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abnb_ficdo our talking with a laser beam
author: abrandnewboom
rating: E
ship/s: Jung Jungkook/Park Jimin
wordcount: 7968
warnings/tags: Alternate Universe, Star Wars Fusion, Kyber Crystals, Forbidden Relationships, Sith, Jedi Culture & Tradition (Star Wars), Sex in a Cave, Outer Space, Space Travel, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Friends to Lovers
Despite Jungkook's teenage defection to the Dark Side, the bond between one-time Jedi apprentices Jimin and Jungkook remains strong enough to lure Jimin from his role in the Temple to the frozen wasteland of Ilum in the hopes that he might find the Padawan he once knew and loved.
The man in the black cloak was not supposed to be there.
There were plenty of humanoids like Jimin and peoples of varied planets of origin in the Jedi Temple who wore dark cloaks. Some wore tall black boots too, or weatherproof cowls like the one this man had draped around his face. His clothes wouldn’t be out of place in any bar or starport on Coruscant.
But Jimin knew this man, and he was definitely not supposed to be in the Temple, let alone skulking around the training chambers after teaching hours.
Jimin stepped softly into the hall in his soft hide boots. He pressed a handprint to the door panel beside him. The security system sealed the exits obediently and without a sound, as it would for any Jedi teacher recognised by the Council. It was their duty to protect their small charges.
The youngest of Jimin’s class was just four years old, and barely beginning to adjust to living without her mother. She had gained a galaxy of siblings and a Temple full of wise parents, but Jimin knew her heart would ache for a while longer for someone who had been just hers alone.
Some Force sensitive children never adjusted. Instead, they twisted, slowly over decades, like gnarled deadwood, the flex of their spirits gone hard and thorny.
“I heard a rumour,” Jimin said, carefully, stepping down the hall to stand a respectful distance behind the intruder. He knew it was anything but rumour.
Jungkook had left in bad blood during the multi-sun eclipse - the closest thing this planet could compare to a dark night. He’d had help leaving the surface. The Temple’s camera footage showed that he’d willingly boarded an unmarked craft, swathed in his warmest cloak and iceboots. Wherever he’d intended to go, he’d been well prepared.
Who would go to the trouble of collecting a Jedi who’d never become a Padawan? It was obvious.
“So, you heard I’ve joined the Sith? I thought you might be too wrapped up in your little surrogate family,” Jungkook said bitingly. He didn’t bother to turn around. He scrolled right to the bottom of the screen panel, reading to the end of the week’s notices and schedules.
“They’re my students,” Jimin said, lightly. “You remember just as well as I do what it’s like to be a child in the Temple. There’s no room for family bonds.”
“Yeah,” Jungkook snorted. “That’s probably our damage.”
Jimin pursed his lips, rocking back and forward on the balls of his feet. Jungkook scrolled back to the top of the screen and tapped across into some of the other news memos. Jimin sighed and took a seat on a bench that flipped down out of the wall, resigned to supervising Jungkook until he clarified the purpose of his visit.
The students would just have to amuse themselves with meditation. Jimin almost smiled at that - he and Jungkook had loved it when their teachers had been late. Students were directed to meditate whenever they found a spare moment between classes but they’d been kids - given fifteen minutes to themselves they’d ransacked storage chambers in search of secret hatches and panels, explored every nook and cranny of the temple, clambered into the ducts and played with the cleaning droids.
Jimin only hoped they’d all come back to the classroom when he called for them over the comm.
Jungkook finished reading, and turned on his heel smartly to face Jimin down. He had a new scar on his face. A thin white line that pulled at the corner of his lips.
Jungkook had always had an expressive mouth. He sulked easily, but he also had a wide face-splitting smile when he was truly charmed. His smirk was especially affecting, and the new scar only enhanced it. He must have been somewhere without access to healing bacta when he’d been injured. Or he’d left it to heal scarred on purpose.
That was not the Jedi way. Leaving scars and scar-keeping was a Sith practice.
“Are you going to report me, Jimin-ah?” Jungkook smiled, the corner of his mouth lifting in that way it always did when he was teasing Jimin.
Jimin blinked away the shiver that smirk sent straight to the pit of his stomach. “No,” he said. “You’re a child of the Temple too. This will always be your home.”
It was an old line, the same words their teachers and Jedi Masters had parroted to them. Jimin hadn’t really thought about what it meant. How it could be a balm and a stinging slap in the same breath.
Jungkook snorted. His cowl dropped lower, shadowing his eyes. “Even me?” Jungkook said, voice dropping lower. He stepped forward slowly, telegraphing his movements like he used to when they used to spar together.
Jimin had never been a fighter - he was a dancer. No will to strike. The way Jungkook fought, he could only play-act with Jimin or risk inflicting grievous injury on an opponent who couldn’t defend himself. Jungkook had always been too good in a fight. Too good, even for a Jedi, because in the end, to be the best at fighting meant being the cruelest and most vicious. Channelling emotion into violence. Jungkook had always had too many emotions at hand.
Jimin stood, alert. The bench slid away automatically with a hiss, leaving Jimin to back up until his thin tunic was pressed against the cold metal wall. Jungkook followed him with quick footwork. He leaned in close, leg firmly insinuating itself between Jimin’s knees.
“There’s always a place for you here,” Jimin said, breathlessly.
Jungkook pushed up against him hard, sighing a little. Jimin bit down on a whimper. Jungkook’s well muscled thigh was firm against Jimin’s sensitive dick, hard even through layers of cloaks, linen tunics and underwear.
“A place for me,” Jungkook murmured. “Somewhere warm, cosy, welcoming. Soft and tight, perhaps. But your body is not the Temple, Jimin.”
Jimin flushed immediately, hot from his hairline to his chest. He spluttered and slapped at Jungkook’s chest reflexively, forgetting for a moment that they hadn’t seen each other in years, that Jungkook was almost certainly a Sith now. It had been long enough that he might have graduated from his apprenticeship by now.
Jungkook laughed at Jimin’s soft slaps. He pulled away carefully, hands going to Jimin’s elbows to steady him. “You still love it,” he said, giving Jimin a glimpse of his glittering intelligent eyes under his cowl. “Well, are you going to introduce me to your children?”
“They’re not my children,” Jimin emphasised. “They’re students. I’m a teacher.”
“Whatever you say,” Jungkook flapped his hand. “Either way, you know I don’t have the stomach for hurting little kids. Call it in, the council will just assign you to follow me around and play spy.”
Jimin pursed his lips, but he couldn’t deny that he agreed. “Fine,” he said, reluctantly. He pulled his portable comms out of a voluminous pocket and sent the council officer a quick alert. The comms beeped seconds later with an assignment - Accompany our suspected Sith visitor until he departs the Temple.
Jimin rolled his eyes and accepted the assignment with the tap of a finger. “Guess you’re coming to footwork lessons with the six year olds…”
Jungkook smiled knowingly. “You can call me Jungkook. Unless you want to call me Darth Kook.” He lifted his brows flirtatiously. “It’s so inaccurate that it’s almost offensive, but I think I’d like the sound of it coming out of your mouth. Say it later, when we’re getting properly reacquainted.”
Jimin snorted, flustered. “You’re still full of shit.” He slapped his hand against the door panel again, waving Jungkook after him into the passageway that led to the practice rooms.
+++
“You can stay here,” Jimin said, brushing his hand over a door panel. The door slid open gently, chiming a welcome. “It’s one of the quarters we keep ready for visiting Knights. I’m in this corridor too.”
“You won’t tell me which door?” Jungkook smiled, standing aside to allow Jimin to enter first. “Not so eager for one of our famous midnight picnics?”
“I find that I’m not as hungry as I was in my teenage years,” Jimin shrugged, averting his eyes purposefully.
Jungkook snorted, following him into the quarters. He threw himself down onto a soft seat and watched Jimin work the replicator.
“Tea?” Jimin said, bringing over the steaming carafe and a tray of cups, blue bantha milk and sugar.
Jungkook nodded. He cleared the table in front of him and helped pour out their cups.
One cup down, Jungkook seemed to have relaxed a little. Jimin got up to ask the replicator for a plate of sweet-sand cookies.
Jungkook nearly clapped when he saw them. “I haven’t had these in eons,” he exclaimed, picking up two immediately.
“I wondered,” Jimin smiled over his second pour of tea. “Where have you been that you couldn’t get sweet-sand cookies, though? Even Outer Rim settlements have cookies.”
Jungkook eyed him suspiciously. “Nice try, Jedi,” he said, scarfing down another cookie. “I lived here, hyung, I know they monitor every room, every moment, day and night. The things the Council must have seen!”
He chuckled a little as Jimin fought down a flush.
“I’ve been a lot of places and learned a lot from the people your Jedi Council fear, Jimin. I’ve had my eyes opened. Worse - I was even compensated fairly for my efforts.”
“What kind of efforts, exactly?” Jimin snapped. “Smuggling weapons? Trafficking indentured labour?”
Jungkook shook his head slowly. “Removing barriers,” he said. “Deploying stepping stones. Changing the course of our future to ensure that real leaders can rise. Leaders who want us to flourish and live freely, the way we always imagined the galaxy worked.”
“I worry, Jungkook. I worry that you won’t know what you’ve done - and for whom - until it’s too late,” Jimin said quietly.
“You think they’re using me?” Jungkook laughed, slapping his knees.
He stood and walked to the windows. They overlooked the city, with a perfect unbroken view of the second sun setting behind one of their large moons. They would be plunged into twilight soon - the closest they got to true night.
“Using me like the Council did? The same way they use you and the countless children they made orphans over the centuries? We could have had our real lives, Jimin. If they’d let us alone. Real lives with our real families. Don’t you wonder what it would have been like if they hadn’t taken us from our mother’s arms?”
Jungkook was so earnest.
It reminded Jimin of back when they used to lay side by side on the sparring room floor at night - exhausted but content to quietly watch the endless procession of stars and speeders and satellites glimmering overhead.
“The Jedi Council is lying to you about everything, Jimin. Lying to the whole galaxy, truth be told.”
“No matter what could have been in another life, the Jedi sect is my home now,” Jimin said, with absolute certainty. “It’s a calling. I can’t leave. I can feel it in the Force, Jungkook. I’m supposed to be here.”
LIke you, he thought, and Jimin knew that Jungkook could hear his unspoken words.
Sometimes he envied Jungkook for his freedom. As hardwon as it must have been, especially coming from the cloister that was the Jedi Temple, the exhilaration must be something else.
