good jedi knights don't
Oh, I can't believe this is my inaugural post here. -.- I'm not on crack all the time, I swear. My apologies for the liberties I've taken with the Star Wars universe, and, um, apologies for this fic in general. :)
Good Jedi Knights Don't
(aka: Panic! On Naboo)
Okay, Brendon was definitely starting to rethink his choice of career. The Jedi thing seemed cool, back when they'd showed up on his doorstep when he'd been six years old and they'd told him all about the Force and how it would pretty much give him superpowers. But he's never been that great when it comes to upholding the Jedi Code - the whole getting over emotion thing isn't exactly his strong suit. Even so, he's totally determined to become an actual Jedi Knight, if only so he can finally chop off that stupid, stupid braid in his hair. Being a Padawan is a pretty good life, though; he has lots of friends at the Academy, and even if he's absolutely terrible at using his lightsaber or getting the Force to move things, he's awesome at other things, like persuasion and sensing danger.
And, yeah, he's sensing a lot of danger right now. So much, in fact, that he's debating turning his ship around and leaving. Really, even just getting his lightsaber working is a major feat - actually fighting someone with it and winning would be a miracle.
"There are other weapons," Jon mentioned when Brendon had told him about how worried he was. "I know we're supposed to stick to lightsabers, but it's not like they're going to not let you be a Jedi if you use a blaster or something."
Brendon wasn't cheered by the suggestion. "Um, y'know how I used to brag about blasting womp rats in my T-16 back home? I might have been exaggerating a little."
"Did you even have a T-16?"
"I had a toboggan and a pile of rocks. And I only ever hit a womp rat once, and that was because it was already dead. Jon, what am I going to do? I've never even used anything other than a lightsaber."
Jon shrugged. "Ask Spencer if he can put your Trial on hold?"
"Yeah, but..." Brendon didn't know how to explain the way that Spencer had looked when he'd given Brendon his task. Spencer was one of the Jedi Masters, along with Jon, who'd taken over training Brendon when Brent had gone missing in Kashyyyk. And while it was technically Jon's role to assign Brendon his Trials, Spencer had specifically commanded that Brendon be sent on this mission, and since Spencer was on the Jedi Council and Jon wasn't, and since Jon was one of Spencer's best friends, he'd deferred to him.
"But why me, Spence?" Brendon had asked.
Spencer'd looked pained. "That's Master Spencer, Brendon."
Brendon had screwed up his face. "Dude, Spence, that sounds pretty kinky."
If you looked or listened closely, you would probably notice Spencer counting to ten under his breath at this point. "Brendon, just - I know you're the right one for this job, okay?" And that had been that. Spencer had looked sad, absolutely heartbroken, when he'd told Brendon about the Trial, and Spencer was usually the best at keeping his emotions to a minimum.
Brendon didn't really question Spencer's judgement, but he hadn't really been given much information about the mission in question. Or, you know, any information at all, other than being told that there was a Severely Bad Person stirring shit up on Naboo, and Brendon had to stop him.
So he's here on Naboo, standing outside a perfectly innocent-looking building, and his Spidey-sense is tingling off the charts. Taking a few deep breaths, he slips into the building, aiming for a stealthy and inconspicuous entrance. Of course, Brendon being Brendon, when he quietly closes the door behind him he manages to shut the door on his robe, causing him to trip, rip the back of his robe, and send his lightsaber clattering across the floor.
The lightsaber's movement is halted when someone brings their foot down on it. "You're a Jedi," a surprised voice says; Brendon figures he's probably about to die, but that doesn't stop him from wondering if the surprise in the voice is because a Jedi came to stop him, or that an epic failure like Brendon is actually a Jedi.
"Yeah. Kind of. Not really. I'm, um. I'm Brendon?" He finally looks up to see that the person he's here to stop is trying (and failing miserably) to keep from laughing. The guy is small - a little taller than Brendon, but skinny, and he doesn't look like any of the Sith dudes Brendon's seen in the past.
