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“You spoiled little brat!”
Dooku’s gravelly base rings here in the tallest tower of the Wizard’s palace, and Quinlan Vos, crown-Prince of Kiffu, steps past his fear. Magic crackles gold around his fingertips. It makes the busted walls around them rattle. Setting his boots against the wood floor, he keeps himself in check.
He can do it.
He can do it.
Obi-Wan taught him how.
“I set aside my misgivings about teaching you,” Dooku says, “so that you could go back home and rule your land without blowing yourself up.”
Dooku, with one arm wrapped around Obi-Wan's chest, holds his grandson closer against him. His nails dig into Obi-Wan's shoulder in false threat and threatens to tear the navy-blue jacket that stuck out during their adventures in Emerald City. He’s only trapping him. He won’t hurt him. Quin knows that much.
At least, he hopes not. He’s ninety percent sure. The problem with Yan Dooku is that last ten percent.
Dooku’s eyes narrow, and the next words come out in a slithering snarl. “And now look at you. Assaulting our Wizard. Corrupting Obi-Wan.”
Dooku’s lie tastes of burnt toast on Quin’s tongue. He wasn’t just teaching him out of the goodness of his heart.
No.
Dooku wanted him for his power.
And, more specifically, Dooku wanted Quin and Obi-Wan's power together.
“Shut up,” Obi-Wan snaps. “I made my own choices. Lock me up in your office at Shiz if you want. Leave Quin out of it.”
Dooku’s hand claps over Obi-Wan's mouth, and Quin’s sure that his best friend would bite if not for the magic probably preventing him from doing so.
“I don’t need you, Headmaster.” Quin spits the words. “Obi-Wan taught me more than you ever did. Let him go. You don’t want to hurt him. We both know it. You want to hurt me. So, do it.”
Obi-Wan thrashes in Dooku’s grip, but at six feet five, the infamous headmaster of Shiz won’t be so easily defeated.
A trickster’s smirk, sharp as a knife, slides across Dooku’s lips. The air crackles with sudden heat. The expensive silk of Dooku’s emerald-green cape blows in the breeze.
“Let’s see how good you are at flying, shall we?”
When the inevitable comes faster than Quin predicted, all he can think to do is grab his broom. As he soars through the air, three things reach him.
Obi-Wan breaking past the magic seal with a screamed Quinlan!
His own sleeve catching on a shard of shattered window glass. Blood stains the fabric of the green velvet jacket he wore just for today. Green was his favorite color. Not anymore.
The last thing that comes is a pervading sense of his own doom.
Only he can stop that now. Dooku won’t save him. Obi-Wan's hand isn’t on his to calm the ragged edges a of spell cast with uncontrolled upset.
Just him.
Just this broom.
Just this magic his aunt taught him to be ashamed of.
You are a gift, not a curse, his Uncle Tholme—by choice not by blood—said to him just before he snuck Quin over Kiffu’s borders after Quin got expelled from his fourth school. Go. Learn. Come back and claim your kingdom.
Tholme, Quian and Pethros’ best friend and advisor, survived Tinte’s purge through cleverness alone.
And because he knows a little bit about magic.
Quin’s body falls at odd angles, and the current pushes him this way and that. The wind whistles warnings in his ears. The yellow tie in his locs unfurls and floats away. A boom-smash sounds from overhead. Stray glass falls. It chases him downward. As he spins and twists and turns, a towering skyscraper hands his own reflection back to him.
Except, Quin sees something else.
The building’s reflective, sun-drip coating offers him Quinlan Vos, age four. It offers him Quinlan Vos age four walking into the aftermath of the explosion that killed his parents. It was his mother’s fault, they said. She couldn’t control her power. He believed it for a time.
But only for a time.
For that little boy who hated himself, he’ll live.
For Obi-Wan, up there above, he’ll live.
For all the people in Oz who have been lied to, he’ll live.
He catches hold of the broom just before he hits the ground—just before he would have been a crunch-bone-bloody-pancake. His body protests the way he slams himself onto the handle, but that’s the least of things now. Flying high high high up into the sky, he defies every law of gravity there ever was.