“You can,” Jungkook hissed, exasperated. He bounded forward and wrapped his arms around Jimin’s waist as if he could still do that, like years and hundreds of parsecs hadn’t passed them by and changed them irrevocably.
“You can leave with me. It doesn’t even have to be today,” he said, locking eyes with Jimin. They were dark and glittering, even darker than Jimin could remember them being on the darkest of sunless, moonless nights.
“I could come back for you when you’ve finished with this cycle of students. I know you love to see your projects through,” Jungkook said, and it hurt Jimin all the more to hear him be so considerate.
Jungkook was sweet at his core, but he’d always been both whip smart and endlessly underestimated. Prospective Masters had always passed over him, citing their concerns over his unpredictable nature and his affinity for the purple Kyber. The Council recommended that Jedi Padawans should be measured, serious, kindly, even melancholic.
Jungkook had been so patient, Jimin recalled, heart hurting at the memory. But when even Jimin was selected by one of their old teachers, Jungkook hadn’t been able to face the notion of being reassigned to the Council’s agricultural corps or the administration pool. He’d disappeared.
Jungkook had surfaced only sporadically since then - always shrouded in stark black robes and mystery. Peers who had previously called him friend now derided and disowned him. Jimin had multiple galaxy-wide alerts set up on his comm link. He listened hard for every whisper of his old friend, and the whispers all had the same heartbreaking news. Jungkook had joined the Sith.
Jimin shook his head, silent. “I’m sorry. No.” He could never become a Sith, or even travel with Sith. It was out of the question, no matter how strongly his feelings for his childhood friend endured.
Jungkook tightened his iron grip on Jimin’s waist and leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. “Hyung, you give too much of yourself to them - what of the parts of yourself you promised to me?”
Jimin scrunched his eyes closed in embarrassment. “That was a long time ago,” he whispered. “And you were not - gone.”
“I could visit more often at first,” Jungkook said, wheedling. “We could sit together in the spires and talk, like when we were Padawans.”
His pull was magnetic. Jimin was almost tempted, somehow. The air was thick between them with Dark energy. It was warm and suffocating, like a heavy blanket and a dram of Darkoma on a chill night. He let Jungkook stroke his hands firmly up the small of his back, up the arch of his spine, palms pressing hard and grasping over his shoulder blades.
Jungkook took his lips like he was drinking from him, open mouthed and wet, He invaded his mouth easily, nipping and overwhelming the barrier that was his soft, easily bruised lips.
“Now this - this is how you persuade a man to visit the Temple more often,” Jungkook sighed, allowing Jimin to breathe freely once more. His hand went to the back of Jimin’s head and he wove his fingers through Jimin’s hair and pressed his mouth now to Jimin’s throat, sharp teeth just prinking over the thin skin.
Jimin trembled in Jungkook’s hold, overwhelmed and over-sensitive. He felt like he might come if Jungkook touched his bare skin for even a moment longer.
“Let go,” he whispered finally. “Jungkook-ah, please let go of me.”
Jimin felt Jungkook frown hard into his neck, but he pulled away, releasing Jimin from his tight hold. Jimin shook himself a little, shaking off the tendrils of dark Force that he could almost taste curling into his mouth, his nostrils, his very pores.
It was the Darkest version of the Jedi mind trick. The Sith compulsion. Jungkook probably hadn’t even done it on purpose. It would be second nature to him now, taking and consuming and controlling coming to him as naturally as breathing.
But this was Jungkook. Jimin knew his Force signature too well not to notice his touch. Jungkook simply couldn’t compel him to do anything he didn’t want to do. Another Sith could, probably. But not Jungkook.
“You’re after a new Kyber crystal,” Jimin said, barely able to speak without a quaver in his voice. He shook himself and stepped back. “Cut the shit, it’s obvious.”
Jungkook blinked owlishly. “Obvious?”
Jimin rolled his eyes. “You’ve observed at least three classes of prospective Padawans and somehow refrained from whipping your lightsaber out even once?”
Jungkook spluttered a little, hand going to his sabre hilt automatically.
“You should know we won’t have the one you need. You’ll have to embark on your own little Gathering,” Jimin said.
Jungkook’s mouth twisted, his scar creasing with it. “The Temple had one ten years ago. Who’s to say they don't have another up their sleeves?”
“They don’t.” Jimin said with finality, shaking his head. “You can trust me on that count.”
He got up and slapped the door panel. “Please help yourself to the replicator. They’ve gotten quite good at textured protein meals these last years.”
+++
If anything, Jimin had always been sensitive to ripples in the Force. It may not have guided his feet so well as the other children, nor told him when to duck or where to aim, or even who to avoid in the throngs of pickpocket infested crowds - but he could feel it lapping around him all the time.
When their fellow Jedi passed into stardust, Jimin would wake and know to briefly mourn and celebrate their transition into energy. Similarly, nearly every day he was haunted by the deja vu-like chill of the Force nudging at him when something didn’t feel quite right.
If he had a credit for every time he paused, mid-lesson and thought, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”, he’d probably have at least doubled the living allowance the Temple allotted him.
It was this same creeping feeling that pulled Jimin from his warm bed and had him don his daily robes and boots. His lightsaber bumped on his hip as he jogged down the dim hallways, a glow lantern from his room clutched in one fist. The Temple was asleep, and the systems were all well settled into night maintenance mode.
Jimin knew exactly where to go, as he always did with a pull like this, and he was not surprised to find Jungkook crouched in front of the supplied cache closet, scanning the door panel with his utili-tool.
The locked panel clunked unhappily and the door whirred open with a final tap from Jungkook’s device.
“Finally,” Jimin heard Jungkook grumble. He shuffled in and rustled around briefly, emerging nearly immediately with a familiar black box. The Kyber crystals for the Padawan’s first sabres. Of course.
Jungkook spotted Jimin as soon as he stepped back through the doorway. It snapped shut behind again like it was just as unimpressed with the infiltration as Jimin. Technology in the Jedi Temple tended to get that way after a few decades.
“Jimin,” he said, eyes widening in surprise. So he hadn’t sensed him coming down the hall. Interesting.
“Jungkook,” Jimin hissed, frustrated. He set his softly glowing lantern down in an alcove. “This is beneath you.”
Jungkook’s eyes flashed, his big eyes like smouldering coals under his cloak. “Just because you’ve spent your share of time beneath me doesn’t make you an expert on my life, Jimin.”
Jimin scowled, but kept his mouth shut, not wanting to aggravate his old friend further. He knew Jungkook all too well.
Jungkook cracked open the box, using the barest flick of a finger to turn the latch. He emptied the dull mass of tinkling crystals into his palm, rolling them back and forth to study their colours.
It was no use. Not one of them glowed brighter than they would for any standard Force sensitive person. There was no purple Kyber among the selection. Jungkook had taken the last one, and the Temple had needed another for any Padawan since. Most of the Kybers in Jungkook’s hand were green or blue, with the odd yellow gem.
He sighed and brushed them back into the box, snapping it closed and sliding it into a pocket of his cloak.
“Excuse me!” Jimin exclaimed, reaching his palm out expectantly.
Jungkook pulled his cowl up, shrugging at Jimin. “I can still trade them. Think of it as a lesson. The Jedi should consider better protecting their supplies.”
Jimin gaped at him as he strode past, seemingly shameless.
“The children are supposed to be finishing their sabres in a month,” he hissed when he’d successfully tamped down his exceptionally un-Jedi-like anger and found the most logical words to express his objection to Jungkook’s egregious theft.
“Sounds like plenty of time to organise an old fashioned Gathering,” Jungkook shrugged. “Meanwhile, out in the real galaxy I need something to trade to make up for the credits I’m about to waste on booking my passage to Ilum.”
“Ilum?” Jimin said, trailing him furiously down the dark halls to the Temple entrance. Either Jungkook could see in the dark somehow nowadays, or he’d recently refreshed his memory of the Temple’s blueprints.
“Yep,” Jungkook said. “I’ve got my own Gathering to do. Excuse me.” He lifted his foot and kicked the sticky front entrance door ajar. The old sheared gears screeched and clacked as he forced it open. “I can’t believe the Council still haven’t fixed that.”
He skipped down the long front steps with Jimin at his heels. He veered left at the foot of the Jedi Temple and merged directly into the still-humming night market.
Jimin swore under his breath, pausing to wonder whether he should report in before proceeding off-site.
Then he swore again and dove between the stalls before he could lose sight of his quarry.
For a brief moment Jimin was sure that he’d lost Jungkook, but he glimpsed him again, black cloak flowing around his long legs. He strode head and shoulders above most of the brightly-garbed Coruscant merchants and shoppers.
Jimin pelted after him, calling out fruitlessly over the sales pitch of the merchants and the high pitched hum of cruisers overhead. Finally he managed to catch up and fall into step with him. Jungkook whipped his head around to stare at him, his shadowed face displaying some short-lived pleasant surprise as he realised that Jimin had followed him.
“You’re not going anywhere with those crystals without me tagging along and killing your vibe!” Jimin said vindictively.
He had to take two quick steps to keep up with every one of Jungkook’s long strides, but had the endless stamina of a spiteful teacher, and nothing could possibly top that.
Jungkook actually looked concerned about that threat. Jimin had to concur - he was a very effective vibe-killer when he wanted to be. If it was something a Jedi could specialise in, he would be a Master already.
Jungkook finally stopped, stock still in the middle of the spaceport entrance. This was one of the smaller ones that offered budget docking, less wait time and fewer eyes. The trade off was less optimal lift off windows and slightly more expensive fuel burn, given that the launch spot wasn’t quite perfect for catching the gravitational slingshot between their dual moons.
“You can come along if you want, I’m not going to stop you,” Jungkook said finally. “But I’m not your babysitter, hyung.” He turned and strode into the port, heading over to the check in window.
Jimin bristled at that. “Jung Jungkook! I’m not trying to take a holiday - I’m asking for the return of property you stole from children!” He shouted, in the hopes that it would possibly shame Jungkook into just handing over the contents of his pockets.
Unfortunately, no one in the building blinked an eye at his proclamation. Jimin huffed and hurried over to the service window. “I’d like passage on the same ship, please.”
“Passage to Ilum, 570 credits, please,” the droid whirred. A cash drawer dropped open to collect his payment.
Jimin gritted his teeth and reached for his credit pouch. So they were both to attend a Gathering on icy Ilum. A very fitting nostalgic holiday for two Jedi Knights.
+++
Ilum wasn’t far - a trip barely enough to require a cryosleep, but cargo trips weren’t terribly interesting or comfortable for several days of transit. They both hooked in, Jungkook rolling his eyes as Jimin made sure to wait for the cold fluid to start flowing into Jungkook’s vein port before he hit the button on his own hook up.
