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Dusk washes across the horizon like blood, scarlet and yellow so polluted it looks like sweat and oil. The silhouettes of monstrous automatons lumber their way across dunes of garbage, belching fire across the scrap. A miasma of ash and molten durasteel poisons the thin, pockmarked atmosphere.
The diseased air burns down Maul’s throat. His lungs plead for something cleaner. He yearns for a breath deep below the surface, where the air is less vile; tasteless and humid. The morass of molten refuse acts as a filter from the pollution above. If one descends deep enough, the water even tastes like it came from below, from a world that may have existed an eon before this one. Maul can see a memory of what this planet might have been: cold and beautiful, rocky terrain carved by rich, nourishing rain.
But everything collapses in on itself. The poison will touch all water, sooner or later. The decay of the planet is complete. So is the decay of his mind.
He ignores his body’s need for water, ignores his hunger, ignores his skittish and superstitious fear of the surface. The sky turns green as night begins to settle in; a wound turning gangrenous. Soon, the acid rains will pour down, and he will have no choice but to retreat into his den below.
But he waits—waits until he cannot breathe, waits until he tastes blood between his teeth. He waits because someday, he knows the Jedi will come for him.
The dreams have been a part of his cycle since the beginning, although he cannot say that he remembers enough to delineate between the beginning and the middle. In his mind’s eye, he sees flashes of other things. He remembers colors that do not exist here. He remembers light, too—a billion stars scattered across the air and sinking into a night abyss. Surfaces gleaming like the mirrored edge of water…
Maul believes he is from another place, but he cannot say for certain whether it's a dream. He’s forgotten most things apart from his name. Maul. He remembers what it means, even if he can no longer speak. He remembers the shape of it, too, even if his throat and lips and tongue have forgotten how to form words—or if they ever could.
One thing he knows for certain, down to the darkest depths of himself, is that the Jedi will come. He can see it so clearly in his dreams, and he aches every time.
Can you understand me? Kenobi will ask. Take my hand, Maul. I won’t leave you here like this.
They will lift into the stars, and be in a place of void silence. Maul can feel those fingers spreading water between his horns. Damp thumbs slide over closed eyelids, palms blocking out everything but the sound of a pulse. Sometimes his own fingers trace those paths, trying to capture the memory of those visions… but his fingers are cold. His claws only ever draw blood.
Someday, someday, someday!
So he waits. Each hungry night passes to the thirst and heat of day, and relief only comes in the form of dreams. But it is enough to keep him hunting; enough to keep him rising to the surface. Enough to keep him alive.
One day, Maul wakes up, and he thinks he must be dreaming. There’s a presence in the tunnels. It burns bright, like a star has fallen and tumbled into the refuse. It does not belong here. In his mind, that light carries within it all the colors he remembers—the subtle hue of violet mingling blue, untouched by rot and decay. It reveals within it an unseen dimension, beauty and warmth that tastes like grief and joy.
Maul lurks through the darkness, dragging a broken and tired carapace behind. He embodies a strange mix of grace and clumsiness. He knows how to maneuver all the broken pieces of himself.
So does the Jedi.
Maul sees him now, at the end of the tunnel. Kenobi is a dark silhouette, the ink edges of his form bleeding into the foreground. Maul’s eyes were once very sharp… but all decays. Even he cannot escape the poison that hangs in the air.
There is no force great enough to still Maul now. He lurches forward, the noisy and grinding machinery filling the space. It sounds like a mountain of broken things collapsing in on itself, painful even to his own ears. He does not stop until he is upon Kenobi, hanging from the tunnel above, legs buried deep in the porous refuse. He reaches out and touches a face that he had often dreamed of, and he feels warmth spread beneath his hand like fire. It burns its way up through his arm, his chest, his stomach. It fills him in a way he cannot understand. A universe beyond this hell seems to pour through that touch.
A light pierces the darkness. A sword splits open the world and reveals the shape of all that had been before unseen. Maul recoils, but his hand lingers upon Kenobi's face. He's trapped in that touch, half-mad with delight, with pleasure, with hunger. Maul stares at that brilliance until his eyes burn, amazed. Blue, he thinks, even though he barely remembers what that means.
