Archive of Our Own

The galaxy is a lonely place.

Despite the sheer magnitude of its population, where each planet has a varying abundance of life, it is often a painfully lonely existence everyone leads. Everybody drifts through the environment they were given at birth, haunting their own homes until wanderlust, fortune, or death takes them somewhere other than where they are. Always, it seems, everyone is a visitor, a stranger, a distant someone far, far from everybody else.

Sometimes though, there are brief moments of collision, when paths cross and companionship is found between people who were independent for too long. Maybe that companionship lasts for only one cheerful or lustful night, maybe it stretches to the morning after, maybe it strains for a week or two, pulled tight until it snaps, or maybe, just maybe, it lasts even longer, becomes a chance to abate the loneliness.

~

A history ago, on a ragged planet with a bloody sky, a witch births a crimson son who’s connected to the Force with a link stronger than she’s ever seen. He’s stronger than her magick, stronger than the very ichor that pulses at her planet’s core. It makes the witch fear, and in her fear, she becomes angry. The red son lives a life subjected to her anger and fear until he is five, when his younger brother is born, also powerful, also strong. The son isn’t as scared anymore.

It ends when the son turns eight, when he arrives. He is a Force user, like the son, but he is something dark, shrouded in robes blacker than a starless midnight sky. He reeks of the stench of death, it taints the air, stains the ground. Sours everything. He brings with him a battalion of droid troopers and bad intentions. The son is a part of those intentions.

The witch is afraid of him, but she is also practical, so she offers (sells) the crimson son to him to ensure an alliance. The son becomes a bargaining chip, nothing more than a political deal. He gladly accepts, and the battalion is given to the witch in return. He guides the son away with a steady hand on the shoulder and an earful of lies.

The son does not see the witch, the red planet, or his younger brother for years.

~

Hyperspace travel, shipping yards, palaces, pod races, speeders, bustling markets, cantinas; all in motion— everywhere, all the time. Nothing ever slows down, nothing is never not moving. There is always somewhere to be, somewhere to go, people to see, to avoid, places to be discovered.

It’s movement that’s kept you alive and hidden since you were born, but it’s also this same movement that makes you painfully aware of how ungrounded your life has to be. Ever since you were six years old, since your drunk-angry father came back, since the first Seeker tried to take you, since your mother died, you have had to move. Planet hopping, never staying too long, always jumping from one village to the next.

Each one you occupied for only a week at most, and in that time you’d pick up the odd job that was easy to maintain and came relatively easy to you: babysitting. Children are a commonality in most star systems, though stable homes and parents are not. So you would give back to each tiny village you could, watching the young so that their parents or guardians wouldn’t have to worry about keeping the family afloat and making sure their child didn’t go running off, never to be seen again.

(Truth is that happens a lot, and everyone knows it, but no one likes to speak the words “slavers” and “traffickers”.)

Babysitting also reminds you of your mother, and she instilled in you the love and care that she believed each child deserves. You decided to make that your mission as well, for as long as you could until you had to part ways and move again. The names of every child that you’ve ever cared for sit tenderly in your mind.

For a long time, you cursed the Force for making you live this way, it gave you nothing but heartache, pain, and fear— a lifetime of constantly looking over your shoulder. Seekers followed you for years until you were finally able to figure out how to mask your signature, to make yourself even more of a nobody to the galaxy. (The children remember you, though. They always do.)

But you never stopped moving, despite honing your skills and being safer than you ever had before. It just didn’t seem right to stop, to settle— you had never had it before, so why would you even bother? There was too much danger involved, too much unknown to stay more than a week on some backwater planet in a dingy hotel room.

Too much risk, so you keep moving.

You move, until it’s after many years and space trips, you find yourself on Naboo.

~

Somewhere, two Jedi face a determined Sith.

Somewhere, the Sith slays the Master and leaves the padawan grieving and angry.

Somewhere, the padawan almost exacts revenge.

