Mace Windu's comm chirped with the sound of an incoming message. Top Secret Thranta Clan Chat (1) momentarily blared up on the screen of his wristcomm. As he was relatively alone in the atrium, he opened the chat.
Dzunarat: Skywalker's day drinking! Looks to be some sort of clone-brewed rotgut?
The bottom of the screen lit up with an ominous Several people are typing message. Mace rolled his eyes and closed the chat.
Even amongst the Jedi, it was common for teenagers to engage in romantic relationships only to have them blow up spectacularly in their faces. Anakin Skywalker hadn't had any relationships with his fellow padawans, but instead of being uninterested, he'd just been a late bloomer with something to prove, and thus ended up in what to the Top Secret Thranta Clan Chat's best guess was a polyamorous relationship with no less than two Senators and the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. This while he still wore his padawan haircut, designed to keep padawans from getting laid.
Of course, nothing lasted forever, especially not polyamorous relationships with politicians, and the explosion had been spectacular. As a Temple Guard, Dzunarat was on Coruscant the most, so Mace believed him when he said the polycule had disintegrated when Senator Amidala and the Chancellor disagreed over the Zillo Beast. Another of his crèchemates, Karaaa, reported that people were taking bets over how long the remaining Amidala/Clovis leg would last.
The elevator opened just as his comm chirped with fifteen new messages from his crèchemate chat. Mace didn't look at the newest round of Skywalker speculation, however, since the man himself was in the elevator, leaning against a wall and drinking straight from the bottle.
Mace did have places to be. He nodded at Anakin, got in, and prepared for an exceedingly awkward ride.
“Don't worry, Master Windu,” Anakin said as the doors closed, “Ahsoka's with Barriss and – that-” He waved a hand expressively. “Senator ... Chuchi? At the Senate. Doing Senate stuff.”
Whatever Anakin's flaws, at least he had managed to grow past Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's tendency of being possessive of their padawans. “It will be good for her.”
“Yeah.” Anakin sighed, then blurted out, “Did you know today's Jedi Appreciation Day?” He took a long swig of the bottle. “The Chancellor made it all official and stuff. Oh, he wanted to chat with me. I said I was busy.” Anakin looked at him. “You want to go as the, uh, official Jedi representative and make an appall- appeal to him on something important?”
“I'll ask Master Gallia,” Mace said. He needed at least an hour's meditation to deal with the fact that the Chancellor had instituted an official day just to try and get back together with his ex, who was also young enough to be his grandson. Not to mention the high likelihood of age of consent violations and grooming.
Anakin didn't reply. Mace opened his comm and typed in a request for Adi to go press the Chancellor to sue for peace on this official day of Jedi appreciation. Then, because this gossip was much too juicy to pass up on, he opened the Top Secret Thranta Clan Chat (57) and added a message of his own:
Mace: The Chancellor insitituted an official Jedi Appreciation Day (today) to try and get Skywalker to talk to him. Skywalker begged out. The Council's sending Adi Gallia.
Feemor: ...where did you even GET that tidbit?
Mace: Skywalker's day drinking in my elevator.
“Whatcha chatting about?” Anakin asked.
“Your sex life.”
Anakin laughed. “They never said you were funny,” he choked out between paroxysms.
Mace raised an eyebrow. “Who said I was joking?”
Anakin waved him off and took another swig of his moonshine. “You know, it's hard being a responsible adult,” he said with all the gravitas of a drunk who had yet to hit twenty-one. “I jus' wanna make some bad decisions. Like, sexually. But the clones are my responsibility, I can't just- panwa them.” Anakin waved his hand in a manner that might have approximated a sexual gesture had he been less drunk. Not that the intent was unclear, even if Anakin had started lapsing into Huttese.
It was good Anakin recognized the inherent power imbalance of him fripping the clone troops. If only he'd recognize inherent power imbalances when they went the other way, such as with his two Senators and the Supreme Chancellor fripping him, a Jedi subordinate to the Senate.
“So I decided to go drink this chizk at the Temple somewhere and make other bad decisions,” Anakin declared. He looked at Mace speculatively. “Though...”
One did not have to have a talent for precognition to know exactly where this was going. Mace sighed internally as a mostly-ignored part of him noted how Anakin had grown up nicely and looked good in his state of slight déshabille. Or maybe it was just the facial scar.
“...I bet you'd love to shut me up with your dick.”
