A more finished version of the Porn Battle fic. Still no porn. Q/O in my heart but more Q <- O in practice.
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan attend a wedding; Obi-Wan makes poor choices at the buffet. Written for prompt "sex pollen."
Also on
AO3.
Wedding Night
The ceremony had gone off without a hitch. At the reception the queen crouched beside the hexagonal high table, eye-stalks waving, while her new consort's carapace blushed in all six shades of nuptial blue. Qui-Gon permitted himself a measure of contentment and sipped the bulb of fermented nectar he'd been given for the toast.
His apprentice reappeared at his elbow, carrying a partly decimated plate of food. Another growth spurt in the offing, it seemed, despite the recent lack of vertical gains. "Master, you should try the caponata. It's very good."
"Perhaps I will." He glanced at Obi-Wan's pile of crumbs, which was prodigious. "You didn't eat the apid pearls, I hope."
"The what?"
"Little globs of yellow pollen on the tart."
Obi-Wan stared down in sudden silence at his plate.
*
Meditation and breathing exercises slowed the onset to a limited extent. When Obi-Wan opened his eyes again, he found the light in their guest quarters grown weirdly golden and profuse. He tried not to blink or sway as Qui-Gon checked his pupils for dilation.
"Master," he said, "with respect, you may as well return to the reception hall." His teeth were on the verge of chattering, a symptom at odds with the flush of heat spreading down his neck and back. A muscle spasm between his shoulder blades made him stifle a flinch; the evidence of his bodily control unraveling was deeply distasteful. His genitals had yet to show signs of arousal, but it was only a matter of time. "There's no sense in both of us missing the occasion due to a careless oversight on my part."
Qui-Gon shook his head. "Given the amount you ingested, there's a risk of overdose."
"Oh." Obi-Wan frowned. "And that entails?"
"Possible anaphylaxis."
"Oh."
"It is a small risk, Obi-Wan." The press of Qui-Gon's hand on his shoulder was brief. As was the comfort it extended.
In extremity Obi-Wan retreated to the Code. There was no emotion, there was peace, there was no serenity there was--
Qui-Gon looming again, suddenly huge beyond proportion, to peer into his eyes.
*
At length a majordomo appeared outside their suite, chitin darkened and leg-joints clicking with concern. She accepted Qui-Gon's assurances that the Jedi in his nymphal stage was only moderately indisposed and would soon recover. Apologies were exchanged, Qui-Gon bowed, and the majordomo took her leave.
He returned to the bed where his apprentice sat wholly swaddled in a blanket. He felt some concern that Obi-Wan might be in danger of overheating, but Obi-Wan seemed to prize concealment over comfort in his present state.
"Master, did you know?" The voice was strained but dogged. "The age of consent on Raxos IV is twelve years Standard."
Folding his arms into his sleeves, Qui-Gon seated himself at the foot of the bed. "The Raxians' average lifespan is relatively short, yes. As is their adolescence."
"I feel as if my lifespan may be relatively short," said Obi-Wan, muffled, and Qui-Gon puffed a quiet laugh.
"This isn't funny, Master."
"No." And it was poor form for the master to laugh at a case of accidental over-pollination, even in relief that the effects thus far were mild. Containing himself, Qui-Gon turned to look at Obi-Wan's blanketed head. Only stubborn mouth and stubborn chin were visible, and the tail end of the braid sticking out ungraciously to one side. Too scant a braid, for a Padawan of sixteen. Qui-Gon felt a soft pang for the late start it had been given.
Obi-Wan shifted, elbows protruding. "Perhaps you could--" he began, and broke off.
At first he had lobbied for privacy in the fresher; Qui-Gon had denied it with regret. "I must remain where I can see you," he said, to forestall further argument. "Should you begin to have difficulty breathing, I need to know at once."
"I understand."
But he could give a bit more space, at least. The palace quarters were generous. He rose, intending to remove himself to the far side of the room. Obi-Wan drew a sharp breath.
"Could you not--"
Qui-Gon paused, waiting.
Obi-Wan suppressed a hapless sound. The hunch of his shoulders deepened. "Never mind. I'm sorry for my weakness, Master."