~

In the market, you’re startled by an intensity that knocks the wind from your chest, as if you’ve taken a hefty spill, despite the fact you’re standing perfectly upright. The feeling, to your shock and dismay, tightens on you, like a boa constricting your entire being. It feels like your lungs have stopped functioning, like you’re being ripped apart, and you gasp for breath like a fish out of water, grasping at your throat. What is happening? What is happening?

A strangled, terrifying wave of fear rolls over you like a tsunami just as the excruciating iciness of pain doubles tenfold with your next breath. It claws at your insides like an animal locked in a cage, shredding at your abdomen with a terrible fervor. 

You feel like you’re dying.

The vendor across from you looks concerned, and she says something, but the blood pounding in your ears doesn’t allow you to hear it. Instead, you push away from her stand, leaving all the produce and your credits behind, hastily making your way back to your ship on shaking legs. 

Each step is Hell, stumbling and painful, as if knives are being pushed into your flesh only to be ripped out before plunging in again. The white hot agony brings tears to your eyes, and they blur your sight alongside the black splotches that mar it as well. Your mind cannot get the ignition of a lightsaber, the searing flesh, and gore out of your head.

Somehow, you manage to fall to your knees just outside your ship, just as a headache the size of a planet crashes down on you. Wheezing, you crawl to your open bay door, each movement burning like you’re walking on hot coals. The pain is so consuming, nothing breaks it, not even when you attempt to pull the Force to yourself, to relieve some of the anguish out of desperation.

It doesn’t work, if anything making it worse, and you writhe on the ground half on your ship’s bay door, half on the hangar floor. With glassy eyes you’re able to see figures above you, pulsing with alarm and worry, but your vision goes black, and you crash into unconsciousness.

~ 

Maul wakes from saving his own life shuddering violently all over, in a peculiar mix of pain, anger, and the remnants of his earlier absolute terror somewhere in the middle. Each heave of his chest makes his body scream, sending bolts of white hot pain stabbing across his entire person. He almost chokes on the bile that has risen in his throat, his vision blurry and obscured by black spots that threaten to pull him back into oblivion.

The Force around him shakes as much as he does, trembling with the remnants of unadulterated panic, a delirium so potent it drudges Maul through the events of what just transpired— what he nearly died from. Visions of Kenobi’s electric blue lightsaber, the breaking and cauterizing of his body, his own intestines spilling from him—

Maul writhes on the ground in the sticky, wet puddle of his own blood, spit, and vomit, covered in the mess from head to toe, for what seems like hours until he’s able to roll himself onto his side. Panting and groaning like a wounded dog, Maul gathers up all his willpower and forces himself to focus on that simmering, tempting anger at his core. His bloodshot eyes flit downwards and the sight of his tattered robes atop his marred, raw, throbbing midsection makes him feel all at once sick and furious.

How long has he been here? How long has no one come for him, thought of him and his successful survival? He is meant to have allies, promised that safety net, yet he still is here, alone and only half-alive.

How dare he? 

Maul can’t decide if his anger is aimed at Kenobi, or the Jedi Master he slew, or his Master that orchestrated it all. He can’t decide if he’s ashamed and embarrassed about his failure, his near death, all the pathetic things he did in order to still be alive, or if it’s a mix of all of it. All he knows is the wrath that bubbles inside him, warms his cold body to a fever pitch, until he’s snarling and howling up the elevator shaft, into the open, lonely air, 

“HOW DARE YOU!?”

It feels like being taken from Dathomir all over again.

~

There were weeks of suffering after what had happened to you on Naboo.

 At first, the mysterious phantom pain was still so intense you spent days in a medic center weeping and incapacitated on a cot, the doctors and healers unsure of your condition. Pain medication didn’t dull the ache, if anything it loosened your grip on the Force surrounding you and made everything hurt even more. For the first time in your life, you prayed to the Maker in your desperation.

It eventually let up, leaving you with its scar. 

Months later now, the ache is localized to your abdomen, specifically an invisible throbbing line just below your navel that seems to stop abruptly before it reaches the other side of your torso. But as there always has been, there is no discernable wound or mark on you, there is nothing physically wrong. Your skin is fine, the muscle and organs beneath it as well, everything looks as it should.

