Crash and Burn

So much for our tropical paradise, Jacen thought. They were between the planet's tropic lines, but even that felt like a polar ice cap, and he was amazed that anything survived the extremes of climate. The biosphere must have been a long evolutionary history and slow adaptation to the harsh conditions, and a part of him was fascinated by it, wanting to explore and learn more about it - but the rest of him kept him standing almost still, shivering while a stiff, freezing wind blew over his body and through his clothes. He felt the sting of tears freezing to his face and he rubbed his cheeks to try to warm them with friction. I can't just stand here, but I don't know what more to do. We get out of one situation just to stumble into another!

Hibernating animals survived by living on their body fat for months while they slept and slowed their metabolism as low as they could to conserve energy. Jacen didn't have enough body fat to pinch, let alone burn slowly over three or four months. Again, he toyed with the idea of surrendering to the environment, no longer drawing upon the Force for his own benefit. Freezing to death was not a horrific way to go, compared to many other possible ends. The thing that kept him from wandering out in his half-delirious state, wracked with hunger and the strain of fighting off frostbite, was that Anakin was with him, hardly five yards away. The other man's mere presence reminded him that Jedi were not supposed to lay down and die. Only one Jedi in almost fifty years, as far as they knew, had been granted a simple death by the Force and not one that was the end of a fight for justice nor pure accident that was avoided as well as possible. They couldn't stop until all their options had been exhausted, and they hadn't reached that point quite yet.

Jacen returned to the ice hut and ripped the voluminous black cloak in half. He laid one half over Anakin's sleeping form and wrapped the other half around himself, with one arm hidden in a large sleeve and the other tucked next to his body. He decided not to wake Anakin up before leaving, not only because they needed as much rest as they could get, but because Jacen had too many conflicting thoughts about the evening before and he wanted to work some of it out on his own before talking to Anakin.

He took up his lightsaber in his sleeve-concealed hand and went back outside. He wasn't sure where he was going and willfully trusted in the Force to guide him. It was there, and if he concentrated hard on it he thought its power was changing. More of it was available to him to use - just a little bit - although his ability to sense it at long distances was waning further. Not the Dark Side, he said to himself, although he wasn't entirely free of doubt on that; falling to the Dark Side would have that effect... he thought. He hadn't done anything that would constitute a dark act, though, unless he was right and that all selfish use of the Force led down that road. Nonetheless, Anakin had been far freer with his definition of what he could do with his powers and still be on the side of the light, and his ability to sense close and long distances had not changed any earlier than Jacen's. And he was right in making the decision to use his powers for his own survival and his brother's survival, right? Self-preservation may have been a hallmark of the Dark Jedi and the Sith, but there was a difference between selfishly manipulating people and leaving them to their deaths to avoid risk to one's own being, and stretching out with one's abilities to keep alive and keep others alive.

Or that's what he would have thought. Jacen shook his head, dismayed at not having conquered his own demons as well as he thought he had. He took cautious steps onto the wide and deeply frozen river, heading for the rocks and dead tree trunks barely visible on the other side, several kilometers away. He had begun to doubt himself again.

Things he thought had been true about himself were being proven otherwise. His love, his ideals, his ability to adhere to the norms that he had been taught.

The two of them were getting desperate. That was the only real explanation in Jacen's mind for what had transpired the evening before, the only explanation that he could tolerate. He and Anakin were desperate to live - in Jacen's case, it might have been more of a deep-rooted survival instinct than a strong will, but nonetheless there. They were all that the other had, for companionship and as teammates. And that was all it was, nothing more, no real attraction other than that the other was a warm body.

When he returned to Yavin 4 - not if - he would tell Tenel Ka that he loved her, and she would tell him that was a fact, and then return the statement, and they would hold the other close. She was still his real love, even if the exact color of her eyes was starting to sink out of his memory. Were they silver-gray, or gunmetal-gray?

The color of Anakin's was all too clear to him.

