Archive of Our Own

give your soul to charity
'cause the rest of you
the best of you
honey, belongs to me

NFWMB - Hozier

The first thing he feels is the heat. Unnatural, unforgiving heat that makes the air unbreathable. Maul does it anyway, even if it hurts; he has been in worse places; he grew up inhaling the poisonous air on Dathomir, and he spent years consuming the rotten one on Lotho Minor. The light penetrates his eyelids and, when he finally opens his eyes, the red and orange and yellow burns through them. A face, the sound of screaming, and, like a wave from the center of the galaxy all the way to the Outer Rim, the smell of death. Of murder.

Outside his room there is only silence, although the persistent feeling of being followed hasn’t disappeared for weeks. He ignores it—if they haven’t done anything yet, it’s because they’re afraid of him. Maul leaves his bed and, not bothering to dress, he sits down on the floor and tries to listen to whatever the Force is trying to tell him.

Visions are a treacherous thing. His master warned him about them, because even when they are clear enough to be useful their interpretation isn’t easy. And useful doesn’t always mean good.

This time, though, feels different; the minute he closes his eyes the Force starts crying around him with the only signature that could make Maul interested. Kenobi. Like a lightsaber through his chest; like the burn that cut him in half, Kenobi is imprinted over his own Force presence like a stain, something he knows he’s not going to erase unless he kills him, and even then—

An unwanted thought: Maul hasn’t been trying to kill him as hard as he should, lately, has he. No, Maul thinks, and and then shoves the thought away, as he does every time it arises. He doesn’t have time for that now.

Maul centers himself on the dream-visions, confusing as they are; he sees faces he recognizes and others he doesn’t, he sees death and betrayal, coiling sweet around his own guts, because those are feelings he understands.

Now that he can see it a little bit clearer he is sure; he knows the place. His Master told him about it a long time ago, when he was a child, when he was still trying to prove himself to the monster. He told him about a lot of planets, important for his long, well-thought plans, and Maul memorized them all.

With eyes still closed, he finally understands who is being betrayed and smiles—you can’t be betrayed if you don’t trust, Kenobi. The stupid jedi never learned that lesson. He has never felt what Maul has been forced to and that makes him weak.

Maul looks for it, for the source and then, when he’s almost given up, there’s another ripple through the force from the center of the galaxy all the way to Mandalore, and the face of the betrayer is revealed to him. Lit up by flames and then obscured as if it had been covered by a cloak made of darkness. It doesn't matter because Maul knows: it’s the padawan, the kriffing padawan, the one that Kenobi has protected and nurtured and oh, Force, the irony and he actually laughs; though it doesn’t feel like a laugh—more like a scream.

Everything comes together: the doomed feeling in the force, the fear, the deception. It has to come from within. Even if there are other agents involved in the lie as a whole, the feeling in his gut is unmistakable.

It’s the boy, although he’s not that much of a boy anymore.

After the first euphoric, incoherent feeling, Maul starts putting the pieces together. Because as long as he doesn’t mind that someone kills Kenobi (and he doesn’t), that action won’t come alone. Maul is aware of the fact that Skywalker is going to take the place that was made for him, and if that wasn’t enough, he’s gonna finish Maul’s reason to keep going in the process.

Before he can stop himself, something makes him call for Kenobi. The Jedi is not going to answer, but he has to try, because he wants Kenobi dead—he wants him dead—but not like that. If Kenobi dies, and Maul isn’t there to witness it, what’s left for him? He knows money and power won’t be enough; not without the satisfaction of reaching the end of his journey.

Because if Kenobi’s dead, and if there is nothing for him to follow—

Even if he is shielding himself, Maul can grasp something from Kenobi’s force presence. It comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It comes from within. The knowledge should be disturbing because it’s not something that should happen, but it’s been some time since Maul worried about it, or to wonder whether it happens the other way around, too.

Or if it matters, at this point.

Iterations of the same dream keep repeating themselves whenever he is able to close his eyes to meditate or reach something close to sleep. Every time the picture it forms is both clearer and more confusing but by now Maul is certain that everything goes back to Darth Sidious' plan.

A plan begins to form in his mind. It’s almost surprising how much he wants his former master to fail. He realizes that there is nothing he wants more than vengeance for everything he did to Maul, to Savage. For how Maul was discarded after all he did to prove his worth.

However, he knows he won’t be able to do it on his own—if the new apprentice is as strong as his master said, Maul won’t win. Maybe if Savage was still alive, but he isn’t, and thinking about him won’t help, either. There is an option, and Maul considers it cautiously, testing his own limits, but he feels like it’s the only solution. Will Kenobi listen to him? He thinks so, since there’s no reason whatsoever for him to concoct a lie like this. And it’s not as though Maul has ever lied to Kenobi, has he? No, Kenobi will believe him and then reach the same conclusion.

It doesn’t take long to set everything in motion. Sindari is as good as any other city on Mandalore to stage his public comeback, and Almec continues to be a useful puppet for his plans. The man doesn’t even care that he is a puppet. Maul has used this planet before to make Kenobi come to him and he will do it again; he will use everything at his disposal to force his hand.