They were all about the weird face masks and black robes, and okay, this guy does have a black hood pulled up over his head, but instead of robes he's wearing skinny jeans and a black hoodie, and though most of his hair is covered by the hoodie, he's got fantastically messy bangs falling down over his eyes. (Brendon's kind of jealous, actually. He could have awesome hair too, if it weren't for the stupid Padawan braid.) But yeah. Brendon's seen the face of evil plenty of times before, and it was never wearing this much eyeliner. "Um, are you a Sith Lord? You don't look particularly menacing." Which he's pretty sure is the wrong thing to say, because if he is a Sith Lord, oh shit, Brendon is dead.
The guy just keeps laughing. "Are you kidding me? They didn't - they didn't even tell you why you're here?"
Brendon shakes his head. "No, Spencer just said -" He stops. At the mention of Spencer's name, the guy stops laughing and crosses the room to where Brendon is still sprawled on the floor, trying to untangle himself from his robes.
He crouches down next to him. "Spencer sent you?" Brendon nods. "How - how is he?"
Wow. The Jedi Academy has taught him all about fighting techniques, but he must have been sick during Polite Conversation With Possible Sith Lords 101. "He's good?"
"That's good to hear." He pauses for a bit, then stands, extending his hand. "Brendon, you said your name was?" Brendon nods again, looking dubiously at his hand. "I'm Ryan. Come on, let's get something to eat."
*
At this point Brendon's completely bewildered. This guy's supposed to be bad news, and yet here he is making Brendon a sandwich. He even cuts it in half for him, and at this point he thinks that maybe he's unconscious and having weird hallucinations. "So you're not a Sith Lord, I take it."
Ryan smirks. "No, not so much. I'm a Jedi."
"A... Dark Jedi?" Brendon's heard of them; there's been plenty of talk about them in the Academy. Popular opinion is that they're pretty badass, even if they like pretty shitty music. Also, they're generally on a one-way track to the Dark Side, and are responsible for a lot of terrible things in the universe. But for the most part? Badass.
Ryan rolls his eyes. "That term is so preposterous."
"Your mom's preposterous," Brendon says.
Ryan looks torn between laughing and slamming his head off the wall. He sets the sandwiches down on the table and gestures for Brendon to sit. "Yes, I'm a ~*Dark Jedi*~." (The tildes and asterisks are totally there. Ryan's good at the Force; he sends sarcastic punctuation telepathically with the greatest of ease.) "And I suppose Spencer sent you to turn me back on the right path, or kill me, one of the two."
"I don't know," Brendon muses, devouring half his sandwich in two bites. "He seemed pretty sad when he told me I had to come here, and he didn't actually tell me what to do."
"He was sad?" Ryan frowns. "Is he normally like that?"
"Who knows? He hardly ever shows any emotion at all, because he's a ~good Jedi~." Brendon's pretty impressed with himself for managing to send some tildes back. He's never been able to send asterisks, but possibly with a little practice he'll get there soon.
"Tell me about it. We grew up together, and he used to be so much fun. And then all of a sudden all he cared about was becoming a Knight, and we had this stupid fight one night about whether or not the Padawan hair thing was just some kind of weird Jedi hazing. I left the Academy and we haven't spoken since."
Brendon's suddenly self-conscious, trying to angle his head so that his braid is hidden. Ryan sees what he's doing and smiles, not mockingly or sarcastically like earlier, and Brendon's only known Ryan for a few minutes but he's got a feeling that Ryan doesn't smile like that too often, and it's kind of gorgeous.
"You should cut off the braid," Ryan says. "I could do it for you, if you want."
"I'd get in so much trouble."
Ryan shrugs. "Hair grows. And I mean, come on, anger is the path to the dark side, not haircuts, right?"
*
Brendon looks at himself critically in the mirror. "That looks kind of awesome," he admits.
"When they ask you about it, just tell you that I did some kind of weird evil thing and stole your braid."
"Yeah, will do." Okay, so far the guy he's trying to stop from doing some kind of undisclosed evil has made him a sandwich and given him a haircut. He's not sure he's being very successful. "So, um. What am I supposed to be stopping you from doing, if I may ask? What exactly do you do?"
"I steal," Ryan says bluntly.
"You use the Force to do it?" Brendon asks, shocked.
"Yeah, sure, why not?"
"That's so unethical," he says. "What if someone got hurt?"
"I only steal from people who don't deserve it," he says.
"And how do you judge that?"