Everything was too clear, every moment of their kisses, every stroke of Anakin's hands along Jacen's spine. He could replay it over and over without variation in his mind, and every one of his excuses for why he let their petting go on as long as he did was hollow and empty to him. Mistakes, innocent gestures, platonic affection, those had been enough for him to accept their altering relationship up until that time, but the line he didn't want to touch had already been left behind them when he made that warning. He knew was lust felt like and he was feeling it for Anakin, whatever the exact psychological origins of that feeling were.

It would be disrespectful to both Anakin and Tenel Ka for him to substitute one for the other, and he knew that he had to be the strong one, and resist. He knew that if he had laid Anakin down and stripped him down to his undershirt, letting the younger man lean back and take in the pleasure from Jacen's hands and mouth, Anakin would not only have not resisted, but encouraged him. Jacen was going to have to keep them apart on his own, no matter how much he liked the feel of Anakin's bare skin. To love his little brother that way was simply not done.

First, he's not little anymore, and second, why can't it be done?

Jacen shuddered and and rubbed at the outer corners of his eyes. Because it's... wrong? He couldn't come up with much more than that. It would pervert the love that they already had, and ruin all of their more normal memories with the shame of their inappropriate behavior.

Inappropriate according to whom? And who has to know?

Jacen tried to clear out his mind. He was sexually frustrated, nineteen years old and stuck on a ball of ice with only his brother to keep him company. Whatever was happening between them would have to stop where it had already gone, and they would have to stay strong until their rescue or escape. If they could manage to stay alive this long, then staying out of each other's pants shouldn't be difficult.

Nonetheless, if the circumstances really changed... if there turns out to be no escape for some reason, if... if we're entering a field of dark matter that our ships can't navigate through... that shouldn't matter, I guess. I'm, I'm not as strong-willed as I thought I was. He shook his head and his eyes started to burn again. Maybe it would help if he just made himself stop thinking about Anakin's teasing eyes (could he possibly be imagining the come-on look?) and tousled hair in dire need of a trim. There was a point at which dependence and filial love turned into unhealthy desire, and Jacen was standing on it, flailing, struggling to keep his balance.

And falling on the wrong side, if the swelling in his groin at the memory of Anakin's touch was any indication. But he could still catch himself before he hit the ground and tangled too tightly with the one he was supposed to be protecting, not sharing orgasms with.

Jacen was calmer when he got to the river's far edge three hours later, more focused on his task at hand and more able to plan the next step. He climbed up over a few rocks sticking up out of the ice and reached out with his senses to see if there was any living things nearby. He would be stealing food from animals, possibly killing animals, and that bothered him because he could feel their pain so cleanly. But how was it really different from pulling up plants and chewing on them? Life was life, and sentience separated him from the other beings, but not them from each other. He knew how to kill an animal so that it didn't feel pain, and the ability to feel pain was really all that was different between an animal and most plants. He missed his pets on Yavin 4, though, and hoped that they were all right; he didn't feel that way about the flower garden.

His search led him upward, over an ever higher pile of rocks, and soon he came to the opening of a cave. The air had the faint smell of animal sweat and refuse, but it was too cold to carry much of an odor until he was closer. Nothing was alert inside the tent, and he took a cautious step inside, lightsaber activated and raised high to illuminate the rocky walls of the cave with its green light.

He found a small group of four-legged mammals, covered in long, dark brown fur and sporting three pairs of horns - one pair on the lower jaw, one pair on the upper jaw, and the third at their woolly foreheads. The adults huddled around a group of young, not infants but much smaller than their parents; the babies probably massed about as much as Jacen, in a more compact form, and the adults were five or six times as large.

Briefly, he wondered if he could stay there and sleep next to them, where at least it would be warm. He wasn't sure how likely they were to wake up, though, and sensed an unusually light sleep in two of the adult females. Quietly, he retreated from the cave, and kept on looking, climbing, and walking.