The galaxy is in a state of expectation around them all and Maul watches as the oblivious masses keep living their lives as if they mattered. They’re all going to be dead in a day, or two, or three, because the universe is shifting, and he can’t understand how they can’t see it, how they can’t feel it as he does, from the tip of his horns to the Dathomir magic that helps him move his legs. It’s everywhere around them, burning, burning like (Mustafar, the place was named Mustafar) a volcano.

Without much hope, he makes another attempt at reaching Kenobi but the same unaware unease comes back. Restless, the thought (damned, hated thought) comes back, stronger than ever. Maul sighs, defeated, and for once he lets it roam free, and it spreads through like a disease.

The softness of Kenobi’s skin is the first thing that comes to mind. His body is full of scars, just like Maul’s, and yet not. The few times that Maul has allowed himself to actually touch it, to trace the blue veins through Kenobi’s body, it felt like that warmth clung to his own skin. The feeling stayed with him for a long time.

A memory of a quiet moment, not that long ago; still sitting astride him, both of them spent and panting. The black tips of his fingers grazing Kenobi’s skin, starting from his cheeks, avoiding the beard, trailing down his neck. Down, down, entertaining themselves on the mountain of his clavicles, pushing into a purple mark just under the right one. That’s mine, he thought, and Kenobi had smiled, and let him, and the connection between them grew just a little bit stronger, something that had been forged from hate but transformed into something for which Maul had no name.

The tips of his fingers found each other in the center of his chest, and even the coarse-looking hair was far too soft.

Maul kept going, brushing over Kenobi’s ribs and counting the depressions between them, picking on their differences and on their similarities (you took half of my ribs, Kenobi, you should gift me a couple, at least), going down his body.

Obi-Wan said—and he wants to think of him only as Kenobi but he can’t, not like that, not when he was like that, vulnerable and open and almost, almost trusting—he said, “We should stop meeting like this.”

Maul scoffed, trying to drown the rushing of blood through his ears with the sound of his voice; something terribly intense filling up the place between his hearts.

“Then stop letting me find you,” he replied, and shifted down until their knees were next to each other’s. The metal was cold, it always is, but Kenobi never complained. Maul dropped his head down to scrape the underside of his bellybutton with his teeth. “Afraid I’m going to kill you?” he teased, but Obi-Wan didn’t answer.

And then, force, Maul can’t think about it without experiencing something close to pain, Obi-Wan had put a hand on the nape of Maul’s neck, pushing down; Maul’s mouth was already opening up around the head of his still soft cock, the taste bitter on his tongue. It took a long time to get him fully hard again, and Maul enjoyed every minute of it. His eyes had fluttered for a second and then he swallowed, swallowed down until everything was Obi-Wan and his warmth and his softness.

In the heat of that moment, with his fingers still pinched around Maul’s neck like well honed knives, he finally spoke. Maul was already a mess, his eyes wet when he was allowed to get air in again. “No, Maul. I’m not scared of that at all”

He had never felt so dangerous.

Since Naboo, Maul has been looking for that spark of the dark side he knows is there, buried deep into Kenobi’s heart. Anything is fair game to get that spark. Everything else from that day fills him with shame and pain and regret and the need to hurt, but not that. Their connection is not essential to know that Kenobi rues what he did; it was not, Maul supposes, what a Jedi should’ve done, but, Force, for a second he felt the full strength of his rage and it was beautiful.

Everything he has done since he woke up on Lotho Minor has been an attempt to get it back. He clinged to that memory when everything was dark and he didn’t even remember his own name. His successes have been scarce and weak, except, perhaps, the day he almost killed Kenobi on Raydonia. Maul was greedy, that time, and he karked it up. He wanted to make Kenobi suffer and wasted his chance. That was the last time he had the upper hand. Once again his own instincts betrayed him; he should’ve killed the jedi right there and then.

But he hadn’t, and then later he couldn’t, and then even when he robbed him of his sweet, teenager, stupid love he didn’t get the feeling back. Force, Maul hated her with an unexplainable fervor. Maybe it was that using her and her planet had actually worked in making Kenobi come to him. All the other times, the ones on barren planets and in abandoned houses; the ones that started fighting and ended up with them in a cot, they were different. Maul would always be howling for Kenobi and sometimes—sometimes Kenobi would open his mind, and his presence would appear clear for Maul.

His memory of the first time is clouded—since Lotho Minor his mind has not been the same—, and he doesn’t know exactly where they were, or when it was, but there was something in Kenobi that Maul wanted to pick apart, an endless ability to give Maul a way in. “What do you want, Maul”, he asked, a muscle twitching in his jaw, and Maul wanted to say something horrible and true, like I want you to stop existing or I want you to just kill me already but he stayed quiet, for once, his mouth and his throat and his lungs declining to participate in the conversation. Kenobi had put a hand over his throat and pressed with his thumb and Maul had closed his eyes and let him, waiting for any kind of release, and by the force he had gotten it.

A truce is built and broken during each and every one of their encounters; Maul doesn’t know at this point if the fights before count as foreplay for the fucking or are just an excuse so they can lie to themselves about what they really feel.

All this time Maul thought he really wanted Kenobi dead, but now that the possibility is there he doesn’t want it to happen. He could give himself an excuse, and it wouldn’t be a lie: he needs Kenobi, because Skywalker is stronger than Maul ever was, even before he was half metal, but maybe it’s time for Maul to accept that it’s not about Skywalker at all.

