Embers: Sequel to Crash and Burn

“You’re sure Allana is asleep?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Anakin. “I checked on her twice.”

Jacen reached out through the Force anyway, and found that little Allana was not only sound asleep, but about to enter REM sleep, which meant that she should be out for a long time. And the gentle whirring of the fan in her room would be enough to drown out any bumps and noises that might filter through the walls. “All right.”

Jacen was lying on his back on the shared bed – only sometimes shared, now that Allana was in the next room – with his hands loosely bound over his head with a blue silk scarf. He wore a cheap blousy shirt of flimsy, unbleached cloth, purchased from a street vendor and washed thoroughly before wearing; instead of pants, he had a kiltlike garment wrapped around his waist. The light air currents lifted the bottom hem and bounced it a little bit over his knees.

Anakin stood at the end of the bed. His tight deep-brown leather pants left no question about the shape of his muscles, and he filled it out nicely; if he wasn’t naturally trim, he might have looked like he was stuffed into them, but they fit him like a second skin. He had high black boots, laced halfway up his calves, over his feet, and his shirt and jacket were trimmed in fake gold.

“Let’s get started,” Anakin said impatiently. “This leather? Doesn’t give. Not where I need it to, anyway.”

Jacen stretched forward and lifted his head. He saw the bulge in the crotch of Anakin’s pants and smiled. “Not too fast, Ani. We’ve got all night.”

Anakin huffed and unzipped his pants anyway, and then pulled the bottom of his shirt out to hide the evidence.

“So much for all the Jedi training,” Jacen said.

“Hush, boy.”

“There, now you’re getting it.” Jacen had been getting a little tired of doing all the work – specifically, of being on top when they were in bed. Not that he had any real complaint about it – he was happy just to be near Anakin again, happy to touch him, and if they were making love, then all the better.

But sometimes his legs were sore the next day, and he missed feeling Anakin inside him. He remembered their first night together, on a planet so far away, nine years earlier – how he felt about opening his mind and body to Anakin, and the sweet surprise when it was so much better than he had imagined. The feeling that everything would be all right, if only he was with Anakin.

He wanted to feel that again. And Anakin, trodden over for far too many of the intervening years, naturally fell into the role of the one who served the other. This was their escape, not the place where the day-to-day drudgery was supposed to continue, and Jacen suggested that they take it as far as they dared.

Not that they were entirely giving up all reason yet. Other than the scarf wrapped around Jacen’s wrists and their clothing, they had no special instruments; the toys were kept in the top dresser drawer for a later time.

Anakin sat on the bed next to Jacen and traced his strong jawline with a fingertip. “So, tell me, what is your name?”

“I don’t have one,” Jacen said, and did his best to look despondent.

“Then I’ll give you one. I think I’ll call you... Jasa.”

“As you will it,” Jacen replied.

“You’re not really good at getting the flirt out of your voice,” Anakin said mischievously, but slightly breaking character.

Jacen didn’t break. “I can’t help it, Master,” he said. “You’re so... so handsome. You remind me of someone I used to know.” All right, so he broke character just a little bit.

“Quiet.” Anakin reached over to the desk, where he’d placed a plate of medium-cookied bantha steak. “You need to eat to keep your strength up. I won’t have my boy getting weak on me.”

Jacen let Anakin cut up the steak and feed it to him, piece by piece. He didn’t really want to admit it, but he enjoyed the mix of pampering and helplessness. He trusted Anakin not to hurt him – and to take care of him, if necessary; it wasn’t necessary now, but if it ever came to that, he would know he was in good hands. Perhaps in the morning he would have plenty to think about and wonder if it would give him a new angle in dealing with Allana; it occurred to him that being at the very top of the pyramid, and the very bottom, were only different in the details if the position at the top wasn’t gained through one’s own power. But he didn’t want to think about Allana at all right then. He wanted to think about Anakin’s hand as it brushed against his cheek.

“Mmm,” he said.

“I wasn’t really impressed with the steak, to be honest,” Anakin said.

“I was more impressed by the person carrying it.”

Anakin smiled. “Thanks, Jasa. You’re just saying that, though.”

Character had thoroughly been broken, and this time Jacen just gave up. “What makes you think that?”

“I’m the one who’s lucky to have you. I mean, hell, you used to be with the old Chume Ta’. You could have anybody you wanted. I don’t know how I hit that lottery.”