"If I wanted to lose you that bad, you wouldn’t even see me go,” Jungkook yawned, eyes fluttering.
Jimin shrugged, pressing the button on his own cryopod. “Oh, I know. But I’ll be the one stuck doing the paperwork if you do.”
Jungkook stared at him as he slipped away into chemical sleep, face tight. Eventually the scarred corner of his lip slowly softened into an expression Jimin couldn’t quite call regret.
Ilum radiated cold even into its inner atmosphere. Cryo passengers were woken automatically an hour from descent, but even if they hadn’t been, Jimin felt sure that the chill in the air would have roused them.
“Hope your boots can handle ice,” Jungkook grinned, skipping down the ramp ahead of Jimin and landing squarely in a patch of crisp snow.
Jimin scoffed. “They’re Temple issue—”
“Multi-terrain footwear,” he and Jungkook chorused in unison. Jimin couldn’t help but laugh, glancing at Jungkook fondly from behind his cowl.
“If you want to believe that, you can, but don’t come crying to me when you can’t find your toes,” Jungkook said, checking his own cloak and cowl were snug around his neck and face. “Come on. The caves are about three klicks north of here. We might be able to get back by nightfall, if we’re very lucky.”
+++
It was nearly nightfall by the time they found the ice caves, and only then because they managed to stumble across an old mining rail embedded in the permafrost and follow it to the entrance.
“These caves haven’t been mined commercially in centuries,” Jimin wondered, pulling his cowl down as they ventured deeper. Motion activated lights embedded in the icy floor came up slowly, clearly out of practice and running low on fuel cells.
“Longer,” Jungkook agreed, pulling up a detailed holomap on his wrist-computer. “Apparently they found a massive vein around the equator a millennium ago and the mining conglomerates set about strip-mining it to the core.”
“Of course,” Jimin sighed. He stamped his boots free of clinging snow. “Now what?”
“This way,” Jungkook said, spinning on his heel and immediately heading down a dark passageway.
Participating in a Gathering, Jimin quickly realised, was extremely boring, especially when you weren’t engrossed in looking for your own Kyber crystal, as Padawans of yester-year would have been on their visits to Ilum.
He trailed after Jungkook from empty chamber to chamber, squeezing down freezing corridors, and trudging through ankle-deep razor sharp shards of crystal shavings. All the while Jungkook muttered to himself in between checking his holomap and gazing so hard at their icy surroundings that Jimin began to wonder if he had upgraded his eyes to x-ray optical arrays or something.
He asked Jungkook, bored out of his skull and probably five klicks below the surface of the planet. Jungkook gave him a blank look and answered him with typical vagueness. “No-one’s managed to poke my eyes out yet, hyung.”
They walked and walked and walked, and Jimin had to assume night must be falling now. He hadn’t seen even one Kyber crystal. Not even a shard of common green or blue.
“Jungkook, I’m wondering - maybe this mine was exhausted. There’s nothing here,” Jimin ventured. Jungkook was staring down yet another blank ice wall in the semi-darkness.
“Shhh,” Jungkook said, absently.
“Seriously, Jungkook. I haven’t even found a broken piece of green crystal, and you know how common those are.”
Jungkook gave him a long suffering look.
Jimin’s sabre ran on a standard, sensible green Kyber, and Jimin wasn’t ashamed of the fact. If anything, it made his life easier. He’d never have to haul ass to some half mined planet to launch a search if he burned his crystal out somehow. But it had always been something Jungkook had been weirdly protective over, for some reason.
“There’ s nothing wrong with a green Kyber,” Jungkook started out, as Jimin had predicted.
“Affinity isn’t fixed,” Jimin parroted, imitating him easily.
“If anything, green sabre users are statistically more harmonious with the Force, have a greater capacity for empathy—” Jungkook stopped mid-flow to glare at Jimin, “—and who taught you to fish for compliments like that, huh?”
Jimin smiled innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just a simple green sabre user.”
“Tend to value concord, my ass,” Jungkook muttered, looking back at the ice.
Jimin waited another couple of minutes before sighing heavily. He rested his temple on the cool wall for a moment. “There really aren’t any Kybers here,” he whined.
“I can’t even collect any for my pupils. What will I tell them when I get back to Coruscant? ‘Oh, that fun uncle took your crystals. I’m sorry, little ones, none of you can graduate to Padawan this cycle’,” Jimin sighed, long suffering.
Jungkook stiffened at that and dug his hands into the pouch at his side. He pulled out the little case of tinkling Kyber crystals. “Just fucking take them,” Jungkook growled. “It’s not like they’re worth anything, anyway.”
Jimin accepted the case haughtily. “I think you’ll find the children will find them extremely valuable,” he said, pointedly. “Thank you.”
Of course Jungkook knew that. He’d cried like a baby the day they’d finally been allowed to select their crystals for their finished sabres. There’d only been one dusty purple Hurrikaine crystal, and only one child who had resonated with it. Jungkook had been utterly transfixed, no matter what their instructor had muttered about uncertain affinity.
They didn’t have individual resale value, though, Jungkook was right about that. The Kyber crystals that the Temple stocked tended to be stock standard crystals mined from Ilum.
“I was going to give them back and let you keep any similar ones we found here. Hurrikaine crystals aren’t even native to Ilum,” Jungkook shrugged, scanning the steaming cave walls. The deep blues and blacks of the ice glinted back at them, bouncing back twisted reflections and glimpses of child-like or bent-over elderly versions of the two of them. Jimin averted his eyes, scanning the floor and ceilings for hazards.
He paused for a moment. Hurrikaine crystals aren’t found on Ilum. That was —
“What do you mean, Hurrikaine crystals aren’t found on Ilum?” Jimin said, still processing.
“They’re found on Hurikaine. It’s kind of in the name,” Jungkook said, tapping the wall with a dainty pick axe he seemed to have pulled from his robe pockets.
“Then why are we on Illum!?” Jimin sank to his knees slowly, wondering if he was having a panic attack.
“You’re on Ilum because you’re following me for a few credits of crystal, but frankly, we both know it’s because you can’t resist my dashing good looks and Force knows you need some adventure in your life.” Jungkook flashed him a toothy grin. “I can promise to give you an exciting ride back on the ship, hyung.”
“Jungkook,” Jimin said weakly. "Why are you here?”
Jungkook shrugged and kept searching the walls. “Have you ever wondered what you could do with a really big Kyber crystal?”
The hairs on the back on Jimin’s neck prickled. “No,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve ever wondered that.”
“I’ve heard stories,” Jungkook said, wandering further into the dark passage. Jimin could hear his footfalls descending slowly downward.
He clambered to his feet and followed him into the singing darkness.
“There are stories about huge rare crystals,” Jungkook was saying. “Legends of ancient superweapons that used to be constructed using massive, highly concentrated Kyber crystals.”
“I’ve never heard or read of such a thing,” Jimin said. “Nor have I seen the effects of something like it.”
“Yet,” Jungkook said. “You haven’t seen something like it yet, Jimin. And of course you never read about them. Over the years the Jedi Council have suppressed more information than one person could ever process in a lifetime.”
“Such a powerful weapon would only be used to kill, Jungkook,” Jimin said, helpless for what else to say. “To slaughter little children and animals and innocent people and forests and -- entire ecosystems, Jungkook! I don’t even want to imagine.”
“You should,” Jungkook said, and his voice was suddenly so close and so low in Jimin’s ear.
Jimin startled, and his feet slipped out from under him. He pinwheeled, grasping out but only bruising his knuckles on slick glassy ice.
Jungkook caught him, his hands gripping tighter than durasteel around his forearms. He gently set him back on his feet.
“By the Force,” Jungkook muttered, amused. “What happened to Jedi footwork?”
Jimin spluttered. “It’s not my specialty! You were always—” he bit back on the words, wary of bringing up memories Jungkook might consider less than fondly.
Jungkook was frowning regardless, though his eyes were plastered to the icy walls. “I could swear I’d picked up a spark…” he said, crouching to scan the ice from floor to ceiling.
“What?” Jimin asked, wary.
“Nothing. I just thought I could sense a Kyber. You know the pull.”
Jimin did know the pull. It was part of what allowed a Jedi to summon their sabre so easily. The affinity between Kyber crystals and Force sensitive beings was warm and strong.
Jungkook sighed, irritated. “Whatever. It’s too dark now. We’ll have to stay in the caves.”
Jimin wrinkled his nose. He didn’t much like the idea of sleeping in the ice, but it was better than journeying back out into the snow in the dark freezing night. Gorgodon were known to creep through even the worst Ilum sleet storms. They could find their warm-blooded prey blind, simply by tasting the air. A lightsabre could take the thick-skinned reptilian predators down if done quickly and deftly, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Come on. I saw a chamber on the holomap marked for shelter. There were even hot springs,” Jungkook cajoled him.
“Okay,” Jimin said, “but only because you’ve promised me hot springs.”
There were hot springs, Jimin was pleased to see, and what’s more, they were beautiful. The pools were glimmering blue puddles that simmered and steamed incessantly. He wondered if their chemical make-up had anything to do with how the icy caves remained so solid and unchanging over the thousands of years that Jedi and the Ilum peoples had pilgrimaged to the mines in search of crystals.
Jimin fished out his old pocket computer and used the sensor to check the mineral make-up and the temperature of the liquid until he narrowed down a selection of pools that proved innocuous enough for bathing.
“I hope you have something better than ration bars on you,” Jimin said, shedding his robes easily and sliding into the warm blue water with a groan of satisfaction. He glanced back to Jungkook to find him staring, hands buried in his pockets.
“Kook-ah?” Jimin said.
Jungkook shook himself and wheeled around to empty out his pockets into their makeshift campsite. “This isn’t Coruscant,” he said. “Ration bars are a luxury for us plebs out in the real galaxy, Mr. Jedi Knight.”
“Hmm,” Jimin hummed, splashing around.
He dug his toes into the irregular pebbles at the bottom of the pool. Bathing alone got boring fast. Jimin finished up his ablutions, dunked his head and clambered out to quickly slide back into his robes.
The ration bars weren’t quite as bad as Jimin had remembered them from their days on practice patrol. “Fruit?” he guessed. “Chicken?”
“A no on both counts, but I know exactly what you mean,” Jungkook said, chewing steadily through his second serving. “I’m not sure they’re actually supposed to have a particular flavour.”
They curled up on Jungkook’s portable bed roll, using Jungkook’s thick black cloak as a blanket. Jimin rolled his lighter cloak into a tightly rolled pillow.