“Come back when you're sober,” Mace replied, because unlike Senators, he had standards for his conduct and intended to hold them.
Anakin blinked in confusion. “That wasn't a no.”
“Were you expecting one?”
“I guess you really want me to shut up?”
In Anakin's defense, he was drunk, but what was up with him to make that his response? “I was referring to the sex, which ideally would not involve you being quiet.”
Anakin downed the dregs from his bottle, then swung it around contemplatively. “I'll ... get back to you, I guess.”
“You know where my room is.” Mace had paperwork to do, but having Anakin Skywalker turn up for sex would be a nice distraction, even if Obi-Wan would try to kill him later.
“Mm.” Anakin whistled. A mouse droid appeared out of nowhere, took the empty bottle, and whizzed off.
Mace was about to make a remark about Anakin being remarkably proficient in binary even while drunk when the turbolift shuddered and started accelerating sideways, throwing Mace and Anakin against the wall. There was a ripping sensation in the Force and a horrific screeching sound. Anakin was screaming.
Then the lift abruptly stopped, flinging them both through the now-open doors. Mace stumbled in the dark room. Next to him, Anakin retched.
When he turned around, the turbolift was gone. “Anakin?”
“Urgh.” Anakin wiped his mouth. “I just wanted to get drunk and mope,” he grumbled, but moved away from his vomit and sat down to purge the ethanol from his system.
Mace spun around in place. They were in a dark chamber with cylindrical stalagmites sticking up in a regular array at the center without matching stalactites. There was some patterning on the far wall. The room wasn't enclosed but rather had two passages leading out.
“I would direct you to the exit,” a woman said, “but I'm afraid the air outside isn't breathable.”
Mace and Anakin both whipped toward her with their lightsabers lit. She was blue and translucent, like a Force ghost from the unconfirmed stories reproduced in the Masters' section. Not quite human, but almost so; exact determination of species was hard with the colors washed away.
“Who are you?” Mace asked.
“My name is – was – Dathna,” she replied. “You have likely never heard of me.”
“Then why are you here? Why are you speaking to us?” Anakin demanded.
Dathna smiled sadly. “I was part of a survey team. Our ship crashed outside. We knew there was a ship at the center of this structure, so we tried to reach it and escape, but we got lost and died on the way. I imagine you two Jedi have a better sense of direction with that Force of yours.”
Anakin turned off his lightsaber. “Okay. Which way do we go?”
“This way, I think,” Dathna said. “Though it is a bit of a walk.”
“That will not be a problem,” Mace replied.
He, too, turned off his lightsaber as they followed Dathna through the darkness. Her appearance was awfully convenient. He hadn't come across records of non-Force sensitives leaving Force ghosts, and a Jedi would've identified herself. Mace had a bad feeling about it.
A bad feeling Anakin didn't seem to share, which concerned him. Anakin's midichlorian count was absurd; one would have expected him to pick up on anything Mace picked up on.
Unless it was all drowned out by the darkness that imbued the structure itself. This was a place of death.
“Do you sense anything?” Mace quietly asked Anakin.
Anakin shrugged. “Death. The survey team she mentioned, I guess.”
Mace checked the Force again. “What survey team is large enough to drench a whole structure? And it can't have happened in the last few decades.”
“I guess this structure was used for something unsavory, then. Do you think it dates back to the previous Sith War?”
“Possible.” Mace reached out into the Force, looked sideways at what was, and saw the faultlines on which the galaxy broke. Anakin was the usual mess of rearranging reality around him, but Dathna had a more significant one than Mace would've expected from a selfless helper, and the cylinders each had the potential to break within them.
They were a meter in diameter and a meter or so tall. “Don't touch the cylinders,” Mace whispered.
“Don't you touch them, either,” Anakin replied.
“I wasn't planning to.”
Dathna led them deeper into the structure. Mace felt more uneasier by the minute.
“What's that?” Anakin asked, then marched over to the corner that had drawn his attention before Mace could tell him to stop.
Whatever it was, Mace couldn't leave Anakin to face it alone. He cautiously followed.
There were corpses in the corner – they looked surprisingly fresh, but the Force said they'd been here for centuries or more. Human or nearly so, though it was hard to say with the damage to the bodies. One of them had its face covered by some sort of alien creature and something had burst out of its stomach. The other two had been cut apart, organs let out of their abdominal cavities and fear frozen on their dead faces.