Ryan glares. "Trust me."
And bizarrely enough, Brendon does.
*
"I really, really don't think this is what Spencer wanted me to do," Brendon says as he shifts uncomfortably in the seat next to Ryan.
Ryan raises an eyebrow. "Oh, come on, for all you know this is exactly what he had in mind. Besides, you've got ethical concerns. I don't want you sending the whole Order after me because they think I'm doing something terrible."
"All right, but did I have to wear your clothes? This doesn't actually fit me." The pants and shirt that Ryan loaned him are too long and too tight, and Brendon's completely uncomfortable. Jedi robes might not be all that practical, considering the fact that his got him trapped in a door, but at least they're comfy.
"You look good," Ryan says, and Brendon finds himself blushing. He pulls the hood of his borrowed sweater up over his head, attempting to hide his red cheeks, but instead of an awesome black sweater like Ryan's, Brendon had been given a lime green one that just makes his face look even pinker.
They don't have far to go - Ryan chose the place where he'd been holing up so he'd be able to make a quick getaway after he's done this job. They manage to get into the building without difficulty, as a few days ago Ryan managed to find a door that seemed to have been forgotten by whoever owned the building - it was hardly noticeable, and when Brendon glanced at the lock, it clicked open.
He stared at it for a moment. "Um. Did I just do that? Because I was hardly even thinking about it."
Ryan laughed. "You're a natural."
"Seriously, I'm actually terrible at the Force. Like, completely terrible. You have no idea."
Ryan reaches for his hand and squeezes it. "Maybe my awesome Force skills are contagious," he says with a smirk. Brendon feels a weird fluttering in his chest when Ryan touches him, and the door opens itself. And okay, this is really, really getting ridiculous.
They enter the building, and that feeling of danger that Brendon was feeling earlier is back again full-force.
*
There are slaves in the building. Brendon's not ignorant; he knows that slavery's a major problem all across the galaxy, but these are just kids. The girl in the first cage they see can't be more than four, and she looks so frightened when she sees them that Brendon's heart breaks a little. And then he's angry, completely, blindingly angry, and he's starting to see exactly why the Jedi Masters stress the need to separate themselves from emotion, because right now he wants to hurt someone, and that's a little bit scary.
"We have to get them out of here," he whispers, and Ryan nods.
"We will, but I need to get something first."
"What?" Brendon hisses.
"They've got a protocol droid here that I want to steal. It's pretty high-tech, and I'll get a fortune for it."
"You fucking jerk," Brendon says, doing his best to keep his voice low. "These are kids. And they don't exactly look like they're being treated well."
"And what are you going to do with them when we get out of here? Do you think they can run very fast? We'd be caught in an instant. The best thing to do is get information on the operation, and then you can call your Jedi friends if you want and they can take these guys down. But we can't help anyone if we get caught. The droid I'm looking for should have some intel we can use."
It makes a certain amount of sense, but Brendon doesn't like it. Still, he allows Ryan to lead him through the building. They've just found the room where the droid is apparently kept when they're discovered, and before Brendon has time to realize what's going on, Ryan's pushing him back, getting between him and someone who has a blaster. Ryan fires off a few shots with his own blaster, but they miss their mark, and then there's a shot coming straight for Ryan.
Foresight isn't really one of Brendon's specialties, but Ryan must have been right about his awesome Force skills being contagious, because Brendon's in front of Ryan before the shot's even fired, and he has his lightsaber functioning just in time to deflect the shot, which heads straight back, striking the woman who'd been firing.
Brendon freezes, watching her fall, and Ryan grabs his hand. "We need to get out of here," he says, and Brendon lets Ryan lead him through the building. They've at the door when Brendon hears footsteps coming their way. Ryan whirls around, blaster at the ready, but Brendon pulls him back into the shadows of the room, barely breathing as the guards look for them. "I could've taken them," he protests as soon as the danger's gone.
"Yeah, starting a firefight in a room full of children is a great idea, Ryan. Good planning." Ryan looks startled, as if he hadn't realized where they were. Brendon prefers that to the alternative, that Ryan would've endangered so many kids without giving it a second thought.
