ahead.”
She smiled reassuringly and repositioned herself so that she was sitting beside him. “I think,” Padmé said contemplatively, “that it’s time to continue your massage.”
She began from the top, running her fingers lightly over his shoulders and down his biceps to his arms and hands, stroking each finger softly and rubbing each of his hands between hers. Then back up to his right shoulder, pausing at a particularly vivid scar.
“When did you get this?” she asked worriedly.
“Lava rock,” he muttered. “They tend to cause burns.”
She made a little “oh” of concern and bent to kiss the spot, laving it softly with her tongue. This turned into a brief embrace as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly. He returned it, using her warm weight and comforting presence to rid himself of the unwelcome memories that had suddenly sprung to the surface.
“I love you,” Obi-Wan whispered.
“And I you,” she promised.
Padmé kissed his lips gently and then moved on, brushing her fingers over his chest, pausing to circle each nipple and rub it into a peak. She continued those circular motions on his stomach, around his navel and then lower, pausing at the line of auburn hair leading downwards.
“Relax, darling,” she encouraged. “You’re stiff as permacrete.”
“Sorry,” Obi-Wan said, realizing he’d indeed been holding himself rigid as though anticipating some sort of torture.
To his surprise she bypassed the area he believed needed the most attention, heading instead for his inner thighs and trickling her fingers down his legs. His breath hitched as she circled his thighs again.
“Padmé,” Obi-Wan whispered, pleadingly. He knew without even needing to look that he had hardened again.
“Patience,” she replied. Again her hands maddeningly circled his groin, pausing only briefly to comb through the soft hair before moving on.
Perhaps I was wrong, he thought with every remaining scrap of brain power. Perhaps I am being tortured.
He became almost certain of that assessment when she took him in hand, simultaneously running a finger lightly over his sac. He shuddered and gritted his teeth; the pleasure-pain was amazingly stimulating. Her touch was so light, so soft, that there was barely anything to feel — and therein lay its appeal.
Again Padmé made a fist around him and stroked upwards, barely touching, while she used her other hand to fondle him.
His hips came up to thrust almost without his consent, but the pleasure increased exponentially and he gasped.
“No, darling,” Padmé said gently, and next second she had placed one hand squarely on his left hip, not digging into his skin but more than enough to prevent any motion upwards. “Let me do this. Just relax.”
“Padmé —” he protested.
“You can do it.” Her smile was serene, but her words clearly dominant. His brow furrowed; he had rarely seen her like this.
He decided he liked it.
Padmé simply continued her ministrations, keeping one hand on his hip while the other continued to fist around his flesh, softly but insistently.
Pinpricks of pleasure darted up Obi-Wan’s spine, cutting off any objections his conscious mind might have tried to make. He knew without question that he had not experienced such sensation in his recent interludes with Padmé … perhaps relaxation and a removal of pressure really was the key.
Sweat beaded his brow and he grunted as her grip tightened, fingers continuing to move from head to base without pause, then reaching down to grasp briefly at his balls.
“Good, Obi-Wan,” Padmé murmured.
He looked at her questioningly and realized that the tip of her finger glinted with liquid. She lowered her hand and swirled it around the head of his cock; it came away wet once more with pre-cum.
A flush bombarded his cheeks, embarrassment rising at the idea that she should have to praise him for such a normative function.
“Sorry,” she sighed, licking her finger once more. “Touchy subject.”
He shook his head, not caring what she said as long as she continued her ministrations. His hands found the sheets and wadded them in fists, while his teeth sank deeply into his lip.
Padmé smiled encouragingly and picked up the pace slightly. And suddenly he felt it — the warmth, spreading throughout his stomach, drifting lower, his balls coiling within their sac. At the last moment she sped up, firming her touch and rolling him between her fingers. And he knew, knew it would happen, knew she had been successful, and only in that last moment did he relax.
And then it was over. With a grunt his climax was upon him, white pinwheels of sensation bursting behind his eyes as she milked him carefully. He kept his eyes closed for several minutes, enjoying the waves as they continued to crash over his body.
“Thank you,” he whispered presently, raising his eyelids to half-mast.
She had already found a cloth and was cleaning him gently. “Why are you thanking me? I hardly did anything.”
“It was your idea,” Obi-Wan pointed out.
“Not really.” Padmé shrugged. “It was just logic. You don’t respond well to pressure, darling. You never have, since I’ve known you. So I thought, maybe if I took some of that pressure off …”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you’re a wonderful partner, Obi-Wan.” She drifted the cloth over his stomach a few more times. “You’re thoughtful and you care about the woman you’re with, such that you delay your own pleasure in favour of hers. And that’s a great thing — for your partner. But it’s like your attitude towards other things. You never put yourself first. You’re selfless, you’re the consummate Jedi. But sometimes one needs to think only of oneself. I agree with you that your connection to the Living Force is probably weakened. I also believe that once this problem started, you couldn’t stop ignoring my needs in favour of your own. So you resisted, and by the time you actually wanted it to happen, it was too late.”
“Perhaps,” Obi-Wan said bleakly. Privately he thought her assessment was an accurate one, but that begged a question: how to break the cycle?
Padmé crawled to the head of the bed, pulling him close. “It’s just something else we have to work on. Together.”
He nodded, too relaxed now to really worry much. His eyes drifted open and closed as he pillowed his head against her chest. “I’m afraid you know far too much about me, darling.”
“Do I?” She stroked his hair, positioning the blankets over them. “I’d make the same accusation of you, for me.”
“Mmm,” Obi-Wan murmured sleepily. His hand found hers under the covers and squeezed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Oh?” Padmé replied, kissing his cheek. “I must have misspoken.”
He still hadn’t let go of her hand when he drifted to sleep.