He can do it. He is doing it.
Obi-Wan comes into view when Quin reaches the top of the tower. Dooku, flung onto his ass by Obi-Wan's own magic, Quin can only guess, starts getting up. Quin doesn’t land. There’s no time to land. He just hovers and puts his hand out toward Obi-Wan.
“Come with me!” He shouts over the roar of the tower’s alarm and Dooku’s own yelling. “Please, come with me.”
Obi-Wan blue eyes, bright as starshine, bore into Quinlan’s.
And he doesn’t look back.
His hand fits into Quin’s like it’s always belonged there. He gets on the back of the broom, arms slipping around Quin’s waist for steadiness.
They cut through the clouds. They flee from the tower. Together.
In the glow of the red-bleed sunset, they land miles and miles away from Emerald City. Obi-Wan grabs hold of Quin’s ruined jacket, his copper hair edged gold, and kisses Quin full on the mouth with that sharp-sweet press of the lips that Quin’s been dreaming about for months.
As the sun gives one last gasp of light, Quin kisses him right back.
OZ Breaking News Bulletin
Level: RED
All citizens be on the lookout for two dangerous individuals in possession of magical power: Obi-Wan Dooku-Kenobi, grandson of Count Yan Dooku, renowned sorcerer and headmaster of Shiz University, and Prince Quinlan Vos of Kiffu Country.
These two violent young men, upon receiving a generous invitation to the Emerald City from the Wizard due to their talents, attacked both our great leader and Count Dooku himself, stole the Grimmerie, and laid waste to the palace. These treasonous, wicked wizards will pay for their transgressions, and we need you, the public, to help us catch them before they hurt anyone else. Count Dooku is offering 10,000 credits for credible sightings and 20,000 to any member of the public who brings either Kenobi or Vos in—alive.
Wizard Palpatine, while injured, is expected to recover, and will speak to the press tomorrow with Count Dooku.
Be well, Ozians.
Normally, walking through a forest at night grants Obi-Wan peace and quiet. He’s found solace in the woods since he was a child.
Tonight? Every chirp of an insect, every snap of a twig, makes tension shoot up his spine. They landed here about two hours ago to avoid anyone spotting them. Flying, while an effective mode of transport for a quick getaway, isn’t exactly the best for hiding. Next to him, Quin remains silent. Truth be told, Obi-Wan's heart hasn’t stopped leaping into his throat since he took off on the back of Quin’s enchanted broom, and not just because they’re both fugitives now. That moment, as they soared defiant through the sky, forced Obi-Wan to look in the mirror and see what was happening between them. What’s been growing and earning a life of its own for months.
Given that he is a fugitive at twenty, he figures he might as well dare one thing more. Sliding his hand into Quin’s and lacing their fingers together, he holds on tight to his annoyance-turned-mystery-turned-best friend-turned-something ... else. His lips tingle from the earlier kiss.
You’ve got a crush, oh older brother mine, Anakin said not a week ago, and the memory of his burning blue eyes dances in the dark of the wood. Obi-Wan misses him already.
It’s ... an inkling.
What’s the problem? Anakin sprawled on his back in Obi-Wan's bed like a pleased street cat. Just tell him. Profess! I did with Padme.
I know, Obi-Wan replied, not without affection. This requires more ... finesse. I’m not sure he’s interested.
Across the room reading her book, Padme snorted.
Oh, very well then. You also have an opinion, I see.
That prince is madly in love with you. Padme turned, and Obi-Wan, as per usual, could not be irritated with her. He might be a knight on his knees praying to the stars to guide him for how he looks at you.
Quin squeezes Obi-Wan's hand, and the electric pulse between them zips and zings. The brush of skin drives heat into the pit of Obi-Wan's belly, a kind of desire dug up from the depths of him.
“Am I correct in thinking the prophecy refers to us?” Obi-Wan breaks the silence with this question he can no longer keep to himself. “Not to the Wizard and someone else? I can’t be the only one thinking it. Palpatine had no power. It was all sleight of hand. Tricks. Whatever he did in Kansas, it wasn’t anything like real magic.”
