The Passion Tactic

It’s Jaq’s job to either convert Jedi, or kill them.

The Passion Tactic

He has a list of names on his datapad. The list has fifty-three names on it, now. It used to have more than one-hundred. Every time he hits a mark, he signs off on one of the names, and it disappears off the list, to the headquarters, along with a picture of the mark. He has over fifty kills now to his name. Anyone who is at all important knows who Jaq Niatto is.

Because Jaq is ice. Because Jaq is fire. Because Jaq is the air itself, fitting himself into every conceivable gap in every single defense, breaking it down from the inside out with a craft rarely observed in a lifetime. Out of his sixty-two hits, only twenty-eight have ended in deaths, rather than conversions. It’s the highest percent of conversions the Sith have seen in this war so far. He is their secret weapon.

Normally, he can pick and choose whoever he likes. He might like someone’s name, or picture – or they may be on the planet he’s visiting, or they might have made a public statement they shouldn’t have. Jaq is his own man; but he always makes sure to turn out one hit every two weeks, at least.

Because it takes three days to find his mark, four days to get them to trust him, three days to make them fall in love with him – and then two days to kill them.

Give or take. It is an estimate.

But today, his commander has a new mission for him. The Sith have recently bombed a small Jedi training center on the remainders of Likilia. One of the Padawans has escaped, and is now traveling to Taris. He is more than qualified to be a Jedi Master, if he only asks for it, and it is suspected that his survival is based off of a special meditative healing ability.

This makes him a threat, and he must be destroyed.

He shows up as a new mark on Jaq’s datapad.

His name is Trek Nacorbic.

And as far as Jaq is concerned, he is dead.

---

Jaq has never been fond of Taris. The people on this planet are nosy, and there are too many wide-open spaces to be found in. The entire place is made of metal, and so there is no place to hide a body, unless you drop it down into the Undercity, which isn’t the smartest thing to do. Also, a permit is required for everything here. It only took a long political battle to allow the citizens of Taris to have drinks without special papers – but, as always in this galaxy, booze flows freely. Booze is like the blood that holds the universe together in this day and age.

Which, Jaq has decided, is the perfect way to get his mark’s guard down. Jaq is going to put to work his favorite method of converting Jedi – a method he calls The Passion Tactic.

There are many others morals he can wear down if worse comes to worse, but it is in human nature to crave passion. When you’ve lived your entire life without feeling love and pleasure, being offered some freely is an ultimate downfall. The rumors tell Jaq that this was how Revan himself fell to the dark side, for a sordid four-way love affair that left him heartbroken and twisted as ever.

If something as simple as romance can bring a mighty man like Revan to his knees, Jaq is certain he can clean up with this Trek character. Besides, Jaq is an excellent lover. He knows every move, every ploy, every word that will bring Trek crawling into his lap.

In his mind, he has already won. It’s nothing but a game of pazaak, and all of the cards are flipping in his favor.

He’s playing pazaak now. Every piece of him is playing pazaak. He sees Trek in the corner, twirling a pendant between his fingers and having a fruity non-alcoholic drink, called a Tura.

Trek is a beautiful boy. His face is slim and pale and sweet; his eyes are wide and colored an expansive blue. His lips are plush, and red, and sensual, and his hair which he pulls back is darker than Jaq’s own. This boy will be a pleasure to seduce, to warp, to mold.

Jaq is having a drink called the Tarisian Sledgehammer. It tastes awful, but after two or three of these someone can get drunk enough for anything – and, by Jaq’s guess, this Trek kid is quite the teetotaler.

The woman Jaq is playing with (a dark-skinned beauty with eyes the color of soot), loses again, and lets out a primal sound of displeasure.

“You cheat!” she roared, slamming down her credits and standing up. She swipes her cards from the automizer and shoves them in her pocket. “You’re a swindler, that’s what you are!”

Jaq only smiles at her, pocketing his gains. Her yelling has done what he no longer has to do himself: she has attracted the attention of Trek, who eyes them with careful curiosity, sipping on his Tura. When Jaq looks back at them, Trek stares into his eyes; oh, yes, he is most certainly a Jedi. Only a Jedi could be so foolish, to make eye contact with a shady stranger in an unfamiliar bar, to express such blatant interest.

