fic: luminous beings are we (1/4)
So this is happening. :-)
Title: Luminous Beings Are We (one: here’s where the fun begins)
Word Count: 4,601
Rating: PG, probably, except Michael and James both use the f-word a few times when surprised.
Summary: Star Wars fusion, more or less, in which Jedi Knight Michael Fassbender gets a new apprentice with extremely distracting beautiful blue eyes…
Notes: the fault of this interview, in which Michael wanted to be Yoda, and James concluded he’d be a “bi-curious Jedi”. Title and chapter titles all courtesy of Star Wars, of course! I haven't read my Expanded Universe novels in years, and even then they're all Timothy Zahn-era, but this is some sort of fusion with our future universe anyway, so we'll just handwave my failures of up-to-date SW knowledge, okay?
“We need you to mentor the new trainee,” Patrick said. He was wearing, as usual, Ian’s robes. This magically did not detract from the wise and learned Jedi Master persona in any way. “We think you’ll get on marvelously with him.”
“I don’t do individual trainees,” Michael said, and levitated Ian’s spiced-chocolate mug away from the table just to underscore the point. Patrick sighed; Ian, however, looked delighted.
Not the intended effect, though Michael should’ve guessed as much. Both current Academy headmasters-and brilliant legendary Jedi Grand Masters-actually liked him, and hence paid a great deal of attention to the unfolding of his life. Michael was beginning to feel like a trained fluffy Alderaanian pittin jumping through hoops, and had said so once. They’d laughed and patted him on both shoulders, in flawless synchronization.
“And I’m not the most qualified. I’ve never even, y’know, asked for an apprentice. I’m only a year out of the Academy myself. And I don’t do trainees.”
“Yes, you’ve said, why is that?” Ian was also wearing his own robes, but Patrick’s belt. Opinions around the Academy varied as to whether this was five-hundred-year-old absentmindedness, adorable public displays of affection, or simply the fact that after three centuries together both Grand Masters just thought of themselves as one person with two lightsabers. They also had a knack for asking precisely the question their target least wanted to hear.
Michael stared at the table, and his untouched eggs. It had been a nice breakfast. The Academy instructors’ dining hall had elegant Bakuran woodwork and wide calming windows with views of the clouds, probably designed by some long-ago Master to encourage peacefulness when dealing with students.
He wondered whether he could throw himself out of one. Ian’d likely catch him mid-fall.
“I just don’t,” he said, to the eggs. They looked back sympathetically, particularly after Patrick stole his toast. “I just…I don’t know. Never mind. Go away and let me terrorize young minds in peace.”
He was in fact one of the more popular Jedi Knights currently serving as Academy instructors. Being a recent graduate himself tended to help, as did the fact that he’d acquired a reputation for patience and commitment and enthusiasm about working with every single student. Michael regarded this unanticipated popularity with some bemusement. He’d never quite expected love notes stuck to his door, or sketches of himself with a shark-tiger grin appearing attached to written assignments.
‘Is this about Steve?”
Ah. Ian would ask that.
“No.” He took the spiced chocolate away again. “Nothing’s about Steve.”
This had the benefit of being mostly true. Half his fellow Jedi Knights assumed he’d been sleeping with Steve since the day his mentor’d smiled at him across the bar in his parents’ upscale Eirean cantina. They also assumed Michael’d been heartbroken since the first time Steve had left for another soon-to-be-successful recruitment mission, robes swirling majestically.
The truth was more, and less, complicated, of course. Michael’d never slept with Steve. Would’ve been like sleeping with the older brother he’d never had, with the one man who’d ever looked at him and seen more than a cantina-owner’s son and bartender in the making. Steve had leaned in and smiled like a supernova and said I know what you’re capable of, and the galaxy’d trembled with horizons opening wide.
He wasn’t heartbroken. He knew Steve had a duty that wasn’t any part of his own. He did love Steve, always would, but not that way.
He wasn’t lonely, precisely. He did like teaching. Liked the moments of watching students truly understand, seeing connections they’d never seen before. He was only…
…adrift. Waiting. And he didn’t know why. The tug of the Force inside his bones, the sense of ineffable rightness that’d led him through the Academy years, had gone silent lately. Prophecy and far-seeing’d never been his strong suits, and now they seemed to be gone altogether. He’d always thought he’d know where to go, what to do, once he’d at last stood up and been called a Jedi Knight.
He did like teaching. But he couldn’t take on an apprentice. Not when he couldn’t figure out what he himself might be waiting for.
So he’d accepted the instructor’s post when offered it, and lived with the odd hollow unanchored feeling in his chest, where his heart lurked alone behind its shield.
“I don’t do trainees,” he tried again, just in case.
“Well, perhaps not,” Patrick said, eyes smiling ever so slightly, and picked up Michael’s second piece of toast. “You will like this one, however.” And the words rang out like a prophecy themselves, in that serenely magisterial tone.
Ian recaptured the floating mug with a single finger-twitch, on Michael’s other side. “His name’s James. Hugh found him being an actor, of all things. Historical holodramas. Quite good really, if you’ve seen him in any-”
“I haven’t.”
“You don’t even know his last name. Hugh swears, hand over heart, that he’s got empathic and emotional manipulation talents beyond any of our current charts, isn’t that wonderful?”
“No. What was Hugh even doing in the Hollywood Nebula?”
“Running an errand for us. Hush. This is the extremely interesting bit. He’s even older than you were when you arrived. Only two years younger than you are now, in fact.”
“That…shouldn’t be possible.” He didn’t want to be intrigued. Refused to be. “How’d no one find him until now? Especially if he’s sort of famous?”
“He’s not that famous,” Ian observed. “Yet.”
“Concealment,” Patrick said, and eyed Michael’s plate. All the toast was gone. “The boy has a self-effacement shield that frankly you wouldn’t believe. He really is quite good with emotion.”
“So…you want to give me a too-old apprentice with self-esteem issues who’s used to a celebrity lifestyle?” Michael glanced at the window again. Too far away. Most likely.
“Not precisely.” Ian patted his hand. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
“I don’t,” Michael said. “I’ve got, y’know, the exact opposite of a good feeling about this. A not-good feeling about this, in fact.”