Despite his plans, He doesn’t get Kenobi. The fact that Tano is here instead is already a testament to how karked things are in the Republic, but there are clones too, and that’s new. The other time, Kenobi came alone. Even so, it’s testament to Maul’s good nature that he actively tries to convince the former jedi; he offers her everything but once again the inability of the jedi to see further than their own nose makes everything much harder than it should be.

Spending time in the cage is horrible, but Maul, even without the force, knows something will happen. He hasn’t survived all this time to die here, on karking Mandalore. He doesn’t even like the place, all duracrete, the force muted under all that beskar. When Tano opens it, she makes her second mistake of the day—she understimates Maul.

She wants chaos, and chaos she gets.

He leaves her and the only clone she has managed to turn back. They’ll probably survive—not that Maul cares. She didn’t care about Maul at all, after all, and that’s fine. Maul reaches for Kenobi in the force again, just to confirm what his gut already tells him—Kenobi wouldn’t be killed by a clone, no matter how skilled.

The ship leaves hyperspace with a jerk and the burning planet appears through the viewport. It’s not possible but, in a way, it’s as though he can feel the warmth, like the planet has a star in it’s core, the energy of the force swirling out and slapping Maul just as fiercely as a physical thing.

The scanner on the ship picks up another vessel on the north side of the planet and Maul descends through the atmosphere, the old thing he pilots cracking and threatening to break apart, exactly as Kenobi’s force presence feels this close. Maul doesn’t think he has been noticed another force wielder entering, both too centered on the other and on the fight. Maul can see it now, as his ship gets close to touching the spot of ground between metal and magma and death. Two lasers, blue against blue—they disappear from his view quickly, swallowed by the undulating, steaming air and then by the river of lava.

In the force, the Dark that emanates from the middle of the planet is not something Maul has experienced, save from his Master, but his has a very different quality—his master’s darkness comes from a hate so profound, so patient that it defied any possibility of explanation from Maul’s mind. This kind of darkness, though, he can understand, because it comes from anger. Obi-Wan’s pain flares close to it, born from love and betrayal; it tastes bitter and acidic in Maul’s mouth.

A sudden memory: Obi-Wan’s naked, sweaty body close to his, the sea of freckles of his back covering and intertwining with the scars; his face laying on his hand, the cheek pressed against it, his blue eyes almost black in the low light before the morning. Maul was speaking, and that was a rare thing, because while they did converse during those truces, they skimmed past people and places: Maul’s training, Lotho Minor, Obi-Wan’s master, Mandalore. But Maul had fallen asleep, and then he had been woken up from a nightmare (he didn’t use to sleep during their encounters, but they had been kriffing for hours and Obi-Wan was soft and warm and he smelled of Maul and that had lowered his defenses).

Obi-Wan said, “Tell me about Dathomir,” and Maul didn’t want to but the words came out anyway.

Obi-Wan frowned when Maul told him about the honor that had been being chosen for the task that so many of his brothers had been rejected from doing, but he kept quiet. It didn’t matter, because when they were like that, Maul stopped knowing where his own feelings ended and where Obi-Wan’s started. He radiated something far too close to pity for Maul’s comfort, and then nothing.

He runs through the planet, heat burning his throat; he has to draw strength from the force to be able to breath normally. Closing his eyes, he stays for a second there, searching for Kenobi’s energy, singling it out from everything there is on this planet—but he has been following that signature for too long not to be able to separate him from everyone else. Maul has followed Kenobi for years, has taken everything he could from him and the energy has stayed with him, as if something in the galaxy wants him to stay like he is—always desperate for Kenobi, for his hate or his anger or the way he touched Maul’s face, the way he kissed him, sometimes, when Maul allowed it, like he had not done all those horrible things, like he deserved the tenderness.

They’re too far away from him. Once again the Force has led him to his fate too late, too useless. He watches the lightsabers clashing again, and he runs, drawing from the force the strength he needs to jump and fall. Every jump hurts his core, Mother Talzin’s metal piercing through what’s left of his stomach, his insides. He shouldn’t be alive and he is, and Maul sometimes has asked why, and why him, and for what if it’s not related to Kenobi, start and end of all things.

More screams. He’s getting close and Kenobi’s pain, oh, Force, it’s tearing through Maul as harshly as the planet’s heat, like lava, destroying everything in its path. He hears them now, and he doesn’t want to.

It doesn’t feel like it in the force but Kenobi has won—in the end, he didn’t even need Maul for that. Maul looks down, then, and realizes what he is watching. Skywalker, broken, burnt, ended; his anger so fixated on Obi-Wan that he doesn’t see Maul, as if he were another lava flea of the thousands that plague the planet. He’s nothing. Maul steps back, slowly, and watches as Kenobi screams, so much despair coming off him he doesn’t even seem himself, always so sure and so composed and so whole. When he leaves Skywalker there and goes back to the metal path he finally notices Maul’s uninvited presence. He stops dead in his tracks, assessing the situation. Maul is not here to fight, though, he wasn’t even before watching him obliterate his old padawan into a charred ruin. His lightsaber hangs from his waist, innocent, and Kenobi sighs. He jerks his head in a clear follow me gesture and Maul goes behind him.