Jaq blows on his fingernails and buffs them on his shirt collar. He motions Trek with only the slightest twitch of the finger, but the boy is reeled in by that alone. His eyes are dazed, far away, as he sits across from Jaq.

“Do you know how to play pazaak, kid?” Jaq asks.

Trek shakes his head. Of course he doesn’t.

Jaq starts up a cigarra, and smokes it. He offers Trek one – Trek declines.

Jaq leans forward. Trek leans back.

So this is how it’s going to be.

Casually, Jaq leans back again. Trek sits, awkward, in his seat, before, with the desperate strain of someone who is trying to appear inconspicuous, he leans forward again. He looks into Jaq’s face as though his deepest pleasure is hidden in it. There we go.

Jaq fixes on his predatory grin. After a moment’s hesitation, Trek smiles back. Jaq shifts to make himself comfortable, and says softly, “Can I buy you a drink?”

When Trek nods, Jaq knows that he has already won.

---

Trek only accepts one drink, and then spends the entire evening drinking water and watching Jaq smoke with a look so lusty it’s startling. Looking at it makes Jaq feel as though he’s stepping into a solid steel wall – like he’s dumb enough to make a bad mistake. But Jaq is cool. Jaq doesn’t make mistakes.

Jaq has told Trek that is name is Perlob. It’s an easy lie, and it ensures that if his mark escapes, the Republic won’t come after him.

“You’re not a bad kid,” Jaq says to Trek. “I’d like to see you again.”

Trek seems unsettled but ultimately flattered. “I am staying in the apartments in the South side of the city,” he says. He has this formal way of speaking that most Jedi do, but on him it doesn’t sound as pretentious. On him, it sounds intelligent.

“Which one?”

Jaq has asked this casually enough, but Trek zeros in on him and sets his mouth. “That is unimportant,” he says. His voice is stony. “If you wish to see me again later, you may call. My room is my room. I do not wish to have strangers in it.”

“What are you afraid of?” Jaq asks, sensing that he has crossed an unspoken boundary.

“I do not know you, and I do not trust strangers.”

“If I wasn’t a stranger?”

Trek smiles now, and it is the kind of smile that tells Jaq he has gotten in too deep – and he has his work cut out for him. Trek touches Jaq’s shoulder and says to him, “We will see about it. We will see about it.”

---

What once appeared to be Trek’s tough outer shell comes down easily enough. He never lets Jaq get him drunk (Jaq believes this must be a throwback from a bad experience, because no one ever rejects free drinks – not even Jedi), but he is tolerant to Jaq’s advances. He always makes eye contact, as though probing for Jaq’s true motive, but Jaq is smoke. Jaq is water. Jaq is life itself. There is no catching Jaq.

“Where are you from?” Jaq asks. Trek is on his second Tura. Jaq is still on his first Twister, which is really like an enormous alcoholic smoothie. His head has a slight buzz.

Trek has this faraway look in his eyes, and he rests his elbow on the counter, and then his cheek on his palm, and he dreamily sips at his Tura. He dips his finger in and licks off the remains of his drink’s typical sweet, foamy head. “My birthplace is a planet called Noth. It is a poor planet, and alien-majority. I will not go into details about my childhood. In any case, I was more or less raised in the Jedi academy on Likilia… it’s the only one in that quadrant, you know… They hoped that it would be a secure place, being as Likilia is nothing but an abandoned planet now, all dim colors and forbidding ice and rock, its beautiful crystal mountains mined into oblivion. All traffic diverts to Ithor. The place sees no tourists.

“But the Sith found it. And they… they bombed it, I…” He pauses then, feeling his lip. He has bit it so hard that it is bleeding. Jaq stares; Trek stares back, and then says quietly, “Perhaps I will have a drink.”

Jaq smiles. “Good idea.” He orders a softened Tarisian Sledgehammer for Trek, who pulls a face. Softened Sledgehammers are flavored strongly with Kio fruits, to overwhelm the alcohol taste; one look at Trek convinces Jaq that he already knows this. Still, once it comes, Trek doesn’t hesitate to take three brave gulps.

He gags, and shudders, and then takes another long sip. “Horrible,” he declares, eyes watering. He looks to Jaq, who keeps his expression neutral, and says, “Are you certain you wish to hear the story?”

“Without a doubt.”

He takes another experimental sip at his Sledgehammer and speaks in a measured voice. “I do not remember much. I wasn’t the only one to escape, however. I mean, the bombing on the academy – oh, did I tell you that it was bombed by the Sith?”