But the ache plagues you constantly, sometimes it flares up and leaves you crying and heaving, other times it is so dull you almost forget it’s there. But you’re reminded at seemingly the most random intervals; it will strike when you are sitting down reading, or when you’re pouring yourself some caf, or it will wake you in the middle of the night, making you lie awake until morning.

Though one night you don’t jolt awake from the flaring agony of “your” wound, but from something else entirely— a dream. Or rather, a nightmare, as it was anything but the pleasant, if not weird, nighttime visions you usually had, but there was something about it that felt different, real.

You had dreamed of a young boy, obviously not human due to his cherry red skin and small ring of horns, running frantically from someone the dream never revealed to you, but implicitly made you feel utter dread at the thought of the boy being caught. The boy, which you realized was tattooed with inky black markings, had an odd mix of drive and fear on his face. He ran like his life depended on it, as it probably did, and at one point, the boy looked over his shoulder, lips parting to release a silent scream.

There, in the distance, a man completely shrouded by black robes. He lifts a hand and—

You had woken up before anything else happened, but the nightmare left you panting and in a cold sweat. Nothing good came after that, you just knew it. It puzzled you as to why you’d have such a vivid, intensely real dream. It felt like watching a holofilm, but deeper, more personal.

It felt like a memory.

~

As it would turn out, a near bisection would, in fact, leave a person with a hefty, painful healing period.

Maul spent the first month holed up on his ship, not even attempting to do anything about the agony his body was in. He couldn’t will himself to tend to the wound with bacta, couldn’t use the Force to relieve any of the intensity. All he could do was hunch over the command board of his ship, ashen and shaking, sweating through his clothes in pain.

The second month is spent reteaching himself to walk again which is as humiliating as it is painful. He feels like his legs could fall off any second, that the scar across his center could tear at the seams and spill his guts to the floor all over again. It scares him as it angers him, the icy fear leaves him cold only moments before the heat of his soaring temper replaces it. He gains enough strength from his spite and itch for vengeance to pilot his ship to the nearest moon: Nar Shaddaa. The Smuggler’s Moon.

The third month, Maul is well enough to kill a Hutt spice lord, and everyone else in his way. He does it all to prove the myth of the boogeyman Sith a reality, to send a message straight to his Master, to make Sidious angry. It’s bold and reckless, but Maul is too fed up and angry himself to care about the consequences. Acting out of line is unheard of for a Sith, but Maul decides to shed that shackle and chain. It’s high time he stop licking the boot.

The fourth month, Maul takes full control of the dead Hutt’s spice ring and rules with fear and an iron fist. He kills anyone that crosses him and more. He waits for Sidious, but he never comes. Maybe his former Master thinks him dead, but that’s as unlikely as a bantha growing wings and taking flight. Or Tatooine turning into a water planet.

It comes as both a cold and hot revelation when Maul realizes that Darth Sidious just doesn’t care. Sith shed other Sith like hairs falling from the follicle. A loss of a single strand does nothing to affect the whole. Betrayal comes second nature to them. Usually it is death that takes them, but Sidious sends the very clear message back that Maul is not worth the effort to kill. 

Maul stays alive only by the mocking indifference of his former Master and leaves Nar Shaddaa and his criminal empire by the seventh month, furious and abandoned all over again.

Until, when one day he’s in hyperspace going nowhere, he’s not.

He feels a disturbance in the Force. 

~

One day, you feel a tug, like a string’s been tied to your side and pulls you to… somewhere. At first, you think it’s the beginning of another uncontrollable ache, or another one of those visions that have been happening during the day, but when neither occurs, you’re left with that strange pull.

It messed with you again when you were caring for the younglings of the Ithorian settlement that had offered you sanctuary. The chubby youngling in your arms squealed happily when you jolted, despite you almost dropping him. The pull had moved, like it’s other end had jumped a vast distance in mere seconds…

“My apologies, little ones.” You murmured to the group of Ithorian youths crowding you, who all spoke in their native tongue happily, any worry they might have had at your startled expression gone when you swooped up two more of them, making the squeal. With an armful of chattering children, and even more at your feet, you glanced to the heavens, where the stars were hidden by the blanket of the daytime sky.