The night air was cold, even with the steam of the geothermal pools humidifying the air slightly.
“Could you—?” Jimin whispered after a while. He wriggled backwards slightly into the taut bow of Jungkook’s bigger body. Jungkook had grown so much taller over the last couple of years, and filled out too - though only the Force could explain how that had happened if it was true that he’d been surviving on ration bars the whole time.
Jungkook said nothing, but he pulled Jimin flush against his chest.
A few moments later Jimin felt the warm brush of soft lips pressed to the nape of his neck. He shivered a little, but ducked his head so Jungkook could softly kiss a line right down to the first prominent thoracic vertebra.
“You’re shivering,” Jungkook murmured into his shoulder blade.
“I’m cold,” Jimin lied. He couldn’t register anything but Jungkook’s touch now.
“Hmm,” Jungkook said. “You’d be warmer if it was just us, skin-to-skin. Remember?”
Jimin laughed at his lack of nuance, but he still kicked his robes off first, waiting patiently as Jungkook shed his own intricate layers of leather, linen, boots and battle armor. Finally he was pulled back into Jungkook’s bare arms and settled against his scorching chest and thighs.
“You have new scars,” Jimin said, stroking carefully over the smooth texture of what had to be a burn on Jungkook’s forearm.
“You feel exactly the same,” Jungkook whispered, hands travelling greedily down Jimin’s ribs, over his thighs, and across his soft, sensitive stomach.
“Let me feel you. Just my fingers, Jimin, please.”
Jimin flushed, even in the dimness of the chamber. “Okay,” he agreed shyly. It had been a long time since someone had touched him like that.
Jungkook locked an arm around Jimin’s waist and pressed up against him in a long, thorough roll. “Fuck,” he sighed, doing it again. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Jimin. The whole galaxy and you’re still you - you’re like no one else.”
“Flatterer,” Jimin mumbled, pushing back against Jungkook’s hot length.
“You’re perfect,” Jungkook insisted. He pressed his fingers carefully into Jimin’s mouth, both to keep him from responding and to wet the digits enough that he could press them into that perfect pink furl. Within minutes Jungkook had Jimin sobbing and flopping his head back to nestle, exhausted, into the warm crook of the Sith’s neck.
+++
By morning the storm had died down and the light of the distant sun could penetrate the dark atmosphere. It warmed the icy planet to a more tolerable temperature, but created a soupy fog at ground level that hid their own boots from them. Tramping back to the space port was tedious and difficult, as they had to test practically every step before they could trust it with their whole weight.
Jungkook let his hood lay loose around his shoulders, he was concentrating so hard. By the time they reached the outer limits of the residential settlement Jungkook was frowny and drawn. The skin under his eyes was dark and tired.
Of course there were no ships due for another six hours. Jungkook groaned and after some negotiation, angrily parted with a ridiculous amount of credits in exchange for some old chewy bantha jerky. Having made a new enemy, they then had to content themselves with sitting on the hard frozen benches outside the ticketing booth until the next ship turned up.
Jungkook gave up on his jerky. He pushed it into Jimin’s stiff mitten-clad hands with a huff and pulled his dead sabre from the holster on his thigh.
He snapped open the casing and clipped the magnetic catches to his collar for safe keeping. Jimin smiled at that - it was something Jungkook had always done. It had caught on in their year group - there were probably Jedi Knights all over the galaxy who clipped magnet catches to their collars whenever they cracked open a piece of technology. Half of them wouldn’t even notice they were doing it, let alone remember that a little boy who’d run away to be a Sith had initially sparked their helpful little habit.
Jungkook messed around with the fittings inside the casing, sighing and grumbling as he tweaked the crystal fittings. He still had his cracked crystal, Jimin realised, spotting the dead Kyber in his palm. It was a dull cloudy purple, nothing like the glowing amethyst gem he had secreted in his own pocket.
Jungkook kept at his fruitless task as a light snowfall dusted them, only looking up when Jimin caught a cold fat flake right in his eye and had to scrub at his face until he could blink the melting ice out.
“You alright?” Jungkook asked, voice a little short.
Jimin nodded. “Just cold.”
Jungkook nodded, checking the rapidly darkening skies again. Jimin hesitated a moment and then he just couldn’t keep it in any longer. He pulled his mitten off and seized one of Jungkook’s broader bare hands in his own. It was icy cold, so he clutched hard, trying to share some of the heat he’d retained in the mitten. It wasn’t much, but he could at least feel his fingers, which was more than he thought Jungkook could say for his blue fingertips.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin said, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you, Jungkook. Here, because of me, and — at the Temple, too.”
Jungkook stared at him, eyes dark and so familiarly rounded in surprise and uncertainty.
“I wanted you to come back, so much, for years, Kookie-ah,” Jimin stumbled on. “— but I understand why you left.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Jungkook said after a moment, with a bitter laugh.
“I know. I didn’t get it for a long time.” Jimin admitted. “But I’ve always been a good boy. A compliant little Padawan.”
Jungkook grinned wolfishly at that for a fleeting moment. “Put a pin in that fantasy, hyung.”
Jimin persisted. “You always thought a little harder, Jungkook. You were suspicious, and you asked questions, fair questions, and the council weren’t exactly transparent. They’re not all goodness and light.”
Jungkook let out a surprised huff of air at that admission. “Never thought I’d hear words like these from the lips of Park Jimin,” he muttered.
Jimin shrugged. "Well. Anyway.” He pulled his hand back carefully and shuffled slightly to the side.
It took a moment for Jungkook to peel his eyes away from Jimin’s face and look at his hand. The skin was now nearly a healthy pink again, but more importantly - there was a deep purple Kyber crystal in his palm. It was pulsing softly, the way Kyber crystals did when they resonated with compatible, Force-sensitive beings.
Jungkook sucked in a breath, and slowly slotted the crystal into his sabre, fingers trembling. The device hummed softly once it was in place and Jimin watched as Jungkook’s entire face softened in happiness.
Seconds later, Jimin was on his feet, hissing with regret, his toes barely brushing the hard packed snow. Jimin didn’t dare breathe, let alone reach for his own sabre. He’d never been able to outdraw Jungkook. In fact, he couldn’t remember anyone ever being able to best him.
Jungkook pressed the humming purple glow close to his throat. The laser was just barely vaporising the very ends of the fine peach fuzz on Jimin’s neck. He let Jungkook hold him in place, hanging obediently from the tight grip he had on the thick hair at the crown of his head.
“Where did you get the crystal?” he asked Jimin, head cocked in curiosity.
Jimin laughed, softly, so as not to risk being scorched. “Found it in the geothermal pools, in the cave. Some clumsy Padawan must have dropped it, long ago.”
Jungkook shook his head in disbelief. Jimin heard the rush and grind of a starship descending to settle behind them. It was too quiet to be the transport ship. Sith, then. Jungkook must have triggered his beacon when they’d left the cave, having already given up on the search.
The blowback plastered his robes against Jungkook, but his old friend held him fast, his grip on his sabre not even wavering.
“Where are you doing now?” Jimin asked him, the words coming out sounding more bitter than he expected.
“I was going to Hurikaine to search for a Kyber,” Jungkook said, eyes brighter than Jimin had seen them in years. “But thanks to you, the galaxy’s my sandpit again.”
Jimin rolled his eyes. “So, you’re going to mess around until you find trouble.”
Jungkook smirked a little, unwilling to deny it.
“Come with me?” Jungkook asked suddenly. He deactivated his sabre and let Jimin drop gently to the balls of his feet. Jungkook’s hand released his hair, travelling to graze down his nape, down his spine. He slipped his arm around Jimin’s waist instead, squeezing him tight, even through the thick robes. “It’ll be fun. I’ll take care of everything.”
“I can’t,” Jimin refused, mesmerized by Jungkook’s big brown eyes. They were so bright, so fever-bright.
Brighter than any truly sane human's eyes had any business appearing.
“Jimin, you have no idea what’s out there. I can show you everything,” Jungkook murmured. “They’ll help you go anywhere, learn anything. They’d appreciate you. You’re clever, beautiful, knowledgeable. The perfect recruit.”
Jimin shivered at that.
“No. Thank you, Jungkook-ah,” he repeated himself, carefully peeling Jungkook’s arm away from his hip. “I have to get back to the children. They’re going to build their sabres next week.”
Jungkook’s mouth twisted, but he nodded slowly. "I’ll have to come and see them in action. Show them a seasoned lightsaber up close.”
Jimin nodded.
The ship behind them settled in place in the snow, the hot metal beginning to contract with loud metallic groans and whines.
Jungkook leaned in quickly and nipped carefully at Jimin’s bottom lip, ignoring Jimin’s yelp of surprise in favour of pressing his tongue deep and thorough, claiming his territory in that way he always had. Jimin melted into it despite himself, and found himself bereft when Jungkook pulled away.
“Until next time,” Jungkook said, lifting his hand in a brief mockery of a subtle Jedi hand wave. He leapt up the sheer ramp of the black craft and disappeared into the ship. It took off nearly immediately, almost silent with the exception of a slight atmospheric disturbance.
Once they’d lifted through the exosphere, the ticketing agent came out of the booth to squint up at the cloud cover. “Good riddance,” he said.
Jimin’s hand went to his hilt automatically, a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed. He lifted an eyebrow expectantly.
The agent straightened up quickly and scurried back to the booth. “Transport ship’s due any second, sir. Thought you should know, sir.”
“Very good,” Jimin said, hand going to his pocket instead. He found the hard edged box of Kyber crystals in there, safe and ready for his students. It was rattling annoyingly against something else in there, unbalancing Jimin’s pockets.
He fished out the fist sized Kyber crystal, and took the opportunity to gaze at it in daylight for a moment. It was like a massive chunk of dark ice - blue, black, clear and even the molten red of magma in some lights. There was no question about it - Jimin had found one of Jungkook’s mythical Kyber crystals in the bottom of the geothermal pool alongside the Hurrikane crystal. The other ancient detritus in the bottom of the pond had pointed to some poor unfortunate having dropped their treasure purse in the pool, at best - or at worst they’d perished after mistiming their bath in the steamy sulphuric ponds.
Either way, this massive Kyber crystal was now in Jimin’s hands, and the warm glow of force resonance was too strong for Jimin to ignore. He tucked the glowing gem into his other pocket, leaving his hand wrapped around it. Surely there was some way to utilise something so beautiful and powerful for good.
