Title: Heat
Author: creepy_crawly
Pairing: Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No ownership. No profit. No shame.
Wordcount: 1877
Summary: Written for wild_huntress's "Party Like It's 1999" Ficathon, answering Challenge #10: "no one's ever thought of this before!!!!!" And boy, but I've really outdone myself on this one. Fo sho. Be warned that this contains slash, sex, sex pollen, mating cycle, alien!Obi, f***-or-die, tentacle sex…yeah, that about covers it.
Obi-Wan gasped, feeling a fire heating in his blood immediately. No! he thought, panic-stricken. It's too soon!
"Padawan?" Qui-Gon asked, turning from his inspection of the small flowering bush. "Is everything okay?"
Taking a deep breath—and somehow fanning the flames in his blood even higher—Obi-Wan shivered and shook his head. The desire was there, already destroying his calm, conscious control, but it was not on fully. He could restrain himself, at least for the moment. "No, M-Master. I…I fear I need…need the Healers."
Qui-Gon blinked, turning away from the bloom that was between his fingers. "Obi-Wan? Is it…no, you have nearly two cycles to go…"
His lips parting, Obi-Wan began to pant. "I don't know why, Master, but I fear it has…has…oohhhhh…" Losing control of his body as a frisson of heated desire sped up his spine, Obi-Wan trembled and fell to his knees.
Seeing the red flush that was already burning in his Padawan's cheeks, and noting the glassy look of his eyes, Qui-Gon understood. Taking off his robe, he threw it over the younger man's trembling body. "We will go to the Healers," he said soothingly. Stooping, he used the Force to help him lift Obi-Wan into his arms. "Surely they will have the serum."
Obi-Wan, when confronted with the smell of hot, living flesh, could not think. The scent of earth and salt and musk—the scent that his mind identified as male, as master, as Qui-Gon—filled his nostrils, and his already-surging system erupted into flame. In the back of his mind, the part that was not yet taken over by pure need, Obi-Wan could only be grateful that the older Jedi had remembered not to touch his skin.
They did not need a repeat of his sixteenth year.
----
Qui-Gon paced through the small room, glad that the Healers on Neran had a com link he could use to contact the Temple.
The hologram of Healer Bi'jar Alluu was not helping him at all, however. She shook her head once more. "I am sorry, Master Jinn. But we cannot stop his cycle once it has started in full. The only serum is here in Coruscant; the only reason it was invented was to permit the Balrinian senators to function year-round. They permit us to use it for Padawan Kenobi, so as not to interfere with his training, but…"
"They believe the cycles to be the will of the Force, yes, yes," Qui-Gon snapped, what his Padawan so charmingly referred to as his "masterly inscrutability" shot to hell. "My Padawan is suffering, Healer Alluu. We are two weeks away from Coruscant."
The Healer sighed. "He is out of season, then?"
"Two cycles early," Qui-Gon confirmed. "I checked; I have the schedule tracked."
"Wise man," the Healer murmured. "How high is his fever?"
"40°," Qui-Gon replied, "and rising fast. The Healers here have started him on an IV, so he's not dehydrated. We're bathing him in ice water once an hour, with no skin contact being permitted."
"Are there none who could…relieve his heat?" Healer Alluu asked, wincing even as she did so.
Qui-Gon shook his head. "The Neranian are…incompatible…with humanoid reproductive systems, and have their own cultural mores surrounding mating cycles, besides. They do experience a bilateral mating cycle, as well, so they do sympathise with him, but…"
Sighing, Healer Alluu seated herself at a desk. "I advise this, then. Cover his mouth and nose; if at all possible, have him receive air from a filtered source. The smell of your skin is not helping him. Wait until he is in the deep of his cycle—the marques will be consistently visible, and black as coal—and then you must take him to mate. If you time it as I have said, you will only need to do it once. Then he should lapse into unconsciousness for at least a week, and his cycle will fall back into a regular cycle."
Sighing, Qui-Gon buried his face in his hands.
----
"Master?" Obi-Wan whispered, his voice torn from his screaming of the past three days. "Where…where are we?"
"We are onboard the transport Ishixii," Qui-Gon replied, "in the medical bay. Do you remember what happened?"
"I…flower…triggered my…did you get the serum?" But even as he asked, he could feel the heat burning in his blood, could feel pure, liquid desire pulsing through him. He knew without looking that his genitals were engorged, presenting for mating.
"No, I'm afraid not," Qui-Gon said gently. He stroked a hand—gloved—across his Padawan's face. "We sedated you before loading you onto the transport. You're getting oxygen from an independent source. We're not touching you uncovered."
Obi-Wan shivered. It would take them at least two weeks to return to Coruscant, where the Balrinian embassy kept the Temple supplied with the serum that kept him from turning into a mass of raging hormones once a year. Taken at the right time—a time he and his Master were within a day's flight of Coruscant—the serum merely made him slightly more aroused than normal for two days.
It had been years since Obi-Wan had suffered through the heat without the serum. And two weeks would be too late.
"Shh, Padawan. Release your fears into the Force," Qui-Gon soothed, stroking his forehead with a damp cloth. "I will not let you fall into the madness."