“You’ll be fine. It’s only for a few months, and not even an official appointment; we know you’re happy teaching, of course, and he won’t have much growing-up to do, after all. We’ve put him in your morning class just for some technical catch-up, and he’ll get Order history in the afternoons-don’t worry about that-”
“Oh, thank you.”
“-and some private work with Patrick to hone those particular gifts.” Ian’s expression, gazing at his partner, practically glowed with fondness. “He’s so good with bringing out the best in people, isn’t he…”
“Yes,” Michael said, and pushed his eggs in Patrick’s direction. They might as well get eaten by someone. “You two are terrifyingly in love and otherwise kind of all-over terrifying, you know that, right?”
“Now, darling.” Ian put an arm around his shoulders. “You adore us.”
“I’ve offended the Force somehow, haven’t I? Or just you?”
“He’ll be here this afternoon.” Ian beamed at him, avuncular and unstoppable as an avalanche. “By the way, don’t you have to teach this morning?”
Michael snapped his head up, swore at the chronometer on the wall, tripped over his robes, and ran. And for the next few hours, forgot to think about his new apprentice and the myriad looming problems thereof, in favor of explaining yet again to teenage younglings why a good working knowledge of landspeeder engines was, in fact, necessary for their Jedi education.
Some previous Academy head, aeons ago, had determined that all Jedi needed at least the basics of ship mechanics and technical skill. Michael approved. For one, these things were handy; besides, while Force manipulation and telekinesis could go a long way, without a knowledge of which components went where, one’s courier ship might be stuck on Dagobah forever. And a Jedi who could fix her own planethopper commanded more respect, generally speaking, than one who couldn’t.
Anyway, Michael liked playing with engines. Sheer fun.
His new apprentice, being an actor, had likely never seen the inside of an engine. Michael resisted the urge to roll his eyes. On top of everything else, he was hungry, because Patrick’d eaten all the eggs.
Mind over physicality, he thought. Discipline. Control.
He would’ve settled for the toast. Or Ian’s spiced chocolate.
One of his students managed to explode a fuel cell. Everyone ducked. Michael caught the debris with a hand-wave, checked the kid for injuries, informed him that emotions did sometimes have consequences when one broadcast them loudly enough, and then wondered how much of the accident’d been his own fault.
Eventually the afternoon arrived. Michael, in the library because he wasn’t sure where else one met a new temporary apprentice, hovered around a rack of antique lightsaber schematics, and struggled with the basic question of how to say hello.
As it turned out, the struggle was unnecessary. Because his apprentice was late.
Hours late. Not merely minutes.
Michael glared at the lightsaber schematics, as even the artificial light got dimmer. Late afternoon. Followed by evening. The glitter of Coruscant’s endless-city radiance outside.
Ian tapped very politely at his brain. Michael?
I hate you and your nerf-herder apprentice, Michael snarled back, which was not how one should talk to one’s Grand Master or Academy headmaster, but he was hungry, and he was annoyed. Is he even coming?
Yes, sorry, he got delayed, some sort of technical…thing, you’d know better than I would…involving his ship. You’ll meet him tomorrow. Go and have an Ithorian brandy and try not to seethe. Hatred leads to the Dark Side, dear boy, and you’re giving me a headache.
Michael turned his frustration up to full-static, pushed it through, and then added sorry, because it wasn’t Ian’s fault his apprentice was evidently an inconsiderate child. Ian sent back a shrug-it’s fine, don’t worry, we’re fine-and then got distracted by the comfort of Patrick’s lips, which Michael did not need to see and which led to a hasty severing of mental connection.
Michael looked at the ceiling, the sparkling cityscape window, the lightsaber display, the floor, and finally the door. Sighed again. Went out to find food, and to change into trousers and leave his formal robes in a heap beside the hamper, and to vanish into the garage and tinker with his baby T-64 skyhopper for a while.
The garage should’ve been quiet. Should’ve been deserted, this time of night. Certainly this maintenance area, anyway. Hushed, peaceful, simply himself and the world of voiceless metal and equipment.
There should not have been an antique THX-1138 light freighter half-dismantled in the left bay, or the muted grumbles of a richly accented voice providing cheerful commentary from beneath it.
Michael stopped. Worked on processing the apparition for a minute. He was pretty sure his hangar bay hadn’t just turned into a site for unrequested dream visions, but there was always the remote possibility.
The freighter was gorgeous. A bit beaten-up and in need of repair, but with beautiful lines, built for pure rugged strength and generosity. She’d run her heart out for her owner, if asked, and she carried her dents with pride. Michael resisted the urge to whistle in appreciation. Jedi weren’t covetous. Honestly.
There was also a pair of long legs sticking out of an access panel, casually unaware of any audience and clothed in skintight trousers that outlined muscular masculine thighs. Michael, entranced, inched closer.
Maybe Jedi were covetous. Because he was definitely coveting. The ship. And the thighs. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such an instantaneous onslaught of lust.
He was close enough to hear the voice, now. New Glasgow accent, lush and textured as ruffled plaid, and just as warm. Carrying on a conversation with one of the Academy’s helpful astromech droids, because the owner of the accent clearly would either talk to anything or considered astromechs to be as worthy of chattering at as anything else.
“…so the smuggler said, I like the way you handle a blaster, right, and she said-oh, how’d you know I needed that hydrospanner, lovely, thank you-anyway, guess what she said?” The astromech chirped happily.
Michael, who couldn’t not, said, “Don’t shoot first,” because it was the punchline of an exceedingly dirty joke he’d not heard in years.
The legs went still. Some rustling ensued. And then rumpled hair and a hint of ginger stubble and grease-smudged freckles and the bluest eyes in every known universe popped into view.
Michael forgot how to breathe.
The blue eyes sparkled at him. “She said, keep your safety on, ’s the way I heard it. And Gran told me Jedi didn’t have a sense of humor. Let’s not tell her she’s wrong, or we’ll both be in trouble. Hi, by the way, James McAvoy, and this is Charlie. Well, technically, her name’s Lady Charlotte Xavier of Westchester. But Charlie to you.”
The blue eyes had named their ship after a children’s adventure-story heroine. Of course they had. And offered the name, freely shared, with an affectionate pat to the hull.
The pat was followed by a sinuous slither out of the hatch, over the wing, and down to the floor. A snapshot at any given second could’ve been a pin-up at every dive bar or cantina in the universe, and not for exclusively human clientele.