You hadn’t had time to ponder it further because two of the older children had decided to start biting one another, and then there were more pressing things to worry about.

Later though, at night in the hut you’d been given, you finally had time alone to meditate, something that you rarely did but mattered for figuring out what was happening to you. You channeled your concentration and focused on the tug at your side, uncharacteristically pronounced and apparent for a product of the Force.

You learned it tampers with the energy around you, the intangible line immovable and unaffected by any of your attempts to mess with it. Instead, every time you reached out with your presence to try and dissipate it, the pull grew only stronger, becomes more and more easy to reach, but soars in its durability.

Over time you discovered it really draws you to wherever it wants you to go, guides your feet when you allow it, and protests when you have to turn the opposite direction to actually board your ship when you needed to leave Ithor.

The Force practically sings when you set your small freighter to hyperdrive in the direction the pull demands, apparently the speed and rapidly waning distance pleases it. It crosses your mind briefly, as you stare into the blurred streaks of stars in hyperspace, that you’ve found yourself traveling all over again. Of course, abandoning yet another planet, another village, another group of kind strangers, doesn’t fully bother you (not anymore) as it would some others, you’ve done it all your life. 

Except this time— again, you curiously tug at the ghostly string to be delightfully surprised it tugs back (strangely with some aggression)— this time there’s a different purpose as to why you’re on the move again. Something beckons you…

Someone awaits. 

~

Maul is beyond annoyed with the infernal, metaphysical thorn in his side when he arrives on Endor, when it finally seems to let up on dragging him for it’s every whim. It doesn’t disappear, but it does feel dulled, like it’s slacked instead of pulled tight. He’s nearly caught off guard hours after landing, when the line becomes taut, so sudden it yanks him physically and makes him stumble.

Instinctively, Maul projects at the pull in offensive defense, like he had the first time it appeared, but this time it reacts aggressively, sending a near painful jolt throughout his entire body. Coddling his pride, Maul begrudgingly bites his tongue and decides not to toy with it any further. As he allows the Force around him to relieve the tense guards he had placed, the pull seems to take over, urging him to follow.

Unwillingly to aggravate it again, and admittedly very curious but also irate, Maul lets his feet glide in the direction the string pulls him, drifting through Endor’s lush forests like a sailboat at sea. It takes him quite a bit of distance away from his ship, pulling him over a mountain ridge to the lip of a plunging valley. The wind whistles through the trees, and the pull beckons him downwards.

After a winding walk down the mountainside, Maul reaches a clutch of trees, where just past them he’s able to see the gunmetal silver of a ship. Instantly cautious, he hides behind one of the trees, shrouded in shadow, and masks himself with the Force. Nearly completely unnoticeable, he watches a woman descend the ramp of the freighter.

She’s a tiny thing, soft looking too, sticking out like a sore thumb against the harsh edges of (presumably) her ship and the tall, daunting trees of Endor. Her robes are also entirely out of place, delicate fabrics of even more delicate colors, pastels and tans. Maul’s eyes narrow. There’s no reason she should be so deep into Endor’s wilderness, but Maul doesn’t think it’s a coincidence either.

The woman’s wide, doe-eyes dart around, scanning the area, seemingly searching for something. Her arms are at her chest, hands fiddling with her loose scarf, and Maul watches as she takes a couple more nervous steps until she steps off the ramp entirely.

… And the millisecond she steps onto Endor’s grassy earth, the pull literally yanks Maul from his hiding spot.

“Kriff!” He curses the same time the woman shrieks in shock, and he immediately regains his footing, taking a defensive stance to cover his moment of weakness. The woman’s staring at him wide-eyed and fearful, so Maul bares his teeth in a snarl, delighting internally when she takes a step back in fear. It’s embarrassing enough that she bore witness to his… unfortunate affliction, so he will not have her 

“Who are you?” He growls, shoulders rising in challenge, one that he’s willing and able to give should she try anything. Instead of answering, the woman takes another step back in growing terror that he can feel seep from her, her face going as ashen as a birch tree. Maul’s scowl deepens, of course, such a pathetically dainty looking thing would find it only natural to freeze.