“Solo luck, maybe?” Jacen said, with just a bit of a cheeky grin. He really should have been reassuring Anakin that he was worth it, as much as Jacen or more – after all, that was the entire point of their set-up, so that Anakin would be able to start to break out of his patterns in a safe and not entirely realistic space. But he didn’t want to kill the moment, and it was in danger of being killed, so he went into salvage mode.

Anakin growled at Jacen, but then pounced on him and started to kiss him. “Steak breath,” he whispered.

“Yeah. I could use a mint.”

“Nah, I don’t mind. As long as it’s coming from you.” Anakin pulled on his pants again to loosen them a little more and he knelt over Jacen. His tongue ran across Jacen’s lips, then his teeth, and then it twirled around the other man’s tongue. Anakin broke away for a moment. “Still hungry, Jasa?” he asked, and conspicuously toyed with the bottom hem of his shirt.

“Always for you, Ani.”

Anakin smiled and kissed Jacen again, and then peeled off his pants. When he climbed back onto the bed and touched Jacen, Jacen felt warm, damp skin rubbing against him, and he instinctively reached up to embrace Anakin. However, his hands were still bound, and while he could have twisted out of the bindings if he wanted to, he chose to leave them in place. Unable to make as much contact with Anakin as he wanted to, he only craved it that much more.

Anakin threw off his vest and shirt, and then he was straddling Jacen, wearing nothing but his black boots. Something about the sight of him, well-built, potentially powerful (even if he was usually hiding it and didn’t know the power was there), and in leather and silver rivets, sent a thrill through Jacen’s entire body.

“Open up, Jasa,” Anakin whispered, and cupped Jacen’s chin with his left hand.

“You’re going to get me off after I’m done, right?” Jacen asked.

“Depends on how you do,” said Anakin, and he winked.

Anakin taking the initiative didn’t just make Jacen happy. It made him hot. And it was apparently working for Anakin, too. Jacen closed his eyes and opened his mouth, and he felt Anakin shift on top of him, slowly pushing forward and twisting. He felt something touch his lips, and he raised his head and covered his bottom row of teeth with his tongue.

Anakin pushed his erection into the soft space Jacen had made for him, and Jacen took a deep breath, just to make sure he had enough oxygen to get him through the first minute. His mouth was full of sweetness, pulsing against his tongue and pressing near the back of his throat. His moan of anticipation came out muffled, but he heard Anakin make his own, as he felt the vibrations from Jacen’s throat.

Jacen was good at suppressing his own gag reflex; he’d had to do it before, when food was scarce and he had to take whatever he could find. Now he had a much better reason. Anakin was sitting lightly on his collarbones inviting him via twitches and partially aborted thrusts to take him in as deep as he could.

Jacen worked his mouth higher and higher on Anakin’s cock until he was sucking on its base, and for a few moments he held himself there before pulling back. Anakin tugged at the loops around Jacen's wrists to free his hands. Jacen stroked Anakin’s bare thighs, from knees to the lines where leg and pelvis joined. Anakin covered Jacen’s hands with his and guided their motions, up and down, back and forth, and finally he brought one of them around the back to his toned butt, and the other to the front, with Anakin’s balls resting delicately in Jacen’s hand.

He was a Jedi Knight; he could do three things at once. Soft, warm skin yielded to his kneading touch, and he buried the fingers of his other hand between two tight buttocks. Anakin’s legs trembled, but he kept his position firmly while Jacen’s mouth sent tingles from his groin throughout his entire body in waves of fire.

It was a game of a sort: Jacen trying to pull Anakin over into overwhelming pleasure, and Anakin trying to hold out, make it last as long as he could. Jacen was winning, but Anakin didn’t feel that he had lost anything when his head rolled back and a cry escaped his mouth without any will of his own. His legs tightened and tensed, their quivering suddenly stilled, and warm liquid rushed into Jacen’s throat.

Jacen swallowed the spurt and drew his head back, so that the last drops rolled out onto his tongue. He licked Anakin’s softening cock, a few times around the head, then once up and down its length. “Mm,” he murmured, and then eased himself back against the pillows. His tongue picked up the last traces of semen from his glistening lips. “What do you think, Ani?”

“Can’t think,” Anakin groaned. He sat on Jacen’s chest and looked down into his warm brown eyes. “Damn, boy. What did I do all those years without you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe now we can make up for lost time?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Anakin said, and his half-closed eyes opened the rest of the way. He climbed over to Jacen’s side. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll have you screaming into the pillows.”