His distress pulled at Qui-Gon like an undertow of Force. "Don't apologize. You're reacting to a chemical stimulant. I don't expect you to purge it; that's a difficult technique you haven't yet learned. The effects will pass. Do what you feel is necessary, and I'll give you a push to sleep after."
At Obi-Wan's nod he retreated and took up a standing vigil by the window. The suite overlooked an expanse of the western gardens below. Groups of Raxians had spilled from the reception hall to teeter across the hillocks in intoxicated swarms, drunk on the pheromones of their newlywed queen. Their carapaces gleamed with startling ecstatic colors.
Qui-Gon thought of the majordomo, clear-minded and composed in dark gray, and wondered what she had ingested to stave off the effects. All the while he kept half an eye on Obi-Wan, forbearing to listen closely to the rustles and faint hitches that emerged from the bed.
*
Sleep was a mercy, although the waves of arousal persisted through it, slow to abate. At least twice Obi-Wan felt himself about to surface from dreaming, hot and fretful, but before he could come entirely awake a renewed suggestion would slide over him, heavy with his master's surety in the Force, holding him at bay until he sank back down. The dreams were vivid, if repetitious. Relentless on the theme of Qui-Gon's hands, Qui-Gon's voice, the magnitude of Qui-Gon's everything in relation to himself. Not much of it was new in substance, only in adamance. In one of the dreams Obi-Wan stood on a dais, waiting near his master, convinced that he was fully dressed, only to look down and find a testament of shocking colors splayed on his bare skin.
When he woke in earnest it was deep night. He was half-hard still, but with effort he dismissed the physical need into the Force until it subsided. A small victory: the exercise was one of the most basic learned by pubescent human initiates. His inability to perform it earlier that night had shamed and outraged him. There was nothing wrong with masturbation, of course--performed temperately, in private--but a Jedi must rule his body, not the other way around.
The blanket clung around his hips as he sat up. The windows reflected faint light from the garden, enough to see that most of the evidence of his ordeal was gone, the hand-towels and disposable tissues cleanly vanished. On the table nearest the bed sat two large cups of water, both full. Obi-Wan looked at the cups, then across the room to where his master slept, engulfing the full length of a chaise longue, and for the first time that night the backs of his eyes began to smart. He rubbed his face with his palms and winced at the smell that clung to his hand.
Reaching for one of the cups, he rose and drained it on his way to the fresher. Output followed input; after he had washed himself and straightened his tunic he felt almost collected again, until he stepped from the fresher and nearly collided with Qui-Gon outside the door.
"Padawan." That voice at its lowest, thick and rounded with sleep. Obi-Wan rocked on his heels until a hand from his dreams steered him back into the fresher without effort. The lights came on at their most forgiving glow. "How is it."
His chin was summarily lifted. Obi-Wan kept otherwise still, hardly breathing as Qui-Gon examined the state of his dilation one last time. For a moment he forgot that an answer was required of him.
"Better, Master." His mouth was dry. He needed the second cup of water after all. "Thank you. I'm sorry if I disturbed your rest."
The furrow in Qui-Gon's brow eased. He dragged his palm over the top of Obi-Wan's head, a gesture that would have mussed Obi-Wan's hair were it not cropped too short to be disheveled. Obi-Wan's scalp prickled as if it felt the yielding of every strand.
"Good," sighed his master. "Back to bed."
The lights went out.
*
The new prince consort attended their departure, his carapace burnished to a regal sheen. Obi-Wan had been subdued all morning, a sheepish and unobtrusive shadow at Qui-Gon's heels, but he acquitted himself well at the ceremony, and afterward, as they started up the ramp to board the ship, he spoke.
"He's still blue." At Qui-Gon's glance of inquiry Obi-Wan looked up gamely, flushing only a little around the ears. "I thought blue was just for the wedding. Ceremonial."
Banal as it was, the observation spoke to Qui-Gon of an endearing grope toward normalcy. Brave heart, he thought, and responded in kind. "No, the hormonal changes are permanent in consort males. He'll always be blue. Even if he outlives the queen."
For some reason Obi-Wan seemed struck by this. He lagged for a brief backward glance, and when he caught up to Qui-Gon at the top of the ramp some of the spring was back in his step.
"It's a good look, I think," he said.
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