Continuing my re-read of bits of Kill the Lights to get hype for the darker/whumpier bits of Chosen One AU and it's soooo funny, because Chosen One AU is such a Grandpa Dooku fic and Kill the Lights is not (at least not until waaay later after Dooku's redemption, which is, you know, a very different vibe). Anyway, this is one of the early Dooku and Obi-Wan bits of that that I really enjoy.
Dooku’s words poke and prod a vulnerable, private part of Obi-Wan that he isn’t sure he could name. A place somewhere next to the memory of Qui-Gon that he keeps beneath his ribs. His childhood. His Padawan years.
Dooku lunges forward and grasps Obi-Wan’s face. Hard.
“Your failures just keep mounting, don’t they, my grandpadawan?” Dooku sneers, and the sneer draws out Obi-Wan’s well-kept anger. “Your master, dead. Your Padawan, an unmanageable brat. Hundreds of dead Jedi suffering for your stupidity. Vos, your little plaything, tortured. I should have known then, when Vos walked into my front entryway, that your stink was all over him. That you wrapped him around your little finger and then sent him to die. He's only lucky he didn't. And what did that even accomplish other than some information about a hyperspace lane? Was that worth it to you?”
Protesting that no, he loves Quinlan and always has, won’t do him any good, but he can’t even summon an argument. The hunger and the thirst and the exhaustion have made him so—
Dooku’s fingers dig and dig and dig into Obi-Wan’s jaw. “You hold yourself up as a beacon of morality and goodness,” Dooku snarls, “and yet you calculated your way into Vos’ bed and performed well enough to make him your servant. I must say, I’m quite impressed. Is sexual prowess something the Jedi teach their best diplomats, these days? No wonder they call you the Negotiator.”
Obi-Wan, in a move that is likely one of his stupidest to date, spits in Dooku’s face.