The sword hangs in the air, unmoving. Kenobi does not strike him down.
Maul quivers. His fingers press beneath the edges of a jawbone. He is hungry enough to imagine gnawing all the meat from that bone. But the heat paralyzes him. Any thoughts of violence collapse beneath the weight of all that time. He has waited for so long!
Maul collapses. His limbs crumble and he falls, gasping against the poison, suddenly so conscious of the pain. The sores on his skin; the lacerations within his throat; the scar tissue beneath his belly. He is so tired.
“How could you have survived?” Kenobi asks. It sounds like an accusation. “What are you?”
But Maul has no answers to give. He doesn’t remember.
Time passes. Maul follows the light, and Kenobi coaxes him from the tunnel. He’s gentle. He’s soft. I won’t leave you here, he says. Maul is so entranced by the light that even the dread of the surface does not stop him. He follows and follows, and suddenly he is aboard a metal vessel. Kenobi extinguishes the light. Maul’s eyes hold onto it, the afterimages burning bright against the quiet darkness.
“Stay here,” Kenobi says. “I need to get us off this planet.”
Maul understands, but he also doesn’t understand. The connection between them leaving and Kenobi leaving is unclear. He follows closely behind. Kenobi goes into the front of the vessel and into a small room with many blinking, fire-bright lights. Beyond the dashboard, Maul can see the familiar rotting sunset.
He crams as much of himself as he can into that small room.
“Maul, you don’t have to—”
But Maul isn’t listening. He reaches out behind Kenobi, claws ripping into the seat to keep himself as close as he can manage. His metal body grinds against the doorframe.
Kenobi stops trying to make him leave. He sighs, his head tipping back. Maul can almost touch his hair.
“Just don’t press anything,” Kenobi says.
And then the ship lifts. They shoot up into the yellow pool of the sky, and they sink and sink until they emerge into darkness and stars.
“How did you survive?” Kenobi asks him, again. “Thirteen years…”
They are in the back of the vessel. Everything is scentless and cold. The air doesn’t hurt to breathe. There are many metal boxes filled with things, mostly food and water. Kenobi gives him something that tastes uninteresting yet satisfies his body. Maul hasn’t eaten in four sunsets. He is wise enough to his own body to not devour the food too quickly, no matter how much he aches for sustenance.
“Can’t you speak at all?”
Maul doesn’t answer, which is an answer. Instead, his large metal body shuffles him closer to Kenobi. He buries himself in the heat of his shoulder, teeth biting down on the fabric to keep him anchored there. Kenobi balks, and the bright sword pierces the darkness again. Its lovely and familiar song bringing forth an anticipatory shiver.
When Kenobi realizes it isn’t an attack, the sword disappears again. He’s perturbed.
“If I had known…”
But he hadn’t known.
Maul sleeps. He finds a dark corner to curl up in and he stays there, shivering and restless. He can sense Kenobi close by, and it soothes his mind. The dreams that used to comfort him haven’t gone away, either. He feels Kenobi’s gentle fingers when he sleeps, a memory of something that has not yet happened.
Kenobi touching his face, grabbing his horns.
The wet touch of his lips.
And heat.
Kenobi hasn’t comforted him yet. Kenobi, for the most part, has stayed away from him. He has nightmares. When he wanders the ship, he seems lost. In all the places that Maul expects warmth, he only finds emptiness. He cannot put words to the loss, but he feels it. He aches.
Maul keeps to himself, but clings when Kenobi comes near to him. Kenobi permits the closeness in a resigned sort of way. Sometimes, it seems to hurt him. It seems to distress him… but none of that stops Maul. He has waited for too long, and suffered too much. He clings tighter, until Kenobi shrugs away from him and disappears again.
Maul shivers. Kenobi is so far away… his mind is as empty and cold as the void of space. Their vessel drifts without a destination in mind. Everything feels like it is hanging in that suspension, waiting for the pull of gravity.
Contact comes in the form of water.
Maul awakens to the noise of dripping and sloshing. He jumps, panicked. For a moment he thinks that the acid rain must be flooding the tunnel again. But there’s a hand on his arm, so hot against his own skin that it’s almost a burn. It settles him. His claws bury into Kenobi’s robes, and he quakes. His desperation becomes feverish when Kenobi is near to him.