*
Brendon makes contact with Spencer, gives him a few details about what's happened, and he promises that he and Jon are on their way. When he finds Ryan again, he's tearing up one of the rooms he's been using as a base, tossing various things into a bag. "Going somewhere?" Brendon asks, and he jumps.
"I need to get out of here before Spencer's here. I can't... Brendon, I just can't see him, okay?"
Brendon gives him a considering look. "That's not it, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You might've got those kids killed if I hadn't been there. You're upset about that."
"I am not," Ryan says, his chin tipped up in defiance. "I don't give a shit about anyone but myself."
"Liar," Brendon sing-songs. "Liar, liar, liar." Ryan glares at him, but it's half-hearted at best. He actually looks like he's about to cry, and Brendon blinks in surprise. "Are you okay?" he asks, and okay, foresight is definitely, definitely not his strong suit, because all of a sudden Ryan's kissing him, and yeah, he honestly didn't see that coming.
He tries to pull back to protest - Jedi Code, giving up emotion and passion and all that jazz - but Ryan backs him into the wall and kisses him again, and this time Brendon kisses back, throwing twelve years of rules out the window. He whimpers when Ryan bites his lip, and he can feel Ryan laughing at him. Hey, I've spent my adolescence being told that passion leads to ~* the Dark Side*~, he thinks crossly. Not my fault I'm kind of desperate.
Ryan pulls away, still close enough that Brendon can feel his breath tickling his lips. "You managed asterisks that time," he says. "Impressive."
"Oh, shut up," Brendon says, but he laughs anyway as he leans in to kiss him again, and of course that's when Spencer and Jon show up.
*
Spencer pitches a fit. Not right away, of course, as there are slavers to catch, children to free, justice to be delivered, yadda yadda yadda, but when they're back at Ryan's temporary base, he rips Brendon a new one.
"Oh, fuck off, Spence," Ryan says, temper finally snapping. "Just because you're the perfect Jedi doesn't mean everyone else is capable of it. I know it's easy for you to lie to yourself and pretend you don't have feelings -"
"It hasn't been easy," Spencer whispers, and Ryan stops mid-rant, eyes wide.
"What?"
"It hasn't been easy without you." Ryan stares at him for another few seconds while Spencer looks down in embarrassment, and then Ryan reaches forward and pulls him into a hug, and - no way, Spencer's actually crying. Brendon and Jon share a look of pure amazement before breaking down into hysterical laughter.
*
"So I guess you're leaving," Brendon says to Ryan when they're alone again.
"I guess you are too."
"Yeah. Do you need us to, um, drop you off anywhere or anything?"
"I've got a ship. YT-1300," he adds, and Brendon whistles.
"Nice."
"Yeah."
There's a few seconds of silence, and then Brendon starts rambling. "Okay, so, I know you don't really know me at all, and that you're a Dark Jedi and you'll probably go corrupt and self-destruct, but I don't think it's good for you to be alone, and maybe I should come with you? I mean, I can't really use the Force at all unless you're around, for whatever reason, and that's probably a bad thing because I'll probably go corrupt and self destruct and, like, kill puppies or something too, and -" He's about to continue when he glances up to see Ryan smiling at him.
"You want to come with me, Brendon?"
"Yeah," he says. "I really, really do."
This time, he's the one who pushes the other up against a wall and kisses him.
*
Brendon doesn't know how to tell Jon and Spencer that he won't be going back with them, but that turns out to be a non-issue when they sit them down and tell them they've concluded that Ryan's probably got the right idea, and that they don't really believe that the Jedi Code is all it's cracked up to be. Brendon kind of wonders if he's being mind-tricked, but Spencer seems totally earnest. And then there's another melodramatic moment in which Spencer asks Ryan if he and Jon can come along too, and there's more hugging and crying, and Jon pokes Brendon in the side. "Your boyfriend's a pansy," he says.
"Like you can talk," Brendon replies, adding mentally You're definitely only coming with us because you're ~*in love*~ with Spencer.
Jon turns red, and he's about to say something when Ryan, still cuddled into Spencer's shoulder, calls out "Brendon, you're getting better at that, but you might need some work on making sure your messages only go to their intended recipient and not every Jedi in the immediate vicinity."
Spencer's looking anywhere but at Brendon and Jon, and Brendon cracks up.
