Forbidden

CHAPTER TWO: CLOSE

Luke was frozen. Unable to break the link with his father and equally as unable to reach out to the Dark Lord. Luke licked his dry lips and gripped his naked thighs hard until he felt bruises beginning to form. 'What have I done? How can I face him now with any sort of calm and help him back to the Light? Would he even listen to my words ... the words of a ...' Luke shook his head violently. Thinking how unworthy he was would not change what had happened or help his father in any way.

Luke forced himself to take a deep breath, trying to recapture some of the calm from his earlier meditation. He was not a coward and knew he had to talk to his father over their bond. Try and explain or at least find out how much he had heard and seen. Luke reached for the link.

'Father?'

'Son.'

The deep bass rumble of Darth Vader’s voice resonated in his mind. His father’s words when they communicated like this almost seemed to have physical weight and texture. Luke held the word ‘son’ in his mind and felt the layers of feeling that the Dark Lord wrapped that thought in: warmth and possession and need and ... something else so elusive that Luke couldn’t grasp onto it in his current state of unease.

'Father, how long ... have you been with me tonight?'

'Long enough.'

Luke shut his eyes and counted his breaths for a moment to center himself. It was as bad as he feared. He could sense that Vader knew everything. Luke felt fear begin to claw at his belly. 'What must he think of me?' Luke grasped what little courage and light he felt he still had left and spoke to his father again.

'Father, I can explain.'

Luke stopped as he realized how ridiculous that statement actually was. 'No explanation will change the fact that I have desire for him! What could I possibly say to change that? Nothing. I must just try and talk to him of the good I sense in him but ... what weight will that hold when it is obvious to him now that I am so ... wrong inside?'

'Your dream, son, tell me how long you have had it.'

'This dream or–'

'There have been others like this?'

'No! I mean ... yes and no ... innocent dreams of ... just being with you. Not like ... not like this. I’ve had dreams about you ... or at least of this man ... since I was a boy.'

'And this particular dream? How long have you had it?'

Luke grabbed the blanket from his bunk and wrapped it tight around him. The sweat had dried from his body and he was chilled both inside and out.

'Since I was fifteen. I haven’t had it in a long time. Meeting you at Bespin must have triggered it again.'

Luke cringed as he thought the last. 'Force! Why did I say that? Now it sounds like I found his true form attractive and ...'

'After all the lies you had been told of my death, meeting me ... knowing who I am to you ... was a shock. That was quite clear. Why did you stop having this dream, Luke?'

Luke could almost feel the searing heat of the Tatooine air at midday for a moment, the twin suns pounding against his bleeding back, the iron tang in his throat as he had sucked on his own drying blood just to get some moisture into his mouth. He forced the image away, back into the deep recesses of his mind again.

'I ... I was punished for it. Rightfully punished. I know it is wrong, Father. You needn’t fear I would ...'

'Act on it?'

Luke winced. Now I’ve made it sound like I have been thinking of acting on it!

'Are you sure it is a dream, child?'

Luke’s thoughts stuttered to a halt. Of course it was a dream! Even thought it seemed so real. Luke could still feel the shift of the sand beneath his toes on this beach, smell the salt of the water and the rush of the breeze through his hair. He’d loved the dream for its realness, had clutched it tight to his heart in the harshness of his life on Tatooine, the loneliness of being known as that strange Luke Skywalker.

'Yes, it has to be a dream. The man in it couldn’t be you. He’s too young and ...'

'Not destroyed like me.'

Luke thought his father had broken contact with him as the red warmth that always seemed to accompany his father’s mental presence ebbed away. Why did I have to mention the man’s looks? Surely just his age would have sufficed!

'Father, are you still there?'

There was a pause then the red warmth returned.

'I am here, child.'

Luke struggled to find something to say. He didn’t know how to comfort his father. Now that his soul had been laid bare, he was afraid that any words he might give would be turned on him. So he asked a question instead.

'Why did you ask if I was sure it was a dream?'

'Because ... the youth ... your lover in the dream ... that is how I was ... how I looked before Obi Wan betrayed me.'

Luke’s breath caught in his throat. The youth was his father? Or at least had been his father. His body ached for a moment as he thought of those long clean limbs and acres of golden skin. Luke had always felt ridiculously small compared to his father in the dream, but that was nothing to how small he felt with Darth Vader. Subsumed. Consumed by him.