Jacen finally happened upon a colony of a dozen large rodents, and lopped their heads off, quickly as not to cause them any unnecessary suffering. He knotted their tails together and while the corpses were freezing, he chopped down the few hardened saplings that he could find growing in small soily crevices. Now they had some food, and a little bit of tinder; perhaps they could even move across the river, closer to their sources, although crossing risked not having a new hut built before dark, and he wasn't sure about the safety of the area from predators who might find a pair of lean humans to be an easy, if not particularly nutritious, kill.

Laws of necessity, Jacen thought. Air, water, food, then safety. You can be very safe in a steel box but you still starve to death.

When he got back to their hut, he lit a single wooden stick and skinned the rodents over the flame. They might need the wood for warmth later, and he couldn't waste it on cooking, so he sliced as much of their meat off their bones as he could, and inspected a few pieces for evidence of parasites. There was nothing he found, so he fashioned a large ice box - a literal ice box, a block of ice hollowed out and fitted with a frozen lid - and stuffed the slices inside.

"Where have you been all day?" Anakin asked, just as Jacen came through the small doorway, pushing the makeshift freezer inside.

"Hunting," Jacen said. "We're going to have to go a bit native, eating without cooking. I don't have another power cell for my lightsaber and there isn't anything else we can use to ignite wood. And not much wood, either."

Anakin sighed and nodded, and helped Jacen move the ice box. Jacen wouldn't look Anakin in the eye, and this didn't go unnoticed. "Look - I'm very, very sorry about last night. I don't know what got into me."

"I don't want to talk about it," Jacen said flatly.

"Not even just to promise that we'll keep better handles on ourselves?"

"I said I didn't want to talk about it. There's nothing to handle as long as we don't act crazy. As far as I'm concerned anything between us was a dream, not real, not anything other than delusion. I'm not your lover."

"I didn't say you were," Anakin replied, and put his hand on Jacen's arm.

Jacen jerked away. "Blaster bolts! Don't touch me, all right?"

Anakin pulled back, looking hurt and a little bit aggravated, but that was enough to make him close his mouth and eat in silence. Jacen regretted his knee-jerk reaction almost immediately after giving it, but what else was he supposed to do? They needed a little bit of distance, to ground themselves and resolve to do the right thing. And any apology now would probably be taken the wrong way, as meaning he didn't mean what he said, when he very much meant it. Yes, I meant it, he affirmed in his own head, then again just to be sure. He just didn't mean the rude way it came out.

They slept apart that evening, each with their own half of the cloak, curled up into balls to try to keep the cold from seeping into their bones through the layers of fabric. Neither slept well, and with the first light of morning shining dully through the translucent walls, Anakin stumbled to his feet and mumbled something about going to do his own hunting. Jacen pointed silently at the lightsaber and hugged his knees more tightly.

Anakin was gone all day, and Jacen ignored his own sense of foreboding; the time apart would be good for them, and Anakin was neither helpless nor stupid. He knew the dangers of staying out after dark and would be sure to come home before then, even if his task, whatever it was, was incomplete. Jacen watched the white sun peak overhead and then begin its descent, and still there was no sign of Anakin. No moving shadow across the ice - nothing moving at all, except the slow creep of shadows over the smooth surface.

He's found shelter, then, Jacen thought, and wondered if that was such a bad idea after all; they didn't really have to stay so close together, did they? If Anakin found a safer place to stay, then he was welcome to it. Jacen could even go across the next morning and find his own, and as long as they knew where the other was, they might get through the winter better mentally and no worse physically. He missed Anakin already, but told himself that was the rebellious part of his mind talking. They'd already proven that it was unhealthy to stay in close quarters together for too long.

Then he woke in the middle of the night with a start, as a pain ripped its savage way up his leg. He grabbed at the aching limb, but the pain subsided quickly and he found no injury there. Ana Jacen thought, and he looked around wildly, pawing at the ground for either Anakin or his lightsaber. Both of them were still gone.

Anakin, where are you? Jacen felt fear spread through his body like acid in his blood, and a hundred thoughts ran through his mind at once.

Jacen!

