La pasticherie de Petra

The first lines of my last 10 stories (not counting drabbles and poetry, which means these go back 40 works because I write a lot of short stuff), in reverse chronological order.

If this meme looks like fun to you, consider yourself tagged!


1. Gentle his condition (Star Wars, Obi-Wan/the 212th):

Cody freezes. “Really,” he says, voice flat.

Obi-Wan swirls his glass of distilled ration mush. “Yes. Admittedly, it was ultimately Anakin’s idea.”

Cody covers his face with both hands. “I should’ve known. Every idea that terrible has the Skywalker stamp.”

“His men would follow him anywhere.”

“So would yours follow you, sir,” stoutly. “You don’t have to – to – do that – for us to trust you.”

2. Winter companions (Star Wars, Obi-Wan/Hondo Ohnaka):

Obi-Wan had intended to spend the trip to Alderaan teaching Luke about the Force, but he’d meant to find a pilot he could ignore. He hadn’t bargained on reuniting with the galaxy’s most persistent Weequay.

Or on Ohnaka saying, “My co-pilot can handle the ship in hyperspace,” while leaning against the wall in between the cockpit and Obi-Wan, and then kissing him with that damnably familiar mélange of possessiveness – really, a hand on Obi-Wan’s hip already? – and knowledge, given the edge of his teeth on Obi-Wan’s lower lip.

Obi-Wan turns away long enough to tell Luke, “Get some rest,” and does nothing of the sort.

3. An echo in my soul (Star Wars, Obi-Wan/Anakin):

The Jedi Order taught comprehensive sexual education for every entity in the temple, but it didn’t teach its padawans anything about romance. It was a good thing Anakin had watched plenty of holodramas that talked about how to get someone to love you. That meant that when he realized he had a crush on Obi-Wan, he tried the things holodramas suggested.

One night in their quarters when he had talked himself into it, he yawned and put his arm along the back of the couch behind where Obi-Wan was sitting.

Obi-Wan turned and looked at him and said, “It would be more efficient to stretch if you stood up.”

Anakin felt too awkward to point out that what he really wanted was to put his arm around Obi-Wan, so instead of cuddling, he got up and stretched. It felt good, but not the kind of good he was looking for.

4. A Elbereth GERTIthoniel (Cabin Pressure/Lord of the Rings/@airplanefactswithmax, gen):

“Mum, Mr Baggins left something under his seat,” Arthur says, showing her the chain with the gold ring on it he’s just found in 3B. “We have to call him.”

She says, “No,” immediately, reaching for the ring.

Arthur snatches it away from her, holding it close to his chest, because she doesn’t need to touch it. He’s not going to drop it – the chain is woven through his fingers. “It’s Mr Baggins’s. We have to give it back.”

Carolyn scowls, looking even sharkier than usual. “No.”

“Mum!” Arthur pleads. She’s always told him that the customer is always wrong, but that’s not the same thing as stealing from someone by keeping something they dropped.

She shakes herself. “Oh. Arthur – Arthur, light of my life, we should call Mr Baggins.”

“Yes.” He hesitates, because it doesn’t seem like a good idea all of a sudden. “Maybe.”

5. Moto banthashit (Star Wars, Obi-Wan/Anakin):

“I could kiss you right on the mouth, General,” Hardcase says after Anakin dispatches the last battle droids with one swipe of his lightsaber.

Anakin, who has learned to deal with the clones’ approach to battle stress, laughs. “Not if I kiss you first, Trooper,” he says, and doesn’t blush till Hardcase slaps his ass on his way out onto the newly cleared battlefield. By then, nobody else can see his face until he gets to Obi-Wan, coming the other way from the emplacement where he’d been sheltering.

“You’re welcome, old man,” Anakin says, before Obi-Wan says anything.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow at him. “If you aren’t too busy making out with Hardcase, I’ll pay you back by sucking your cock.”

Anakin laughs and hugs him roughly, tugging on his hair. “Bet I can manage both at once.”

Obi-Wan kisses him wetly on the cheek with a loud smacking sound. “That’s my boy.”