Obi-Wan looks back, the ghost of an ugly smile hinted at his mouth. “So this is how you felt when you accused me of pitying you. I can understand now why you got so kriffing angry with me”. Maul frowns and Obi-Wan keeps speaking, and this is weird, this whole situation is leaving Maul unfocused, the center of his thoughts displaced. “But you can’t stop feeling it, can you?”

Kenobi’s right, he can’t. There is no other way of dealing with the situation, because Maul is feeling pity for his old nemesis, the one he has hated for so long.

Has he, though? Was letting him fuck his mouth until tears streamed from his eyes hate? Was allowing himself to be hugged and kissed? To open himself up and let Kenobi comfort him, as if they had forgotten everything that had happened between them?

Was that hate, too?, Maul asks himself, but he doesn’t dare to think about the answer.

The ship Kenobi leads him to, now that Maul is able to see it in all its glory, is karking gorgeous. Luxury drips from every corner, from the smoothness of the outside royal chromium to the silent way everything works, the droids passing around them. Kenobi akes the body of the woman—the Queen of Naboo. Maul doesn’t realize at first but he feels it in the force: the life growing inside of her, the pain coming off Kenobi when he leaves her laying on the bed, surrounded by care droids, and when he takes her hand, moves it to his own forehead and sighs.

For a second, Maul’s confusion is almost blinding until he connects everything. “Don’t karking tell me—”, he starts, but Kenobi looks at him and Maul curses under his breath and leaves the room. A little later, Kenobi follows him.

They go into hyperspace and, once inside the cockpit, Maul tries to check the coordinates Kenobi has entered, but he is too fast.

“You can ask, you know. You’re on the ship, anyway.”

“I could have found a way to leave. You didn’t have to.” Maul answers. His ship was a mess, and Kenobi offered him a way off the planet. He feels like a sore thumb in the luxury of this ship, like he doesn’t belong here, because he doesn’t. He drops the subject for the moment, unable still to understand why Kenobi has allowed him to come. “Where are we going?”

Kenobi has his own agenda, it seems like.

“I thought you were on Mandalore.”

“I was,” Maul answers. He commands himself not to say anything else, like Kenobi does, to save his own feelings. He loses the battle, like he does every time, and resentment spills into his voice like tihaar. “I was waiting for you.”

Kenobi seems to remember the padawan, all of a sudden. “Force. Ahsoka, I don’t know if—did you—”

Maul doesn’t feel the need to explain how she got him into a cage.

“I was waiting for you. What use do I have for a dead padawan? Anyway, your loved clones were doing the work perfectly on their own.”

Maul used to enjoy more the pang of guilt in Kenobi’s expression before it was this easy to bring it around. It feels like kicking a wounded porg.

“Did you leave her there?”

“I have the same use for a dead padawan as for a living one, Kenobi.”

“She’s not a Jedi anymore, technically.”

Maul grunts and his voice rises. “Who cares about that? I tried to contact you.”

Kenobi scoffs and drops his own voice, getting closer to Maul. “I was a little busy at the moment to go off on one of our—encounters, Maul.”

Frustration builds up. Because Kenobi feels like another person, in the force. All that grief is making Maul want to claw athis own face.

“It wasn’t about that. It was about Skywalker but—it doesn’t matter, now. I didn’t get here on time, anyway.”

Maul was never destined to change history.

Kenobi moved and has his back almost to Maul, but that makes him turn around again. He moves closer and looks into his eyes, reading him. Maul sighs and lets himself be read, because that’s the thing, isn’t it. Maul has never been too good at explaining himself, especially about Kenobi.

“You, “he starts, but his throat goes dry all of a sudden, as if it has just remembered the sulfur around them and he swallows a couple of times. He tries again, “We can’t go back to Coruscant. My Master—he’s going to have you killed.”

Obi-Wan frowns for a second and his hand flies to his own chin—realization strikes a moment later. “Kriffing Palpatine. So he was there, too. He’s kriffing everywhere.” He sighs and then turns back to the ship. “I don’t think he knows about—. It doesn’t matter, we’re not going back to Coruscant, anyway. We’re going to Naboo, and he can’t touch us there. Not yet, anyway.”

Maul puts his hand on his lightsaber, just because it helps him feel grounded. After swallowing a couple of times, Kenobi finally asks about it.

“How did you know? Why did you want me?”

Maul thinks, in a way, I always want you. He feels on edge, this whole conversation—the fact that it’s happening, the sorrow on this ship, fate following their steps and traveling with them. The girl’s not going to survive, they both know it, he can almost smell death coming from her room. The most expensive care could not save her. And yet Maul survives, the tables turned and the galaxy is in shambles and Maul keeps going, and going and going but—for what.

“I dreamed about him. About Skywalker. I didn’t know about him before but my Master told me, some time ago, he told me he had found a substitute for me. Someone stronger,” Maul follows, and he’s suddenly forgotten about Kenobi because his own fear comes back, and the memory of the pain from his master’s attacks, force, so much pain and the way his hands felt numb for weeks after. “Although, if you think about it, I was his temporary substitute, wasn’t I? I was never destined to—”

Suddenly hands—Kenobi’s—fly to Maul’s chest and grip the edges of the cloth and shove him around until his back is glued to the wall.