Jon pokes him again. "Were those asterisks, Brendon? I'm proud of you."
*
Good Jedi Knights Don't
(aka: Panic! On Naboo)
Okay, Brendon was definitely starting to rethink his choice of career. The Jedi thing seemed cool, back when they'd showed up on his doorstep when he'd been six years old and they'd told him all about the Force and how it would pretty much give him superpowers. But he's never been that great when it comes to upholding the Jedi Code - the whole getting over emotion thing isn't exactly his strong suit. Even so, he's totally determined to become an actual Jedi Knight, if only so he can finally chop off that stupid, stupid braid in his hair. Being a Padawan is a pretty good life, though; he has lots of friends at the Academy, and even if he's absolutely terrible at using his lightsaber or getting the Force to move things, he's awesome at other things, like persuasion and sensing danger.
And, yeah, he's sensing a lot of danger right now. So much, in fact, that he's debating turning his ship around and leaving. Really, even just getting his lightsaber working is a major feat - actually fighting someone with it and winning would be a miracle.
"There are other weapons," Jon mentioned when Brendon had told him about how worried he was. "I know we're supposed to stick to lightsabers, but it's not like they're going to not let you be a Jedi if you use a blaster or something."
Brendon wasn't cheered by the suggestion. "Um, y'know how I used to brag about blasting womp rats in my T-16 back home? I might have been exaggerating a little."
"Did you even have a T-16?"
"I had a toboggan and a pile of rocks. And I only ever hit a womp rat once, and that was because it was already dead. Jon, what am I going to do? I've never even used anything other than a lightsaber."
Jon shrugged. "Ask Spencer if he can put your Trial on hold?"
"Yeah, but..." Brendon didn't know how to explain the way that Spencer had looked when he'd given Brendon his task. Spencer was one of the Jedi Masters, along with Jon, who'd taken over training Brendon when Brent had gone missing in Kashyyyk. And while it was technically Jon's role to assign Brendon his Trials, Spencer had specifically commanded that Brendon be sent on this mission, and since Spencer was on the Jedi Council and Jon wasn't, and since Jon was one of Spencer's best friends, he'd deferred to him.
"But why me, Spence?" Brendon had asked.
Spencer'd looked pained. "That's Master Spencer, Brendon."
Brendon had screwed up his face. "Dude, Spence, that sounds pretty kinky."
If you looked or listened closely, you would probably notice Spencer counting to ten under his breath at this point. "Brendon, just - I know you're the right one for this job, okay?" And that had been that. Spencer had looked sad, absolutely heartbroken, when he'd told Brendon about the Trial, and Spencer was usually the best at keeping his emotions to a minimum.
Brendon didn't really question Spencer's judgement, but he hadn't really been given much information about the mission in question. Or, you know, any information at all, other than being told that there was a Severely Bad Person stirring shit up on Naboo, and Brendon had to stop him.
So he's here on Naboo, standing outside a perfectly innocent-looking building, and his Spidey-sense is tingling off the charts. Taking a few deep breaths, he slips into the building, aiming for a stealthy and inconspicuous entrance. Of course, Brendon being Brendon, when he quietly closes the door behind him he manages to shut the door on his robe, causing him to trip, rip the back of his robe, and send his lightsaber clattering across the floor.
The lightsaber's movement is halted when someone brings their foot down on it. "You're a Jedi," a surprised voice says; Brendon figures he's probably about to die, but that doesn't stop him from wondering if the surprise in the voice is because a Jedi came to stop him, or that an epic failure like Brendon is actually a Jedi.
"Yeah. Kind of. Not really. I'm, um. I'm Brendon?" He finally looks up to see that the person he's here to stop is trying (and failing miserably) to keep from laughing. The guy is small - a little taller than Brendon, but skinny, and he doesn't look like any of the Sith dudes Brendon's seen in the past.
They were all about the weird face masks and black robes, and okay, this guy does have a black hood pulled up over his head, but instead of robes he's wearing skinny jeans and a black hoodie, and though most of his hair is covered by the hoodie, he's got fantastically messy bangs falling down over his eyes. (Brendon's kind of jealous, actually. He could have awesome hair too, if it weren't for the stupid Padawan braid.) But yeah. Brendon's seen the face of evil plenty of times before, and it was never wearing this much eyeliner. "Um, are you a Sith Lord? You don't look particularly menacing." Which he's pretty sure is the wrong thing to say, because if he is a Sith Lord, oh shit, Brendon is dead.