Obi-Wan closed his eyes and shivered. The heat that gripped him was a time of great instability, both emotionally and physically. If it was not resolved by a certain time, his body would lapse into a primitive, bestial state, and he would have to be put down like a rabid dog. He had come close to it when he was sixteen, having ignored his body's warning for far too long. He had sworn it would never come again.
"Rest, Padawan." Qui-Gon's face floated above him, ringed in the golden halo Obi-Wan associated with the sexually available. "You will need your energy later."
----
The marques burned as they gathered under his skin. Obi-Wan, too, burned, though the fire that consumed him was one of starvation. His body needed the touch of another, needed the contact of mind-to-mind and flesh-to-flesh. He needed to be held, needed to hold.
And they had chained him to this flat place, this bed of torment.
Energy gathered beneath his skin in a maelstrom, while emotions raged furious within his mind. He swung between anger and fear and joy as quickly as he blinked, and beneath it all pulsed the thundering call of desire.
And everywhere across his skin, the marques burned as they gathered.
----
Qui-Gon entered the med-lab, having told the Neranian pilot that they were not to be disturbed for at least twenty-four hours. When he had taken Obi-Wan on as a Padawan, he had studied Balrinian physiology, in order to understand the young man's needs. This, however, had required a much greater in-depth study.
Because their very nature required a yearly melding of flesh and mind, Balrinians were, as a group, very sexual beings. Both males and females experienced a form of heat; it started by the eleventh year and did not end until the body was too weak to carry it out. Many Balrinians bonded permanently by their eighteenth year, stabilizing their minds during the cycling, creating deep wells of love.
Obi-Wan's training bond with Qui-Gon served much a similar function, though the young man had never seemed to realize it.
Said young man was writhing in the straps that held him in place, keeping him from wandering the ship in his mindless lusts. The echo of his mental calls were still sliding out into the Force, but he could not act on them. Dark marques, curlicuing designs, painted his face, hands, arms, and chest. The crotch of his loose pants was tented.
"Padawan," Qui-Gon murmured. "Padawan, do you recognize me?"
"Master…!" Obi-Wan hissed, his body arching in the bonds. "Master!!" He thrashed, his face turning towards the older man. "Leave…height of heat…must not…"
"Relax, Padawan," Qui-Gon said gently. "Live in the moment." Smiling calmingly at the younger man, he deliberately placed his hand in the center of his chest, right where the swirling marques converged.
Obi-Wan sucked in breath with a hiss. The fire leapt to a roaring burn, and every nerve in his body caught light. "Master," he moaned, writhing against his bonds. "Master!"
"Shh," Qui-Gon soothed. Reaching over, he quickly began to undo his Padawan's bonds. "I am here, Obi-Wan. I am here."
As soon as he was released, Obi-Wan captured Qui-Gon's arm and used it to pull himself upright. The motion pulled Qui-Gon against him, but as that was what he had been aiming for, it wasn't a problem. His mind had liquefied beneath the strain of his need, and the only thought that he could process now was fulfilling his desires.
Surging upwards and off the hard bed, Obi-Wan pinned his master against the wall of the ship. Answering instincts he hadn't even fully realized he had, he pressed his forehead to Qui-Gon's even as he worked to strip him down.
Qui-Gon couldn't help gasping as the link between them flared. It was like liquid fire was suddenly poured into his veins. Growling with need, he pushed Obi-Wan far enough away that he could strip his apprentice's clothing off of his legs, revealing the three, throbbing tentacles that made up his genitalia.
Obi-Wan keened as his master wrapped strong fingers around his center-most tentacle, stroking him quickly. It had been so long since someone else had touched him…and even then, they hadn't had this kind of skill!
With a groan that seemed to rumble low in his chest, the young man seized his master, turned him, and thrust him up against the wall. He barely had the presence of mind to recall that Qui-Gon was not of his species, and not built the same way, and so remembered to part his legs with a strong thigh.
Sighing, Qui-Gon relaxed into his Padawan's touches. He thanked all the living Force that Balrinian mating pheromones were close enough to those released by his own species; Obi-Wan's higher thought processes were conspicuously absent.
His own thoughts were interrupted as Obi-Wan's outer tentacles wrapped around his cock, stroking and caressing in time with their pulsing. Oh, yes! He had forgotten about that particular aspect of Balrinian physiology…
Qui-Gon whimpered as Obi-Wan thrust into him. A few seconds later, his Padawan's sharp teeth sunk into his shoulder, and the world became nothing more than a golden haze of pleasure.
----
"Master, I…"
"Do not fear, Padawan," Qui-Gon soothed him, smiling as he dried himself off with the rough towel. "There will be no repercussions."
"But, Master! I…"
"Did as was your nature. I knowingly provoked you, Obi-Wan."
"To save my life. I took advantage of you!" Obi-Wan argued, a bright flush in his cheeks. Though the hormones had, for the most part, subsided, he was still prone to heightened emotions.
Seeing that there was no way he could win the argument, Qui-Gon seized his Padawan's braid between two fingers. Tugging it sharply, he chuckled before swiftly kissing the younger man.
He rather liked Obi-Wan's impression of a beached fish.