“Easy,” soothes Kenobi. “I’m here. Just let me…”
Kenobi sets down a bucket of water. Maul is half tempted to drink it, but when he dips his hand past the surface, it’s steaming hot. And pleasant. He lets his fingers soak there, his upper body curling down against his metal carapace. His many legs fold around him, completely inert. He feels that his body is starting to come apart, that it is a mistake to relax even for a moment…
He doesn’t care. He can’t keep holding it together. He was never meant to be like this.
Kenobi slides a damp cloth over his face. The pleasure in the act leaves him breathless, trembling and yearning in ways he cannot fathom.
“I’ve had nightmares about you for as long as I’ve known you,” said Kenobi. “I thought it was trauma, or fear… or some terrible construct of my own mind. This image of you, scuttling through the ruins… Alone.”
“How did you find me?”
The words rasp and grind. Maul’s unused throat aches. Maul hasn’t spoken at all for years, yet his tongue somehow remembers the shape of the question. He’s wanted to ask that question for a long time, after all.
“So you can talk.” Kenobi gives him the first smile he’s ever given him. "I'm glad."
The cloth slides down Maul’s neck. The white fabric is already black with old blood, with oil, with dust. The black flecks of water are staining Kenobi’s white robes, but he doesn’t seem to care. He keeps washing Maul's skin. The cloth follows the crisscross patterns of old tattoos, as if he’s trying to scrub them away.
“How did I find you,” repeats Kenobi, his voice a contemplative hum. “I’ve been wondering that myself. I suppose… It was a moment of confluence. I felt a grief that I never had before. And when that happened, I saw you. I knew you were alive. I knew where you were.”
Kenobi smiles. It’s not a warm expression.
“The Force can be strange, sometimes.”
Maul wonders what misery brought him here, but he knows Kenobi won’t tell him.
The water is black and cold before long. Kenobi refills the bucket again. Maul drapes himself over Kenobi's shoulder as he slides the cloth down the length of his spine. He feels the sting of a thousand little sores, but the pleasure is so immense that he doesn’t care. The warm water pools at the base of his spine, trickling down the gaps of his ribs. When Kenobi washes his broken horns, Maul melts. A sudden, long-forgotten noise erupts from his mouth—a purr.
Kenobi is so delighted by the noise that he laughs. Maul bites him for it, but he also doesn’t stop. Kenobi doesn’t seem to realize what he’s doing… or maybe he does. Maul tips his horns into those hands, languishing in adoration. He's achingly docile. There is nothing to hunt. There is nothing hunting him. He is tame, and the delicate touch against his horns signals only that it is time to submit.
Tension unwinds. Maul’s wet hands press against Kenobi’s robes, leaving black handprints. His fingers curl around solid hips, his thumbs press to the hollow beneath Kenobi’s stomach. Their minds are close enough now that he can feel the sudden, guilty heat that follows Maul’s touch. Yet Kenobi still doesn’t let go of his horns—he holds them tight, firm and commanding.
Kenobi must sense the meaning now. He’s trembling.
Maul’s clawed fingers descend. He finds his way between Kenobi’s thighs, fingers curling against the canvas that separates him from Kenobi’s sex organ. He can already feel that it’s different from a zabrak’s—softer and thicker, devoid of the ridges that Maul remembers of his own sex.
Maul’s own body is no longer complete, but he can feel the phantom tingles of lust and arousal all the same. He remembers, like a dream, what it felt like to pleasure himself. He remembers his fantasies, too—the desire that he folded away into the darkest, coldest parts of his mind.
He feels that desire clawing free now, like a trapped animal on the edge of breaking a rusty chain.
No one ever touched his horns before. He never allowed anyone close enough to try. It was too dangerous, too meaningful. He feels the imperative, biological mantra: submit, submit, submit.
And he wants to submit. Everything is unraveling. He knows that Kenobi was once his enemy, the architect of this hell... but it doesn’t matter, because he is telling Maul to bow to him, and Maul is indeed bowing.
You defeated me, so you can do what you want with me, Maul’s cells whisper. And in this animal state, he is little more than the flesh that holds him together. The instincts lurking beneath his shattered thoughts are in complete control.