There was no mistaking that scream in the Force, and Jacen jumped up so fast that he bumped his head on the hut's ceiling and almost stumbled. He sensed that the call came from the far side of the river, not far from where he had been lurking two days earlier. Regret for his actions washed over him, for his words; he should have apologized, he should have said something when he had the chance. Maybe they could have gone together, and whatever was happening wouldn't be. Right now he had to find Anakin, and worry about the fallout later.

Jacen nudged his metabolism upwards, burning fuel faster and keeping warmer, although he could ill afford to expend the calories. The immediate need to cross the ice even in the frigid darkness came before the long-term; and he kept his eyes along the dark ridge ahead, looking for any hint of motion under the dim starlight or the glint of a green lightsaber blade. There was nothing, and his only trail to Anakin, besides a vague sense of his location ahead, were the cleat-marked tracks that chipped away at the icy floor, visible if he squinted.

He was near a run by the time he got to the edge of the river - panting, exhausted, and still cold, struggling not to let the sheen of sweat on his forehead freeze there. Nothing mattered except finding Anakin and not dying; he needed to make that apology, needed to help his brother. The cleat tracks led him up to the first cave, the one with the horned beasts. Jacen stood near the entrance, and he smelled blood, seared flesh, and burned hair. Anakin was alive, and somewhere inside.

When Jacen pulled himself up the rocks and into the cave, he saw the still outlines of several beasts, and the meaty smell was much thicker. He stepped on something soft, and looked down to see the pelt of one of the beasts, cut away from its body and laid out on the ground. The skinned carcass, with a few pieces cut out of it, had been shoved off to one side, with the severed heads of the other five adults littering the rocky floor.

Anakin was squished between a pair of young animals, sound asleep. Jacen reached out and gently pried the lightsaber out of his hand and lit it, taking a better look around. There was no real danger that he sensed, not now, and when he took Anakin's pulse and measured the rhythm of his breaths, there was nothing out of the ordinary. His leg had been gored and he had shallow tooth scrapes on both arms, but was not too grievously injured.

"Anakin," Jacen said softly, and lifted his chin.

Anakin's eyes fluttered open and he looked up. "Jacen. How did you get here?"

"I crossed the river when you got hurt. I heard you call for me. What happened?"

"I killed one of the animals and was taking its skin off, but the others woke up," Anakin explained. "They charged at me and I thought they were going to rip me to shreds, but I fought back. I had to. You weren't there to help calm them."

Jacen wasn't sure how to interpret that... an accusation that it was Jacen's fault Anakin had to slaughter six animals instead of only one? The expectation that Jacen wouldn't come to his brother's aid? Merely a defensive apology? A retort began to form on his lips, but he swallowed it while it was still small and he shook his head. "I'm sorry I wasn't here, then," was all he said.

"Still mad at me?"

"No, Ani, no." He scooped Anakin up into his arms and squeezed tightly. "I shouldn't have been mad, and I don't want to lose you."

They were rather quiet while Jacen melted a piece of ice and he and Anakin cleaned the gashes in Anakin's leg. "We still have the rancor in the living room," Anakin finally said.

"Yeah."

"I - I still love you, Jacen. In the way I always did, and, well, I need you here, I want you with me, and..." his voice trailed off into embarrassed silence and he leaned away from Jacen.

"I know." Jacen scooted closer to Anakin, then took the man's head into his hands and turned his face towards his own. "I know what you're trying to say. We, well, we can't just give in to passion. It's not the Jedi way, not when we know better. But I think that as long as we set some limits, a few hard limits, we'll be all right. We'll save ourselves for the girls back home. We won't do anything with each other that we haven't done already, and beyond that... what happens here stays here."

Despite knowing that their feelings were mutual, Jacen held his breath while waiting for Anakin's answer; feeling the same was no guarantee of a good reaction. But when Anakin's face melted into a smile and he clung to Jacen, there was an intense relief, followed by calm and contentment. Freedom to be honest was probably the most underrated thing in the galaxy, even limited as it might have been.