Jaq nods.

Trek looks at him, ill-at-ease now. “Well, many of the children were pushed onto a grocery freighter, and the Jedi Masters took another. By that time there were only half of us left – the entire left wing had been destroyed. I came through the door there merely seconds before it came crumbling down behind me. I hardly remember taking off. I only remember the window against my nose, all of the Padawans looking out and watching their home go up in flames. I remember the smell of smoke, of burning flesh, of sweaty children pressing in around me, and of cold metal against my cheek. There were three ships. Two were gunned down as we left the atmosphere, including the one holding all of our dear Jedi Masters…” He choked, and washed away those memories with another drink from his Sledgehammer. He rubs his forehead with his knuckles. “The other nearly hit us, but we managed to make a crash landing on Ithor… Three other children survived, myself included, but we were in terrible shape. The Ithorians, the sweet race that they are, took us in, and took great care of us.

“I have an ability, Perlob. I may heal the deepest wounds of those around me with the force of my Will, beyond the extent of any normal Jedi. I may heal armies. It is my gift.

“But my wounds were so awful, so painful, that I was… I was selfish, and spent most of my power upon myself. I did not even scar, and two of the other children died. The third killed himself, afterwards.” He pauses, looking at Jaq with such an intensity that Jaq swallows and turned his gaze away. “I do not wish to remember that. It is too terrible to tell.”

Jaq takes a moment to digest this, staring at the contrast in their hands – how womanly Trek’s seem, how rough and slender Jaq’s are. He looks up to see Trek watching him, and offers a tender smile. “That was more of a story than I’d anticipated.”

“I am full of surprises,” Trek replies, a smile tugging at his own lips now.

He is a fine-looking guy, Jaq supposes.

“Are you, now?” Jaq asks, noticing with satisfaction that the Sledgehammer is nearly empty. That is more than enough alcohol to make a man like Trek tipsy.

“Indeed,” Trek says, and leans in – Jaq preps himself for the kiss, but then Trek faces away and vomits over his feet.

Well, that hardly worked.

Jaq isn’t one for relationships with other men, but still he feels the vague pressure of disappointment. He reaches out with caution and strokes Trek’s back in a gesture of consolation. Trek moans from somewhere between his own knees.

Being the proper gentleman that he is, Jaq walks Trek from the bar, ignoring the displeased looks following him on the way out. They would forget Jaq’s face soon enough (he has that sort of face, that face that killers galaxy-wide would die for, the face that you could stare at all day and that could slip away from you like sand from between your fingers, that face that blends and changes – the invisible face). And by the time they would think to try and remember it, Trek would be dead, and Jaq would be long gone.

Long gone.

---

“A-Ahh… mmm, Perlob…”

Trek’s forfeit of his values had been almost immediate. He is easy to influence, Jaq believes. And from his willingness, Jaq believes that he has done this before. And while he promised himself that he would not enjoy this, he does love hearing his name, false or no, being gasped that way, feeling the accompanying heave of Trek’s soft body beneath him. He is infinitely glad that Taxil didn’t put up a fight over it. Fights are messy, and Jaq hates messes.

Trek says something else, but it’s muffled. His face is red; his eyes are rolled back to the whites; his hair is wild, a black cloud blurring the features of his pretty face. Every time Jaq thrusts into him he makes some new noise, makes some new face. The vital censors on the side of the bed are going ballistic. “Ah, Gods ah please…”

“What do you want?” Jaq is surprised to hear how breathless he sounds. It’s just that Trek is so tight, and so receptive, and so innocent… and with every weak buck Trek gives, every awkward push against Jaq’s abdomen tells Jaq that he is reaching his goal without any problems at all.

“I want everything!” Trek is screaming. “Give me everything!”

“You think so?”

“Yes, yes, please please please please please…”

Who knew he had such language stored away inside of him? The poor thing must have been suffering.

Now when Jaq pushes Trek’s knees nearly touch the mattress behind his head, and he only moans and begs to be kissed, but Jaq doesn’t do kisses. Kisses during sex are bad news. Trek’s screams taper off, and now he’s mewling, squeaking like a kitten. His grip goes slack on Jaq’s hair, though he keeps riding with the motion, and his eyes flicker in and out of focus.