The guy just keeps laughing. "Are you kidding me? They didn't - they didn't even tell you why you're here?"
Brendon shakes his head. "No, Spencer just said -" He stops. At the mention of Spencer's name, the guy stops laughing and crosses the room to where Brendon is still sprawled on the floor, trying to untangle himself from his robes.
He crouches down next to him. "Spencer sent you?" Brendon nods. "How - how is he?"
Wow. The Jedi Academy has taught him all about fighting techniques, but he must have been sick during Polite Conversation With Possible Sith Lords 101. "He's good?"
"That's good to hear." He pauses for a bit, then stands, extending his hand. "Brendon, you said your name was?" Brendon nods again, looking dubiously at his hand. "I'm Ryan. Come on, let's get something to eat."
*
At this point Brendon's completely bewildered. This guy's supposed to be bad news, and yet here he is making Brendon a sandwich. He even cuts it in half for him, and at this point he thinks that maybe he's unconscious and having weird hallucinations. "So you're not a Sith Lord, I take it."
Ryan smirks. "No, not so much. I'm a Jedi."
"A... Dark Jedi?" Brendon's heard of them; there's been plenty of talk about them in the Academy. Popular opinion is that they're pretty badass, even if they like pretty shitty music. Also, they're generally on a one-way track to the Dark Side, and are responsible for a lot of terrible things in the universe. But for the most part? Badass.
Ryan rolls his eyes. "That term is so preposterous."
"Your mom's preposterous," Brendon says.
Ryan looks torn between laughing and slamming his head off the wall. He sets the sandwiches down on the table and gestures for Brendon to sit. "Yes, I'm a ~*Dark Jedi*~." (The tildes and asterisks are totally there. Ryan's good at the Force; he sends sarcastic punctuation telepathically with the greatest of ease.) "And I suppose Spencer sent you to turn me back on the right path, or kill me, one of the two."
"I don't know," Brendon muses, devouring half his sandwich in two bites. "He seemed pretty sad when he told me I had to come here, and he didn't actually tell me what to do."
"He was sad?" Ryan frowns. "Is he normally like that?"
"Who knows? He hardly ever shows any emotion at all, because he's a ~good Jedi~." Brendon's pretty impressed with himself for managing to send some tildes back. He's never been able to send asterisks, but possibly with a little practice he'll get there soon.
"Tell me about it. We grew up together, and he used to be so much fun. And then all of a sudden all he cared about was becoming a Knight, and we had this stupid fight one night about whether or not the Padawan hair thing was just some kind of weird Jedi hazing. I left the Academy and we haven't spoken since."
Brendon's suddenly self-conscious, trying to angle his head so that his braid is hidden. Ryan sees what he's doing and smiles, not mockingly or sarcastically like earlier, and Brendon's only known Ryan for a few minutes but he's got a feeling that Ryan doesn't smile like that too often, and it's kind of gorgeous.
"You should cut off the braid," Ryan says. "I could do it for you, if you want."
"I'd get in so much trouble."
Ryan shrugs. "Hair grows. And I mean, come on, anger is the path to the dark side, not haircuts, right?"
*
Brendon looks at himself critically in the mirror. "That looks kind of awesome," he admits.
"When they ask you about it, just tell you that I did some kind of weird evil thing and stole your braid."
"Yeah, will do." Okay, so far the guy he's trying to stop from doing some kind of undisclosed evil has made him a sandwich and given him a haircut. He's not sure he's being very successful. "So, um. What am I supposed to be stopping you from doing, if I may ask? What exactly do you do?"
"I steal," Ryan says bluntly.
"You use the Force to do it?" Brendon asks, shocked.
"Yeah, sure, why not?"
"That's so unethical," he says. "What if someone got hurt?"
"I only steal from people who don't deserve it," he says.
"And how do you judge that?"
Ryan glares. "Trust me."
And bizarrely enough, Brendon does.