Jacen gently rubbed Anakin’s stomach and worked ever lower, eager to begin.

---

In the dreaming mind of a little girl one room over, the apartment had morphed into a maze. Allana sat in a dark corner deep inside the Hapan palace garden, trying to stay in the shadows, because there was something looking for her. She didn’t know who it was, or if it was even a person – there were wild animals and monsters out there that might think she was a tasty snack, and they wouldn’t have any reason to care about who wanted her alive and how much they were willing to pay for it.

She held her breath and tried not to make any sound, but she felt her throat tickle, and she couldn’t help it; she sneezed. And then the shadows around her moved, and she heard a roar.

Allana got up. Whatever was chasing her was very close, and she had to get away from it. She started to run, but she tripped over the hem of her dress and fell on the ground. She scrambled to her feet and picked herself up, then lifted the hem a few inches so that she could run. She couldn’t pump her arms that way, and she was running slowly, but she turned the corner of a neatly clipped hedge and started down a different pathway.

She didn’t know where in the garden she was; she’d gotten lost in it before, and there was only one entrance/exit area. Inside, there was a gazebo and a courtyard, but the path to it was complicated and she couldn’t remember it or where in the maze she started out. Right then she just had to find Mother. Mother would be able to kill whatever was chasing her. Allana cried out for Tenel Ka, and for the guards; however, it seemed that nobody heard her. She didn’t see or hear anybody else.

Maybe it ate the guards.

Maybe it ate Mother.

Allana ran faster, now, even though she couldn’t quite catch her breath. She wasn’t tall enough to climb up the hedges, so she hoped that the next turn would take her to the exit, so that she could see the palace and make a clear run for the doors. But there was only another row of hedges, then another, then another. Her eyes and throat burned and she started to cough.

Something dark loomed up over her, and she looked straight up at it. The creature was all black, with large, red eyes and a pair of pincers that were each big enough to catch her and snip her body into two pieces.

Against such a creature, Allana did the only thing she knew how to do. She covered her face and screamed. Through the gaps between her fingers she saw a pincer come down, wide open, and cover her. It started to close.

Then she was in a dark room, with a cheap bedspread underneath her and a thin blanket wrapped around her. “Mother! Mother!” she shouted. Tenel Ka always came when she had nightmares, and would hold Allana until she calmed down, and tell her that everything was all right.

Except that nobody came, and Allana remembered that she was in a little room on far away Coruscant. And Tenel Ka wasn’t going to be able to hear her because she wasn’t even in the same sector, let alone in the same building.

“Father?” Allana called out hesitantly. “Uncle Anakin?” She pulled the blanket over her head and waited, still, so that she didn’t have to watch the shadows flicker and the lights from outside speeder cars dance through the room.

Nobody came. She occasionally heard a speeder car race past the apartment building, and occasional clicks and beeps from the walls. Deedee’s lights flickered on, then. Jacen had forgotten to set her into night watch mode, and now Deedee was in power-saving mode, only scanning for medical anomalies within Allana and dangers from the room.

The lights were bright enough to shine through Allana’s blanket, and she peeked out. The lights made Deedee’s shadow loom larger than the droid really was, and for an instant Allana thought she saw a pair of pincers instead of four arms. Allana screamed again and jumped out of her bed, and in a few moments she’d thrown the bedroom door open and was running down the hall.

Anakin’s room was closer than the living room. She twisted the doorknob and threw open the door, because he was a Jedi Knight, too, and he could kill the monster for her. “Uncle Anakin!” she shouted. “Wake up!”

Then Allana froze. Anakin and Jacen were both awake; Jacen was kneeling next to the bed, half laying on it, and he gasped for breath. Anakin stood behind him, bracing himself with his arms outstretched and on either side of Jacen, and seemed to be sandwiching him tightly to the mattress. Neither one of them had any clothes on.

Anakin turned his head to the sudden light, and his face twisted into a mask of horror. He jumped backwards, and his cock sprang free. He covered himself as well as he could with his hands and grabbed for the first thing nearby – a rumpled blanket – to wrap around himself. Jacen snatched up a pillow and pressed it against his hips as he twisted around to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Allana, what are you doing here?” Jacen shouted.