Jaq finishes up with a quiet grunt. It wasn’t the best. He can’t remember his best. He pulls out, ignoring the sick sound of his wet flesh coming loose from its tight cave; Trek’s face screws up for a moment at this, and he groans quietly in the back of his throat.

Jaq hadn’t felt Trek come, but looking at him he can tell that Trek did, and now Trek is dozing off already, looking content and windswept and thoroughly bedded.

He reminds Jaq of a child.

Jaq turns to leave, but a pale hand brushes his backside.

“Where are you going?” Trek’s voice is soft and husky.

“Out.”

“Don’t leave me.”

Jaq looks back at him sharply. Trek looks simply terrified. “What?”

“Stay with me.”

Jaq hesitates. He isn’t one for cuddling, either. But then Trek is shifting on top of the sheets, and his skin is flushed and bruised, and he spreads his red, slick thighs and how can Jaq say no?

---

“Perlob?”

Jaq groans, trying desperately to ignore the lips that rove over his shoulder, but something like that is really hard to ignore. His bones feel as though they are made out of lead; the lovemaking had taken everything out of him, which was surprising – it had only been twice or three times, what ever, and Trek wasn’t even very good at it…

“Perlob?” the voice asks again, and a kiss lands square on his nose.

Experimental fingers play with the curve of Jaq’s hip, and he opens his eyes to see Trek smiling at him. “Hmm?”

“I… I think I love you.”

And that is why it’s called the Passion Tactic.

Jaq knows his lines. He has rehearsed them sixty-two times. He smiles, and forces himself to kiss Trek on the lips, tenderly. Trek makes a soft, contented sound. “Love you, too.” It sounds sincere, because Jaq is a fantastic actor.

“Are you certain?”

“How could I not be?” Jaq replies, poking Trek in the stomach. “You’re perfect.”

Still, Trek looks troubled. “Is this wrong?” he asks.

Jaq raises an eyebrow at him. That’s more insight than he had expected. “Of course not. Why would you ask that? And what’s with all the questions? Just enjoy the moment.”

Trek cuddles close, pressing his face into Jaq’s neck. His breath tickles there. Jaq closes his eyes against it, and soon he is tugging at the edges of sleep. But then Trek says quietly against Jaq’s skin, “I’m hungry.”

If Jaq’s career wasn’t on the line, he’d tell Trek to go make his own fucking breakfast.

As it is, he smiles and gets up to make it himself, and the smile Trek gives him is reward enough.

---

“The Jedi say that love is an awful sin, that it’s a hateful thing, that it’s… it’s the path to the dark side. They say that love is… is passion and that passion is like hate, and hate is… is like anger, and anger is the dark side.”

They are in the cantina, sharing a Tura. Trek insists on cuddling, and Jaq bears it, if only because Trek looks very uncomfortable sitting upright today.

“Maybe it is,” Trek says thoughtfully then, and looks to Jaq for answers.

“How can something so beautiful be evil?” Jaq replies, smooth as butter.

Trek smiles, assured. “Yeah,” he agrees. “How could it be?” He pauses, twirling his straw around in their Tura with a thoughtful look on his face. “Perlob?”

“Yes?”

“This is the… the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

“Yeah? Me too.”

Trek hesitates. “Really?”

Jaq forces himself to lean in for a kiss. “Really.”

For a dangerous moment, Trek looks as though he’s hanging on to Jaq’s smile for dear life, and then he bursts into tears. He pushes his face against Jaq’s chest and lets it all go.

They’re getting weird looks from passersby.

Awkwardly, Jaq rubs Trek’s back. “Easy, now,” he says. “It’s alright. What’s the matter?” He shoots a glare at a young Twi’lek man who wrinkles his nose at them, skillfully flipping him the Tarisian form of the finger (which was much more complicated than it needed to be, but it still got the point across).

“I should have listened to my training!” Trek wails. “I am doomed to the dark side, again, because of you! I have broken the rules of the Jedi, I have broken the Code!”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person, Trek,” Jaq says, and honestly. “What does breaking the rules have to do with who you are? Those rules, they…”

“No! No! I refuse to listen to your slander!”

Jaq kisses him again, and Trek tenses for a split second before he relaxes.

“Do you trust me?” he asks.

“Yes.” Trek doesn’t even hesitate. His lips taste like his fruity Tura.