Michael’s mouth had gone absolutely dry. Too many sturdy muscles, too much sapphire kindness, that sense of humor, and, oh seven hells of Abeloth, the shortness. James would fit perfectly under his arm. In his arms. Aligned beneath him, or atop him, in bed.
…James. Arriving today. With ship trouble. His apprentice should be named James. And arriving late. With ship trouble.
He did have one word left in his head. It was: fuck.
James lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where to find a Jedi Knight named Michael Fassbender, could you? I think I ought to apologize for being late, I did try to let people know-I’m not good at finding specific unfamiliar minds yet, but I have met Ian, so I just kind of shouted that way earlier, and he heard me-sorry, sorry, not important. I suppose he’s already in bed, anyway, and I should apologize in the morning, but just in case not, would you have any idea?”
Michael blinked. Lost in the torrent of sentences. Lost in the blue.
James attempted to rub grease from one cheekbone. Because his fingertips were also dirty, this endeavor was doomed to failure. The effort only streaked iridescent shine across effervescent freckles and pale skin, making him look fantastical, imaginary, filthy, decadent. Michael opted not to try to talk. Afraid he’d only whimper.
James regarded his fingers hopelessly. “Maybe you’re right, I should shower first. I mean, I’m not exactly impressive even when I’m not covered in failing hyperdrive. Not Charlie’s fault, of course. Either part. I don’t know, do you know him, would he appreciate cleanliness or timeliness more, d’you think?”
Michael, intelligently, managed, “Um.”
“Oh-” Swift distress, surfacing in twin sapphires. More shocking for how readily it came: apprehension and apology. “Were you coming down to ask me to move? Should I not be parked here? I’m really sorry, Ian said anywhere and I just-or should I not’ve borrowed a droid-thanks, Arfour-” This got a welcoming squeal in reply. “-but I couldn’t leave that stabilizer broken, I’m sorry, I can move if-”
“No. Um. You’re fine. Your…Charlie…is fine.” The eyes. Too distracting. Too genuine. An odd hum and spark under his skin. The Force, finally telling him something? Or only the heat of supernova blue? “I’m…sort of…Michael. Hi.”
James stared at him in complete and utter horror, put a wild hand over the grease on his cheek, and said, “Oh, fuck me.”
Michael very nearly let the yes please escape. Bit his tongue. Literally. It hurt. Another part of him winced in sympathy, though for which of them he wasn’t sure. The rest of him pulled itself together enough to say, “Probably not part of your curriculum…”
“Oh fuck,” James said again, “I’m so sorry,” and his eyes were huge and unhappy and bluer than the edges of the universe curving into infinity; Michael could feel that gaze in his heart, tugging at his soul, and he wanted to cry if James were crying, wanted to do anything to make him smile again-
“Stop. That.” Off-the-scale empathy, indeed. Hells. All seven of them. And more.
James actually clapped a hand over his mouth, a gesture Michael’d never seen anyone make in real life. Through fingers, mourned, “Not on purpose, I swear, I’m so sorry, that’s why I’m here, though, I can’t not-Gran tried to help but it just sort of leaks-I didn’t think it’d even work on proper Jedi, you must have shields and-oh fuck I’m sorry.”
Michael did, as it happened, have mental shields. Good ones. Well-honed.
No wonder Patrick and Ian wanted those talents here, under supervision. James could conquer the known galaxies. Not even trying.
“It’s…fine. We’re going to have to work on your control. In the morning.”
“Yes, sir. Is that right? Sir, I mean. Master.” James continued sounding unhappy. Something nameless in Michael’s chest twinged. Not even external influence this time. Damn.
Also, definitely not Master. Not in that voice. Not with those eyes. He wasn’t certain he could even handle James calling him sir.
“Um. Whatever’s…comfortable. I’m just a Jedi Knight, not technically a-oh, damn. I suppose I am.” He did have an apprentice, now. “You could even sort of call me Michael. I mean, we’re the same age, y’know.”
“We’re not, in fact.” James tipped that head to one side. The smile was resurfacing, now that Michael didn’t seem upset. “You’re two years older than I am. I did do some research. All the Academy instructors have bios on the net. I was curious.”
Somehow Michael wasn’t at all surprised. He’d’ve done the same. Except he hadn’t, not really, because he’d not wanted to think about the fact that his apprentice was a holovid actor, and so had pointedly not watched any of the films during the course of the afternoon.
This was, he was willing to admit on the spot, an error. He’d watch James in anything. Hello there, covetousness.
Charlie smirked at him from her maintenance bay. Even the astromech droid was grinning.
“Right,” he said, mostly for something to say. “So. Um. Michael, if you want, or whatever you want to be more formal…I don’t, y’know, care…”
“But other Masters might?” Complete comprehension; and behind that a kind of playfully serious laughter. We’re sharing the joke, said the eyes, because we know it might be true. “Yes, sir. In public.”
“…right. So, um, you’ve sort of…had a long day…and you’re in my morning class tomorrow, anyway, we can talk after that…” And Michael could escape before James called him sir one more time. “Oh-um, room assignments, do you need help finding yours? Or anything?”
“Ian gave me a number, and an access code. I can find it.” Self-reliant, beautiful, a flicker of too-quick affirmation. Michael wanted to touch him. To kiss him. To pretend there’d been a mix-up about rooms so that James, as his apprentice, could come and stay in his.
James was his apprentice. Fuck.
James was also a natural empath. And even if that didn’t extend to proper telepathy, Michael still shouldn’t be having those thoughts. Should be lightyears away from having those thoughts.
Jedi weren’t ruled by base undignified passions. That was a given. Understood.
Whoever was doing the understanding had obviously never met James. Had never seen him swing powerful arms above his head, stretching, yawning, unconsciously lazily sensual. Oh, fuck.
He gave James his personal comlink code. Because that was rational. Logical. James might need him. James might have questions.
James might have trouble with the bed. Or his too-tight trousers. Could happen.
“Thank you.” James called him, briefly, from an unobtrusively expensive wrist link. Just long enough for Michael to get his number in return. “Bed, then?”
Michael glanced at his own skyhopper, sitting to the side. Mentally apologized. “I’ll share the lift with you. Tenth level. If you don’t mind. You’re the fifth, with that room number.”