'Father, I’m sorry. You’ve had so much pain in your life. I ... I feel this ... my weakness ... that I have just added to it.'

There was a return of that red warmth, stronger than before. Luke felt cradled and comforted by its presence. His death grip on the comforter loosened.

'Never. You are my only joy, child of my heart.'

The term of endearment repeated from the dream now coalescing in Luke’s mind was like acid.

'Don’t call me that!'

'Why? It seemed to please you so much in the dream. Do you not wish to hear it from my lips?'

'Please do not ... I never meant for you to know about ... about those feelings. I would never act on them. I would never have exposed you to ... to ... this part of me. I want to help you, Father. Don’t let ... my weakness ... get in the way.'

Luke slumped against the side of the bunk. He was exhausted from holding back the fear and loathing for himself he felt. Why had his father called him that? Was it to chide him? Was it to shame him further? Or is it an offering - come with me, Luke, and I’ll give you what you want. Oh, Force, let it not be the last.

'Son, I did not mean to hurt you by calling you by that name. It is how I ... think of you.'

'That almost makes it worse.'

'Why, child?'

'Because I have taken what could have been a term of ... love ... between us and sullied it.'

'You have sullied nothing. You could sully nothing.'

'You do not believe that. You want me to join the Darkside and ... and sully the universe.'

'Sully the universe? What an image, young one! I want you to join me, Luke. I believe only that the Darkside would give us more power to rule justly, but it is not a requirement for you to join me.'

Luke bit his lower lip at the last. Could I rule with him and still follow the way of Ben and Yoda?

'You would have me rule by your side even if I were to follow the Light?'

'Yes, is that not what I just said?'

'But before on Bespin you seemed to–'

'Things have changed. Or ... perhaps my own thoughts are clearer to me now.'

Luke wished he could read the underlying feelings his father was sending with those words, but he felt incapable of it. All his energy was focused on trying to control his own emotions which whirled around him like dervishes.

'Do you find ... the youth in the dream ... beautiful, Luke?'

Luke stopped at that. He clutched the blanket tighter around him then realized that honesty was all he had left. His head slumped forward against his chest.

'Yes, very beautiful.'

'I wish I could give you that part of me.'

'No! Don’t say that! What I felt ... feel is wrong. It’s not something I want ... should want. It’s just something crosswired in my brain.'

Luke thought to himself: Crosswired just like the pain I feel in the hand that no longer exists. Luke flexed the prosthetic hand and felt the phantom ache again, only this time the ache seemed to spread up his whole arm and into his chest. Something missing I can never get back. But still it wounds me.

'Not to be trite, my son, but right and wrong are determined by one’s point of view.'

'But I know these feelings are wrong, Father! That is my point of view.'

'Yet you still have them, don’t you, child?'

Luke’s stomach roiled as another flash of memory of the Burning, of his punishment: Uncle Owen’s arm upraised above him, spittle on his chapped lips, his eyes glazed over in hate ... lust? No, Uncle Owen hated me for what he read in my journal. Was horrified by it. My father does not seem horrified. Is that because he sees it as an opportunity to lure me to the Darkside and him? Or could he feel something for me as I ... No! I will not journey this path. I will stop us both from going down it.

'I fight these feelings, Father. Sometimes that’s all we can do against the darkness in us. Fight it.'

'Ahh, a life of penitence, avoidance and pain, is that what you seek for yourself ... for me? The life of a Jedi. Strange that the self-proclaimed moralists of the universe always seemed to have more than their fair share of neuroses.'

'My wrongness is not caused by being a Jedi. Being a Jedi is the only thing I do that makes up for what I am.'

'And what do you think you are, Luke?'

What am I? Luke worried his lower lip. What am I really? And to his horror he found the word for it.

'Unclean.' Even Luke’s mind voice was a whisper.

Luke closed his eyes again, hating that he believed this, hating that it was true. Is this why I was unable to complete my training with Yoda? Does it mean I will be unable to rescue my father? Luke could almost hear Darth Vader’s harsh exhale of breath.

'Never say that! Never even think that!' Vader’s voice was like a hiss in his mind. The anger coiling like a snake in Luke’s thoughts. 'You are ... purity, goodness, light. You are ... Never think or say such a thing again, child of my heart.'