“Then relax.” Jaq hates making scenes in public. People remember scenes – people can remember him making a scene.

Trek nods, melting against Jaq’s side. “All right.”

“Any reason you wigged out on me?”

Trek shakes his head, but then says, “I had an… unpleasant… experience when I was a young boy.”

“Are you going to tell me another lovely story?”

Trek smiles. “No, I will keep it short. I lived in an apprentice cluster – do you know what those are? A half-dozen or some apprentices live together, train together, eat together, bathe together… There was a boy, his name was Quiota. He was… he was beautiful.

“The teachers did not like him, because he was a radical. He believed that the grey path was the right choice, neither fighting for false ideals and denying human needs, nor living as a creature of hate. He seduced many of us into believing in his ideals, including myself… I decided to fall in love with him, breaking all of the rules I knew, when I was fourteen years old. And when I found that he felt the same, we made love… I-I wasn’t ready for it. It hurt me so…

“He died a week afterwards. I understood that it was punishment for his sins, and so I realized the errors of my ways. I returned to the Order, and obeyed the Code, and I did every fucking thing I was told to do, and I… I believed I was an excellent asset, the perfect follower.

“And then I met you and I…” He stops then, sipping urgently at his Tura. He shoves it aside, disgusted. “Is there anything stronger to drink?”

Because Jaq has no motive to make Trek drunk, he shakes his head no. “You’ve had enough. And I’m sorry for your loss, but that’s in the past. I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”

Trek’s mouth twitches at a shallow attempt to smile, but it fails miserably. “I believe that,” he says at last.

“Good, ‘cause it’s the truth.”

Trek dries his tears with a quiet sniffle. “I sense the Force in you, Perlob. It is overwhelming, and it is a comfort. Being around you… it feels nice. And I think that, perhaps, you could tap into that energy – would you let me train you?”

Jaq nearly strikes Trek then, but by some miracle of training he only makes a fist on the table. “The Force and I don’t get along, Trek. Maybe another day.”

Trek nods, disconcerted. “Are you certain? Your adeptness is astounding.”

“I said I don’t want to.”

“All right.”

Silence, for a little while. Trek sips at his Tura some more. “Let’s go to bed,” he says quietly out of nowhere, almost so that Jaq misses what he’s said.

Jaq does hear, though, and he’s not about to turn down the opportunity.

---

“Perlob, you are amazing.”

Jaq isn’t entirely sure what Trek means by this, so he keeps his mouth shut. The beginnings of sleep tug at his mind endlessly, but every time he begins to drift off Trek has to start talking again. “Thanks,” he mutters at last. The vital censors are beating slowly, soothingly.

“You know, I lived on Likilia for most of my life, and yet I rarely ever saw a Likilian,” Trek muses. “There were pictures of them everywhere, banners and such. There was a national anthem in the Likilian language. All I knew of their race was the one Likilian Jedi working there for a short while – I hardly remember his name, he was a transfer, but he was a beautiful pink shade – and the one diplomat that visited the academy. His fur was the deepest turquoise, striped and spotted with bright teal. But most of all I remember his eyes, which were almost a neon fuchsia, as though they were looking right through you. I believe that this is natural camouflage, used to help them blend into their once crystalline landscape. Did you know, the sunlight used to hit those stones just right, and the rays would break and color the land in bright rainbows – across the entire tundra. Can you imagine how breathtaking that must have been, how beautiful? And greed ruined it all.”

“Why are you telling me this right now, Trek?” Jaq asks, trying to keep his irritation from his voice.

“I prefer to muse at night.”

“What would it take to shut you up?”

Trek says nothing, but even the silence is pained.

“Sorry,” Jaq says.

“No, it is all right,” Trek assures. “I was… acting as a selfish singular person, and now I have a… another to think about. Perlob? What are we?”

“If you love me,” Jaq says, staring at the ceiling of his hotel room, “and I love you, wouldn’t that make us lovers?”

“I read a story once about forbidden lovers,” Trek says quietly. He’s wriggling underneath the sheets, Jaq notes warily. The last time he did that, it hadn’t ended well. “They were killed in war.”

“How unfortunate,” Jaq says dryly.

“How do you feel about the war, Perlob?”

Jaq looks down at Trek, who gazes back with the sickly sweet desperation of a lost puppy dog. Jaq smiles at him, running his fingers through Trek’s hair. “Do you want to know?”