“Ew,” Anakin concluded.
One of the cut-apart corpses had a lightsaber on its belt. Mace summoned it to his hand. A bit small for him, silvery, kyber crystal mourning but not dripping with hatred like a Sith's.
Anakin had noticed it as well. “But-” He glanced at Dathna over his shoulder.
“Indeed.” Mace clipped the lightsaber to his belt, then noticed another two on the ground. He summoned them over as well.
“You said you got lost but a Jedi would make it, yet you had three Jedi with you,” Anakin asked Dathna, because somehow he'd landed on even less patience than Qui-Gon Jinn.
“They were the first to die,” Dathna replied with a smile not quite as sad as it should've been. “The wildlife to which they succumbed should be dead in turn, though.”
This did not quite reassure Anakin and did nothing to reassure Mace. Nonetheless, if the outside was unhospitable, the only way out was in. And Mace at least saw the outlines of a trap and wanted to dismantle it.
They entered the next chamber. A vast door clanged shut behind them.
“What's this?” Anakin demanded.
Dathna spread her arms. “Don't you want to meet my children?” Behind her, cylinders identical to those of the previous chambers rose until they were over two meters tall and then opened.
The creatures were slightly taller than the cylinders. Dozens of them stepped out, bipedal but unmistakeably inhuman. The head was large and elongated without any visible eyes. A few spikes jutted from their backs. The narrow tails and raised ribs looked almost mechanical.
As one, the creatures screamed. One of them leaped a good ten meters straight at Anakin. He swung his lightsaber at the thing and cut it in half.
Anakin hissed as the few drops of blood spatter hit his tabard and dissolved a hole in it. The creature itself stayed dead.
“Die, Jedi!” Dathna screamed. “Die to to the wrath of Darth Acicula!”
The Sith chrysalids roared and leaped. Mace cut one down with his lightsaber, dodged another's strike to kill a third, spared a glance to make sure Anakin was still up and fighting, and then lost himself to the matter of dispensing death.
The creatures had very little vulnerabilities. One of them even rose after being stabbed through the chest.
“Decapitate them!” Mace shouted in Anakin's direction.
“I'm trying!” Anakin replied, followed by a thump and an “Oof!” Mace hoped wasn't serious.
The creatures' numbers thinned. There were only a few drops of blood on the ground due to the cauterizing nature of lightsabers, but there were enough corpses piled up Mace had to move lest he trip over them.
As Anakin dispatched the last one, Mace turned to the door. Its mechanism was inaccessible and it was thick enough cutting through it with a lightsaber would be a pain, but if he pressed there...
“What are you doing?” Anakin asked. “The ship's the other way.”
“I doubt the ship exists. The way we came, however, might not be as one-way as Darth Acicula implied,” Mace replied. He closed his eyes and exerted more pressure. “Help me with this.”
Anakin made an unhappy noise but placed his hand next to Mace's. He didn't have the talent of seeing shatterpoints, but he was exceedingly powerful in the Force and could see exactly what Mace was doing, down to the tiniest detail, and replicate it.
A segment of the door ripped apart. They were greeted by a now-familiar screech.
“At least we have a choke point?” Anakin weakly offered.
“You fools!” Darth Acicula yelled. “There is no escape. No survival!”
Another collective screech came from behind them. “On second thoughts, let's just fight our way through,” Anakin said.
“Agreed.” Mace Force pushed a few creatures away from the hole and went through it lightsaber first. He then started pushing through the mass of creatures with Anakin hot on his heels.
Slash left. Force push the one on the right into another's blade-like arms. Hop over a swiping tail. Dodge down and slash right and up. There was no room for thought. The Force whispered and Mace reacted.
A creature jumped right at Mace so that he could only dodge or die. He sent a small pulse of warning to Anakin-
A blue beam of plasma cut through the creature's neck. Anakin stole a moment to wink at Mace before returning to self-defense. Mace rolled his eyes.
This did remind him that two Jedi were meant to be more than the sum of their parts. He reached out with the Force again, touched Anakin with his awareness of their surroundings, and received a vast opening of the mind in turn – power untamed, like riding a hurricane.
Mace felt borrowed power flood his veins and for a moment felt like he could conquer the galaxy. The nearest creature flew to the far wall at the slightest thought.