*
"I really, really don't think this is what Spencer wanted me to do," Brendon says as he shifts uncomfortably in the seat next to Ryan.
Ryan raises an eyebrow. "Oh, come on, for all you know this is exactly what he had in mind. Besides, you've got ethical concerns. I don't want you sending the whole Order after me because they think I'm doing something terrible."
"All right, but did I have to wear your clothes? This doesn't actually fit me." The pants and shirt that Ryan loaned him are too long and too tight, and Brendon's completely uncomfortable. Jedi robes might not be all that practical, considering the fact that his got him trapped in a door, but at least they're comfy.
"You look good," Ryan says, and Brendon finds himself blushing. He pulls the hood of his borrowed sweater up over his head, attempting to hide his red cheeks, but instead of an awesome black sweater like Ryan's, Brendon had been given a lime green one that just makes his face look even pinker.
They don't have far to go - Ryan chose the place where he'd been holing up so he'd be able to make a quick getaway after he's done this job. They manage to get into the building without difficulty, as a few days ago Ryan managed to find a door that seemed to have been forgotten by whoever owned the building - it was hardly noticeable, and when Brendon glanced at the lock, it clicked open.
He stared at it for a moment. "Um. Did I just do that? Because I was hardly even thinking about it."
Ryan laughed. "You're a natural."
"Seriously, I'm actually terrible at the Force. Like, completely terrible. You have no idea."
Ryan reaches for his hand and squeezes it. "Maybe my awesome Force skills are contagious," he says with a smirk. Brendon feels a weird fluttering in his chest when Ryan touches him, and the door opens itself. And okay, this is really, really getting ridiculous.
They enter the building, and that feeling of danger that Brendon was feeling earlier is back again full-force.
*
There are slaves in the building. Brendon's not ignorant; he knows that slavery's a major problem all across the galaxy, but these are just kids. The girl in the first cage they see can't be more than four, and she looks so frightened when she sees them that Brendon's heart breaks a little. And then he's angry, completely, blindingly angry, and he's starting to see exactly why the Jedi Masters stress the need to separate themselves from emotion, because right now he wants to hurt someone, and that's a little bit scary.
"We have to get them out of here," he whispers, and Ryan nods.
"We will, but I need to get something first."
"What?" Brendon hisses.
"They've got a protocol droid here that I want to steal. It's pretty high-tech, and I'll get a fortune for it."
"You fucking jerk," Brendon says, doing his best to keep his voice low. "These are kids. And they don't exactly look like they're being treated well."
"And what are you going to do with them when we get out of here? Do you think they can run very fast? We'd be caught in an instant. The best thing to do is get information on the operation, and then you can call your Jedi friends if you want and they can take these guys down. But we can't help anyone if we get caught. The droid I'm looking for should have some intel we can use."
It makes a certain amount of sense, but Brendon doesn't like it. Still, he allows Ryan to lead him through the building. They've just found the room where the droid is apparently kept when they're discovered, and before Brendon has time to realize what's going on, Ryan's pushing him back, getting between him and someone who has a blaster. Ryan fires off a few shots with his own blaster, but they miss their mark, and then there's a shot coming straight for Ryan.
Foresight isn't really one of Brendon's specialties, but Ryan must have been right about his awesome Force skills being contagious, because Brendon's in front of Ryan before the shot's even fired, and he has his lightsaber functioning just in time to deflect the shot, which heads straight back, striking the woman who'd been firing.
Brendon freezes, watching her fall, and Ryan grabs his hand. "We need to get out of here," he says, and Brendon lets Ryan lead him through the building. They've at the door when Brendon hears footsteps coming their way. Ryan whirls around, blaster at the ready, but Brendon pulls him back into the shadows of the room, barely breathing as the guards look for them. "I could've taken them," he protests as soon as the danger's gone.
"Yeah, starting a firefight in a room full of children is a great idea, Ryan. Good planning." Ryan looks startled, as if he hadn't realized where they were. Brendon prefers that to the alternative, that Ryan would've endangered so many kids without giving it a second thought.
*
Brendon makes contact with Spencer, gives him a few details about what's happened, and he promises that he and Jon are on their way. When he finds Ryan again, he's tearing up one of the rooms he's been using as a base, tossing various things into a bag. "Going somewhere?" Brendon asks, and he jumps.