“I will ask you only once more. Who are—” Maul cuts himself off when he feels the phantasmal inkling of a cowering Force signature, one that’s attempted to be hidden from his senses. He meets the woman’s wide-eyed gaze with a low chuckle and grins when her aura quivers in fear. He’s caught her red-handed.

A Jedi.

“Mm. Nice try.” Maul assumes that she must have the answers he desires. Why else would they meet like this?

So, naturally, Maul charges.

~

You’re barely able to avoid the scary, red-skinned Zabrak when he leaps at you, black robes rippling in the wind. His lightsaber ignites in mid air with a sickening electric pulse, coming down on the space you just occupied. A shriek catches in your throat as you scramble away, eyes blown wide with fear as he swings it, almost catching the flesh of your arm. Briefly, you look to your sleeve, which now bears a singed hole, before whipping your attention back at the oncoming Zabrak.

“Who are you?!” You manage to shout at him, sending a boulder flying at him with a wave of your arm in order to buy yourself some time. Unfortunately, the Zabrak simply stops the boulder with his hand, tossing it carelessly to the side, and you stumble on your own feet, so the getaway fails spectacularly. You gasp, turning on your heel to make a dead sprint in the opposite direction, but your flight is stopped when the Force around you constricts, halting you in your path.

“Speak now, you have answers I want.” He growls and his wrist flicks down, sending you to your knees. His Force signature engulfs you so thoroughly that it feels like you’re barely able to feel your own. You attempt to squirm out of his grip, loosen the intangible hold he has on you, but his aura roars with anger and tightens around you considerably. It pushes the air from your lungs and causes you to wheeze, tears pricking your eyes.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about!” You cry out, yelping when he stomps closer, arm outstretched, hand in a cupped position, clearly choking you without actually touching the muscle of your throat. If it were even possible, the Zabrak’s deep scowl darkens considerably, and it makes you tremble, eyes instinctively going to the intimidating crimson lightsaber held in his other red and black hand. He follows your petrified stare, chuckles, and rolls his wrist to flip his saber from side to side.

“I suppose you feel quite stupid for not having yours at your side.” He starts, and instantly confusion wiggles it’s way right up next to all the fear in your system, “It’s very… irresponsible for a Jedi to leave home without it.”

“Jedi? I’m— I’m not a Jedi!” You trill, lips clamping shut immediately when he sends you a dirty, harsh glare with his piercing yellow eyes. He glowers at you and you whimper, already boxed in so much by his Force presence, but pulling yours even tighter to you. Though it seems he believes you, how couldn’t he with all the genuine confusion you were projecting, because his arm drops, relaxing both his tense muscles and the Force around you.

Gasping, you inhale deeply, reveling in the oppressive weight being lifted off of your body, and your aura stretches around you, the Force happy at being released from his hold. On stumbling legs, and absentmindedly rubbing your throat where the hold still tingles, you rise to your feet, nervous and hunched.

“I’m not a Jedi.” You repeat quietly, cautiously as to not provoke the Zabrak, who’s already so angry, to lash out at you again. Instead, he only glares at you again, causing you to flinch, but he sheaths his lightsaber, the blade disappearing with a hiss.

“What is the meaning of this then?” He barks at you, pacing over and closing the distance between the both so quickly and effectively, you haven’t the time to process before he’s right before you. Looming over you like the Grim Reaper, the Zabrak is much taller than you, broad and muscular, and his black as the night robes seem to swallow you in their shadow. You gulp, drawn to his golden eyes, blistering like hot magma against the charcoal tattoos surrounding them. Anger and hate radiate off his Force energy in waves, overcoming yours with its dominance.

Oddly though, you catch a whiff of… him. He smells like black pepper, of spice and heat, like a fire burning wood and sharp-scented incense…

“Answer. Me.” Your embarrassingly intrusive thoughts are interrupted by the growl that passes his grit teeth, made all the more vicious by his sharp canines and curled lip. You go to speak, but the words dry on your tongue when his hand lifts sharply, and ensnares your forearm in an iron grip. 