Quin glances over with a tight smile. “You’re not the only one thinking it.”
Two there will be, to give Oz new life. One may read the Grimmerie, but only two may unlock its power.
Everyone thought that meant the Wizard and another person who would eventually reveal themselves. Obi-Wan thought perhaps Quinlan would be the Wizard’s right hand.
And Dooku ....
Well, his grandfather knew it was them from the start.
He knew Palpatine was a fraud.
Hoping to calm his nerves, Obi-Wan grounds himself in his surroundings again. The lush, green foliage frames Quin like a magnificent piece of moving art, and despite the horrors, despite the smiling tyrant high up in his tower who aims to imprison them both, Obi-Wan can’t help but take it in.
“It makes sense for you,” Obi-Wan adds, the ball of his foot twinging in protest for how long they’ve been walking. “You’re ... really powerful.”
“Yeah, but uncontrollably so,” Quin grumbles. “Tholme basically smuggled me out of Kiffu to get me here, convinced Tinte it would cause a diplomatic incident to force me back, and I’m still struggling.”
“You’re a lot better,” Obi-Wan protests. “It’s not your fault that your aunt tried to hide your powers rather than train you. Kiffu’s anti-sorcerer bigotry is not your problem. It killed your parents. It doesn’t need to do the same to you.”
A slow smirk slips onto Quin’s mouth.
“You never give up in the face of injustice, huh?” Quin asks.
“Should I?”
“No. It’s one of the things I love about you.”
Quin’s eyes go wide when he realizes what he’s said, and he clears his throat before continuing on. “And, I mean, why doesn’t it make sense for you? You’re the grandson of one of the most powerful sorcerers in recorded Ozian history. Besides that, you’re basically a genius. You know those old spellbooks of your grandfather’s backward and forwards. Subject change, but are you sure we’re going the right way?”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan says. “When my dad built this safehouse, he put green ribbon on a tree every quarter mile. I’ve been seeing them. We should be there soon.”
Quin drags the broom along beside him, and memories go off like an unfurling film roll in Obi-Wan's mind’s eye.
His grandfather showing up at their front door demanding that Obi-Wan begin university, that he was too smart, too talented, to be wasting his life in a plant shop as Qui-Gon had done. Obi-Wan wanted to say no—he put off university to avoid his grandfather despite wanting to go—but Shiz had an engineering program that would be good for Anakin, who, at sixteen, could start early, and so, he agreed. They went together as they did everything. Obi-Wan was four when Anakin was born, and he’s been looking out for him ever since.
Anakin meeting Padme on that very first day by the glittering river. Love at first sight—and friendship at first sight, in Obi-Wan's case.
Stalking through the halls of Shiz in his threadbare blue sweater that Dooku hated. It smelled like his parents. Like home. Shmi’s homemade honey. Qui-Gon's flowers. Anakin’s engine oil.
Sitting in the forest with a pilfered spellbook because he refused to take sorcery courses with his grandfather—history was his track—but he would still learn. The soft squish of hooves on moss. The approach of a horse. A deep voice tinged with sarcasm arguing with the horse. A gorgeous irritating beautiful smart mouth like Obi-Wan's own funny grating intelligent prince in green velvet pants and black boots that shone like the moon.
That prince, through a series of circumstances, coming to share his dorm room. The pair of them arguing over open door or closed door and trunks everywhere and eyes that cut right to Obi-Wan's soul when it came down to it. That clever mouth made observations about him that Obi-Wan couldn’t deny, and, in turn, Obi-Wan saw past the easy-but-never-reaching-his-eyes smile on Quin’s face. The too-languid way he held himself. The cloak of grief beneath the shiny-perfect prince who made girls and boys both fall at his feet simply by entering a room.
It was a show, all of it, and Obi-Wan saw behind the curtain.
Quin sitting at a table in the dining hall with Aayla Secura, a student Anakin’s age who was Quin’s younger-sister-playmate when they were growing up. Ryloth was next door to Kiffu, and they were both set for the throne. Quin winked at Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan tried to frown back. Next to him, Bant giggled. Siri shot him a knowing look.