Jimin would figure it out back on Coruscant, and when Jungkook visited next, he’d really have something special to show him.
author: abrandnewboom
rating: E
ship/s: Jung Jungkook/Park Jimin
wordcount: 7968
warnings/tags: Alternate Universe, Star Wars Fusion, Kyber Crystals, Forbidden Relationships, Sith, Jedi Culture & Tradition (Star Wars), Sex in a Cave, Outer Space, Space Travel, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Friends to Lovers
Despite Jungkook's teenage defection to the Dark Side, the bond between one-time Jedi apprentices Jimin and Jungkook remains strong enough to lure Jimin from his role in the Temple to the frozen wasteland of Ilum in the hopes that he might find the Padawan he once knew and loved.
The man in the black cloak was not supposed to be there.
There were plenty of humanoids like Jimin and peoples of varied planets of origin in the Jedi Temple who wore dark cloaks. Some wore tall black boots too, or weatherproof cowls like the one this man had draped around his face. His clothes wouldn’t be out of place in any bar or starport on Coruscant.
But Jimin knew this man, and he was definitely not supposed to be in the Temple, let alone skulking around the training chambers after teaching hours.
Jimin stepped softly into the hall in his soft hide boots. He pressed a handprint to the door panel beside him. The security system sealed the exits obediently and without a sound, as it would for any Jedi teacher recognised by the Council. It was their duty to protect their small charges.
The youngest of Jimin’s class was just four years old, and barely beginning to adjust to living without her mother. She had gained a galaxy of siblings and a Temple full of wise parents, but Jimin knew her heart would ache for a while longer for someone who had been just hers alone.
Some Force sensitive children never adjusted. Instead, they twisted, slowly over decades, like gnarled deadwood, the flex of their spirits gone hard and thorny.
“I heard a rumour,” Jimin said, carefully, stepping down the hall to stand a respectful distance behind the intruder. He knew it was anything but rumour.
Jungkook had left in bad blood during the multi-sun eclipse - the closest thing this planet could compare to a dark night. He’d had help leaving the surface. The Temple’s camera footage showed that he’d willingly boarded an unmarked craft, swathed in his warmest cloak and iceboots. Wherever he’d intended to go, he’d been well prepared.
Who would go to the trouble of collecting a Jedi who’d never become a Padawan? It was obvious.
“So, you heard I’ve joined the Sith? I thought you might be too wrapped up in your little surrogate family,” Jungkook said bitingly. He didn’t bother to turn around. He scrolled right to the bottom of the screen panel, reading to the end of the week’s notices and schedules.
“They’re my students,” Jimin said, lightly. “You remember just as well as I do what it’s like to be a child in the Temple. There’s no room for family bonds.”
“Yeah,” Jungkook snorted. “That’s probably our damage.”
Jimin pursed his lips, rocking back and forward on the balls of his feet. Jungkook scrolled back to the top of the screen and tapped across into some of the other news memos. Jimin sighed and took a seat on a bench that flipped down out of the wall, resigned to supervising Jungkook until he clarified the purpose of his visit.
The students would just have to amuse themselves with meditation. Jimin almost smiled at that - he and Jungkook had loved it when their teachers had been late. Students were directed to meditate whenever they found a spare moment between classes but they’d been kids - given fifteen minutes to themselves they’d ransacked storage chambers in search of secret hatches and panels, explored every nook and cranny of the temple, clambered into the ducts and played with the cleaning droids.
Jimin only hoped they’d all come back to the classroom when he called for them over the comm.
Jungkook finished reading, and turned on his heel smartly to face Jimin down. He had a new scar on his face. A thin white line that pulled at the corner of his lips.
Jungkook had always had an expressive mouth. He sulked easily, but he also had a wide face-splitting smile when he was truly charmed. His smirk was especially affecting, and the new scar only enhanced it. He must have been somewhere without access to healing bacta when he’d been injured. Or he’d left it to heal scarred on purpose.
That was not the Jedi way. Leaving scars and scar-keeping was a Sith practice.
“Are you going to report me, Jimin-ah?” Jungkook smiled, the corner of his mouth lifting in that way it always did when he was teasing Jimin.
Jimin blinked away the shiver that smirk sent straight to the pit of his stomach. “No,” he said. “You’re a child of the Temple too. This will always be your home.”
It was an old line, the same words their teachers and Jedi Masters had parroted to them. Jimin hadn’t really thought about what it meant. How it could be a balm and a stinging slap in the same breath.
Jungkook snorted. His cowl dropped lower, shadowing his eyes. “Even me?” Jungkook said, voice dropping lower. He stepped forward slowly, telegraphing his movements like he used to when they used to spar together.
Jimin had never been a fighter - he was a dancer. No will to strike. The way Jungkook fought, he could only play-act with Jimin or risk inflicting grievous injury on an opponent who couldn’t defend himself. Jungkook had always been too good in a fight. Too good, even for a Jedi, because in the end, to be the best at fighting meant being the cruelest and most vicious. Channelling emotion into violence. Jungkook had always had too many emotions at hand.
Jimin stood, alert. The bench slid away automatically with a hiss, leaving Jimin to back up until his thin tunic was pressed against the cold metal wall. Jungkook followed him with quick footwork. He leaned in close, leg firmly insinuating itself between Jimin’s knees.
“There’s always a place for you here,” Jimin said, breathlessly.
Jungkook pushed up against him hard, sighing a little. Jimin bit down on a whimper. Jungkook’s well muscled thigh was firm against Jimin’s sensitive dick, hard even through layers of cloaks, linen tunics and underwear.
“A place for me,” Jungkook murmured. “Somewhere warm, cosy, welcoming. Soft and tight, perhaps. But your body is not the Temple, Jimin.”
Jimin flushed immediately, hot from his hairline to his chest. He spluttered and slapped at Jungkook’s chest reflexively, forgetting for a moment that they hadn’t seen each other in years, that Jungkook was almost certainly a Sith now. It had been long enough that he might have graduated from his apprenticeship by now.
Jungkook laughed at Jimin’s soft slaps. He pulled away carefully, hands going to Jimin’s elbows to steady him. “You still love it,” he said, giving Jimin a glimpse of his glittering intelligent eyes under his cowl. “Well, are you going to introduce me to your children?”
“They’re not my children,” Jimin emphasised. “They’re students. I’m a teacher.”
“Whatever you say,” Jungkook flapped his hand. “Either way, you know I don’t have the stomach for hurting little kids. Call it in, the council will just assign you to follow me around and play spy.”
Jimin pursed his lips, but he couldn’t deny that he agreed. “Fine,” he said, reluctantly. He pulled his portable comms out of a voluminous pocket and sent the council officer a quick alert. The comms beeped seconds later with an assignment - Accompany our suspected Sith visitor until he departs the Temple.
Jimin rolled his eyes and accepted the assignment with the tap of a finger. “Guess you’re coming to footwork lessons with the six year olds…”
Jungkook smiled knowingly. “You can call me Jungkook. Unless you want to call me Darth Kook.” He lifted his brows flirtatiously. “It’s so inaccurate that it’s almost offensive, but I think I’d like the sound of it coming out of your mouth. Say it later, when we’re getting properly reacquainted.”
Jimin snorted, flustered. “You’re still full of shit.” He slapped his hand against the door panel again, waving Jungkook after him into the passageway that led to the practice rooms.
+++
“You can stay here,” Jimin said, brushing his hand over a door panel. The door slid open gently, chiming a welcome. “It’s one of the quarters we keep ready for visiting Knights. I’m in this corridor too.”
“You won’t tell me which door?” Jungkook smiled, standing aside to allow Jimin to enter first. “Not so eager for one of our famous midnight picnics?”
“I find that I’m not as hungry as I was in my teenage years,” Jimin shrugged, averting his eyes purposefully.
Jungkook snorted, following him into the quarters. He threw himself down onto a soft seat and watched Jimin work the replicator.
“Tea?” Jimin said, bringing over the steaming carafe and a tray of cups, blue bantha milk and sugar.
Jungkook nodded. He cleared the table in front of him and helped pour out their cups.
One cup down, Jungkook seemed to have relaxed a little. Jimin got up to ask the replicator for a plate of sweet-sand cookies.
Jungkook nearly clapped when he saw them. “I haven’t had these in eons,” he exclaimed, picking up two immediately.
“I wondered,” Jimin smiled over his second pour of tea. “Where have you been that you couldn’t get sweet-sand cookies, though? Even Outer Rim settlements have cookies.”
Jungkook eyed him suspiciously. “Nice try, Jedi,” he said, scarfing down another cookie. “I lived here, hyung, I know they monitor every room, every moment, day and night. The things the Council must have seen!”
He chuckled a little as Jimin fought down a flush.
“I’ve been a lot of places and learned a lot from the people your Jedi Council fear, Jimin. I’ve had my eyes opened. Worse - I was even compensated fairly for my efforts.”
“What kind of efforts, exactly?” Jimin snapped. “Smuggling weapons? Trafficking indentured labour?”
Jungkook shook his head slowly. “Removing barriers,” he said. “Deploying stepping stones. Changing the course of our future to ensure that real leaders can rise. Leaders who want us to flourish and live freely, the way we always imagined the galaxy worked.”
“I worry, Jungkook. I worry that you won’t know what you’ve done - and for whom - until it’s too late,” Jimin said quietly.
“You think they’re using me?” Jungkook laughed, slapping his knees.
He stood and walked to the windows. They overlooked the city, with a perfect unbroken view of the second sun setting behind one of their large moons. They would be plunged into twilight soon - the closest they got to true night.
“Using me like the Council did? The same way they use you and the countless children they made orphans over the centuries? We could have had our real lives, Jimin. If they’d let us alone. Real lives with our real families. Don’t you wonder what it would have been like if they hadn’t taken us from our mother’s arms?”
Jungkook was so earnest.
It reminded Jimin of back when they used to lay side by side on the sparring room floor at night - exhausted but content to quietly watch the endless procession of stars and speeders and satellites glimmering overhead.
“The Jedi Council is lying to you about everything, Jimin. Lying to the whole galaxy, truth be told.”
“No matter what could have been in another life, the Jedi sect is my home now,” Jimin said, with absolute certainty. “It’s a calling. I can’t leave. I can feel it in the Force, Jungkook. I’m supposed to be here.”
LIke you, he thought, and Jimin knew that Jungkook could hear his unspoken words.
Sometimes he envied Jungkook for his freedom. As hardwon as it must have been, especially coming from the cloister that was the Jedi Temple, the exhilaration must be something else.
“You can,” Jungkook hissed, exasperated. He bounded forward and wrapped his arms around Jimin’s waist as if he could still do that, like years and hundreds of parsecs hadn’t passed them by and changed them irrevocably.