But he was a Jedi Master, and control his forte. He tamed the storm into something one could ride, could direct, and reached out.
The creatures paused for a moment. They used the Force to hunt, then, not that that was any surprise, given they'd been crafted by a Sith Lord. They screamed as one, but before they could pounce, Mace tugged at Anakin and they ran to the next room.
“Do you have a plan?” Anakin yelled as he decapitated another creature.
“Acicula has an infinite supply of these,” Mace explained, dodging a strike that would've disemboweled him. “Our best hope is to run through.”
“You cannot run!” Darth Acicula hissed. Her spectral form was – somewhere. Mace was too busy not dying to look.
“Let's run, then,” Anakin replied.
They dodged the creatures as they came from in front and behind. Mace sliced through necks, Force pushed bodies to the side, and hopped over tails meant to trip him as he retraced his steps at a run. Anakin blazed in the Force behind him.
They'd arrived in a completely unremarkable spot Mace hadn't paid much attention to, though, so overshooting-
Mace spotted fresh vomit on the floor. He reached out with the Force, and with Anakin's strength with him, the illusion was easy to see. And at its heart was the point where it shattered.
“Guard my back,” Mace said and untangled himself from Anakin just enough they wouldn't disturb each other.
The illusion was a complex thing, but everything broke in the end. Mace knelt and closed his eyes, giving himself over to the Force. Anakin was loud and bright behind him, one with his blade as he kept the creatures off Mace alone.
But the universe was a distraction. Mace trusted Anakin to handle the creatures and brought his full attention to the illusion.
Entropy would sunder everything in the end. One simply had to help it on.
All illusions had seams through which reality shone through. The good ones had many layers with the seams in different locations. Mace brought his hand to hover over the first layer and said, Decay.
It withered to nothing. The next layer followed, then the next, and eventually the final one.
Mace opened his eyes. The turbolift doors were open before him.
The Sith creatures' screams echoed behind him. Anakin was holding on, but only barely. Mace pulled him to his arms with the Force and they stumbled back through the doors. Anakin hacked off an arm and pushed the creature it had belonged to back as Mace elbowed the buttons.
The turbolift jerked back, throwing them against the closing doors. Mace hit it side on, one of the lightsabers he'd picked up digging into his hip hard enough to bruise.
Anakin staggered to his feet. “We're alive!”
He was sharp delight in the Force, hair mussed and adrenaline shaking his flesh hand. Mace found himself taking a step closer. “Well done.”
Anakin opened his mouth, then came to a realization that spread as a smile across his lips. “You know, Mace,” he said, stowing his lightsaber on his belt, “I'm sober.”
“That you are,” Mace replied and leaned in.
Anakin grabbed his shoulders and crashed their mouths together. He had little technique, consumed as he was by a desire to merge into one. Mace felt his own adrenaline jitters, backed Anakin into a wall, put hands on his backside and kissed Anakin back with just as much desire to lose himself in another's touch. Anakin's leg rose to his waist as Mace ground against him-
“Master?!” a young voice said.
Mace took a step back at Anakin's shock and turned to see that they'd ended back in the atrium. Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee were staring at them with varying amounts of horror.
“Padawans,” Mace addressed them. “Please tell maintenance to take all turbolifts offline; we have discovered a security breach. I'll ask Master Yoda to investigate the matter.” He took the lightsabers he'd picked up in Darth Acicula's death chambers off his belt and handed them to Barriss. “Bring these to the archives and see if you can identify them. Anakin and I are going to quarantine.”
“Yes, Master,” Ahsoka and Barriss chorused and scampered away from the adults kissing.
“So, quarantine,” Anakin said.
“Standard procedure. We were just in the presence of many organic Sith weapons.”
Anakin smiled winningly. “Your place or mine?”
“I suspect my bed is larger,” Mace said with a smile.
He composed the brief messages to Yoda and the rest of the Council on Darth Acicula's trap and how they'd escaped, then led Anakin to his quarters. Master Che would send someone over, but that would be tomorrow, and this evening they'd be undisturbed.
He gave Anakin a few moments to take stock of the room before pulling him in by the waist and resuming where they'd been interrupted. Anakin was warm under his hands. Mace started leading him to the bedroom.
“Mace, wait.”
Mace drew back and noted a quick flicker of relief from Anakin. He waited patiently for whatever Anakin wanted to say.
“Uh, maybe we should talk a bit first?” Anakin suggested awkwardly.