He couldn’t quite manage that frown.
The film strip speeds up. A glitter-dust dance floor. Laughing and sharing secrets until the sun gilded the windows. Red-poppy-smeared laughter in the field with their friends. Lessons with Dooku’s shadow casting over them. Running a young Lasat back to the colony of non-human fugitives in the woods who thanked them profusely. A letter with a green seal inviting them to the Emerald City and green everything the train the building the clothes and the Wizard, the charming, guileless Wizard smiling and laughing and murdering, disappearing anyone who wasn’t a human and the pair of them running and running and running as the world they knew fell apart around them.
“When did your grandfather start being ....” Quin gestures vaguely with his free hand.
“Such a horrendible prat?” Obi-Wan finishes. “There were struggles when I was little. He didn’t like that my dad quit studying magic to open his plant shop. He was always afraid that the lack of new sorcerers would make Oz afraid of magic like Kiffu is. But he came around anyway because he loved my dad. He wanted to teach me. He brought Anakin little trinkets and liked my mom. Then he was made headmaster of Shiz. Then the Wizard came, and everything just ... broke. I guess he’s going after non-humans now so that people will hate them instead of sorcerers.”
Obi-Wan considers the picture that still sits in his grandfather’s office at Shiz, tucked up on a high shelf and collecting dust. Grandma Jocasta, when she still had strawberry blonde hair, smiles with a familiar glint of curiosity in her eye. Uncle Sifo, Dooku and Grandma Jocasta’s best friend who was, Obi-Wan started guessing as a teenager, probably something in addition to that, grinned broad. Uncle Sifo protested the Wizard just like Obi-Wan's dad. Grandma Jocasta quit her job as head librarian at Shiz in protest of non-human teachers being pushed out.
One day, Uncle Sifo was just ... gone. Grandma Jocasta fought with Dooku to the tune of shattered glass and shouts. When two sorcerers argue, things can get ... out of hand.
And Grandma Jocasta left. She took a job as the head librarian at a university in Ryloth, Aayla’s home country, and left her door open to them whenever they wanted. Obi-Wan's dad, with his business and stubborn streak, wanted to see things through, but Grandma Jocasta got them Rylothian visas that Obi-Wan's parents keep tucked away in a safe.
Getting out now might be difficult. Obi-Wan wouldn’t put it past Palpatine to close the borders.
“There it is.” Obi-Wan points up ahead toward the one-room wooden structure, painted green so it can nestle between the trees without as much notice. “The safehouse.”
The safehouse, however, isn’t the only thing waiting.
Qui-Gon, dressed in battered brown pants with a shirt bearing the words Don’t Trust the Wizard across the front—homemade of course—waits with a basket in hand. His long hair falls loose over his shoulders, and the sight of him makes Obi-Wan's heart grow a size.
“There you are,” Qui-Gon says. “I was starting to get worried.”
Squeezing Quin’s hand, Obi-Wan lets go with reluctance and speeds up his pace.
“How long have you been here?”
“Oh, an hour or so. I saw the news. I can’t stay long. I’m sure Father will be looking for me, and not being there will raise his suspicions. I wanted to bring some supplies.”
Obi-Wan arches a brow. “Please tell me you covered up that shirt when you walked through town?”
“Of course.” Qui-Gon huffs, but a smile plays on his lips. “You don’t have to look out for me, son. I’m trying to look out for you. Now, come here.”
Qui-Gon opens his arms, and Obi-Wan, as always, falls into them. His dad’s hand goes to the back of his head like it has since he was little, and his clothes smell like Shmi’s perfume. Obi-Wan misses her, but she’s probably holding down the fort at the house or the shop in case his grandfather shows up.
“I’m proud of you.” Qui-Gon pulls back with a twinkle in his eye. “Is this the famous Prince Quinlan? I feel as if I know him already from your letters.”
“Dad,” Obi-Wan mutters, heat creeping into his cheeks.
“Quinlan Vos at your service, sir.” Quin, not holding back a shit-eating grin, bows before putting out his hand. “Glad to know you’re on our side.”
