last_kallig | AU: Bar Crawl

"And that's why I can never lose hope," Ben says, and his smile returns, warm and sure. He takes the piece of meat in his fingers and holds it up to her, offering it directly to her mouth.

"That there's a way back, and that I can help him find it."

It won't be Ben's love. But that's okay, it can be the love of someone much more worthy of it.

Her own smile warms as his does. She takes the offered piece of meat, lips brushing against his fingers as she does. She's not sure if that's by accident or by design on her part, and she can't quite suppress the flicker of desire in the Force that goes through her when she does it.

"You will," Ibani replies after she's chewed the morsel of meat. "And you have friends to support you in any way you need, including me."

"It's slow going," he says, but his smile isn't for that. "Finding that balance, becoming the person I should have been those years ago, learning what our entire Order has forgotten millenia ago."

He shakes his head, thinking back to howthe conversation started.

"Learning to love," he says, "without attachment."

He leans forward then, and if she lets him he'll kiss her softly on her own lips.

She realizes what he's been aiming toward right before he leans forward and feels very foolish for someone who's supposed to be so cunning.

"Let", hah! She's wanted to kiss him for YEARS. She'd feel embarrassed about not knowing what she's doing with kissing him back, but his soft kiss has prompted such a flood of love-desire-pleasure in her brain that she can't really manage embarrassed right now.

She's not being subtle in the Force right now either,love-desire-pleasure together in a rising tide. Her hands tangle in his hair, an unconscious attempt to keep him close, to encourage him to continue with what he's doing.

Ben stops before she's ready for him to, pulling back do his head presses against her hands.

His smile is warm, affectionate and amused that she'd have any embarrassment at all, but his words are soft, almost apologetic.

"Slow going," he repeats. "I have to learn everything again, get it right."

Ibani lets go of his hair when his head presses against her hands, moving her hands farther down, to his shoulders. She doesn't want him to feel trapped, restrained.

"i don't mind slow," Ibani manages after a few seconds. Her voice is warm, affectionate, soft and slightly breathy. She flushes with embarrassment. "I'm, well, I'm learning everything for the first time, here."

She knows that her lack of experience at her age is unusual, to say the least.

She'd probably be surprised how unusual it isn't, really.

Ben rests a hand on her knee, uses the other one to brush her hair away from her face. "We'll just have to teach each other," he says, happy to be the teacher in some respects.

"I know I'm not good at communicating," he adds, "especially things I've learned I shouldn't admit to. And it's worse, now that I hide out of habit."

"Yes, we'll teach each other," Ibani agrees, smiling.

"You are hard to read," Ibani admits. "Especially for someone used to using the Force to read people. I lie with the Force when among enemies, but I've never had to do it all the time, never had to hide like you have."

"It's not only myself that I am hiding."

And that's the only explanation he can give.

"But - I shall try and tell you instead of leaving you guessing. And you can ask, if you need to know."

"Ah. Yes, that would complicate things."

She's clearly curious, but she doesn't ask. Won't ask, because what you don't know can't be taken from you by force, or by Force powers.

"Thank you," she says sincerely. "I'm not used to asking, but I will try and remember to, if I am confused."

She offers Ben a bite of the bird, like he did to her earlier. Would be a shame to let it go to waste, after all.

He smiles and takes the meat, clearly more experienced than her in the art of flirting while eating, because he closes his lips around her fingers, rests his fingers on her wrist as he licks the remnants off her fingers while maintaining eye contact with her.

"Aren't we supposed to be heartless smugglers?" he asks

Very much more experienced, apparently, because his flirtation rather breaks whatever train of thought Ibani still had at this point. Her pupils dilate with desire when Ben closes his lips around her fingers and she makes a small noise in the back of her throat when he licks them that is definitely not a sound she would ever intend to make in public.

She is very, very, red right now, but not from embarrassment. It takes her two tries to actually get her voice to work. "You might qualify for heartless," she quips, chuckling breathlessly. "Inflicting such sweet torment on me."

He quckly recognises his mistake, lets her go, gently. It's never his intention to get her this excited this quickly, not when they've just agreed to take it slowly for his sake.

"My apologies," he says. "Maybe something else to drink?"

She reaches out for his hand, just to hold it. "No need to apologize, though if you've a mind to try that again sometime I would prefer to be somewhere less public."

"I did have somewhere else in mind to go in this sector,if you'd like. They're supposed to have excellent tea and sweets as well as alcohol."

He squeezes her hand in acknowledgement, and rises smoothly, letting her continue to hold it as long as she needs - which he knows will be as long as she can.

