Obi-Wan had heard rumors about places like this. He'd even been to a few specimens before in the course of a mission. Then, as now, sometimes a Jedi must travel to the seediest of environs in the name of duty. Obi-Wan grudgingly admitted to himself that truly, this wasn't so seedy as, well, uncivilized.
The rooms appointments were relatively clean and well-maintained. It's just that the very notion of a hostelry that catered to providing a private seclusion at an hourly rate for patrons to pursue matters of passion offended his sensibilities.
It wasn't that Jedi were incapable of feeling passion, as much of the public assumed. They simply could not allow themselves to be ruled by base passions. Indeed, Obi-Wan knew that some Jedi sometimes sought out just this type of establishment when they had time for, erm, joint recreational pursuits. A taverner who could maintain a strict discretion when a pair of Jedi checked in could make a profitable reputation. Privacy was after all more an ideal than a reality in a Temple full of Force sensitives.
Obi-Wan, for example, roomed with his former master, and while the older man could be the epitome of tact during a diplomatic mission, Obi-Wan was not about to give the man the chance to practice his knife's edge diplomacy on Obi-Wan at the breakfast table the morning after. But that didn't mean Obi-Wan planned on frequenting the type of crude facility he now found himself in either. He could just imagine the eloquent lightsaber statement his beloved might make in response to an invitation to such a place. He snorted at the image.
But this idle speculation was splitting his focus. "Keep your focus in the here and now where it belongs," he wryly mocked himself.
Here and now he was supposed to be waiting for a crimelord to arrive expecting an assignation with his consort. It didn't hurt Obi-Wan's pride too badly to admit that the criminal was likely to be disappointed when he arrived to find Obi-Wan occupying the suite instead of his desired.
"Blast it," Obi-Wan muttered as he inhaled a particularly strong whiff of passionflower off one of the many flickering votives set about the room. Candles were valuable focal points for meditation or aides to ritual, but their use for romantic ambiance was rather lost on him. Especially as he found the strong scents emanating from the multitude of luminaries to be slightly nauseating.
Obi-Wan was starting to feel an un-Jedi-like grouchiness enveloping him. He was supposed to be on leave. Regaining his balance, restoring his connection to the Force after a long string of exhausting missions. But somehow he'd let himself be talked into helping that absolute gundark, Garen Muln. "Just stake out the crimelord's rendezvous point while I delay his sweetie and squeeze her for information," Garen had wheedled. Obi-Wan supposed he consented because he figured Garen could use all the help of responsible, level-headed persons he could muster as Garen was an absolute imbecile himself. Yes, it was definitely pity that tied him to Garen and bade him get involved in his schemes.
Just as Obi-Wan was about to try meditation to clear his head from the floral fumes blanketing the room, he finally heard the snick of a keycard being swiped at the lock. He reached out through the Force to identify his visitor and determine his intent...and wondered in shock why the person about to enter his room should be in this motel at all, and why he was a she and one he knew quite well at that.
He did not have long to wonder about who she might be planning to meet and to grow jealous or angry...not that a Jedi would indulge in those emotions. Or at least not admit to it. Nor did he have time to feel protective agitation that she might be letting herself into a dangerous situation. He didn't even have time to reconsider and perhaps downgrade his esteem for her considering her willingness to patronize this particular establishment. He quite deliberately did not have time to worry about her possibly violent reaction to finding him apparently awaiting another to join him on the heart-shaped bed upon which he sat.
Before he could come up with any other thoughts about what he did not have time for, there she was before him. Suddenly the flickering luminance and heady scent in the room was eclipsed by her presence. "Siri," he gasped, "what are you doing here?"
She raised a delicate eyebrow and coolly surveyed Obi-Wan and the suite's ornamentation. "Well, Kenobi," she drawled, "I like what you've done with the place." She paused. "But unless you've taken up a life of crime on an equal scale to the atrocity of this interior design, I think I should rather be asking what you're doing here."
Obi-Wan was sure he must have imagined the faintly dangerous glimmer in Siri's sapphire eyes. Or maybe he rather hoped he had imagined it. "I was merely seeking to emulate the masters of yore in providing compassionate aide to a knight of lesser experience and ability. Knight Muln quite humbly entreated me to assist him in capturing a criminal who frequents this place for, um, leisure activities. I felt duty-bound to help him salvage his mission and reputation."
"Wait. Muln put you up to this? But he fed me the same kriffing load of bantha fodder!" Siri growled indignantly.
