Rating – R

e-mail – ziggysane@punks.org

Archive – ask, please

Obi-Wan is 19.

Eraser

by ziggy sane

Drip. Drip.

Those voices were back, distant but approaching. What did that mean? They were coming a lot closer. Oh, gods… Screeching rose up around him, clawing out of the black cells and piercing the air; mad cries of insanity that didn't seem to ever want to stop… Why was he here… He didn't want to be here, why was he here? Keeping quiet never helped.

Dirty fingers wrapped around cold steel bars and a ragged voice joined in, hoarse as it was. It was always scratchy these days. Scratchy 'cause they said he was pretty and made him hold still while they…

What did this yelling mean? Was he going mad?

Obi-Wan was cut off abruptly as the lights of his cell snapped on, blinding his sensitive eyes with their fierce brightness. He cried out as his door swung open and two of the green suits came in. He raised his hands to fight them off but knew it was useless. They were bigger than he was. Always bigger. They grew bigger everyday. That's what Danzek was always telling everyone.

"Go…go away…"

"Shut your mouth."

Cruel hands grabbed his arms and jerked him to his feet. His legs trembled beneath him and he sagged weakly in the bruising grip but they only pushed him forward, shoving him from behind and when they hit a particularly tender spot on his back he yelped. The sound rung hollow in the long, empty corridor and warranted a sharp cuff to his temple. The blow caused sparks to burst behind his eyes for a moment. He let them drag his dazed form a little further before scrabbling for footing on the filthy stone floor. In the end, though, he couldn't keep up and let them support him the rest of the way. Why should he help them continue with his torture, anyway?

Dulled blue gray eyes miserably watched the door at the end of the hall. That was the one where the worst things happened. Where he seemed to end up much of the time. He shivered in his captor's grasp, his breath hitching some as it did much of the time since he had come here, and he was forced into a painful fit of coughing. What he wouldn't give for some clean water… Stuff here had bugs floating in it.

Bugs're good for you, Danzek always said. Eat'em. Lotsa protein.

"Gods above, he smells."

"Yeah, yeah…" The voices floated to his ears as if from far above. "I think this is… uh…" Fingers roughly grabbed his chin and jerked his face upwards. Obi-Wan stared groggily up into the face of one of the green suits. The face whistled. "Yeah, yeah. This is that pretty one we got a couple months ago." The face sniffed a little, almost proud. "I've had him and all. He's afraid to wash up. Watch this." The face leered down at him. "Hey, hey-a. Kid. Want to get clean? Take a shower? Maybe a nice long bath?"

Obi-Wan's eyes went wide at the implications being made and he shook his head no, quivering lips stumbling over the words he wanted to say. "N…no! Please, no…please…" He was far, far from above begging. He could dimly recall a time when he would fight them off, but it was hardly worth the consequences, now…

"Har-har! Cleef kept taking him while he washed up… While he was in the showers. Funny as anything, the noises this one'd make. C'mon, though. No fucking about. Pity he's going to leave us."

And they went on, dragging Obi-Wan across the floor. What did they mean? He was leaving? Were they going to end his life? Oh, Force, help… It should have mattered more to him but it didn't.

Small cries left him as he was pushed roughly through a doorway He wondered if it was the one at the end of the hall? He had stopped paying attention. Maybe he had dozed? He slept sometimes without meaning to. He could feel ribs grating against one another inside of him.

"He stinks more'n a dead rancor, but this is him. 6872. Go on, kid." A green suit grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head up. Must have dozed again…


 "Hey, hey-a, kid! Get over there!" Obi-Wan's bleary gaze followed the length of one long extended finger to the figure across the room who stood tall… sort of blurry, but…

Another shiver shook his underfed body and he went numb, nausea roiling through him. He sank to the floor and the green suits sighed in irritation, huffed at him, wrenching him back up by the collar of his too thin shirt and dragging him further until a voice halted their movements.

"Stop."

The word registered in Obi-Wan's mind sluggishly, as if coming to him through mud. The tight grip the green suits had on him let go suddenly, letting him slump back down to the cold and dirty tile.

A man came into view then, familiar and concerned, and gentle hands whispered over the bruises on Obi-Wan's face, trailing lightly down his neck to his exposed collarbone, puffy from some unnamed harm.

The man was clean and smelled nice and when he touched Obi-Wan with soothing fingers, smoothing his hair back away from his face, it was because he wanted to help, the boy knew that much, at least. The man smiled at him, so softly and so honestly that Obi-Wan wanted to cry and the man's teeth were white and not yellow or missing like the green suits' were…

Another shiver and he opened his mouth, "Oh... Qui-Gon," his voice a hollow croak and so damaged sounding he wondered if he would be understood at all.

But the man smiled again, placing a warm palm on his cheek and Obi-Wan turned his face to the contact, needing it more than he even needed to get out of that place.