“Will it hurt me?”

“It might, a little.” Jaq props himself up on his elbows, watching Trek, who, until this moment, has been gazing at him with open, unending trust. “I work for the Sith.”

Trek makes a strangled sound. He shakes his head, once. Some part of Jaq aches for the look in those big blue eyes. “I don’t believe you,” Trek says at last.

“You believed me before.”

“I cannot believe you.”

Jaq says nothing.

To Jaq’s surprise but ultimate delight, this makes Trek furious. He sits upright, gripping the sheets to his chest, and says coldly, “Tell me you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

Trek brings his fist down on his thigh, showing his teeth. “Tell me you’re lying!”

“Trek…”

“No! NO!” Already there are tears in his eyes, streaming down his pale cheeks. Gods, how he looks like a child. “I won’t believe it! I WON’T! The Sith are evil and cruel and ugly, selfish, horrible creatures! You - you’re good. You are a wonderful person, you are pure! You are everything and the Sith are not everything! The Sith are not everything to me!”

“Trek, listen…”

“I will not! D-Don’t… don’t touch me! This is not funny! This is NOT funny!”

“I’m not kidding, Trek. Listen to me.”

“You are not evil. You are… you are misguided, but you are not evil… please.” Those eyes are penetrating, bright and pretty. “Do not let this be a joke, all that you have taught me, all that you have shown me.”

“Trek, do you know what I am? I’m… well, you could call me a missionary. I don’t know. I was sent here to convert you.”

Trek moans, pushing his face into his hands and trembling. “Noooo.”

“Listen. Listen! You’re already well on your way, Trek. You’ve taken the vital steps. But I need you – the Sith need you. You have a very special gift.” Jaq reaches out to touch Trek’s shoulder, and Trek jerks away from that hand as though it were a burning poker.

“Why are you saying these things?” Trek whimpers. His voice is thick with the effort of holding back his sobs. “I love you.”

“I know.”

“I trusted you.”

“I know.”

“I believed in you.”

“I know. And if you won’t listen to me, I’ll have to kill you.”

Trek’s breath hitches then, and he stares blankly at his hands. Jaq can tell that he is thinking, considering his options – but Jaq has him naked, unarmed, his defenses stripped away. He is just a child, and what little Force training Jaq has can be used as a fine defense if Trek tries any fancy Jedi tricks.

Which he won’t, because Jaq has him curled around his finger.

“Trek, you know I’d never hurt you.”

“Don’t – touch – me.”

“Trek, can’t you see who’s winning? Can’t you see who can help you, who can give you everything you need? The Jedi are going to lose, and I don’t want to see you out there playing with the losing team. I don’t want to lose you.” These lines are so well-rehearsed they make his tongue feel numb. “If you come with me, we can stay together, forever.”

“No. I-I… I won’t. I won’t. The Sith are evil, corrupting… slimy lying cheating bastards, the lot of them. I want you… but I do not want the Sith.”

“Don’t make me have to do this. I don’t want to.”

“I suppose you must. I will not be joining you.” Trek gets out of bed, all bare and pale and pretty. He reaches for his lightsaber, then reconsiders, and sits back down on the bed. “Is there no way to convince you to join the side of the Jedi, instead?”

“Afraid not.”

“Because I feel the Force so strongly in you, Perlob. I feel the goodness in you fighting to get out.”

Jaq rolls over and opens his footlocker, pulling out his favorite heat blaster. They are his favorite because they do not leave blood, and kill silently. He turns off the safety and aims it right between Trek’s eyes. “Sorry, it’s not going to happen.”

Trek has remained calm up to this point, but now that he has a weapon aimed at him he begins to weep hysterically. “Oh God, Perlob, please! Please, don’t do this! I love you I love you I love you please reconsider! I just want to go home. Let me go home, Perlob. We can forget this. I can forget that I loved you, I can forget that you’re with the Sith, you can forget who I am, what I do. Please, Perlob.”

“I can’t do that.” Jaq motions with a finger for Trek to come closer, which, by some miracle, he does. His need for Jaq’s comfort outweighs his fear of him. He crawls across the bed and buries his face in the crook of Jaq’s neck.

“Why are you doing this? Don’t you love me?”

“Yeah, of course I do.” Even as he says this, Jaq rests the barrel of his blaster against the base of Trek’s head.