“I had a nightmare,” Allana said. Her lower lip trembled, and she was now very confused and a little bit more scared. “What were you doing? Why was Anakin pushing you into the bed?” She gave Anakin a dirty look. If Uncle Anakin was trying to hurt her father, then she was going to be very mad, and she thought back to what he told her – about people who were mean inside being nice outside so that people wouldn’t know they were mean. If Anakin hurt Jacen but was nice to Allana, then that would make him just like Ta’a Chume – who was, according to him, nice to Allana so that she could hurt Tenel Ka and Allana wouldn’t notice.

Jacen and Anakin exchanged embarrassed glances. Anakin’s was twisted into a grimace of pain. “Allana...” Jacen’s voice trailed off. “It’s nothing. You shouldn’t be in here. You should be in your room.”

“Why was Anakin hurting you?”

“He wasn’t hurting me, Allana. It’s... it’s a long story, and one that you’re much, much too young to know about yet. Let me get my pants on and then you can tell me about your nightmare. Close your eyes.”

“I don’t want to close my eyes,” Allana said. “There are monsters in my room. There’s a big one with big pincers that could cut me.”

“There aren’t any monsters in here, and Anakin’s eyes will be open, so if one comes in he’ll cut it up before it can get to anybody.”

Allana nodded, and tried to be brave. She closed her eyes and heard some rustling noises, and she started to whine and a few tears came out of her eyes, but she didn’t open them until she heard Jacen tell her to.

Jacen led Allana into the living room. “Now you tell me what happened,” Allana said. “Did Anakin wet the bed?”

Jacen grinned and almost made a smart-alecky remark, and then he remembered who he was talking to. “No, Allana.”

“I don’t believe you. I think both of you wet your beds.” Allana folded her arms. “You’re too old to do that. Mother told me I was too old for that when I was three. You’re a lot more than three. You have to be at least ten.”

“I’m twenty-eight, Allana.”

“Is that older than ten?” She knew her numbers, but had some trouble with time.

“It’s a lot more than ten, yes. And all I’m going to tell you right now is that no, nobody peed in any beds, that what you saw is not to be mentioned to anybody, at all, ever, and that there’s more that you’ll understand when you’re grown up.”

“Like when I’m ten?”

“Closer to twenty-eight.”

Allana pouted. “That’s a long way away, when I grow to be big like you.”

“Maybe. It goes faster than you think it will. Now, tell me about your nightmare.”

“There was a big maze, like the one behind the palace, and I got lost. I tried to find my way out but I couldn’t, and then the big monster came in and tried to bite me. I ran and ran and ran and couldn’t find how to get out and it caught me. But now it won’t catch me because you and Uncle Anakin are here.” Allana frowned. “But you need to take a shower, Father, because you still stink.”

“Anakin didn’t think so,” Jacen mused.

“That’s because he stinks, too.” Allana scrunched up her face.

“For such a little girl, you have a very sensitive nose. Don’t worry about me. We have to go monster-hunting, and you’re going to come with me.”

Allana hid behind Jacen, but followed him as he went back into her room. He flicked the lights on and Allana covered her face, but little by little she let herself look out, and she saw that there was nothing special in the room. Just the blue foam chair that she couldn’t sit on yet, and her new furniture, and Deedee. “Oh, no,” Allana said. “That wasn’t a monster. That was Deedee. She looked wrong when it was dark.”

“There are no monsters in this apartment,” Jacen said firmly. “If there was a real danger, I would feel it before it got here. But if you’re ever very scared, you can come find me. There’s just one thing I’m going to ask you to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Knock before you open the door.”

Allana eventually fell asleep again, and Jacen went back to his room. Anakin was in the bed, lying on his back, still naked but wrapped up in a sheet. He stared at the ceiling. Not good, thought Jacen.

“Dammit, Anakin, I’m sorry,” Jacen began.

“Not your fault. These things happen.” Anakin exhaled loudly. “I guess now we know how Mom and Dad felt when we were growing up.”

“And why they sometimes kept the doors locked,” Jacen agreed. “You’re not mad?”

“No. The mood’s kind of ruined, though.” He lifted one arm, and Jacen climbed into bed and snuggled against him. “Yeah. We’ll just go to sleep. But, Jacen?”

“What?”

“Maybe you ought to consider sending Allana to the Academy. Not right now – but if Isolder doesn’t come back for her soon, then she needs to be doing something. We can’t teach her very well here, not when we’re at the Temple on most days, and it might be good for her to be around other children.”

“And sometimes out of the apartment if they’re doing an all-night event for the classes,” said Jacen.

“See? Good for her, and good for us.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Jacen.

Anakin smiled, kissed Jacen, and drifted off to sleep.