“You can leave with me. It doesn’t even have to be today,” he said, locking eyes with Jimin. They were dark and glittering, even darker than Jimin could remember them being on the darkest of sunless, moonless nights.
“I could come back for you when you’ve finished with this cycle of students. I know you love to see your projects through,” Jungkook said, and it hurt Jimin all the more to hear him be so considerate.
Jungkook was sweet at his core, but he’d always been both whip smart and endlessly underestimated. Prospective Masters had always passed over him, citing their concerns over his unpredictable nature and his affinity for the purple Kyber. The Council recommended that Jedi Padawans should be measured, serious, kindly, even melancholic.
Jungkook had been so patient, Jimin recalled, heart hurting at the memory. But when even Jimin was selected by one of their old teachers, Jungkook hadn’t been able to face the notion of being reassigned to the Council’s agricultural corps or the administration pool. He’d disappeared.
Jungkook had surfaced only sporadically since then - always shrouded in stark black robes and mystery. Peers who had previously called him friend now derided and disowned him. Jimin had multiple galaxy-wide alerts set up on his comm link. He listened hard for every whisper of his old friend, and the whispers all had the same heartbreaking news. Jungkook had joined the Sith.
Jimin shook his head, silent. “I’m sorry. No.” He could never become a Sith, or even travel with Sith. It was out of the question, no matter how strongly his feelings for his childhood friend endured.
Jungkook tightened his iron grip on Jimin’s waist and leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. “Hyung, you give too much of yourself to them - what of the parts of yourself you promised to me?”
Jimin scrunched his eyes closed in embarrassment. “That was a long time ago,” he whispered. “And you were not - gone.”
“I could visit more often at first,” Jungkook said, wheedling. “We could sit together in the spires and talk, like when we were Padawans.”
His pull was magnetic. Jimin was almost tempted, somehow. The air was thick between them with Dark energy. It was warm and suffocating, like a heavy blanket and a dram of Darkoma on a chill night. He let Jungkook stroke his hands firmly up the small of his back, up the arch of his spine, palms pressing hard and grasping over his shoulder blades.
Jungkook took his lips like he was drinking from him, open mouthed and wet, He invaded his mouth easily, nipping and overwhelming the barrier that was his soft, easily bruised lips.
“Now this - this is how you persuade a man to visit the Temple more often,” Jungkook sighed, allowing Jimin to breathe freely once more. His hand went to the back of Jimin’s head and he wove his fingers through Jimin’s hair and pressed his mouth now to Jimin’s throat, sharp teeth just prinking over the thin skin.
Jimin trembled in Jungkook’s hold, overwhelmed and over-sensitive. He felt like he might come if Jungkook touched his bare skin for even a moment longer.
“Let go,” he whispered finally. “Jungkook-ah, please let go of me.”
Jimin felt Jungkook frown hard into his neck, but he pulled away, releasing Jimin from his tight hold. Jimin shook himself a little, shaking off the tendrils of dark Force that he could almost taste curling into his mouth, his nostrils, his very pores.
It was the Darkest version of the Jedi mind trick. The Sith compulsion. Jungkook probably hadn’t even done it on purpose. It would be second nature to him now, taking and consuming and controlling coming to him as naturally as breathing.
But this was Jungkook. Jimin knew his Force signature too well not to notice his touch. Jungkook simply couldn’t compel him to do anything he didn’t want to do. Another Sith could, probably. But not Jungkook.
“You’re after a new Kyber crystal,” Jimin said, barely able to speak without a quaver in his voice. He shook himself and stepped back. “Cut the shit, it’s obvious.”
Jungkook blinked owlishly. “Obvious?”
Jimin rolled his eyes. “You’ve observed at least three classes of prospective Padawans and somehow refrained from whipping your lightsaber out even once?”
Jungkook spluttered a little, hand going to his sabre hilt automatically.
“You should know we won’t have the one you need. You’ll have to embark on your own little Gathering,” Jimin said.
Jungkook’s mouth twisted, his scar creasing with it. “The Temple had one ten years ago. Who’s to say they don't have another up their sleeves?”
“They don’t.” Jimin said with finality, shaking his head. “You can trust me on that count.”
He got up and slapped the door panel. “Please help yourself to the replicator. They’ve gotten quite good at textured protein meals these last years.”
+++
If anything, Jimin had always been sensitive to ripples in the Force. It may not have guided his feet so well as the other children, nor told him when to duck or where to aim, or even who to avoid in the throngs of pickpocket infested crowds - but he could feel it lapping around him all the time.
When their fellow Jedi passed into stardust, Jimin would wake and know to briefly mourn and celebrate their transition into energy. Similarly, nearly every day he was haunted by the deja vu-like chill of the Force nudging at him when something didn’t feel quite right.
If he had a credit for every time he paused, mid-lesson and thought, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”, he’d probably have at least doubled the living allowance the Temple allotted him.
It was this same creeping feeling that pulled Jimin from his warm bed and had him don his daily robes and boots. His lightsaber bumped on his hip as he jogged down the dim hallways, a glow lantern from his room clutched in one fist. The Temple was asleep, and the systems were all well settled into night maintenance mode.
Jimin knew exactly where to go, as he always did with a pull like this, and he was not surprised to find Jungkook crouched in front of the supplied cache closet, scanning the door panel with his utili-tool.
The locked panel clunked unhappily and the door whirred open with a final tap from Jungkook’s device.
“Finally,” Jimin heard Jungkook grumble. He shuffled in and rustled around briefly, emerging nearly immediately with a familiar black box. The Kyber crystals for the Padawan’s first sabres. Of course.
Jungkook spotted Jimin as soon as he stepped back through the doorway. It snapped shut behind again like it was just as unimpressed with the infiltration as Jimin. Technology in the Jedi Temple tended to get that way after a few decades.
“Jimin,” he said, eyes widening in surprise. So he hadn’t sensed him coming down the hall. Interesting.
“Jungkook,” Jimin hissed, frustrated. He set his softly glowing lantern down in an alcove. “This is beneath you.”
Jungkook’s eyes flashed, his big eyes like smouldering coals under his cloak. “Just because you’ve spent your share of time beneath me doesn’t make you an expert on my life, Jimin.”
Jimin scowled, but kept his mouth shut, not wanting to aggravate his old friend further. He knew Jungkook all too well.
Jungkook cracked open the box, using the barest flick of a finger to turn the latch. He emptied the dull mass of tinkling crystals into his palm, rolling them back and forth to study their colours.
It was no use. Not one of them glowed brighter than they would for any standard Force sensitive person. There was no purple Kyber among the selection. Jungkook had taken the last one, and the Temple had needed another for any Padawan since. Most of the Kybers in Jungkook’s hand were green or blue, with the odd yellow gem.
He sighed and brushed them back into the box, snapping it closed and sliding it into a pocket of his cloak.
“Excuse me!” Jimin exclaimed, reaching his palm out expectantly.
Jungkook pulled his cowl up, shrugging at Jimin. “I can still trade them. Think of it as a lesson. The Jedi should consider better protecting their supplies.”
Jimin gaped at him as he strode past, seemingly shameless.
“The children are supposed to be finishing their sabres in a month,” he hissed when he’d successfully tamped down his exceptionally un-Jedi-like anger and found the most logical words to express his objection to Jungkook’s egregious theft.
“Sounds like plenty of time to organise an old fashioned Gathering,” Jungkook shrugged. “Meanwhile, out in the real galaxy I need something to trade to make up for the credits I’m about to waste on booking my passage to Ilum.”
“Ilum?” Jimin said, trailing him furiously down the dark halls to the Temple entrance. Either Jungkook could see in the dark somehow nowadays, or he’d recently refreshed his memory of the Temple’s blueprints.
“Yep,” Jungkook said. “I’ve got my own Gathering to do. Excuse me.” He lifted his foot and kicked the sticky front entrance door ajar. The old sheared gears screeched and clacked as he forced it open. “I can’t believe the Council still haven’t fixed that.”
He skipped down the long front steps with Jimin at his heels. He veered left at the foot of the Jedi Temple and merged directly into the still-humming night market.
Jimin swore under his breath, pausing to wonder whether he should report in before proceeding off-site.
Then he swore again and dove between the stalls before he could lose sight of his quarry.
For a brief moment Jimin was sure that he’d lost Jungkook, but he glimpsed him again, black cloak flowing around his long legs. He strode head and shoulders above most of the brightly-garbed Coruscant merchants and shoppers.
Jimin pelted after him, calling out fruitlessly over the sales pitch of the merchants and the high pitched hum of cruisers overhead. Finally he managed to catch up and fall into step with him. Jungkook whipped his head around to stare at him, his shadowed face displaying some short-lived pleasant surprise as he realised that Jimin had followed him.
“You’re not going anywhere with those crystals without me tagging along and killing your vibe!” Jimin said vindictively.
He had to take two quick steps to keep up with every one of Jungkook’s long strides, but had the endless stamina of a spiteful teacher, and nothing could possibly top that.
Jungkook actually looked concerned about that threat. Jimin had to concur - he was a very effective vibe-killer when he wanted to be. If it was something a Jedi could specialise in, he would be a Master already.
Jungkook finally stopped, stock still in the middle of the spaceport entrance. This was one of the smaller ones that offered budget docking, less wait time and fewer eyes. The trade off was less optimal lift off windows and slightly more expensive fuel burn, given that the launch spot wasn’t quite perfect for catching the gravitational slingshot between their dual moons.
“You can come along if you want, I’m not going to stop you,” Jungkook said finally. “But I’m not your babysitter, hyung.” He turned and strode into the port, heading over to the check in window.
Jimin bristled at that. “Jung Jungkook! I’m not trying to take a holiday - I’m asking for the return of property you stole from children!” He shouted, in the hopes that it would possibly shame Jungkook into just handing over the contents of his pockets.
Unfortunately, no one in the building blinked an eye at his proclamation. Jimin huffed and hurried over to the service window. “I’d like passage on the same ship, please.”
“Passage to Ilum, 570 credits, please,” the droid whirred. A cash drawer dropped open to collect his payment.
Jimin gritted his teeth and reached for his credit pouch. So they were both to attend a Gathering on icy Ilum. A very fitting nostalgic holiday for two Jedi Knights.
+++
Ilum wasn’t far - a trip barely enough to require a cryosleep, but cargo trips weren’t terribly interesting or comfortable for several days of transit. They both hooked in, Jungkook rolling his eyes as Jimin made sure to wait for the cold fluid to start flowing into Jungkook’s vein port before he hit the button on his own hook up.