Suddenly, just as his hand latches around your arm, it’s like the pull that you’ve felt for months strained so tight it snaps like elastic. And then, it’s like the world just sets ablaze.

You feel everything, his hand on you, your skin on him, the heaves of his chest, the swirling, clashing emotions from the both of you. It pulls a sharp gasp from you, that shakes the Zabrak too, and you lock eyes with him, seeing yourself in and from his eyes. The perspectives make you dizzy, and confuses you beyond belief, scares you even. Your Force aura feels like it swells, and you realize it’s blending and combining with his.

Maul. 

That’s his name. Maul.

A Sith— No, not anymore—

A criminal? Technically, I suppose.

It was you! On Naboo, you almo—

“That’s enough.” Maul hisses and the hand that was tightly bound to your arm unlatches, and he recoils like he’s been burned. The sudden distance makes the Force around you tremble in apprehension, and despite the fact that you’re petrified from what just occurred, you want to close the gap between you and Maul. Breathing heavily, you look wildly over Maul’s face, taking in his irked expression, and it’s jarring to recognize that you can feel the prickle of annoyance in yourself as well.

“Wha—What did you do to me?” You exhale the question, mouth suddenly very dry, and Maul has the audacity to snort a laugh at you. His amusement floats to you, and it startles you as much as it makes you prickle ever-so-slightly in annoyance.

“I did nothing. Maybe it was you.” Maul replies, mockingly accusatory, in a tone that can be summed up by the word “prissy”. He seems to sense your word choice and be quite offended by it, because the smirk on his face drops near immediately.

“Watch your mouth, girl.” He sneers, pulling back from you further but surprising the both of you when the Force objects. It doesn’t manhandle either of you entirely, but it leaves you wanting to be as close as you possibly can to Maul. Testing the waters, your heart still thrumming a bit with fear, you take a single step towards Maul and are delighted by the relief the Force breathes around you. Maul feels it too, you can tell from how his posture shifts, the grimace on his face leaving, just as you can from how his Force softens ever-so-slightly.

“… What is this?” Maul ponders, and for the first time you catch a glimpse of what his face can look like when it isn’t twisted with rage. You take another step to him, fear all but gone, and he looks to you, eyes wary and narrowed, but curious too. Strangely, you find yourself liking his eyes when they’re like this. Relaxed, calm…

“Watch it.” Maul’s hardened once again, having caught your kind words of him even though they never left your lips. You open your mouth to speak, but he lifts his hand, and begrudgingly you don’t speak, and frown instead. Maul sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“This accursed… condition we share will not allow us to part. You’re…” He sighs again, rolls his eyes too when he glances over and scans you up and down. You feel his displeasure tenfold and your frown deepens.

“Come with me.” He grumbles, and he turns on his heel, to go to his ship atop the ridge, but you find your voice.

“No! Why should I?” You say indignantly, eyebrows furrowing at the gall Maul has to first attack you, intimidate you, then expect you to follow him like some lost puppy. He stops in his tracks, whipping around to face you, and startles you with his fury that flares at your opposition. The wrath is as intense as it was before, but Maul’s made it almost normal to you with how many times he’s shown it, even though you’ve only just met. 

“We need to have this wrong figured out, and corrected.” Maul hisses through his teeth, getting in your face and at first you flinch, but you stand your ground. Trying to appear as intimidating and sure as you can, you cross your arms over your chest and gesture with your head to the open ramp a few paces away.

“We use my ship, my terms. Or you suffer with this “wrong” because I won’t help fix it otherwise.” Internally, you think it’s the most convincing and assertive you’ve been all your life, standing up for yourself in an uncharacteristic display of authority. Maul’s hands clench to fists at his sides, the one nearest his lightsaber on his belt twitches, but you determine he’s so fed up by the whole situation because he nods stiffly, a single dip of his head.