Kenobi stands rigid before him, his eyes glossy and half-closed, his hands shaking. And still, he holds Maul's horns. He’ll hold them the whole time, if he knows exactly what he’s doing. As if he understands.
(He must understand.)
Kenobi steps back until his body finds a crate. He doesn’t take his hands away from Maul’s horns, so Maul lifts him and sets him on the edge of the durasteel surface. It brings them to eye level, but only for a moment. Maul is quick to shrink down, to bow himself to his mate. He presses his face against the damp weave of Kenobi’s robes. He can taste Kenobi's desire-sweat, even beneath the filth and fabric.
Hands tremble with an impatience that Maul refuses to indulge. He does not rip and tear the robes free, no, he must be patient. His claw tips work the belt buckle free. He parts Kenobi’s robes, pushing aside every layer of fabric until he finds the soft, haired stomach beneath. When his claws touch bare skin, Kenobi utters a strangled, nervous whimper. Maul tastes fear.
Yet Kenobi still holds on. And so the ritual continues.
The scent of lust is overpowering. Maul bows his head, his nose sliding against Kenobi’s navel. If this were a Nightsister, he would be able to detect the scent of ovulation. Even though he has never had a woman, his mind tells him it would be a sweet, bloody scent. But this is Kenobi, and Kenobi smells of masculinity, of heat, of sweat. It shoots right through Maul’s brain, a breath of instinct and desire—all for him.
His lips roll back against his teeth. It is only a whisper of good sense that stops him from sinking mating bites across Kenobi’s vulnerable stomach. The hands on his horns keep him in check, keep him compliant. When he lowers his head, his tongue slides against the gold-silver hairs peppered across Kenobi’s belly. The noise that Kenobi makes—a keening and delicate whine—is completely at odds with the raw and lustful hunger that Maul smells all over him. The juxtaposition gives Maul pause. He finally lifts his eyes to look into Kenobi’s face.
Kenobi is staring down at him, his flushed skin glossy with sweat. In the ambient light of the ship, he shines silver-blue. His robes are disheveled, marked with the black of Maul’s handprints. His expression is raw—desire, yes, but also misery. The more he yields, the less he hides.
Maul perches his chin against Kenobi’s hip. He can feel Kenobi’s erection against the side of his throat. His hips squirm; a wordless plea for friction. Maul pushes back, chin and lips mapping the clothed erection.
Kenobi groans. The noise is close enough to a purr to earn a shiver from Maul. “You don’t need to—”
Maul loses interest in Kenobi’s guilty conscience quickly. He presses his cheek against the erection, nuzzling—feline-like—against the stiffening length. Kenobi utters a choked noise, almost a sob, his hips jutting upwards against Maul’s jaw. His fingers tighten around Maul’s horns, wrenching him closer, seeking closeness and contact even as his guilt compounds.
Maul obliges happily, metal legs twitching as he nestles closer. His hands move anxiously between Kenobi’s thighs, pawing into the heat beneath Kenobi’s robes. He feels the hard organ twitch against his touch, eager. Kenobi loosens his grip on Maul’s horns like he wants to reach down and help. Thankfully, he stops himself last second.
“Maul,” breathes Kenobi. “Won’t you—?”
But Maul doesn’t. He doesn't want permission. He wants an order. He looks up at Kenobi, his purr settling into a low, impatient growl. But he stays still, obedient despite his desperation.
Comprehension crosses Kenobi’s face, and his flush deepens.
Kenobi doesn’t try to moralize, doesn’t try to stop. He jerks his grip on Maul’s horns, enough to command him.
“Take them off,” he breathes.
And Maul eagerly, eagerly does as he’s told. He pulls Kenobi’s robes free, pulls away the tunic beneath and the pants and boots and everything else that’s separating them. Kenobi's body seems fragile, soft flesh and old scars beneath a dusting of hair. His cock falls against his belly, red and dark. It’s a strange, human change of color. His translucent skin reveals the blood beneath, the veins purple against red skin.
Maul utters a low keen. He doesn’t have to ask permission, and he doesn’t have to wait to indulge—Kenobi pushes his head down, arching up to push his cock against Maul’s chin and lips. The scent is dizzying, the slickness of his arousal clouding Maul’s senses. Nothing else exists.