"If I wanted to lose you that bad, you wouldn’t even see me go,” Jungkook yawned, eyes fluttering.
Jimin shrugged, pressing the button on his own cryopod. “Oh, I know. But I’ll be the one stuck doing the paperwork if you do.”
Jungkook stared at him as he slipped away into chemical sleep, face tight. Eventually the scarred corner of his lip slowly softened into an expression Jimin couldn’t quite call regret.
Ilum radiated cold even into its inner atmosphere. Cryo passengers were woken automatically an hour from descent, but even if they hadn’t been, Jimin felt sure that the chill in the air would have roused them.
“Hope your boots can handle ice,” Jungkook grinned, skipping down the ramp ahead of Jimin and landing squarely in a patch of crisp snow.
Jimin scoffed. “They’re Temple issue—”
“Multi-terrain footwear,” he and Jungkook chorused in unison. Jimin couldn’t help but laugh, glancing at Jungkook fondly from behind his cowl.
“If you want to believe that, you can, but don’t come crying to me when you can’t find your toes,” Jungkook said, checking his own cloak and cowl were snug around his neck and face. “Come on. The caves are about three klicks north of here. We might be able to get back by nightfall, if we’re very lucky.”
+++
It was nearly nightfall by the time they found the ice caves, and only then because they managed to stumble across an old mining rail embedded in the permafrost and follow it to the entrance.
“These caves haven’t been mined commercially in centuries,” Jimin wondered, pulling his cowl down as they ventured deeper. Motion activated lights embedded in the icy floor came up slowly, clearly out of practice and running low on fuel cells.
“Longer,” Jungkook agreed, pulling up a detailed holomap on his wrist-computer. “Apparently they found a massive vein around the equator a millennium ago and the mining conglomerates set about strip-mining it to the core.”
“Of course,” Jimin sighed. He stamped his boots free of clinging snow. “Now what?”
“This way,” Jungkook said, spinning on his heel and immediately heading down a dark passageway.
Participating in a Gathering, Jimin quickly realised, was extremely boring, especially when you weren’t engrossed in looking for your own Kyber crystal, as Padawans of yester-year would have been on their visits to Ilum.
He trailed after Jungkook from empty chamber to chamber, squeezing down freezing corridors, and trudging through ankle-deep razor sharp shards of crystal shavings. All the while Jungkook muttered to himself in between checking his holomap and gazing so hard at their icy surroundings that Jimin began to wonder if he had upgraded his eyes to x-ray optical arrays or something.
He asked Jungkook, bored out of his skull and probably five klicks below the surface of the planet. Jungkook gave him a blank look and answered him with typical vagueness. “No-one’s managed to poke my eyes out yet, hyung.”
They walked and walked and walked, and Jimin had to assume night must be falling now. He hadn’t seen even one Kyber crystal. Not even a shard of common green or blue.
“Jungkook, I’m wondering - maybe this mine was exhausted. There’s nothing here,” Jimin ventured. Jungkook was staring down yet another blank ice wall in the semi-darkness.
“Shhh,” Jungkook said, absently.
“Seriously, Jungkook. I haven’t even found a broken piece of green crystal, and you know how common those are.”
Jungkook gave him a long suffering look.
Jimin’s sabre ran on a standard, sensible green Kyber, and Jimin wasn’t ashamed of the fact. If anything, it made his life easier. He’d never have to haul ass to some half mined planet to launch a search if he burned his crystal out somehow. But it had always been something Jungkook had been weirdly protective over, for some reason.
“There’ s nothing wrong with a green Kyber,” Jungkook started out, as Jimin had predicted.
“Affinity isn’t fixed,” Jimin parroted, imitating him easily.
“If anything, green sabre users are statistically more harmonious with the Force, have a greater capacity for empathy—” Jungkook stopped mid-flow to glare at Jimin, “—and who taught you to fish for compliments like that, huh?”
Jimin smiled innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m just a simple green sabre user.”
“Tend to value concord, my ass,” Jungkook muttered, looking back at the ice.
Jimin waited another couple of minutes before sighing heavily. He rested his temple on the cool wall for a moment. “There really aren’t any Kybers here,” he whined.
“I can’t even collect any for my pupils. What will I tell them when I get back to Coruscant? ‘Oh, that fun uncle took your crystals. I’m sorry, little ones, none of you can graduate to Padawan this cycle’,” Jimin sighed, long suffering.
Jungkook stiffened at that and dug his hands into the pouch at his side. He pulled out the little case of tinkling Kyber crystals. “Just fucking take them,” Jungkook growled. “It’s not like they’re worth anything, anyway.”
Jimin accepted the case haughtily. “I think you’ll find the children will find them extremely valuable,” he said, pointedly. “Thank you.”
Of course Jungkook knew that. He’d cried like a baby the day they’d finally been allowed to select their crystals for their finished sabres. There’d only been one dusty purple Hurrikaine crystal, and only one child who had resonated with it. Jungkook had been utterly transfixed, no matter what their instructor had muttered about uncertain affinity.
They didn’t have individual resale value, though, Jungkook was right about that. The Kyber crystals that the Temple stocked tended to be stock standard crystals mined from Ilum.
“I was going to give them back and let you keep any similar ones we found here. Hurrikaine crystals aren’t even native to Ilum,” Jungkook shrugged, scanning the steaming cave walls. The deep blues and blacks of the ice glinted back at them, bouncing back twisted reflections and glimpses of child-like or bent-over elderly versions of the two of them. Jimin averted his eyes, scanning the floor and ceilings for hazards.
He paused for a moment. Hurrikaine crystals aren’t found on Ilum. That was —
“What do you mean, Hurrikaine crystals aren’t found on Ilum?” Jimin said, still processing.
“They’re found on Hurikaine. It’s kind of in the name,” Jungkook said, tapping the wall with a dainty pick axe he seemed to have pulled from his robe pockets.
“Then why are we on Illum!?” Jimin sank to his knees slowly, wondering if he was having a panic attack.
“You’re on Ilum because you’re following me for a few credits of crystal, but frankly, we both know it’s because you can’t resist my dashing good looks and Force knows you need some adventure in your life.” Jungkook flashed him a toothy grin. “I can promise to give you an exciting ride back on the ship, hyung.”
“Jungkook,” Jimin said weakly. "Why are you here?”
Jungkook shrugged and kept searching the walls. “Have you ever wondered what you could do with a really big Kyber crystal?”
The hairs on the back on Jimin’s neck prickled. “No,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve ever wondered that.”
“I’ve heard stories,” Jungkook said, wandering further into the dark passage. Jimin could hear his footfalls descending slowly downward.
He clambered to his feet and followed him into the singing darkness.
“There are stories about huge rare crystals,” Jungkook was saying. “Legends of ancient superweapons that used to be constructed using massive, highly concentrated Kyber crystals.”
“I’ve never heard or read of such a thing,” Jimin said. “Nor have I seen the effects of something like it.”
“Yet,” Jungkook said. “You haven’t seen something like it yet, Jimin. And of course you never read about them. Over the years the Jedi Council have suppressed more information than one person could ever process in a lifetime.”
“Such a powerful weapon would only be used to kill, Jungkook,” Jimin said, helpless for what else to say. “To slaughter little children and animals and innocent people and forests and -- entire ecosystems, Jungkook! I don’t even want to imagine.”
“You should,” Jungkook said, and his voice was suddenly so close and so low in Jimin’s ear.
Jimin startled, and his feet slipped out from under him. He pinwheeled, grasping out but only bruising his knuckles on slick glassy ice.
Jungkook caught him, his hands gripping tighter than durasteel around his forearms. He gently set him back on his feet.
“By the Force,” Jungkook muttered, amused. “What happened to Jedi footwork?”
Jimin spluttered. “It’s not my specialty! You were always—” he bit back on the words, wary of bringing up memories Jungkook might consider less than fondly.
Jungkook was frowning regardless, though his eyes were plastered to the icy walls. “I could swear I’d picked up a spark…” he said, crouching to scan the ice from floor to ceiling.
“What?” Jimin asked, wary.
“Nothing. I just thought I could sense a Kyber. You know the pull.”
Jimin did know the pull. It was part of what allowed a Jedi to summon their sabre so easily. The affinity between Kyber crystals and Force sensitive beings was warm and strong.
Jungkook sighed, irritated. “Whatever. It’s too dark now. We’ll have to stay in the caves.”
Jimin wrinkled his nose. He didn’t much like the idea of sleeping in the ice, but it was better than journeying back out into the snow in the dark freezing night. Gorgodon were known to creep through even the worst Ilum sleet storms. They could find their warm-blooded prey blind, simply by tasting the air. A lightsabre could take the thick-skinned reptilian predators down if done quickly and deftly, but it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Come on. I saw a chamber on the holomap marked for shelter. There were even hot springs,” Jungkook cajoled him.
“Okay,” Jimin said, “but only because you’ve promised me hot springs.”
There were hot springs, Jimin was pleased to see, and what’s more, they were beautiful. The pools were glimmering blue puddles that simmered and steamed incessantly. He wondered if their chemical make-up had anything to do with how the icy caves remained so solid and unchanging over the thousands of years that Jedi and the Ilum peoples had pilgrimaged to the mines in search of crystals.
Jimin fished out his old pocket computer and used the sensor to check the mineral make-up and the temperature of the liquid until he narrowed down a selection of pools that proved innocuous enough for bathing.
“I hope you have something better than ration bars on you,” Jimin said, shedding his robes easily and sliding into the warm blue water with a groan of satisfaction. He glanced back to Jungkook to find him staring, hands buried in his pockets.
“Kook-ah?” Jimin said.
Jungkook shook himself and wheeled around to empty out his pockets into their makeshift campsite. “This isn’t Coruscant,” he said. “Ration bars are a luxury for us plebs out in the real galaxy, Mr. Jedi Knight.”
“Hmm,” Jimin hummed, splashing around.
He dug his toes into the irregular pebbles at the bottom of the pool. Bathing alone got boring fast. Jimin finished up his ablutions, dunked his head and clambered out to quickly slide back into his robes.
The ration bars weren’t quite as bad as Jimin had remembered them from their days on practice patrol. “Fruit?” he guessed. “Chicken?”
“A no on both counts, but I know exactly what you mean,” Jungkook said, chewing steadily through his second serving. “I’m not sure they’re actually supposed to have a particular flavour.”
They curled up on Jungkook’s portable bed roll, using Jungkook’s thick black cloak as a blanket. Jimin rolled his lighter cloak into a tightly rolled pillow.