“Of course.” Mace let his hands drop from Anakin's waist. “The couch?”
Anakin nodded and sat down. He fidgeted for a moment before saying, “I'm not into stuff with a set expiry date.” He was staring at his hands.
“An ongoing relationship, then?” Mace had been prepared for a night's tumble under the sheets, but given the chance ... yes, he would enjoy Anakin's terrible quips and aura of chaos.
“Yeah. And, uh, I'd like something that's not just sex? Regular contact?”
This was a more typical question from a fellow Jedi. “I'd enjoy weekly chats over tea, or taking midmeal together at the refractory.”
Anakin sighed with relief. What had his previous relationship been like to make this so fraught? “Yes, that sounds good.”
Mace ran through his list of relationship requirements. “For the record, I share both of those desires. I also want a monogamous relationship. Is-”
“I'm not involved with anyone else, or interested in that sort of stuff,” Anakin quickly reassured him. At least he'd learned something from the disintegration of his polyamorous tangle.
“Anything else?”
“Use me for my body?” Anakin asked with a charming smile.
Mace couldn't help but snort. “I'd prefer something more reciprocal than suggested by the word use, but yes, we can go to the bedroom.”
Mace rose and held out his hand. Anakin took it and let himself be helped up with a frisson of delight, so Mace spun him around like a dignitary to draw him in his arms.
Anakin laughed with joy. “I liked that,” he admitted.
“I'll keep that in mind.” Mace kissed him and spun him around again as he brought him to the bedroom.
Anakin was warm and enthusiastic, hands stumbling over the closure of Mace's belt before he managed to get it off. Mace shrugged out of his robes and removed Anakin's with much more practice.
He paused at the glove covering Anakin's mech arm. “May I?”
“Sure.”
Mace had felt the little jolt of shame from Anakin, though, and kissed the durasteel that formed the back of his hand. “It's beautiful,” he said, because it was and Anakin had most definitely made it himself.
“Uh, thanks?” Anakin switched topics by removing his and Mace's trousers.
Once they were naked, Mace led him to the bed and pushed him down. Anakin looked good against the purple sheets. He pressed against him and kissed him, arousal blooming as Anakin yielded to his touch and bit his lip.
Mace ran a hand down to Anakin's backside. “May I?” he asked.
“Please,” Anakin replied, grinding himself up against Mace.
With a flick of the Force, the bottle of lube was out of the bedside drawer and in Mace's hand. It had been a while since he'd had occasion to use it, and it was almost empty. There'd be enough for a few rounds of fun, though.
Anakin flinched when Mace brought a lubed finger to his hole. Mace probed a bit, reached out with the Force-
Oh, yes, Anakin's prior partners had all been Force-blind. “Reach out with the Force,” Mace murmured. “Try to find my emotions and feel them for yourself.”
“What do you – oh,” Anakin said as he realized what Mace was suggesting.
He reached out, blindly flailing, and Mace beckoned him over, showed that here were the emotions, parceled out little bits of desire and joy so he'd get the idea, and was rewarded with Anakin brushing over his mind with delight.
Then Mace slid a finger into Anakin and had all the sensations projected straight to his brain – too much not enough weird toes curling yes more good confusion – and had to slam up walls lest he come on the spot.
“Oh wow,” Anakin said and squirmed under Mace. “That's, uh, wow.”
He bent his knee and pushed up; Mace was stuck with an image of Anakin open and moaning beneath him, legs curled around his hips. He pushed the image to the front of his mind to see how good a grasp Anakin had on communication via the Force.
A natural's, apparently, as a wave of desire pulsed off him and he twitched. “Mace, please,” he begged as he drove his hips up.
“A moment.” Mace added a second finger next to the first to ensure Anakin was properly lubricated, then applied lube to his dick and got in position.
Anakin was worked up and tense. Mace thought of relaxation and offered some of that to Anakin.
Immediately, he slipped in. Anakin twitched with his whole body, clenching down hard, as he groaned. Gentle probing with the Force revealed nothing amiss, but-
“How is it?” Mace gently asked.
“Odd, I guess?” Anakin squirmed, searching for a position that would bring him – not relief, but something. “More?”
“Of course.” Mace slid in slowly. Kriff, Anakin was tight. He rolled his hips.
Anakin's back arched off the bed as he moaned. White-hot pleasure blossomed from him into the Force, almost enough to steal an orgasm from Mace.