Kenobi is baring his teeth and for a second Maul admires him in his rage. His blue eyes a stark contrast against the darkness of the bags under them. His voice rough and almost broken. Sheer power coming from him—and wasn’t this what Maul always wanted? To see him lose control? When Kenobi finally talks, Maul feels himself thriving.

“Destiny has nothing to do with this. My Master talked about destiny, big words for someone that could not see his own ending or that I was going to fail so entirely to help Anakin fulfill his. Anakin’s destiny was one of glory, he was supposed to save us, not this—not this kriffing—”

Maul’s back hurts where a dent of the durasteel is sinking into his skin, but he doesn’t try to run. He sighs, and then raises his hand until he touches Kenobi’s hair, the nape of his neck, and brings his head to himself, until Kenobi’s still panting breath pushes against his chest through the cloth. For a second, Maul himself doesn’t understand what he is doing, and he can feel that Kenobi’s as confused as he is but then he all but slumps against his shoulder, hands clinging on his sides, part into the flesh and part into the metal in a weird pantomime of a hug. Kenobi opens himself up and they let the force talk—that’s the best way they have ever communicated with each other.

It doesn’t last. Kenobi tightens his fingers against the flesh one last time and when he pulls away, he feels more like himself.

He should be broken. Maul knows—men have Fallen for a lot less, and yet there he is, determination flowing through him as strong as ever. A will to survive in any way or shape and that, force, that Maul can understand from the bottom of his hearts.

The funeral is shown through all the holonet. They don't say anything about the pregnancy so Maul guesses the infant died with her. It doesn’t matter, not anymore, anyway.

Maul is by then long gone from Naboo. He slipped out the queen’s ship the first moment he could, not even bothering to say goodbye to Kenobi, who was watching over her intently. Maul basked in his profile for the last time: the red of his hair under the almost blinding lumas of the infirmary of the ship, the sweat covering his forehead, the dirt and smell of Mustafar still clinging to him even after the sonic. The shape of his nose and the way his lips quirked under the beard, as they always do when he’s worried.

He doesn’t say anything. There is no need—they are done, anyway. Maul knows more about syndicates than when he tried his hand at it with his late brother, he is sure he can get behind one or two without making too much of a fuss. And if he makes it—who cares.

Once in hyperspace, he sets a course for the Outer Rim and allows himself to think. He feels lost, without a purpose, but he realizes that killing Kenobi as he is right now won’t help, even if he could, even if he was strong enough, it just doesn’t feel like before.

For a reason Maul doesn’t dare to analyze, it doesn’t matter as much as it should.

It’s days later when he feels the ripple in the Force. At first he doesn’t even register it, not anymore that the lingering betrayal from the surge of the Empire—but then he sees Vader on the holonet talking about the victory of the Empire over Kashyyyk, and he just knows who he is.

Kriffing Kenobi: he never finishes the job.

It takes all his strength not to call for Kenobi over the next few weeks. It’s pathetic, the way his hands ache for Kenobi’s skin, for the tone of his voice when he calls Maul’s name in the bed. It’s all consuming, the need, and yet Maul suppresses it, crushes it. He refuses to give in. He’s just—tired at this point. Tired of the Force, of Kenobi, of everything pulling from him and giving him nothing back.

He’s already found a possible buyer for the ship and he has his eye on a couple that he might be able to steal. That money and some Force tricks should be able to keep him going. Outside his world the only options seem to be fall into the syndicates or into bounty hunting and there is nothing Maul finds more boring than the hunting banthashit, the pretending, the competition.

The room he’s sleeping in, for the time being, is small but enough. Leaning on the simple cot in the corner, he tries to sleep—or something close to it, anyway. The Nightsister magic should feel sick around his legs but it doesn’t, or maybe Maul is so used to it that he doesn’t remember what it felt like before. His mind flies through his time and through the galaxy, feeling the force around him and around everything. Even in turmoil after Skywalkers turning, the Force just is—it’s neither evil nor good, it just is, and that comforts Maul. The stillness of it, the fact that it’s something constant and unending, that there is nothing that can be done, in the end, that can change it.

A blue-ish warmth, not far from him. Something known, like a lumas on a darkened path, something known. He tries to avoid it but it calls for—something. For someone. For him.

Maul wakes with a start. He must be wrong, of course, because in all the time they did whatever they were doing it was always Maul: Maul calling, Maul dropping his lightsaber, Maul saying please and Kenobi and his soft skin and the way his eyes got darker, pupils blown, and what that did to Maul.

He leaves the bed, the room and then goes outside but the warmth doesn’t leave him. It must be a trap, and he tries to evade the feeling that it isn’t, that Kenobi is letting him find him. Why, he asks, and he realizes late that he’s talking aloud, when the trandoshans coming from the other side of the street look at him funny. He doesn’t care, because this has to be a trap but what if it’s not.

The spaceport appears before him and Maul stops for a second, because he didn’t realize that he was headed there. Once again he tries to stop himself but he already knows he won’t succeed, and if this is a trap, well. He doesn’t know of anyone able to mask the Force presence with another’s. You can mask yours, and you can lie about it, but this—No. This is Kenobi.

Maul shouldn’t go. It’s not something urgent, it’s not a need. It’s an openness, a feeling. Once inside his ship, he gets a flash: two suns. He sees a desert, limitless and unforgiving. Kenobi’s not far, he knows, so he pores over the holomap for hours until he finds some options he feels could be the one.