“I wasn’t gonna leave my favorite master stranded on Bythnia when I could be fucking him raw.”

6. All of that’s a lie (Star Wars, Obi-Wan vis-à-vis Han Solo):

“How did you end up running with the likes of him, Chewbacca?” Obi-Wan asks, though he waits until the dead of the shipnight to ask it, when the ship’s owner has gone to his rack, and Luke is asleep with his head on the table.

Chewbacca explains that it’s a long fucking story, but that the crux of the matter was that he’d owed a favor.

“A dangerous thing to owe.”

Chewbacca snorts, his hair flying. So there was this pirate who needed to pawn off his too-old-to-be-a-mascot, no-longer-cute sidekick on someone who’d look after him, keep him out of too much trouble, and let him think he was having his own swaggering way. And Chewbacca had owed the old fuck a favor, so there’d been a complicated setup to make the not-quite-a-kid-anymore think that Chewbacca had adopted him, or entered into a lifedebt.

7. Celebrity Great Republic Bake Off: Clone Wars Generals (Star Wars/Great British Bake Off, gen):

“Anakin, we’re going to have to ask you to stop rotating your biscuit dough with the Force.”

“Why?”

Mell wipes brown specks off her face. “It’s getting on the cameras.”

He can only get away with it since it’s celebrity week. Any other week, he’d do it all by hand – that is, with his flesh hand behind his back, his mechanical hand exerting perfectly calibrated pressure.

8. Sing to the universe who we are (Star Wars, T4T Obi-Wan/Anakin)

“It’ll be all right,” Obi-Wan says, when Anakin gets his vaccines at the Jedi temple, but he doesn’t understand. He thinks he does, because he thinks he’s the same as Anakin, because they’re both men who were born with biology other than they are.

But Obi-Wan was never told, “It doesn’t matter what you think you are, Ani. Slaves are slaves.”

Obi-Wan never had to feel his breasts ache and grow, while his mom said, “I’m so sorry, and it’s so soon,” as heartbroken as Anakin was because she knew she couldn’t stop his body from being the wrong thing it was destined to become.

The Jedi healers help Anakin stop growing the wrong way as soon as he explains the truth of himself, which is something to be grateful for, along with the good food and the clean clothes. There’s no sand in his pockets, no weight behind his nipples.

He wants to know what comes next.

But Obi-Wan just says, “It’ll be all right,” and squeezes Anakin’s hand, when all Anakin wants is a hug.

9. Would it kill you to be honest? (Star Wars, gen, Palpatine wins):

“If you’d ever cared for me, things would be different,” Anakin spits across the lava field, accusing, vicious.

Obi-Wan knows his next line like he’s written a speech for the occasion and it’s waiting for him on a holoprompter: “I never loved you.”

But it isn’t true. He has said hundreds of things to Anakin that skirted the truth, and he has never spoken of his affection, but the Dark Side is crackling around Anakin, his emotions too high, too dangerous. It’s hardly the first time Obi-Wan has felt him rich with danger, but for the first time, it seems Obi-Wan could make a difference by doing something other than begging for peace. There are times one must change tactics drastically in hopes of coming to a new understanding.

He opens his mouth to say, “No, you utter fool, I adore you. That’s why we’re in this bind,” and his throat closes up after the first syllable.

10. Reach out and touch faith (Star Wars, Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padmé):

Anakin and Obi-Wan place the call to Padmé while they’re sitting next to each other on Obi-Wan’s couch. It’s a comfortable couch in Jedi robe brown, which has the benefit of not showing stains. Anakin has slept on it even more frequently of late than he used to before he started Operation Convince Obi-Wan to Have Sex Again.

So far he’s doing very well on Operation Convince Obi-Wan to Cuddle, which is the first part, though sometimes Obi-Wan exiles him to the sofa when he wakes up and realizes Anakin hasn’t gone back to the padawan dorm. That’s how Anakin knows the couch doesn’t stain – not that he told Obi-Wan about that incident. Obi-Wan is protective of his boring couch, and doesn’t let anyone eat on it. He’d be upset if he knew Anakin had dreamed of him wildly enough to come on the cushions.