“Suck,” says Kenobi—forcefully, this time. The command is so firm that Maul has no choice but to obey. And he does, wrapping his lips around Kenobi’s cock, letting the warm, soft length slide straight to the back of his throat. His purrs settle into a slow, resonant drone; powerful vibrations that he knows will please his mate.
Telling from Kenobi’s squirming, he’s more than succeeding.
Although Kenobi is the one in control, Maul enjoys that he’s the one with the freedom to move. His hands slide across Kenobi’s chest, claws drawing across his nipples, his ribs, his scars. Kenobi is a responsive lover, loud in his pleasure. In the perfect silence of space, they are safe and alone and Kenobi is content to whimper as much as he likes. Every breath and strangled whine makes Maul’s skin tingle. His body aches for Kenobi’s touch, for the soft contact of palms and fingertips against his spine, his ribs, his neck… but the grip on his horns is worth more. It soothes a part of himself that he barely understands. After all his suffering, it feels good to resign himself to Kenobi’s control, to let Kenobi guide him and care for him, just as he dreamed. Those visions had soothed him in the worst of his misery. They kept his sanity in check.
The taste thickens, the musky pheromones of human desire intoxicating him. Every broken piece of his body crowds towards that scent. His metal legs claw their way around the crate, yearning to grab Kenobi, to hold him down like prey—but he doesn’t. He is—for as long as Kenobi holds his horns—domesticated. ...Just barely.
His clawed fingertips draw sharp lines across Kenobi’s thighs and hips. Kenobi doesn’t seem to mind the blood. He doesn't seem to notice. He’s used to pain. Maul isn't sure whether that pleases him. He senses his own resentment. It boils underneath, as potent as his adoration. He remembers… enough. He remembers who caused his injuries. But he feels his own pain mirrored in Kenobi. He feels the loss and misery that reeks alongside the lust, and it mollifies him.
They are both broken. The scales of the universe are in balance. And now, now, now… Kenobi wants him, Kenobi submits to his mouth and in turn, Maul submits to his warmth.
He can feel the subtle heat as Kenobi draws closer to the edge. His own impatience mirrors the Jedi’s, his legs folding and skittering against the hard floor beneath. Kenobi’s leg slides over Maul’s shoulder, hooking around the back of his neck, holding him down. Kenobi enjoys the subtle display of control. And Maul enjoys it too. He enjoys the quiet violence in the gesture, the sting in his lungs as Kenobi’s cock forces itself past the back of his throat. Maul doesn’t choke, but the discomfort burns and the humiliation excites him. He swallows obediently, and purrs as hard as his tired voice can manage. He feels pieces of Kenobi’s ecstasy at the edges of his own consciousness; little shocks of bliss that find their way to the place his own cock used to be. He can feel it, the pressure of climax that draws towards its peak. His lips and tongue tighten greedily around Kenobi, urging him on.
It doesn’t take long. Kenobi grows quiet, his breaths deepening, his hands tightening on Maul’s horns. He quivers, every muscle bound up, his leg trembling as it tightens around Maul’s neck.
And then, all at once, everything unravels.
Kenobi is quiet as he cums, biting back every fragile whimper and sob that threatens to spill from his lips. But Maul’s ears are sensitive. He can hear the pounding of Kenobi’s heart, the thinness of his breaths, the tightening muscles. Kenobi tries to hide the broken, shameful pleasure he feels in this domination, but he can’t.
Maul enjoys it. He enjoys the bitter taste of Kenobi’s seed. He enjoys the scent of guilt, of misery, of fragility. It makes him feel safe.
Maul doesn’t release Kenobi. He settles himself there, not sucking—simply purring, soft and content. This, too, is part of the ritual. He will stay here as long as his mate wants him to… and for as long as he can get away with it.
Kenobi doesn’t push him away. He releases his horns, moving back to shakily massage Maul’s nape. He squeezes there, firm and dominant… but even Maul knows it's more for his sake than anything. But that’s fine, as long as Kenobi continues to indulge him.
He closes his eyes. He purrs. Kenobi soothes his fingers over his head, following the paths of tattoos. And he continues, again and again, until Maul dozes, Kenobi’s soft cock still tucked into his rumbling throat.