“Oh, of course.” Qui-Gon shakes Quin’s hand with a firm fondness. “I’ve taken the liberty of sending an emergency correspondence to Tholme on your behalf. As it happens, he’s an old school friend of mine.”
“Have you heard from Anakin and Padme?” Obi-Wan asks with a twist of worry in the pit of his stomach. “I didn’t intend to leave them behind like this, it just—”
“Got kind of out of our control,” Quin finishes. “I’m worried about Aayla, too.”
“Anakin sent one of his mechanical flying bird devices with a note over from Shiz,” Qui-Gon replies. “If I made out his code correctly, he said that he, Padme, and Aayla are fine and will stay at Shiz for the sake of being able to give us intelligence. Pretend to be on your grandfather’s side. That sort of thing. Your brother, while terribly clever, is not who I would tap for spycraft, so I think he’ll be doing more of the code writing and message work while the girls get the information and go on the news, and what not.”
At this, for the first time since they left the palace, Obi-Wan laughs. Anakin is a genius.
He is not, however, subtle.
Qui-Gon leads them inside the safehouse. Obi-Wan helped do some of the building—having magic helps—but he never saw the finished inside like Anakin did. A bed sits against the wall in the far corner with a bright blue blanket laying across the bottom. A small window, too tall for anyone to see in, carves into the space above the sink. There’s a two-burner stovetop and a short counter. A scrubbed wooden table with four chairs in the middle of the room. Behind a curtain, there’s a toilet and a shower stall.
Obi-Wan's cheeks continue burning.
This is certainly a cozy place to spend the next however long with his crush—also known as the boy he just kissed for the first time.
Qui-Gon sets the basket down on the table and takes out the supplies. Blueberry muffins baked by Shmi. Non-perishable food that will last them at least the first couple of weeks. A few changes of clothes for each of them. A first-aid kit. One of Anakin’s little flying mechanical birds to send letters quickly when they need help or replenishing. It will be enough to get them started.
When Qui-Gon goes outside to collect a few logs for the fire, Obi-Wan stands alone with Quinlan and his mesmerizing eyes that gleam a touch gold in the candlelight. Quin takes Obi-Wan's hand, and twining of their fingers makes Obi-Wan's breath catch.
“We’re gonna take Palpatine on together, huh?” Quin asks softly. “You and me?”
Courage licks like flames in Obi-Wan's belly. He's never been sure of his magic. Of his place. Before he left for Shiz, he used to help his parents hide non-humans in the basement of their house. The family opinion was that the Wizard was letting Ozians with a grudge turn him against non-humans because he wanted praise and poll numbers.
Qui-Gon never trusted the man who arrived in a balloon to the blind worship of the citizenry, but they never knew he was, entirely, a fraud.
“You and me.” Obi-Wan steps closer and runs a shaking thumb over the swipe of yellow on Quin’s face. “I don’t know what that prophecy means, Quin, but I do—” He drags in air. “I do know what you mean. To me. I need to tell you that now.”
A low chuckle slips past Quin’s lips as he cradles Obi-Wan's face with his free hand.
“In case we die?”
“In case we die,” Obi-Wan agrees, and he presses his cheek against the warm of Quin’s palm. “But also because I want to. I do believe I love you, Quinlan Vos.”
“Yeah,” Quin murmurs, his mouth hovering over Obi-Wan's. “I do believe I love you too, Obes.”
The kiss sparks stars. It makes lightning shoot down Obi-Wan's spine with a fierce need in his body. When air makes its demands, Quin tugs Obi-Wan into a long, tight hug. From the cocoon of Quin’s arms, the strength, the hope in him, unburies the confidence he could never quite catch hold of.
“My wildest dreams were never as good as the reality of you,” Quin whispers. “Have you cast a spell on me, Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
Obi-Wan smirks. “I’m not that good.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet,” Obi-Wan echoes. “Anyway, I would never come by you anything but honestly.”
In this safehouse preparing to overthrow the Ozian government, Obi-Wan Kenobi is in love.
He is home.
And he is ready for what comes next.