Luke felt his body embraced for a moment. The feeling of strong arms around him, sheltering him from everything, from everyone. How long had it been since he had been held? Truly embraced and cared for? He could not remember it. There had been the times when he received hugs from Leia and Han, but those were brief and congratulatory. They saved their special touches for each other. He was on the outside, looking in with benevolence, perhaps some jealousy, but happy for them all the same. He had accepted long ago that outside was where he belonged. Only with his father had he felt ... a part, included. That is why the dreams, especially the ones of love like he had tonight, had been so precious to him as a child, so precious to him now. He was the center of his father’s universe in those dreams. His father would take no other into his heart, because Luke would occupy every space. Do I not disgust him? Is he not appalled by what I want? But there was no sense from his father that either of those things were true.

'Come to me, Luke. Or tell me where you are and I will come get you. Be by my side. Where you belong. Where I want you so desperately.'

His father’s voice was like a whispered caress, skating across his skin. Luke felt himself tottering. What would it be like to feel those leather clad arms wrapped around him in an embrace? To be loved ... to be accepted ... No! I have to go to him to save him if I go to him at all. I can’t do it for my own needs or desires.

Luke was about to respond to his father’s last plea when he felt it. Yoda’s voice was as green colored in Luke’s mind as the Jedi Master’s body was. But the green of it looked sickly and pale.

'Luke!' Even Yoda’s voice sounded weak.

'Yoda?'

Luke could feel his father in his mind, listening but shielding his presence. Shock tinged with anger at Yoda’s call to his son.

'Luke, you must ... must go ... to ...'

'Yoda? Where must I go? I can’t hear you!'

Yoda’s mind voice was gone. Snuffed out like a candle in a windstorm.

'Father, has he died?'

'He should have years ago .... But no, not yet, my son, he still lives.'

'I must go to him.'

'You will not be able to get to him in time ... unless you are one cycle’s journey from him. And even then ... it is a vain thing you do Luke. He will not even leave a body behind for you to bury.'

'I must try.'

I know, Yoda, there is no try only do. Luke almost smiled at the remembrance.

'Forget that creature. Come to me, son.'

'Father ... I ... please ...'

'You belong by my side ... in my arms. You know this. Your dream was more than just the fantasy of a fatherless child. It is a foretelling.'

'How could that be? You would have to be–'

'Made whole again, young again for it to be true. The Force ... with it nothing is impossible, child of my heart.'

Vader’s voice was like dark honey in his mind. Sweet and thick. Drowning him. The voice moved and spread, flowing down his neck, over his shoulders and pooling in his groin. Sweat broke out on Luke’s chest. His breathing quickened. The voice reached his cock and wrapped it in a shivery caress. Luke arched up, neck exposed like an offering to a man that was not physically before him.

'Father ... stop this!'

Another stroke brought Luke’s semi-erect cock to fullness. He gasped, his hands thumping uselessly against the floor.

'You must be close, son, to feel my caress. Tell me where you are.'

'No! Father, please!'

'Tell me, child.'

The compulsion was so strong and the pleasure nearly undid him. Luke’s gaze went to the starscape and Darth Vader seemed to be able to see through Luke’s eyes.

'Ah, yes, that will do. If you will not tell me then ... show me where you are, Luke.'

Luke found himself standing. The comforter pooling at his feet. He felt his father’s touch tracing the backs of his calves and thighs. Brushes of heat against his buttocks as he walked to the plastiglass and gazed out.. Tears started to fall from Luke’s eyes as they scanned the viewport by his father’s will. The Dark Lord seemed confident that he would be able to locate Luke just by the position of the stars and planets themselves. 'He will come here. Come for me and all who are with me will be destroyed. How close is he? So close. I can tell he is so close.'

'Father, please do not make me betray my friends!'

'They are traitors, son. They must be brought to justice.'

'No! They do what they think is right. Father, I beg of you.'

Fingers seemed to trace Luke’s hipbones. The caress dipped down to his navel then brushed the sensitive skin just above his sex. Luke keened in the back of his throat.

'Ah, yes, I know where you are now, child of my heart. Prepare for me. I am coming.'

Only then with fear beating a tattoo against his flesh was Luke able to break the connection between them. The loss of his father’s mind touch brought Luke to his knees. He sobbed for the lack of it, shamed beyond words. I have betrayed the Rebellion by my weakness ... my desire for him.

Luke struggled to his feet and jumped to the com to contact the bridge.

'I must get these ships away from here. We must jump to hyperspace. I pray to the Force that I am not too late.'