Ecstasy
Summary: Qui-Gon Jinn has grown addicted to the Living Force in oh so many ways.
Timeframe: Pre-TPM
Notes: yes, this is an evil Qui-Gon…
Rating: PG and are you kidding? AU, of course.
Disclaimer: I do not own Qui-Gon Jinn or Obi-Wan Kenobi or the Star Wars concept; Lucasfilm does. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No credits have changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.


Paradise.

The white-hot passion burst through his veins, a lava flow of ecstasy engulfing him in flame. The agony of it was indescribable. Little pops of pain-pleasure bubbling in his blood, the bliss of rapturous indulgence seeping into the very cells of his body, mating, dancing, swirling with the blaze of color and light and life. He could feel himself growing ever more powerful, the core of his reality swelling with each wave of bliss as he swallowed the entire universe of delight in a single, unending feast of the Living Force.

It went on for a lifetime, that burn of ecstasy, and he could have gladly died under its spell. But it was not to be.

Slowly, slowly, the white faded into yellows and reds and black. And Qui-Gon Jinn fell from the heights of paradise into the grinding reality of the now. Blinking with eyes still half-crazed with longing, he found himself kneeling in the debris of a back alley. He looked down to find his hand gripping a woman, a prostitute by the cut of her clothes, young and fragile and so very drained. She lay there moaning, whimpering in the dying light.

She had asked him if he wanted to know pleasure, to find comfort in the joining of two bodies. For money, she reminded him but she had promised him such things... Of course, she thought him an honorable man, a Jedi, a guardian of the weak and helpless beings of the Galaxy. She had no idea of the cravings of the inner soul, of how the Living Force sang to him of hunger and sweetness in the Light. For her, cravings were only of the flesh and transitory. She was learning just how fleeting flesh could be.

She whimpered again. Looking at the girl, he ignored the filthy rags that covered her bony form; he did not see the fan of auburn hair spread out on the filthy alley floor or the sheen of terror coating her face with desperation. He only saw the luminous pulse of Living Force energy still beating in her heart, the captured essence of her life begging to be freed.

For him. The feast of light was all for him.

Her horror-shot eyes opened, anguish smearing the color to ocean depths as she stared up at him. "Please, no..." she begged, "You're a Jedi. You..."

"Hush, young one, hush." His hand brushed gently across her bruised cheek, softly following the thread of flowing energy down towards her neck. "Live in the moment, my little morsel." And then his fingertips rested there and began to devour once more the Living Force lying within her. He was pulling the very life from her body, and oh it felt good. "I need your acceptance, your joy in the service of the Jedi." He smiled down, feral and cruel and satiated. "I need your light."

"No." Terror in a single word. She clawed at him, trying to wiggle free of his iron strength before it was too late. Pushing, shoving, at his arm, at his cloak, at his face, desperate to escape, she groaned with effort. But it was already too late. She could not fight him. There was not strength enough in the universe to fight the monster leaning over her, killing her with his need, destroying her with one touch of his hand, the hunger pulling, feeding on her luminescent energy.

Even as the soul-searing pleasure began to fire in his veins once more, one part of him puzzled at her reluctance. Did she not understand that it was for her that he did this, for the universe? Could she not realize that he must carry on in the Light and bring peace and justice to all? And if there were to be a few sacrifices along the way, should she not gladly give her life for it?

She did not seem to comprehend, only struggle against him. But it was futile. One final push and she fell back, panting, each breath a little shallower, a little quieter. Her heart stuttered once before she surrendered to the unending night, as he drained her dry of the Living Force. And then she was dead.

A long, satiated breath and Qui-Gon regained his center. The flow of luminous energy had slowed and finally stopped; the feasting was done and it had been so very good. He smiled with the memory of it, overlaid with the remembrances of other times, other lifes that had given him such light and agonized pleasure. Such power.

But the pathetic remains of a once beautiful girl was now evidence for murder. He needed to leave before he was discovered, before the others realized that he had fed on the Living Force of other, more pathetic lifeforms and drained them dry.

He stood up, the muck of the dirty alleyway staining his pants, his cloak streaked with filth. He turned, grace in his movements, so full of light that he could almost seem to radiate a blaze of white-hot power. And stopped abruptly.

There, at the entrance to the alleyway, stood his thirteen year old apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, his eyes wide with horror, his mouth half-open in denial. The look of absolute devastation passed across his young Padawan's face as he gazed down at the pathetic corpse of Qui-Gon Jinn's fragile victim. He stared at her for a very long time, unblinking, seeing nothing and everything in her slack body. Then at long last, he looked again at his Master.

"Qui-Gon?" Such anguish in his soft voice, such despair. "What have you done?"

"What I must, young one." As he moved swiftly to the boy's side, Obi-Wan flinched back, trembling at the sight of death in Qui-Gon's ravenous eyes. Jinn stilled then, looking down at his Padawan's grief, savoring the panic, almost tasting the fear.

The child was a blaze in the Living Force; he was a sweet confection of Light and terror and destiny. And Qui-Gon was still hungry.

"Only what I must."

The end