“Oh, by all means, I like sharing lifts with people.” James’s smile didn’t only flirt with the double entendre. Bought it a drink, too, and took it home for the night. “You?”
“…what?”
“I know you’re allowed. Ian-sorry, Master McKellen, that should be-has Patrick. I could tell they were busy when I shouted, earlier. Sometimes it’s…hard…not to overhear. And to get the side effects. Anyway, do you? Share lifts often?”
“That’s not even a good euphemism!” The only other option was to kiss James senseless on the spot. No. Not even a little bit senseless. No. “And no. No, I don’t. Ian and Patrick are…special. Very. Most of us don’t. It’s just. Duty. Commitment. No room for…that. And this is the most inappropriate conversation I’ve ever had with an apprentice.”
“You’ve only ever had one apprentice. I did look you up.”
“With anyone’s apprentice.”
“Ah, well, just thought I’d ask.” James leaned a shoulder against the metal of the lift’s wall. The lift appeared perfectly pleased to embrace the shoulder. Michael was unreasonably jealous of architecture. “You seem tense.”
“I’m not tense.” The whole conversation-the whole night-had veered into absurdism anyway. Maybe this was how first encounters of first apprentices with reluctant Masters always went. Or it was just James, and those disconcertingly expressive eyes. “I’m happy.”
“Right,” James noted, eyebrows up, “didn’t anyone teach you not to lie to an empath? My gran would’ve smacked me with a shoe. Sir.”
“The first thing I’m teaching you, then, is don’t read people without permission, James.” He’d meant that to sound more stern. Annoyed. The words somehow came out almost flirtatious. Derailed by the sir.
“I can try,” James said, and gazed at him speculatively. “I can’t always shut it off. This is my floor. Michael.”
And that was, if possible, worse. Michael stood there imagining all the ways in which James might ever say his name, while the lift-doors closed.
And then he stuck a hand between them, making servos whine in protest. “James?”
James turned, only a few steps down the corridor. In the night-shadows, he stood out like a buried treasure, dark hair and sapphire eyes and fire-freckled skin. “Yes, sir?”
“You said your grandmother tried to teach you. Is she some kind of Force-sensitive? Fallanassi adept?” There were still a few around, practicing non-interference as best they could in an increasingly cluttered universe; it wasn’t out of the question. And he might recognize the name. He did need to know what James already knew, if anything needed to be built on or unlearned.
“Oh…well, she tried, I was stronger than she was, though, and it got…dangerous…” James glanced away. At the shadows. “I learned to hide, mostly, after that. Hardly a preferable long-term solution, but she doesn’t trust the Jedi much. No offense.”
“No, of course not.” The histories weren’t spotless. Extremely spotted, in fact. With red. These days, this century and the previous, were better. But the star systems had long memories. “So…would I know her?”
“Ah. Maybe.” James bit his lower lip, released it. Said a name.
“Your grandmother is a Nightsister of Dathomir?!”
“She never even killed anyone!” Instantly protective. Fierce. Loyal as burning suns. “That’s why she left, she didn’t want to hurt travelers who’d only just got lost, she didn’t-she ended up in New Glasgow when her ship broke down and my granddad fixed it for her and by then she didn’t want to leave, they’ve been there since, and they were the best parents any kid could hope for after- Anything else you want to know, sir?”
Michael made a desperate sound. Certainly wasn’t a word. Someplace between oh hells and no that about covers it and please fuck me now while you look at me with those eyes. Fortunately he’d put extra effort into his shields.
“Okay, then.” James ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it more, deflating slightly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to blow up at you. I thought you already knew, Ian knows, and I just…”
“You love her,” Michael said, because he could see it, could hear it, could feel it ribboning out around them in every word and every breath. And James’s expression eased, watching his.
“I do.”
“I was just sort of surprised.”
“I could tell.” A little wryly, that, with a crooked smile. “I’d still share a lift with you, if you’d not mind sharing one with me. Witch’s grandson and all.”
“Well,” Michael said, “you did say she never killed anyone,” and James’s eyes danced hesitantly amid the shadows.
“Neither’ve I. In case you were wondering. That was still a euphemism, by the way.”
“I feel inexplicably safer knowing that about you. No.”
“Really? Because you were thinking some things about my backside in the hangar bay, sir, and I could-”
“You-that-I’m your-that’s not appropriate, James!”
“Oh, I know, I won’t mention it in public.” Teasing, but complicatedly so. Serious about the offer and about the promise of public propriety. Pulling honest flirtation and happy desire into view like armor, hiding the deeper emotions that’d just been on display. “Gran did say Jedi never have any fun, which sounds to me like a complete waste of fascinating telekinetic abilities, and also, by the way, you didn’t say no.”
“Oh fuck,” Michael said, out loud this time, as the lift doors yelled at him for keeping them apart.
“This seems to be me,” James said, and pointed at a door-plate. “Night, sir.”
Michael let the lift doors thump shut, which they did with a relieved little sigh. Slumped against the wall, the same one James’d been leaning on earlier. Put his face in his hands.
His apprentice was a terrible influence. On his vocabulary. On his dignity. On his body, which thought that following James out of the lift and doing unspeakable things to that aforementioned backside would be a spectacular idea. There had to be some dark influence at work there.
Maybe that came with the Nightsister inheritance. Otherworldly attractiveness, like an incubus from Old Earth legends. The ability to light up Michael’s whole body, at one glance, with instantaneous and near-painful arousal.
He peeled himself off the wall and wandered out of the lift and down the hall to his room. Let himself fall onto the bed, completely dressed, kicking off his boots. He liked his bed. It wasn’t confusing or bewilderingly complexly lovely or accidentally too good at sneaking private emotions out of his head. It fluffed up around him with familiar camaraderie.
He’d be seeing James tomorrow morning. In class. And after. He’d be seeing a lot of James. All those complexities, all those layers like metallic puzzle-balls, intricately carved and multifaceted and satiny to the touch. James might smile again if Michael touched him, not for sex-as much as they’d both want to say yes-but simply to touch him, to banish that edge of startling wistful loneliness behind the blue.
Michael lay there looking at the fine white curves of his ceiling, thinking: James. James, in the morning. And he couldn’t help picturing that smile.
And that odd little thrill came back and skittered down his bones. It didn’t feel like fretfulness or uncertainty. It felt bright and clear, like anticipation.