“Fine.” He growls through his teeth and you get him back by smirking. His Force aura goes deadly, and the smirk falls. This time, he grins, but you turn to walk to your ship so you don’t have to see it.

The both of you bristle with annoyance as you pilot your ship from Endor.

~

The first month is spent acclimating.

After you had both given each other nothing but glares and silent treatments for a couple of days, you both slowly began to encroach on each other’s existence.

Maul learns your Force signature is gentle, tender even, like dipping your feet into a shallow, warm creek. It’s like having the soft morning sun on your skin, or holding flower petals, or running your hand down the silky pelt of a Loth cat. Maul loathes the slowness of your presence, the calm it brings, like a type of sleepiness that dulls him.

He spends most of those first few weeks with you attempting to shake that light fatigue from where it settles on his bones. Maul isn’t used to such a level of softness, nor does he appreciate the inexperience that leeks from it either. You aren’t properly trained in your abilities like he is, and it is annoying.

You’re nothing like him, his exact opposite.

Likewise, you learn that Maul’s Force signature is akin to a wildfire. It’s consuming, spreads far too easily and efficiently, and is hot to the touch like a roaring furnace. For days, you flinch from it like you would if you scald your hand on an iron, too close to the heat. Maul is all fire and flame, all natural disaster, like the most destructive and angry of tornadoes.

It is both bark and bite, the threat and the deadly swing of a lightsaber. Maul not only lashes out at you himself, but his aura does as well, he boxes you in and overpowers you in every way, pushing back your Force signature until it is small and meek. At first, you take his wrath, mostly out of fear of the unknown, of what he may do to you, but you aren’t and have never been weak.

You have fortitude and patience, enough of it that you wait out each of his fiery, temper-filled storms, because you have to show Maul that he doesn’t and can’t scare you like he does others. You don’t allow him to push you into a corner, both physically and metaphysically, firmly telling him that he technically resides on your ship and has no place to claim any amount of ownership.

Maul does not take your defiance to him well.

~

“You are nothing but cruel!” You shout at Maul, pointing a finger at him and then to the poor Rodian, who lies dead on the floor. The cantina evacuated quickly after Maul had picked a fight with the Rodian and his Trandoshan companion, much to your dismay, and now the Rodian lies dead and the Trandoshan presumably does too.

Maul had tossed him through the window, and you’re fairly certain he couldn’t have survived the four story fall.

“You are nothing but a hindrance!” Maul yells back, pointing a finger just as accusingly at you, his energy lashing out at you like a whip strike. You push back like you’ve done before, what you’ve trained yourself to do over the month and a half you’ve been with Maul, and he reacts violently. Maul clears the room in three large strides and suddenly has your chin in his grasp. His fingers dig into your cheeks, yanking your head up to look at him.

“I should just dispose of you.” He snarls, jostling you in his grip as your hands fly up to grab his wrist. It’s the cold realization that sinks into you as you realize his other hand, still bearing his lightsaber, presses the sheathed, cold hilt to your stomach. You gasp loudly, a large inhale of air, and you wriggle in his hold.

“Let me go, you monster!” You cry, the tears of all your pent up anger and sharp fear pricking your rapidly blinking eyes. Maul’s eyes, surprisingly, go wide with shock, like he wasn’t expecting that, but they narrow again as he smothers it with fury. His hand grips your face tighter, so you struggle harder. The lightsaber jabs at you.

You’re uncertain of what exactly happened next. One moment you’re flailing in Maul’s hold, the next your back is hitting the wall opposite of him, slamming your head against it and knocking the wind from you. Dazed and gasping for breath, your first thought is that a third party, someone also one with the Force— Inquisitor is the dreaded outcome— has discovered you, but it’s when you see Maul also half-crumpled on the floor do you realize that the Force simply threw you apart.

You watch through watery eyes as Maul groans, regaining his footing faster than you. He glances around, searching for a threat that isn’t there, until his gaze rests on you again. It’s at this moment you realize he’s no longer holding his lightsaber, and that it’s in pieces on the floor. Maul sees this, and his aura goes red with fury.