The trip isn’t long but Maul is unable to supress his own eagerness. Fortunately, he doesn’t have to descend to the surface of the first planet he visits. Kenobi’s presence feels far and muted, so he doesn’t even bother. He looks at the next option and he is almost tempted to discard it because no one would willingly live on a planet so thoroughly controlled by the Hutts.

Then he corrects himself because, well. Kenobi would. It feels fated, in a way, because that’s where Maul saw Skywalker for the first time; where everything started going wrong for him.

He punches in the coordinates, thinks about the buyer, who must be wondering why the kark has disappeared, and then promptly forgets about them and flies to the old, rotten, dry planet.

Following his gut, he ignores the big cities and goes for the smaller port in Anchorhead. He parks the ship at one of the rental docks (far cheaper than Mos Espa’s) and covers his face as much as he can. Not that it matters. His old Master is not hunting him, not now that he has the best apprentice he could wish for and his plans have come to fruition: he doesn’t care about Darth Maul. His master gave him that name, but Maul feels now repulsed by the title. It was all a lie, anyway.

“Hello, there,” a voice says at his side, surprising him.

Maul does everything in his power to keep his body from jumping. He knew Kenobi was close—but not this close.

“Kenobi.”

“Maul,” Kenobi says, and keeps walking beside him.

Side-eyeing Kenobi, he takes him in. He’s wearing a dusty old poncho, his beard a little rugged, the corner of his eyes still deeply creased. The blue of them shines, though the strength of the sun must be painful. The top of his nose is reddened and peeled, as are his cheeks, it looks like he got burned, and then burned again on top of it.

“You look like shit.”

Kenobi laughs. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks. I don’t know if you can tell, but Tatooine’s weather is not the best for my skin.”

Maul rolls his eyes, but oesn’t respond. He could say something about the weakness of human skin, but that brings up other memories and he knows he won’t be strong enough to stop himself from trying to touch him.

“I wasn’t pursuing you anymore, “ Maul says, defensive.

Kenobi nods. “I know. But you’re here. You want to come?“

Curiosity gets the best of Maul this time around.

“Why not.”

Yeah. Why not.

They leave Maul’s ship in Anchorhead and pick an old speeder that seems to belong to Kenobi. Maul looks around, suspicious and confused; Kenobi shrugs, apologetically. “I honestly didn’t think you were going to appear.”

A minute passes with Kenobi already astride of the speeder, waiting. Maul ceases trying to understand what’s happening or what’s going on in Kenobi’s head; maybe he has finally lost his mind. Sitting behind him, Maul can feel the warmth of Kenobi’s body even as he tries as hard as possible not to touch him. He grips the handles at his own back and pushes with the metal legs; although he knows he won’t be able to maintain it once Kenobi starts the speeder.

Apparently Kenobi notices Maul’s hesitance and goes as slow as possible, which actually allows him to keep the distance. The downside is that, at this speed, the sand is not actively trying to kill them as they go through the desert, and that allows Maul to look at Kenobi. The hood of his poncho, which Kenobi had put up before starting up the speeder, drops down and Maul, even if he wanted to take in the path they are following, finds himself mesmerized by the nape of Kenobi’s neck, by the red of his hair. The need to let his head drop forward, to try the taste of his skin gets stronger and unmanageable; Maul tears his eyes from the sight and looks up, directly at the biggest sun, until the pain makes him close his eyes, tears building up in the corners.

He feels a movement before him and opens his eyes again to see how Kenobi points out something and looks back at him. At first he doesn’t see anything, only sand and emtpiness and dunes, but once they get closer he is finally able to catch sight of what seems like a cabin tucked between two dunes. Even farther beyond, he can see the glint of some metal structures, probably a farm settlement. They arrive to the cabin and Kenobi stops the speeder and gets off it in one swift move; Maul follows him.

“Are you tired from the trip?” Kenobi asks casually, looking at him from over his shoulder. He takes his own lightsaber and drops his hand to the side so Maul can see it. The force around him shifts, not confrontational but in need of something—something Maul is able to provide.

Maul can’t stop himself from smiling, something blooming in the middle of his chest—this he can understand, this language is one they share.

“I could beat you with a hand tied behind my back, Kenobi,” he answers. The red of his lightsaber shines bright against the almost white sand of the desert, the crystal singing to him its corrupted melody.

“I would like to see you try.”

Maul launches himself forward first, as always. They dance a familiar dance, the fight growing long while the suns go down and orange light bathes their sweat-covered skin. Kenobi throws out his poncho at some point, the black undershirt beneath it still covering as much skin as possible.

It takes some time for Maul to notice—they aren’t trying to kill each other. The fight is aggresive but there is no real murder intent behind their thrusts. That’s not exactly surprising coming from Kenobi, who was usually trying to leave Maul behind more than to finish him off, but the fact that Maul doesn’t feel the old drive to kill actually catches him by surprise. He starts keeping tabs and then knows: he has been defeated already. More than once. And he could have tried to force his way into hurting Kenobi, too.

It feels like—sparring.

“You’re not being serious, Kenobi,” he taunts. His voice feels lighter than ever and Kenobi scoffs.