Title: Luminous Beings Are We (one: here’s where the fun begins)
Word Count: 4,601
Rating: PG, probably, except Michael and James both use the f-word a few times when surprised.
Summary: Star Wars fusion, more or less, in which Jedi Knight Michael Fassbender gets a new apprentice with extremely distracting beautiful blue eyes…
Notes: the fault of this interview, in which Michael wanted to be Yoda, and James concluded he’d be a “bi-curious Jedi”. Title and chapter titles all courtesy of Star Wars, of course! I haven't read my Expanded Universe novels in years, and even then they're all Timothy Zahn-era, but this is some sort of fusion with our future universe anyway, so we'll just handwave my failures of up-to-date SW knowledge, okay?
“We need you to mentor the new trainee,” Patrick said. He was wearing, as usual, Ian’s robes. This magically did not detract from the wise and learned Jedi Master persona in any way. “We think you’ll get on marvelously with him.”
“I don’t do individual trainees,” Michael said, and levitated Ian’s spiced-chocolate mug away from the table just to underscore the point. Patrick sighed; Ian, however, looked delighted.
Not the intended effect, though Michael should’ve guessed as much. Both current Academy headmasters-and brilliant legendary Jedi Grand Masters-actually liked him, and hence paid a great deal of attention to the unfolding of his life. Michael was beginning to feel like a trained fluffy Alderaanian pittin jumping through hoops, and had said so once. They’d laughed and patted him on both shoulders, in flawless synchronization.
“And I’m not the most qualified. I’ve never even, y’know, asked for an apprentice. I’m only a year out of the Academy myself. And I don’t do trainees.”
“Yes, you’ve said, why is that?” Ian was also wearing his own robes, but Patrick’s belt. Opinions around the Academy varied as to whether this was five-hundred-year-old absentmindedness, adorable public displays of affection, or simply the fact that after three centuries together both Grand Masters just thought of themselves as one person with two lightsabers. They also had a knack for asking precisely the question their target least wanted to hear.
Michael stared at the table, and his untouched eggs. It had been a nice breakfast. The Academy instructors’ dining hall had elegant Bakuran woodwork and wide calming windows with views of the clouds, probably designed by some long-ago Master to encourage peacefulness when dealing with students.
He wondered whether he could throw himself out of one. Ian’d likely catch him mid-fall.
“I just don’t,” he said, to the eggs. They looked back sympathetically, particularly after Patrick stole his toast. “I just…I don’t know. Never mind. Go away and let me terrorize young minds in peace.”
He was in fact one of the more popular Jedi Knights currently serving as Academy instructors. Being a recent graduate himself tended to help, as did the fact that he’d acquired a reputation for patience and commitment and enthusiasm about working with every single student. Michael regarded this unanticipated popularity with some bemusement. He’d never quite expected love notes stuck to his door, or sketches of himself with a shark-tiger grin appearing attached to written assignments.
‘Is this about Steve?”
Ah. Ian would ask that.
“No.” He took the spiced chocolate away again. “Nothing’s about Steve.”
This had the benefit of being mostly true. Half his fellow Jedi Knights assumed he’d been sleeping with Steve since the day his mentor’d smiled at him across the bar in his parents’ upscale Eirean cantina. They also assumed Michael’d been heartbroken since the first time Steve had left for another soon-to-be-successful recruitment mission, robes swirling majestically.
The truth was more, and less, complicated, of course. Michael’d never slept with Steve. Would’ve been like sleeping with the older brother he’d never had, with the one man who’d ever looked at him and seen more than a cantina-owner’s son and bartender in the making. Steve had leaned in and smiled like a supernova and said I know what you’re capable of, and the galaxy’d trembled with horizons opening wide.
He wasn’t heartbroken. He knew Steve had a duty that wasn’t any part of his own. He did love Steve, always would, but not that way.
He wasn’t lonely, precisely. He did like teaching. Liked the moments of watching students truly understand, seeing connections they’d never seen before. He was only…
…adrift. Waiting. And he didn’t know why. The tug of the Force inside his bones, the sense of ineffable rightness that’d led him through the Academy years, had gone silent lately. Prophecy and far-seeing’d never been his strong suits, and now they seemed to be gone altogether. He’d always thought he’d know where to go, what to do, once he’d at last stood up and been called a Jedi Knight.
He did like teaching. But he couldn’t take on an apprentice. Not when he couldn’t figure out what he himself might be waiting for.
So he’d accepted the instructor’s post when offered it, and lived with the odd hollow unanchored feeling in his chest, where his heart lurked alone behind its shield.
“I don’t do trainees,” he tried again, just in case.
“Well, perhaps not,” Patrick said, eyes smiling ever so slightly, and picked up Michael’s second piece of toast. “You will like this one, however.” And the words rang out like a prophecy themselves, in that serenely magisterial tone.
Ian recaptured the floating mug with a single finger-twitch, on Michael’s other side. “His name’s James. Hugh found him being an actor, of all things. Historical holodramas. Quite good really, if you’ve seen him in any-”
“I haven’t.”
“You don’t even know his last name. Hugh swears, hand over heart, that he’s got empathic and emotional manipulation talents beyond any of our current charts, isn’t that wonderful?”
“No. What was Hugh even doing in the Hollywood Nebula?”
“Running an errand for us. Hush. This is the extremely interesting bit. He’s even older than you were when you arrived. Only two years younger than you are now, in fact.”
“That…shouldn’t be possible.” He didn’t want to be intrigued. Refused to be. “How’d no one find him until now? Especially if he’s sort of famous?”
“He’s not that famous,” Ian observed. “Yet.”
“Concealment,” Patrick said, and eyed Michael’s plate. All the toast was gone. “The boy has a self-effacement shield that frankly you wouldn’t believe. He really is quite good with emotion.”
“So…you want to give me a too-old apprentice with self-esteem issues who’s used to a celebrity lifestyle?” Michael glanced at the window again. Too far away. Most likely.
“Not precisely.” Ian patted his hand. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
“I don’t,” Michael said. “I’ve got, y’know, the exact opposite of a good feeling about this. A not-good feeling about this, in fact.”
“You’ll be fine. It’s only for a few months, and not even an official appointment; we know you’re happy teaching, of course, and he won’t have much growing-up to do, after all. We’ve put him in your morning class just for some technical catch-up, and he’ll get Order history in the afternoons-don’t worry about that-”
“Oh, thank you.”