The night air was cold, even with the steam of the geothermal pools humidifying the air slightly.
“Could you—?” Jimin whispered after a while. He wriggled backwards slightly into the taut bow of Jungkook’s bigger body. Jungkook had grown so much taller over the last couple of years, and filled out too - though only the Force could explain how that had happened if it was true that he’d been surviving on ration bars the whole time.
Jungkook said nothing, but he pulled Jimin flush against his chest.
A few moments later Jimin felt the warm brush of soft lips pressed to the nape of his neck. He shivered a little, but ducked his head so Jungkook could softly kiss a line right down to the first prominent thoracic vertebra.
“You’re shivering,” Jungkook murmured into his shoulder blade.
“I’m cold,” Jimin lied. He couldn’t register anything but Jungkook’s touch now.
“Hmm,” Jungkook said. “You’d be warmer if it was just us, skin-to-skin. Remember?”
Jimin laughed at his lack of nuance, but he still kicked his robes off first, waiting patiently as Jungkook shed his own intricate layers of leather, linen, boots and battle armor. Finally he was pulled back into Jungkook’s bare arms and settled against his scorching chest and thighs.
“You have new scars,” Jimin said, stroking carefully over the smooth texture of what had to be a burn on Jungkook’s forearm.
“You feel exactly the same,” Jungkook whispered, hands travelling greedily down Jimin’s ribs, over his thighs, and across his soft, sensitive stomach.
“Let me feel you. Just my fingers, Jimin, please.”
Jimin flushed, even in the dimness of the chamber. “Okay,” he agreed shyly. It had been a long time since someone had touched him like that.
Jungkook locked an arm around Jimin’s waist and pressed up against him in a long, thorough roll. “Fuck,” he sighed, doing it again. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, Jimin. The whole galaxy and you’re still you - you’re like no one else.”
“Flatterer,” Jimin mumbled, pushing back against Jungkook’s hot length.
“You’re perfect,” Jungkook insisted. He pressed his fingers carefully into Jimin’s mouth, both to keep him from responding and to wet the digits enough that he could press them into that perfect pink furl. Within minutes Jungkook had Jimin sobbing and flopping his head back to nestle, exhausted, into the warm crook of the Sith’s neck.
+++
By morning the storm had died down and the light of the distant sun could penetrate the dark atmosphere. It warmed the icy planet to a more tolerable temperature, but created a soupy fog at ground level that hid their own boots from them. Tramping back to the space port was tedious and difficult, as they had to test practically every step before they could trust it with their whole weight.
Jungkook let his hood lay loose around his shoulders, he was concentrating so hard. By the time they reached the outer limits of the residential settlement Jungkook was frowny and drawn. The skin under his eyes was dark and tired.
Of course there were no ships due for another six hours. Jungkook groaned and after some negotiation, angrily parted with a ridiculous amount of credits in exchange for some old chewy bantha jerky. Having made a new enemy, they then had to content themselves with sitting on the hard frozen benches outside the ticketing booth until the next ship turned up.
Jungkook gave up on his jerky. He pushed it into Jimin’s stiff mitten-clad hands with a huff and pulled his dead sabre from the holster on his thigh.
He snapped open the casing and clipped the magnetic catches to his collar for safe keeping. Jimin smiled at that - it was something Jungkook had always done. It had caught on in their year group - there were probably Jedi Knights all over the galaxy who clipped magnet catches to their collars whenever they cracked open a piece of technology. Half of them wouldn’t even notice they were doing it, let alone remember that a little boy who’d run away to be a Sith had initially sparked their helpful little habit.
Jungkook messed around with the fittings inside the casing, sighing and grumbling as he tweaked the crystal fittings. He still had his cracked crystal, Jimin realised, spotting the dead Kyber in his palm. It was a dull cloudy purple, nothing like the glowing amethyst gem he had secreted in his own pocket.
Jungkook kept at his fruitless task as a light snowfall dusted them, only looking up when Jimin caught a cold fat flake right in his eye and had to scrub at his face until he could blink the melting ice out.
“You alright?” Jungkook asked, voice a little short.
Jimin nodded. “Just cold.”
Jungkook nodded, checking the rapidly darkening skies again. Jimin hesitated a moment and then he just couldn’t keep it in any longer. He pulled his mitten off and seized one of Jungkook’s broader bare hands in his own. It was icy cold, so he clutched hard, trying to share some of the heat he’d retained in the mitten. It wasn’t much, but he could at least feel his fingers, which was more than he thought Jungkook could say for his blue fingertips.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin said, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry it’s been so hard for you, Jungkook. Here, because of me, and — at the Temple, too.”
Jungkook stared at him, eyes dark and so familiarly rounded in surprise and uncertainty.
“I wanted you to come back, so much, for years, Kookie-ah,” Jimin stumbled on. “— but I understand why you left.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Jungkook said after a moment, with a bitter laugh.
“I know. I didn’t get it for a long time.” Jimin admitted. “But I’ve always been a good boy. A compliant little Padawan.”
Jungkook grinned wolfishly at that for a fleeting moment. “Put a pin in that fantasy, hyung.”
Jimin persisted. “You always thought a little harder, Jungkook. You were suspicious, and you asked questions, fair questions, and the council weren’t exactly transparent. They’re not all goodness and light.”
Jungkook let out a surprised huff of air at that admission. “Never thought I’d hear words like these from the lips of Park Jimin,” he muttered.
Jimin shrugged. "Well. Anyway.” He pulled his hand back carefully and shuffled slightly to the side.
It took a moment for Jungkook to peel his eyes away from Jimin’s face and look at his hand. The skin was now nearly a healthy pink again, but more importantly - there was a deep purple Kyber crystal in his palm. It was pulsing softly, the way Kyber crystals did when they resonated with compatible, Force-sensitive beings.
Jungkook sucked in a breath, and slowly slotted the crystal into his sabre, fingers trembling. The device hummed softly once it was in place and Jimin watched as Jungkook’s entire face softened in happiness.
Seconds later, Jimin was on his feet, hissing with regret, his toes barely brushing the hard packed snow. Jimin didn’t dare breathe, let alone reach for his own sabre. He’d never been able to outdraw Jungkook. In fact, he couldn’t remember anyone ever being able to best him.
Jungkook pressed the humming purple glow close to his throat. The laser was just barely vaporising the very ends of the fine peach fuzz on Jimin’s neck. He let Jungkook hold him in place, hanging obediently from the tight grip he had on the thick hair at the crown of his head.
“Where did you get the crystal?” he asked Jimin, head cocked in curiosity.
Jimin laughed, softly, so as not to risk being scorched. “Found it in the geothermal pools, in the cave. Some clumsy Padawan must have dropped it, long ago.”
Jungkook shook his head in disbelief. Jimin heard the rush and grind of a starship descending to settle behind them. It was too quiet to be the transport ship. Sith, then. Jungkook must have triggered his beacon when they’d left the cave, having already given up on the search.
The blowback plastered his robes against Jungkook, but his old friend held him fast, his grip on his sabre not even wavering.
“Where are you doing now?” Jimin asked him, the words coming out sounding more bitter than he expected.
“I was going to Hurikaine to search for a Kyber,” Jungkook said, eyes brighter than Jimin had seen them in years. “But thanks to you, the galaxy’s my sandpit again.”
Jimin rolled his eyes. “So, you’re going to mess around until you find trouble.”
Jungkook smirked a little, unwilling to deny it.
“Come with me?” Jungkook asked suddenly. He deactivated his sabre and let Jimin drop gently to the balls of his feet. Jungkook’s hand released his hair, travelling to graze down his nape, down his spine. He slipped his arm around Jimin’s waist instead, squeezing him tight, even through the thick robes. “It’ll be fun. I’ll take care of everything.”
“I can’t,” Jimin refused, mesmerized by Jungkook’s big brown eyes. They were so bright, so fever-bright.
Brighter than any truly sane human's eyes had any business appearing.
“Jimin, you have no idea what’s out there. I can show you everything,” Jungkook murmured. “They’ll help you go anywhere, learn anything. They’d appreciate you. You’re clever, beautiful, knowledgeable. The perfect recruit.”
Jimin shivered at that.
“No. Thank you, Jungkook-ah,” he repeated himself, carefully peeling Jungkook’s arm away from his hip. “I have to get back to the children. They’re going to build their sabres next week.”
Jungkook’s mouth twisted, but he nodded slowly. "I’ll have to come and see them in action. Show them a seasoned lightsaber up close.”
Jimin nodded.
The ship behind them settled in place in the snow, the hot metal beginning to contract with loud metallic groans and whines.
Jungkook leaned in quickly and nipped carefully at Jimin’s bottom lip, ignoring Jimin’s yelp of surprise in favour of pressing his tongue deep and thorough, claiming his territory in that way he always had. Jimin melted into it despite himself, and found himself bereft when Jungkook pulled away.
“Until next time,” Jungkook said, lifting his hand in a brief mockery of a subtle Jedi hand wave. He leapt up the sheer ramp of the black craft and disappeared into the ship. It took off nearly immediately, almost silent with the exception of a slight atmospheric disturbance.
Once they’d lifted through the exosphere, the ticketing agent came out of the booth to squint up at the cloud cover. “Good riddance,” he said.
Jimin’s hand went to his hilt automatically, a gesture that didn’t go unnoticed. He lifted an eyebrow expectantly.
The agent straightened up quickly and scurried back to the booth. “Transport ship’s due any second, sir. Thought you should know, sir.”
“Very good,” Jimin said, hand going to his pocket instead. He found the hard edged box of Kyber crystals in there, safe and ready for his students. It was rattling annoyingly against something else in there, unbalancing Jimin’s pockets.
He fished out the fist sized Kyber crystal, and took the opportunity to gaze at it in daylight for a moment. It was like a massive chunk of dark ice - blue, black, clear and even the molten red of magma in some lights. There was no question about it - Jimin had found one of Jungkook’s mythical Kyber crystals in the bottom of the geothermal pool alongside the Hurrikane crystal. The other ancient detritus in the bottom of the pond had pointed to some poor unfortunate having dropped their treasure purse in the pool, at best - or at worst they’d perished after mistiming their bath in the steamy sulphuric ponds.
Either way, this massive Kyber crystal was now in Jimin’s hands, and the warm glow of force resonance was too strong for Jimin to ignore. He tucked the glowing gem into his other pocket, leaving his hand wrapped around it. Surely there was some way to utilise something so beautiful and powerful for good.
Jimin would figure it out back on Coruscant, and when Jungkook visited next, he’d really have something special to show him.