“Am I not?” he retorts, flourishing his lightsaber as he falls into his preferred stance, which Maul knows and hates—too defensive, too strong. “Then why are you not prevailing over me, Maul?”

Maul feels his own smile growing. Against his all instincts, against everything he has stood for the past years, he’s having fun and he’s having a hard time being able to remember that he hates this man before him.

“Kark off, Kenobi,” Maul answers, launches himself and Kenobi’s lightsaber is there to meet his, as it always has been.

Much later, Kenobi gets inside the cabin, and makes a little gesture to Maul. “Are you coming in?” he says, and Maul enters but then he stays at the door, closing it at his back.

Now that Maul is actively trying to move normally, he remembers that sand is not exactly the preferred place to fight when being half-metal. He cringes at the schreech of the joints.

“The sonic is that way. No water, sorry.”

Maul looks at him, confused. “I honestly cannot understand you at all, Kenobi.”

They both take a sonic, in the end. By the time Maul is out, there is tea prepared, and Kenobi enters the small cubicle after him. Maul takes the opportunity to look around the house. It’s not huge, nothing compared to the places Kenobi has slept in on Coruscant, he’s sure. A little kitchenette; the room he has just seen and the little bathroom. The question still stands: What is Kenobi doing here? The force doesn’t tell him anything, but he can feel Kenobi’s presence, almost calm.

When Kenobi gets out, he has changed into something more comfortable.

Maul is feeling restless and wants answers and he wants them now. He gets close to him, not enough to touch—but close enough for the jedi’s smell to reach him. Under the sand and dust and everything else, a smell Maul has categorized under danger, Kenobi. He wants to put his nose into Kenobi’s neck and never let it go.

Kenobi looks at him, half-confused, half-faking innocence. He knows perfectly well what he’s doing.

“What?”

“What?” Maul echoes with sudden, explosive fury. “What do you mean, what? I should be the one asking. I come here and you’re—and you could have killed me, out there, I know you could. Is this just pity? One last way to humiliate me?”

Kenobi holds up his hands, too close to Maul, and starts talking, “No, Maul, I—”.

Maul doesn’t let him finish.

“What do you want from me, Kenobi? I thought—I thought you wanted to end this.”

This being his life, or the long list of fights they’ve have with each other, or just—

“Maul, wait. I wanted to—I don’t know how to talk to you. I have wanted to stop trying to kill each other for some time now, and you know that.”

Maul knows, and wouldn’t allow it, because if there is no Kenobi to kill—

“I didn’t ask you to come here. I knew you would see me, which shouldn’t be possible, but it is and the Force usually has its own plans about that. And I thought you might be able to find me.”

Maul licks his lips. “Of course I came. I didn’t want to. I was not looking for you. But—you were there. I could feel you. You told me where to come. So I came.”

Kenobi tries again to move closer, slower this time.

“You told me once to stop letting you find me, but you wanted to kill me. And then you—in Mustafar, and on the ship, you didn’t try anything. You could have tried and I was… “ he stops for a second, looking for the word. Maul has one. The word is defeated, Kenobi. “I was very tired, then. You could have tried a lot of things. Why didn’t you?”

Maul steps closer to him. Kenobi’s lightsaber is on the table, next to his.

“I hated you for so long. You stole everything from me—my destiny, and every time I got close to getting something of it back, you were there to ruin the opportunity. You kept stealing everything until the only thing left to me was my desire to kill you and get my revenge.”

They’re close now. Maul wants to punch that pretty karking face and make him bleed. Kenobi’s hands move, very slowly. He puts them on the sides of Maul’s neck, his thumbs caressing the sensitive points just below his jaw.

Still looking him in the eye, the next words leave Maul’s mouth with pain. His voice doesn’t sound like his. “And then you took that away from me, too.”

When Obi-Wan kisses him, it feels like the end of the road. It feels like a place to go, a place to stay, a place to adore and guard for himself.

“You took a lot of things from me, too” Kenobi whispers against his lips. It feels matter-of-fact, honest, open. It’s true.

“I did, didn’t I,” Maul grunts, and bites his lip, and his hands move into the aperture between his pants and his undershirt, desperate for the touch, the warmth, the softness. Obi-Wan allows it and Maul presses himself against him, letting out a sound, something desperate and primal.

It gets cloudy after that; Maul feels himself drowning in Obi-Wan’s presence and lets him move him around, to the bed, Maul sits on the the bed and Kenobi straddles him, still clothed. Maul doesn’t think, for once, he lets them both be, touching what he wants to touch, taking off Obi-Wans undershirt with his hands, scratching his back and reading the scars with his fingertips. Obi-Wan’s fingers find their way into his mouth and Maul sucks so hard they plunge to the back of his mouth, border his throat, the hand that’s not in his mouth reaching under Obi-Wan’s own pants and taking his cock out.

Maul loses concentration, there; he wants to touch him, he wants to touch everything. “Here, “ says Obi-Wan, and reaches for his hand, wrapping Maul’s fingers around himself, then takes in a swift movement the wet fingers from Maul’s mouth and spreads the saliva on the tip of his cock and between Maul’s hand, who spreads it as well as he can on the shaft. Obi-Wan moans and looks at him and licks the drop that had fallen on Maul’s bottom lip, the tongue fucking into his mouth straight after.