“-and some private work with Patrick to hone those particular gifts.” Ian’s expression, gazing at his partner, practically glowed with fondness. “He’s so good with bringing out the best in people, isn’t he…”
“Yes,” Michael said, and pushed his eggs in Patrick’s direction. They might as well get eaten by someone. “You two are terrifyingly in love and otherwise kind of all-over terrifying, you know that, right?”
“Now, darling.” Ian put an arm around his shoulders. “You adore us.”
“I’ve offended the Force somehow, haven’t I? Or just you?”
“He’ll be here this afternoon.” Ian beamed at him, avuncular and unstoppable as an avalanche. “By the way, don’t you have to teach this morning?”
Michael snapped his head up, swore at the chronometer on the wall, tripped over his robes, and ran. And for the next few hours, forgot to think about his new apprentice and the myriad looming problems thereof, in favor of explaining yet again to teenage younglings why a good working knowledge of landspeeder engines was, in fact, necessary for their Jedi education.
Some previous Academy head, aeons ago, had determined that all Jedi needed at least the basics of ship mechanics and technical skill. Michael approved. For one, these things were handy; besides, while Force manipulation and telekinesis could go a long way, without a knowledge of which components went where, one’s courier ship might be stuck on Dagobah forever. And a Jedi who could fix her own planethopper commanded more respect, generally speaking, than one who couldn’t.
Anyway, Michael liked playing with engines. Sheer fun.
His new apprentice, being an actor, had likely never seen the inside of an engine. Michael resisted the urge to roll his eyes. On top of everything else, he was hungry, because Patrick’d eaten all the eggs.
Mind over physicality, he thought. Discipline. Control.
He would’ve settled for the toast. Or Ian’s spiced chocolate.
One of his students managed to explode a fuel cell. Everyone ducked. Michael caught the debris with a hand-wave, checked the kid for injuries, informed him that emotions did sometimes have consequences when one broadcast them loudly enough, and then wondered how much of the accident’d been his own fault.
Eventually the afternoon arrived. Michael, in the library because he wasn’t sure where else one met a new temporary apprentice, hovered around a rack of antique lightsaber schematics, and struggled with the basic question of how to say hello.
As it turned out, the struggle was unnecessary. Because his apprentice was late.
Hours late. Not merely minutes.
Michael glared at the lightsaber schematics, as even the artificial light got dimmer. Late afternoon. Followed by evening. The glitter of Coruscant’s endless-city radiance outside.
Ian tapped very politely at his brain. Michael?
I hate you and your nerf-herder apprentice, Michael snarled back, which was not how one should talk to one’s Grand Master or Academy headmaster, but he was hungry, and he was annoyed. Is he even coming?
Yes, sorry, he got delayed, some sort of technical…thing, you’d know better than I would…involving his ship. You’ll meet him tomorrow. Go and have an Ithorian brandy and try not to seethe. Hatred leads to the Dark Side, dear boy, and you’re giving me a headache.
Michael turned his frustration up to full-static, pushed it through, and then added sorry, because it wasn’t Ian’s fault his apprentice was evidently an inconsiderate child. Ian sent back a shrug-it’s fine, don’t worry, we’re fine-and then got distracted by the comfort of Patrick’s lips, which Michael did not need to see and which led to a hasty severing of mental connection.
Michael looked at the ceiling, the sparkling cityscape window, the lightsaber display, the floor, and finally the door. Sighed again. Went out to find food, and to change into trousers and leave his formal robes in a heap beside the hamper, and to vanish into the garage and tinker with his baby T-64 skyhopper for a while.
The garage should’ve been quiet. Should’ve been deserted, this time of night. Certainly this maintenance area, anyway. Hushed, peaceful, simply himself and the world of voiceless metal and equipment.
There should not have been an antique THX-1138 light freighter half-dismantled in the left bay, or the muted grumbles of a richly accented voice providing cheerful commentary from beneath it.
Michael stopped. Worked on processing the apparition for a minute. He was pretty sure his hangar bay hadn’t just turned into a site for unrequested dream visions, but there was always the remote possibility.
The freighter was gorgeous. A bit beaten-up and in need of repair, but with beautiful lines, built for pure rugged strength and generosity. She’d run her heart out for her owner, if asked, and she carried her dents with pride. Michael resisted the urge to whistle in appreciation. Jedi weren’t covetous. Honestly.
There was also a pair of long legs sticking out of an access panel, casually unaware of any audience and clothed in skintight trousers that outlined muscular masculine thighs. Michael, entranced, inched closer.
Maybe Jedi were covetous. Because he was definitely coveting. The ship. And the thighs. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such an instantaneous onslaught of lust.
He was close enough to hear the voice, now. New Glasgow accent, lush and textured as ruffled plaid, and just as warm. Carrying on a conversation with one of the Academy’s helpful astromech droids, because the owner of the accent clearly would either talk to anything or considered astromechs to be as worthy of chattering at as anything else.
“…so the smuggler said, I like the way you handle a blaster, right, and she said-oh, how’d you know I needed that hydrospanner, lovely, thank you-anyway, guess what she said?” The astromech chirped happily.
Michael, who couldn’t not, said, “Don’t shoot first,” because it was the punchline of an exceedingly dirty joke he’d not heard in years.
The legs went still. Some rustling ensued. And then rumpled hair and a hint of ginger stubble and grease-smudged freckles and the bluest eyes in every known universe popped into view.
Michael forgot how to breathe.
The blue eyes sparkled at him. “She said, keep your safety on, ’s the way I heard it. And Gran told me Jedi didn’t have a sense of humor. Let’s not tell her she’s wrong, or we’ll both be in trouble. Hi, by the way, James McAvoy, and this is Charlie. Well, technically, her name’s Lady Charlotte Xavier of Westchester. But Charlie to you.”
The blue eyes had named their ship after a children’s adventure-story heroine. Of course they had. And offered the name, freely shared, with an affectionate pat to the hull.
The pat was followed by a sinuous slither out of the hatch, over the wing, and down to the floor. A snapshot at any given second could’ve been a pin-up at every dive bar or cantina in the universe, and not for exclusively human clientele.