"I need to get out of here before Spencer's here. I can't... Brendon, I just can't see him, okay?"
Brendon gives him a considering look. "That's not it, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"You might've got those kids killed if I hadn't been there. You're upset about that."
"I am not," Ryan says, his chin tipped up in defiance. "I don't give a shit about anyone but myself."
"Liar," Brendon sing-songs. "Liar, liar, liar." Ryan glares at him, but it's half-hearted at best. He actually looks like he's about to cry, and Brendon blinks in surprise. "Are you okay?" he asks, and okay, foresight is definitely, definitely not his strong suit, because all of a sudden Ryan's kissing him, and yeah, he honestly didn't see that coming.
He tries to pull back to protest - Jedi Code, giving up emotion and passion and all that jazz - but Ryan backs him into the wall and kisses him again, and this time Brendon kisses back, throwing twelve years of rules out the window. He whimpers when Ryan bites his lip, and he can feel Ryan laughing at him. Hey, I've spent my adolescence being told that passion leads to ~* the Dark Side*~, he thinks crossly. Not my fault I'm kind of desperate.
Ryan pulls away, still close enough that Brendon can feel his breath tickling his lips. "You managed asterisks that time," he says. "Impressive."
"Oh, shut up," Brendon says, but he laughs anyway as he leans in to kiss him again, and of course that's when Spencer and Jon show up.
*
Spencer pitches a fit. Not right away, of course, as there are slavers to catch, children to free, justice to be delivered, yadda yadda yadda, but when they're back at Ryan's temporary base, he rips Brendon a new one.
"Oh, fuck off, Spence," Ryan says, temper finally snapping. "Just because you're the perfect Jedi doesn't mean everyone else is capable of it. I know it's easy for you to lie to yourself and pretend you don't have feelings -"
"It hasn't been easy," Spencer whispers, and Ryan stops mid-rant, eyes wide.
"What?"
"It hasn't been easy without you." Ryan stares at him for another few seconds while Spencer looks down in embarrassment, and then Ryan reaches forward and pulls him into a hug, and - no way, Spencer's actually crying. Brendon and Jon share a look of pure amazement before breaking down into hysterical laughter.
*
"So I guess you're leaving," Brendon says to Ryan when they're alone again.
"I guess you are too."
"Yeah. Do you need us to, um, drop you off anywhere or anything?"
"I've got a ship. YT-1300," he adds, and Brendon whistles.
"Nice."
"Yeah."
There's a few seconds of silence, and then Brendon starts rambling. "Okay, so, I know you don't really know me at all, and that you're a Dark Jedi and you'll probably go corrupt and self-destruct, but I don't think it's good for you to be alone, and maybe I should come with you? I mean, I can't really use the Force at all unless you're around, for whatever reason, and that's probably a bad thing because I'll probably go corrupt and self destruct and, like, kill puppies or something too, and -" He's about to continue when he glances up to see Ryan smiling at him.
"You want to come with me, Brendon?"
"Yeah," he says. "I really, really do."
This time, he's the one who pushes the other up against a wall and kisses him.
*
Brendon doesn't know how to tell Jon and Spencer that he won't be going back with them, but that turns out to be a non-issue when they sit them down and tell them they've concluded that Ryan's probably got the right idea, and that they don't really believe that the Jedi Code is all it's cracked up to be. Brendon kind of wonders if he's being mind-tricked, but Spencer seems totally earnest. And then there's another melodramatic moment in which Spencer asks Ryan if he and Jon can come along too, and there's more hugging and crying, and Jon pokes Brendon in the side. "Your boyfriend's a pansy," he says.
"Like you can talk," Brendon replies, adding mentally You're definitely only coming with us because you're ~*in love*~ with Spencer.
Jon turns red, and he's about to say something when Ryan, still cuddled into Spencer's shoulder, calls out "Brendon, you're getting better at that, but you might need some work on making sure your messages only go to their intended recipient and not every Jedi in the immediate vicinity."
Spencer's looking anywhere but at Brendon and Jon, and Brendon cracks up.
Jon pokes him again. "Were those asterisks, Brendon? I'm proud of you."
*