Being intelligent and Jedi besides, the two quickly made the necessary calculations and reached the obvious conclusion-Garen Muln was a sneaky, manipulative, juvenile barve. "I'm going to make him sing the soprano part in a Wookie opera when I get my hands on him," Siri vowed.
Now it was Obi-Wan's turn to raise a considering brow. This was just the type of prank he should have expected from Garen. He was actually rather embarrassed that he hadn't seen through it from the start. Still, a nice extended sparring session should put Garen neatly in his place again.
How Garen thought this could work, Obi-Wan couldn't imagine. It wasn't as though he and Siri could possibly be seduced by the trite trappings of pretended romance, as if they would find themselves in this private suite and suddenly lose all their Jedi discipline.
Obi-Wan glanced at Siri. She was concluding her tirade against the puerile antics of their mutual purported friend. Her color was high, her eyes were sparking, a few strands of honeyed hair had fallen over her brow as she gestured and huffed. Obi-Wan was standing near the side table at the head of the bed. Siri had strayed close to him in her last dismayed pacing circuit of the room. Obi-Wan unthinkingly reached out to smooth back the unruly locks.
Siri froze. Obi-Wan mirrored her in unconscious symmetry. Then slowly, slowly they moved together until their lips brushed. They joined together in a slow, lingering exploration. After a timeless moment, they pulled apart. Obi-Wan abided in this moment, punctuated by the rhythm of his quickened breaths slowly regaining a more moderate tempo.
"That was nice," Siri whispered.
"Mmm," Obi-Wan murmured.
Hands still loitering on a flank, the small of the back, the back of a neck, they searched each other's eyes for a clue to the next moment. Siri's eyes slid sideways to once again take in the sumptuous, if cliched bedding. She sighed. "This place is just missing a certain spark." The surroundings were banal, tawdry.
Siri laid her head against Obi-Wan's chest. She felt his heartbeat beneath her ear, his breath stir her hair. She turned her head to the other side as she snuggled close. But Siri was a resourceful woman. From her new vantage point, her eyes lit upon the side table filled with votives meant to spark just the romantic atmosphere she felt was lacking.
Thought was action for Siri. She pursued her mission with all the focus and determination of a Jedi. The judicious bump of a hip against the table set the candles flying-some knocked into the draperies, some into the shag carpeting, some onto the decadent bedding.
One might wonder how a couple of Jedi could manage to set a motel room aflame. The Council certainly would later. But some things are meant to be. When Obi-Wan reached with the Force to set the candles aright before any damage could be done, his lightning fast reflexes were hampered by an antagonistic use of Force application by his companion.
Stunned, he wasted time trying to read Siri's intentions rather than dousing the flames. To his surprise, she was grinning with a ferocious battle light. "That, Kenobi, is how to light a spark."
Utterly befuddled, Obi-Wan didn't resist as Siri fisted her hands in the fronts of his tunics and wrestled him to the bed. At first he thought to protest that the flames were licking at the headboard now, and that her 'spark' was already rather more a middling sized conflagration with ambitions of becoming full-fledged. But his mouth was involved in occupations other than being the oracle of reason. Soon his faculty of reason was being overpowered as well.
It was getting rather heated in the room, Obi-Wan thought. The external atmosphere was echoed in his body-the heat was spreading in his belly, trails of warmth being blazed on his body where Siri's hands brushed as the wrestling match continued. In another instance of consonance, his blood roared in his ears in a noisy rush as the alarms began to blare in the room announcing the confirmation of the blaze already well underway.
Just when the twin conflagrations threatened to burn out of control, the safety sprinklers erupted, dousing both occupants and the room's appointments with a steady rainfall. Slowly the gentle shower brought the atmosphere in the room back into balance from the spiking intensity of moments earlier.
The two Jedi slowly were brought back to awareness of their surroundings, and the inferno became a slow smolder. What articles of clothing had not become victim to the preceding fierce wrestling match were now wet, clinging. Siri's stubborn locks lay sodden, plastered to her forehead. Obi-Wan again gently brushed them aside, and his lips followed the motion. Again, they explored the moment, together. It was a long moment, and a contented one.
Explanations would be necessary-to the motel's proprietor and to themselves. A mutual friend would have to be punished or rewarded. But that was later. Here and now, all was good-thanks to a spark of inspiration.
The end.
This bit of silliness was sparked by wondering exactly how Jedi ever get any privacy. Thanks to Ruth Baulding for pointing out that the 'Jedi Nookie Motel' would be too tame for Obi-Wan and Siri unless it was on fire!