Michael’s mouth had gone absolutely dry. Too many sturdy muscles, too much sapphire kindness, that sense of humor, and, oh seven hells of Abeloth, the shortness. James would fit perfectly under his arm. In his arms. Aligned beneath him, or atop him, in bed.
…James. Arriving today. With ship trouble. His apprentice should be named James. And arriving late. With ship trouble.
He did have one word left in his head. It was: fuck.
James lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where to find a Jedi Knight named Michael Fassbender, could you? I think I ought to apologize for being late, I did try to let people know-I’m not good at finding specific unfamiliar minds yet, but I have met Ian, so I just kind of shouted that way earlier, and he heard me-sorry, sorry, not important. I suppose he’s already in bed, anyway, and I should apologize in the morning, but just in case not, would you have any idea?”
Michael blinked. Lost in the torrent of sentences. Lost in the blue.
James attempted to rub grease from one cheekbone. Because his fingertips were also dirty, this endeavor was doomed to failure. The effort only streaked iridescent shine across effervescent freckles and pale skin, making him look fantastical, imaginary, filthy, decadent. Michael opted not to try to talk. Afraid he’d only whimper.
James regarded his fingers hopelessly. “Maybe you’re right, I should shower first. I mean, I’m not exactly impressive even when I’m not covered in failing hyperdrive. Not Charlie’s fault, of course. Either part. I don’t know, do you know him, would he appreciate cleanliness or timeliness more, d’you think?”
Michael, intelligently, managed, “Um.”
“Oh-” Swift distress, surfacing in twin sapphires. More shocking for how readily it came: apprehension and apology. “Were you coming down to ask me to move? Should I not be parked here? I’m really sorry, Ian said anywhere and I just-or should I not’ve borrowed a droid-thanks, Arfour-” This got a welcoming squeal in reply. “-but I couldn’t leave that stabilizer broken, I’m sorry, I can move if-”
“No. Um. You’re fine. Your…Charlie…is fine.” The eyes. Too distracting. Too genuine. An odd hum and spark under his skin. The Force, finally telling him something? Or only the heat of supernova blue? “I’m…sort of…Michael. Hi.”
James stared at him in complete and utter horror, put a wild hand over the grease on his cheek, and said, “Oh, fuck me.”
Michael very nearly let the yes please escape. Bit his tongue. Literally. It hurt. Another part of him winced in sympathy, though for which of them he wasn’t sure. The rest of him pulled itself together enough to say, “Probably not part of your curriculum…”
“Oh fuck,” James said again, “I’m so sorry,” and his eyes were huge and unhappy and bluer than the edges of the universe curving into infinity; Michael could feel that gaze in his heart, tugging at his soul, and he wanted to cry if James were crying, wanted to do anything to make him smile again-
“Stop. That.” Off-the-scale empathy, indeed. Hells. All seven of them. And more.
James actually clapped a hand over his mouth, a gesture Michael’d never seen anyone make in real life. Through fingers, mourned, “Not on purpose, I swear, I’m so sorry, that’s why I’m here, though, I can’t not-Gran tried to help but it just sort of leaks-I didn’t think it’d even work on proper Jedi, you must have shields and-oh fuck I’m sorry.”
Michael did, as it happened, have mental shields. Good ones. Well-honed.
No wonder Patrick and Ian wanted those talents here, under supervision. James could conquer the known galaxies. Not even trying.
“It’s…fine. We’re going to have to work on your control. In the morning.”
“Yes, sir. Is that right? Sir, I mean. Master.” James continued sounding unhappy. Something nameless in Michael’s chest twinged. Not even external influence this time. Damn.
Also, definitely not Master. Not in that voice. Not with those eyes. He wasn’t certain he could even handle James calling him sir.
“Um. Whatever’s…comfortable. I’m just a Jedi Knight, not technically a-oh, damn. I suppose I am.” He did have an apprentice, now. “You could even sort of call me Michael. I mean, we’re the same age, y’know.”
“We’re not, in fact.” James tipped that head to one side. The smile was resurfacing, now that Michael didn’t seem upset. “You’re two years older than I am. I did do some research. All the Academy instructors have bios on the net. I was curious.”
Somehow Michael wasn’t at all surprised. He’d’ve done the same. Except he hadn’t, not really, because he’d not wanted to think about the fact that his apprentice was a holovid actor, and so had pointedly not watched any of the films during the course of the afternoon.
This was, he was willing to admit on the spot, an error. He’d watch James in anything. Hello there, covetousness.
Charlie smirked at him from her maintenance bay. Even the astromech droid was grinning.
“Right,” he said, mostly for something to say. “So. Um. Michael, if you want, or whatever you want to be more formal…I don’t, y’know, care…”
“But other Masters might?” Complete comprehension; and behind that a kind of playfully serious laughter. We’re sharing the joke, said the eyes, because we know it might be true. “Yes, sir. In public.”
“…right. So, um, you’ve sort of…had a long day…and you’re in my morning class tomorrow, anyway, we can talk after that…” And Michael could escape before James called him sir one more time. “Oh-um, room assignments, do you need help finding yours? Or anything?”
“Ian gave me a number, and an access code. I can find it.” Self-reliant, beautiful, a flicker of too-quick affirmation. Michael wanted to touch him. To kiss him. To pretend there’d been a mix-up about rooms so that James, as his apprentice, could come and stay in his.
James was his apprentice. Fuck.
James was also a natural empath. And even if that didn’t extend to proper telepathy, Michael still shouldn’t be having those thoughts. Should be lightyears away from having those thoughts.
Jedi weren’t ruled by base undignified passions. That was a given. Understood.
Whoever was doing the understanding had obviously never met James. Had never seen him swing powerful arms above his head, stretching, yawning, unconsciously lazily sensual. Oh, fuck.
He gave James his personal comlink code. Because that was rational. Logical. James might need him. James might have questions.
James might have trouble with the bed. Or his too-tight trousers. Could happen.
“Thank you.” James called him, briefly, from an unobtrusively expensive wrist link. Just long enough for Michael to get his number in return. “Bed, then?”
Michael glanced at his own skyhopper, sitting to the side. Mentally apologized. “I’ll share the lift with you. Tenth level. If you don’t mind. You’re the fifth, with that room number.”
“Oh, by all means, I like sharing lifts with people.” James’s smile didn’t only flirt with the double entendre. Bought it a drink, too, and took it home for the night. “You?”