“Mace, please, I need-” Anakin gasped as he clenched around Mace's dick. “Mace, what do you like?”
“Nails down my back, legs around my waist, and be as loud as you like.”
Anakin scrambled to wrap his legs around Mace. He was flexible enough he could cross his ankles around Mace's hips; Mace felt a thrill at that. Then Anakin brought his hands to Mace's back, fingernails of his flesh hand scraping down the skin, and Mace groaned at the sensation.
He rolled his hips slowly a few times more, observing Anakin's reactions through the Force. Anakin's legs twitched around him and he was making choked noises, projecting a slightly confusion-tinged arousal and enjoyment into the Force around him. Mace pulled him closer to him by the hips and leaned down before thrusting again.
Anakin moaned. There, then.
Mace thrust in, chest close enough to Anakin's to feel the warmth radiating off him, and leaned down to mouth at his throat. Anakin's hands clenched at his back, cool metal digging in – Mace found he liked the sensation – while his legs trembled around Mace's waist.
Abruptly, Anakin's hands twitched, nails catching on skin that lit up as a pinprick of pleasure. He let go of his self as he plummeted off a ledge.
Mace felt his own body's sensations – Anakin tight around him, nails down his back – and the pleasure Anakin was projecting as a double vision. He let himself go unfocused, shared some of his own pleasure with Anakin through the Force, and for a glorious moment, they were one.
The orgasm faded slowly. Mace stayed in place, breathed, gently disentangled himself from Anakin first in the Force and then in reality.
“Mmh,” Anakin said as Mace slipped out of him. He stretched his hands above his head. “'Twas nice.”
“Indeed.” Mace ducked down to kiss him gently and waved open the drawers of his nightstand. He still had some disposable wipes; he used a few to quickly clean up himself and Anakin before settling beneath the sheets. Afterglows were meant to be enjoyed, after all.
Anakin had actually fallen asleep. Mace snorted and felt indescribably fond of the young man, so he shimmied an arm around him and pulled him close. He'd probably wake up soon, but this was valuable cuddling time Mace wasn't intending to waste.
He summoned his comm from the pile of their clothes to see whether Yoda had replied. No reply from Yoda, but all his chats had suddenly acquired more messages than they should have.
Opening his extended lineage chat revealed the source of all the chatter. When the turbolift doors opened, a security camera had caught him and Anakin enthusiastically dry humping, and someone enterprising had shared a still with the entire Temple. His master had sent it to the lineage chat accompanied by several question marks, which Depa and his lineage siblings had echoed.
Mace sighed. His family would rib him mercilessly and they'd all want to interview Anakin individually to make sure nothing untoward was up.
A new message popped up in the chat. It was from his master.
Cyslin: Mace, are you actually fripping a fresh Knight? Mace?
Mace: Yes. And yes, it's ongoing now. No, it was his idea, don't treat him like an initiate. No, you can't speak to him now, he's sleeping. And no, I will NOT send you a picture.
He exited the chat before anyone could pounce on him for either more details or to express concern for either of them. His side of the family knew; Anakin wasn't awake to tell his lineage, so Mace should reach out at least somewhat in advance of the gossip mill. Ahsoka already knew, which left Obi-Wan. Mace sent him a short message.
Mace: I'm fripping your former padawan. Please have your reactions to that fact now, rather than at the next Council meeting.
The mandatory informing done, Mace was free to open Top Secret Thranta Clan Chat (7194). He didn't even try to backread before writing his message.
Mace: As Anakin and I are together now, please move all further speculation over Skywalker's sex life to Mace Must Never Know/Please Don't Tell The Council/whatever you're calling that chat now.
Feemor: Wait WHAT
Yzwari'k: Mace no
Karaaa: The kid has some mad guts on him. Respect.
Dzunarat: Does Skywalker have a Make Bad Decisions aura that got you, or is the sex just that good?
Mace stared at Dzunarat's message. He could ignore it ... or he could reply.
Mace: Both, actually.
He then turned off his comm without reading any of the dozen messages his lineage, Obi-Wan, or his crèchemates were bombarding him with. Anakin buried his nose against Mace's neck, radiating warmth and contentment in the Force.
He adjusted Anakin into a more comfortable position and smiled. No matter what he might've said to Dzunarat, it wasn't just the sex that was good.