“Then come away with me, leave the Sith… leave them to do their terrible, dirty things, and we will be all right, surely…”

“You don’t understand, Trek. I don’t want to leave the Sith. And even if I did – they’d kill us both.” He pressed his lips to Trek’s ear, hissing harshly inside of it; the body against him was all atremble. “And I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”

Trek inhales to say something else, and Jaq flips him over, onto his stomach, pinning him down with a forceful knee in the small of his back. Trek starts screaming, and Jaq smacks him forcefully with the butt of his blaster. Trek is quiet. He retches once, and his motions grow slow and lethargic. That probably hurt more than Jaq had intended it to.

“Shut up, shut up! I thought you were more of a man, Trek.”

Trek moans into the pillows. “I don’t want to die,” he says over and over. “I love you, I don’t want to die…”

“If you love me, you’ll spare me from having to do this,” Jaq growls. He gets off, and Trek sits up. His eyes are unfocused and he keeps on crying like a baby, like a little girl.

“Is there no other way?”

“I’m sorry,” Jaq says, stroking Trek’s cheek with the back of his hand. It is unfortunate, to dispose of something so pretty. If Trek wasn’t such a fool, they might have been able to make something. “Don’t cry, now. Shhh, don’t cry.”

Trek grips Jaq’s hand desperately. “I trusted you. I did.” He shakes his head, sobbing again. There’s a bit of snot on his upper lip. “The Jedi were right. Love is an ugly, ugly, hateful, hateful thing.”

“No, it’s not,” Jaq soothes.

“Just let me go home. Let me go home.”

“I can’t. Trek, understand that I just can’t.”

Trek pushes his face between his own knees, rocking back and forth. “Ugly, ugly, terrible, terrible thing…” Jaq wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Sith, about love, or about Jaq himself.

“Come here. I’ll make this quick for you. I’ll take you home, okay? Look at me.”

Trek looks up, reluctantly, and quickly takes his eyes away.

“I need you to do something. I need you to put on your clothes, and I need you to close your eyes and count to ten. And I want you to think about me, I want you to remember the good things – and then you can go home.”

Trek gets up and collects his clothes slowly. His hands are shaking violently – he is nearly palsied in his movements. But finally he gets his clothes back on, and he stands there hunched and submissive. Jaq can hear his breathing from across the room.

He comes across to Trek, who shudders at his touch, and, almost as though he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, he arches up into Jaq’s final kiss.

“Close your eyes,” Jaq says.

Trek does.

“Start counting.”

Trek does. “One,” he says, slowly. His voice is soft and shaking, high-pitched and reedy. “T-T-Two…”

Jaq moves around behind him, adjusts the setting on his blaster, and presses its barrel against the base of Trek’s head. Trek gasps at the feel of the cool metal on his skin, and his knees buckle.

“Keep counting,” Jaq says tenderly.

“Th-Three…” Trek stammers. He lets out a rasping sob. “F-Four… F-F-Five… Six… Se… Sev –”

And Jaq pulls the trigger.

Trek’s head kicks forward and his knees go out. He falls to the carpet flat, his beautiful black hair shrouding his features like a dark curtain. His fingers give a little spasm, and that’s all. The front of his forehead is curved out from the pressure of the shot, and the flesh around the entrance wound is charred black. It bleeds slightly, but not enough to arouse any real suspicion. Jaq dutifully wraps him up, and props his body up against the wall, to dispose of later.

He pauses as he moves to stand, studying Trek’s motionless face. One eye gazes at him half-lidded. On impulse, Jaq leans in and presses a kiss to Trek’s misshapen forehead.

“Love you,” he mutters against the still-warm flesh, and giggles to himself – not out of cruelty, but out of the bitter pang of hurt. But he won’t allow himself to get attached. Getting attached is like signing your own death warrant when it comes to the Sith.

And Jaq doesn’t plan on dying any time soon.

-- Notes: I'm disappointed in my ending, but I'm really just lucky that I finished it at all. This is meant to be a revision of a very old story I wrote called "Atton to Mercy" (what was I thinking?). And also, this contains my very first (graphic?) sex scene ever. So be gentle, please.

I can't improve if you don't tell me how you feel. You've gotten this far so why not take a few seconds more? I AM A STARVING ARTIST. FEED ME.