“…what?”
“I know you’re allowed. Ian-sorry, Master McKellen, that should be-has Patrick. I could tell they were busy when I shouted, earlier. Sometimes it’s…hard…not to overhear. And to get the side effects. Anyway, do you? Share lifts often?”
“That’s not even a good euphemism!” The only other option was to kiss James senseless on the spot. No. Not even a little bit senseless. No. “And no. No, I don’t. Ian and Patrick are…special. Very. Most of us don’t. It’s just. Duty. Commitment. No room for…that. And this is the most inappropriate conversation I’ve ever had with an apprentice.”
“You’ve only ever had one apprentice. I did look you up.”
“With anyone’s apprentice.”
“Ah, well, just thought I’d ask.” James leaned a shoulder against the metal of the lift’s wall. The lift appeared perfectly pleased to embrace the shoulder. Michael was unreasonably jealous of architecture. “You seem tense.”
“I’m not tense.” The whole conversation-the whole night-had veered into absurdism anyway. Maybe this was how first encounters of first apprentices with reluctant Masters always went. Or it was just James, and those disconcertingly expressive eyes. “I’m happy.”
“Right,” James noted, eyebrows up, “didn’t anyone teach you not to lie to an empath? My gran would’ve smacked me with a shoe. Sir.”
“The first thing I’m teaching you, then, is don’t read people without permission, James.” He’d meant that to sound more stern. Annoyed. The words somehow came out almost flirtatious. Derailed by the sir.
“I can try,” James said, and gazed at him speculatively. “I can’t always shut it off. This is my floor. Michael.”
And that was, if possible, worse. Michael stood there imagining all the ways in which James might ever say his name, while the lift-doors closed.
And then he stuck a hand between them, making servos whine in protest. “James?”
James turned, only a few steps down the corridor. In the night-shadows, he stood out like a buried treasure, dark hair and sapphire eyes and fire-freckled skin. “Yes, sir?”
“You said your grandmother tried to teach you. Is she some kind of Force-sensitive? Fallanassi adept?” There were still a few around, practicing non-interference as best they could in an increasingly cluttered universe; it wasn’t out of the question. And he might recognize the name. He did need to know what James already knew, if anything needed to be built on or unlearned.
“Oh…well, she tried, I was stronger than she was, though, and it got…dangerous…” James glanced away. At the shadows. “I learned to hide, mostly, after that. Hardly a preferable long-term solution, but she doesn’t trust the Jedi much. No offense.”
“No, of course not.” The histories weren’t spotless. Extremely spotted, in fact. With red. These days, this century and the previous, were better. But the star systems had long memories. “So…would I know her?”
“Ah. Maybe.” James bit his lower lip, released it. Said a name.
“Your grandmother is a Nightsister of Dathomir?!”
“She never even killed anyone!” Instantly protective. Fierce. Loyal as burning suns. “That’s why she left, she didn’t want to hurt travelers who’d only just got lost, she didn’t-she ended up in New Glasgow when her ship broke down and my granddad fixed it for her and by then she didn’t want to leave, they’ve been there since, and they were the best parents any kid could hope for after- Anything else you want to know, sir?”
Michael made a desperate sound. Certainly wasn’t a word. Someplace between oh hells and no that about covers it and please fuck me now while you look at me with those eyes. Fortunately he’d put extra effort into his shields.
“Okay, then.” James ran a hand through his hair, rumpling it more, deflating slightly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to blow up at you. I thought you already knew, Ian knows, and I just…”
“You love her,” Michael said, because he could see it, could hear it, could feel it ribboning out around them in every word and every breath. And James’s expression eased, watching his.
“I do.”
“I was just sort of surprised.”
“I could tell.” A little wryly, that, with a crooked smile. “I’d still share a lift with you, if you’d not mind sharing one with me. Witch’s grandson and all.”
“Well,” Michael said, “you did say she never killed anyone,” and James’s eyes danced hesitantly amid the shadows.
“Neither’ve I. In case you were wondering. That was still a euphemism, by the way.”
“I feel inexplicably safer knowing that about you. No.”
“Really? Because you were thinking some things about my backside in the hangar bay, sir, and I could-”
“You-that-I’m your-that’s not appropriate, James!”
“Oh, I know, I won’t mention it in public.” Teasing, but complicatedly so. Serious about the offer and about the promise of public propriety. Pulling honest flirtation and happy desire into view like armor, hiding the deeper emotions that’d just been on display. “Gran did say Jedi never have any fun, which sounds to me like a complete waste of fascinating telekinetic abilities, and also, by the way, you didn’t say no.”
“Oh fuck,” Michael said, out loud this time, as the lift doors yelled at him for keeping them apart.
“This seems to be me,” James said, and pointed at a door-plate. “Night, sir.”
Michael let the lift doors thump shut, which they did with a relieved little sigh. Slumped against the wall, the same one James’d been leaning on earlier. Put his face in his hands.
His apprentice was a terrible influence. On his vocabulary. On his dignity. On his body, which thought that following James out of the lift and doing unspeakable things to that aforementioned backside would be a spectacular idea. There had to be some dark influence at work there.
Maybe that came with the Nightsister inheritance. Otherworldly attractiveness, like an incubus from Old Earth legends. The ability to light up Michael’s whole body, at one glance, with instantaneous and near-painful arousal.
He peeled himself off the wall and wandered out of the lift and down the hall to his room. Let himself fall onto the bed, completely dressed, kicking off his boots. He liked his bed. It wasn’t confusing or bewilderingly complexly lovely or accidentally too good at sneaking private emotions out of his head. It fluffed up around him with familiar camaraderie.
He’d be seeing James tomorrow morning. In class. And after. He’d be seeing a lot of James. All those complexities, all those layers like metallic puzzle-balls, intricately carved and multifaceted and satiny to the touch. James might smile again if Michael touched him, not for sex-as much as they’d both want to say yes-but simply to touch him, to banish that edge of startling wistful loneliness behind the blue.
Michael lay there looking at the fine white curves of his ceiling, thinking: James. James, in the morning. And he couldn’t help picturing that smile.
And that odd little thrill came back and skittered down his bones. It didn’t feel like fretfulness or uncertainty. It felt bright and clear, like anticipation.