"I could just do with something sweet," he says. "Lead the way."

Ibani is glad to do that, leading him gently by the hand.

They wind their way down and around the sector, finally stopping at a place with no sign of any kind. "Not sure if it's a secret or the owner just doesn't want to pay for a sign," Ibani whispers in his ear.

It is positively serene inside, at least by Nar Shaddaa standards. They're quickly seated and Ibani orders the house blend of tea and tiny tea cakes.

The server brings the tea first. Ibani habitually checks the tea for surprises, tilts her head in curiosity, then takes a sip.

When the server brings the cakes, Ibani looks at them and says, tone desert dry, "If you were going to try and drug me surreptitiously, you should at least have chosen something that wouldn't clash with the tea."

Ben, having both seen the head tilt and senses her reaction, hasn't touched his tea, but is sitting back in his chair, tilting it on the back legs slightly, an expression of serene interest on his face.

The server herself is backing away, hands raised at the wrist, holding them at waist level. "Drugged?" she asks, shocked.

It's a good act, but it's a lie. Ben can already see the two people at the counter - a Weequay who looks like a customer and a human behind the counter - making eye contact with each other.

"Come now," he says to Ibani, in the soothing tone of someone used to talking to an unstable partner, "don't be rude to the nice lady."

He is also acting, he's just better at it than the lady in question.

Edited 2020-08-13 10:36 (UTC)

Ibani can taste the lie herself, and catches the eye contact between the human and the Weequay.

She trusts Ben with more than her life, so it's easy to go along with whatever he has planned.

"Oh, fine," Ibani huffs, sliding into the role of unstable partner. "You probably just let it steep too long or something," she says to the server.

He gives her the most patronising smile he can, leans forward and pats her hand while he takes the tea away from her.

"Why don't you just try some of the sweets," he says, "while she fetches us some fresh tea?"

He turns the smile on the server. "I'm so sorry, my wife is really particular about tea."

If she didn't know he was acting, Ben would be in so much trouble for that patronizing smile.

The sweets are unaltered, and quite good actually! Ibani tries one.

"Oh, I understand completely," the server replies. Her relief palpable in the Force that she hasn't been caught! "Let me just bring you a fresh pot."

Eyes are off them for a little while. "The person who recommended this place to me mentioned that it had changed hands since the last time they were here, they must still be getting settled in."

"And you don't recognise the two by the counter?" Just to be sure. He follows her lead and picks up a small cake to try.

"Could be slavers, but tourists wouldn't pop into a place this out of the way and unsignposted. Not enough for a sustainable trade. Could just be a standard way of getting rid of uninvited guests at a members only club."

"But if this place was recommended to you, someone knew you were coming."

Ibani shakes her head when he asks if she recognizes the two by the counter

"Don't think this was aimed at me specifically." Ibani grins teasingly. "The person who gave this recommendation has never seen this lovely face." They could be drugging any human female who comes in, but that could be an expensive proposition.

"Not enough Azide in the tea pot to put two adults fully out either," she adds. "Amateur maybe, or trying to look like one."

"Or just seeing who'd notice," he says lightly, taking one more bite of his cake.

"But I don't know why you have to always make such a scene."

This last sentence is probably because their fresh pot of tes is on its way, being brought by the human chef - male, older than the server from before, and a dangerous smile on his face. But still a smile.

"I do not always make a scene," Ibani replies, pouting.

The chef sets the tea down. "I'm so sorry about the tea earlier," the chef begins with his dangerous smile. "I hope this one will be more to your liking."

Ibani pokes the tea with the Force and nods to the chef. "It had better," she grumbles.

Strictly speaking, Ibani isn't supposed to know the hand signs that the Jedi use to communicate secretly. She's just hoping the Order is hidebound enough that they haven't changed the signs much in thousands of years.

What she signs is 'death for you, not me'. Ibani sips the tea while the chef hovers. Drains the entire cup, in fact. It's good tea! Also, laced with enough toxins to kill at least four normal humans.

The dangerous smile on the chef's face doesn't fade but there is a flicker of uncertainty in the Force from him. It should have worked by now.

"Oh no," Ben says, his full attention on the chef to distract from hand signals, "we're sorry. It's just so hard to find good Deychin tea in this sector. We didn't mean to make a fuss."

The chef nods, his uncertainty growing. "I'd like to know what you think of it," he says, pushing the cup towards Ben.

Ben shakes his head, reaching for another cake. "I'm really more of a sweet person myself. Why don't you join us?"

The weequay is now straight up watching this. She probably doesn't even know she's doing it, but she's also resting her hand on the blaster at her hip.

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