It’s not a lot but it’s enough and Kenobi starts moving his hips following the motion of Maul’s hand and Maul misses at the back of his mind his body whole. Even when it’s one of the forbidden topics, Maul has always secretly enjoyed how Obi-Wan has always traced the metallic as if it was skin, pretending as if he could feel the softness of his fingers there; and in a way Maul can, even if it’s his own mind filling the gaps, even if it’s their energies so synchronized that they feel everything the other feels. It’s good, it’s enough, but he still longs for another universe in which he can feel Obi-Wan inside of him.

“Hey, are you with me?” Obi-Wan asks. One of his hands drops down from the nape of his neck to Maul’s chest and a thumb grazes his nipple, Maul moans.

“Where else would I be?” He pretends the tone to be matter-of-fact for a question so stupid, but it comes out strained.

Obi-Wan’s eyes open for a second, and then Obi-Wan says, “Good,” and kisses him hard, pinching his nipple.

Maul clenches his fist a little harder and feels Obi-Wan getting closer. It’s only a matter of minutes before Obi-Wan lets out a moaning grunt in an unmistakable sign that he’s close. Maul feels his own pleasure rise, as if his body has forgotten he does not get the luxury of a physical release. As a lot of things that happen between Obi-Wan and himself, it feels impossible and yet happen it does, and Maul feels himself coming and grunts against the skin on Obi-Wan’s shoulder, feeling Obi-Wan’s warmth spilling on his hand and his chest.

They stay like that, outside the cabin night is falling. Maul notices, and the goosebumps he can feel in Obi-Wan’s arms confirms it. Obi-Wan moves back his head and looks at him for a second that feels like minutes, and then cleans Maul’s chest, his hands and himself with the discarded undershirt.

“Let’s sleep,” he says. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Maul is too tired to fight, so he doesn’t even try.

The sunrise surprises them in bed. Maul is on his side, back to the duracrete of the wall, looking at Kenobi from his nearly-closed eyes. The shadows of Obi-Wan’s lashes make them seem even longer than they are; when his eyes move under the lids, the shadows undulate like the sand on the desert, like a fake sea.

He’s not asleep. Distrust taints the force between them. Although they’ve never tried to hurt each other after one of their encounters—they don’t work like that.

A truce is a truce and Maul might not have a lot to his name but he still has what remains of his honor.

There is something else. Obi-Wan is hiding something from him.

“I’ve been thinking and the question is not only why am I here, but why did you end up here? Hiding like a rat in the desert,” he spits, although it lacks the usual strength.

“Look who’s talking.”

“I didn’t even want to—Kenobi… Obi-Wan, “ he says, and then he inhales and exhales a couple of times. When he hears his name, Obi-Wan opens his eyes and looks back at him, guarded. “If you’re not hiding, at least from me, why are you—you’ve never done anything without a cause, have you?”

Obi-Wan stays silent, then. Maul is close to the truth—he is letting him see. Obi-Wan is letting him see. “You’re protecting something, here. No—someone.” He puts a hand over Obi-Wan’s chest and closes his eyes in concentration, trying to read him, and it finally hits him. “She—the queen. She gave birth, didn’t she? ”

A nod is all the confirmation he has. It's enough.

“Is it the chosen one?”

Obi-Wan smiles. Something sad and broken. “He is.”

Maul looks for him; he’s close. A bright, small, powerful ball of energy, son of one of the most powerful darksiders that have existed. “He can’t be found. By my old master or—or by his father. He must be protected, so he can avenge us.”

“So he can bring balance to the force, Maul.”

Maul shrugs. “That might be it for you.”

“As long as we both agree that he must be protected.”

Obi-Wan is giving him a chance, Maul realizes. Maul has never had that before, and the few times he has tried leaving the cursed path laid to him since he was a child he never succeeded. But this—to protect the chosen one. To know that, in time, the people that karked his life in so many different ways will pay; it feels like a purpose, direction.

Looking now at his old nemesis, his enemy, the only person that has ever given a damn for him, it feels like the Force is coming together in its own tortuous way. Maybe it’s here where he was fated to end as well.

“You didn’t have to let me come. You don’t need me,” he says, because he knows it’s true.

“Maybe not. But if something happens and I’m not able to fulfill my promise, I was hoping for a backup plan.”

Maul stays still, feeling his hearts pumping blood through his half-broken body. For a second he feels whole, and he accepts the fact that his fate, as well as his force presence, is tied up to Obi-Wan’s, hopelessly. He nods. “Darth Vader. You’re afraid he’ll kill you,” he says, and Obi-Wan nods. “I will help you. Force knows the child will need different ideas beyond the Jedi’s.”

“Maul—”

“I’m just saying, you didn’t end up so much better than me, in the end.”

Obi-Wan sighs. “I’m already starting to regret this,” he mutters, but then, after a minute, he says, “Are you staying for the night?”

It’s a stupid question. It’s morning, Maul’s going to say, but then he looks back at Obi-Wan, who has moved behind him, a hand reaching up to the nape of his neck.

Maul blinks and then nods, very slowly. “Yes. Yes, I’m staying.” Then, because he can, he puts his hand over Obi-Wan’s chest, already starting to sweat under Tattoine’s heat, and leans his head on the pillow, next to Obi-Wan’s.

Maul watches him close his eyes, and he does the same.