He wakes again to warm, wet cloth against his skin. He feels the slow and gentle glide of fabric descending along his back, and up over his shoulders… and then down to his metal legs and broken carapace. The warmth of the water is deepened by the icy cold of the ship’s hold, but it isn’t unpleasant. The discomfort is chased away. It returns, only to be chased away again.
In the end, Kenobi wraps him up in something warm and soft. Kenobi settles on the crate again, cocooned in robes, damp from his own shower. On the surface, he smells clean—but Maul can smell his desire all the same.
Kenobi is gentle, yes, just like Maul knew he would be… but Maul senses the intention behind that gentleness. He understands what Kenobi wants from him. So he obliges, bowing over his mate. His lips and tongue trail a slow path between Kenobi’s thighs. He settles his mouth back on that warm, soft cock, and purrs until it hardens.
Kenobi runs the cloth over Maul’s horns, cleaning away the grime there. Maul’s purring only grows louder, more appreciative. He pulls the blankets around his own body, wrapped up in warmth and Kenobi’s scent. He cannot imagine a greater pleasure.
“We’re going somewhere new,” Kenobi murmurs, his voice little more than a sigh. “A… very warm planet. A place where you’ll have plenty of places to hide. And hunt, I suppose.”
Through their connection, Maul can see the place that Kenobi speaks of. It’s familiar to him. Golden sands glimmer beneath a pair of brutal suns. The landscapes are beautiful and empty. There are many hiding places there; ravines and tunnels and caves that will shield him. And Kenobi will be there. He will stay with him, loyal out of guilt, loyal out of misery… but that’s fine. It’s fine. Maul is loyal for the same reasons.
Maul begins to apply a little bit of pressure against Kenobi’s cock, tongue lazily gliding along the underside. Kenobi’s breath hitches, hand cupping the back of Maul’s neck—firm enough to pin him there. Just a little bit of control.
Maul melts, and draws Kenobi deeper into his throat.
“Maybe your mind will begin to heal there,” Kenobi murmurs. “I can help you, if you just stay with me…”
His words drift away beneath the warm, slow heat of Maul’s tongue. He lays back on the crate again, unrushed in his pleasure, letting Maul lavish attention upon him. The pleasure chases out everything else. Kenobi lets himself linger at the edge of ecstasy for a long, long time before he finally allows Maul to coax him over the edge. Climax is like a flash of bright light; something beautiful and brief, leaving only a glimmering afterimage. Maul swallows down every drop of Kenobi’s seed, just as before.
He expects to stay there, as he had last time, but Kenobi grabs his horn and pulls him up. Maul growls, annoyed at having been denied the reassuring weight of his mate’s cock against his tongue, and Kenobi is quick to soothe him. He draws Maul close, hands curling behind Maul’s shoulders. He locks Maul with his arms and legs, chest-to-chest.
…This must be a human thing, Maul thinks.
He indulges his mate, perching his head on Kenobi’s shoulder. He folds his arms against his own chest, and self-consciously permits Kenobi to hold him. He doesn’t understand it entirely… not at first. Their shared warmth fills up the space under the blanket, and Kenobi’s fingertips trace patterns along the notches of Maul’s spine. The pleasure is inescapable. Maul yields to it, his muscles unwinding, his face pressing against the side of Kenobi’s throat. He can feel his mate’s fluttering pulse beneath his lips.
Maul remembers, as if from a life that was never his, the brutal punishment he once received for sentimentality, for tenderness. He had once been terrified of the calamities that would follow such acts. Those punishments are not worse than what he has already experienced, so he fears nothing.
He senses that same resignation in Kenobi now. What more could possibly happen to them? What worse pain could be inflicted?
There is freedom in oblivion. When Maul nuzzles against Kenobi’s cheek, Kenobi doesn’t hesitate to kiss him. Even the bitterness of old blood and cum on Maul’s lips doesn’t dissuade him. He kisses him as if he’d never tasted anything quite so wonderful. There is no guilt, no hesitation—only the mutual, desperate need to tangle themselves together, like two starving wolves seeking warmth.
For now, the warmth is enough to keep them alive. It has to be.