“What did you do?” He barks at you, going to his shattered saber and snatching up the glowing red kyber crystal, sneering at it before shoving it roughly into his pocket. You sniffle, wiping away the remaining tears on your face and stand as well, wincing at the pain in your back.

“I didn’t do anything.” You reply, wrapping your arms around yourself, drawing in the Force like a comfort blanket. Maul snorts a laugh and rolls his eyes, sarcastically responding with, “You never seem to, hm?”

The cruelty stings, and it makes your heart clench with a pain that you decide you really don’t like. More tears, in spite of you, well up in your eyes and it’s impossible to stop them. They roll down your cheeks, big and fat, and drip off your chin, falling to the floor between your feet. Maul looks up from the metal scrap of his lightsaber at you, and something in his aura shifts. You’re really too hurt to care what it is.

“I wish I never met you.” You whisper, and everything hurts. Turning on your heel, you walk from the cantina, almost running into the Devaronian bartender who was just about to try and go back in. He flinches away from you, rightfully wary, but he outright cowers at the sight of Maul.

Maul stands amongst the broken glass, debris from destroyed tables, a dead Rodian near his feet, and the remains of his lightsaber.

For the first time, he realizes he can’t feel you.

It leaves him painfully alone. Everything, cold.

~

Maul didn’t return to the ship that day, nor did he for two whole weeks after. During that time, you couldn’t feel him, like whatever happened with the Force at the cantina snapped the string that tied Maul and you together. It should’ve made you feel happy, relieved. You were free from spending another second with Maul, free from his darkness.

But… it left you feeling so numb. At first, you thought the emotional anguish was due to the events that transpired at the cantina (the fighting, the death, the blood) but it was more than that, more than just having the pull suddenly and abruptly from you. It made you feel strangely… empty. Like not having Maul was worse than having him.

The thought all together upset you.

Maul is cruel, quick to anger and with a temper like Hell, rude, mean, and self-centered. He was nothing but distant and aloof with you, always sneering and frowning, never happy. You would constantly get the brunt of his bitter words and jabs, all his taunts and snappy teases. Nothing you did to try and bridge the gap appeased him, not fully that is, you did manage to see snippets of him past his intimidating exterior, but those fleeting moments were few and far between.

But they reminded you that you were tied to him, that Maul was more that what the world got to see of him. His near death on Naboo is something that only you have ever and will ever experience like he did, having felt the agony and ache for months. No one can say they’ve felt his terror like you have.

… Nor can they say that about his past. When Maul was with you, you pieced together that the violent, distressing dreams and visions you would have were in fact his memories. Certain things he’d say, names he’d avoid, small quirks in his behavior all pointed to the small, terrified young boy, being Maul, years ago, in another lifetime. Whoever the shadowy, evil man was, you still haven’t fully pieced together.

Through those painful cracks in him, you picked up on the good things Maul had the potential to be. He is rather charming, when he lets himself relax, his golden eyes not sharp like knives but buttery like honeysuckle, the lines of his midnight tattoos not scary, but admirable like art in a gallery. Like the rest of him, really, all toned muscle, gorgeous crimson skin, and desirable physique. You can’t exactly say you weren’t attracted to him.

Maul also showed an immense amount of knowledge, knowing so much about the Force and bending it skillfully to his whim. Once, when he was softened by the evening and a bottle of wine, he showed you how to alter your surrounds, create illusions. It was one of the few times you had ever heard him laugh genuinely, a rich, loud laugh that made you smile too. That was a good moment.

Another good moment was when you stargazed together, however unintentional it may have been, and when Maul told you the myth behind a constellation you pointed out.

Another was when you landed for fuel and somehow managed to chorale Maul into helping you babysit triplet Twi’lek toddlers for their father, a feat that honestly pulled you both into exhaustion. That was also the night you fell asleep next to him, your cheek on his shoulder. What’s more, in the morning he wasn’t closed off, and didn’t push you away (immediately, that is).

There was good in Maul. You had seen it, experienced it.

As you thought about him in his absence, the more and more you… wanted him back. You wanted Maul back for his charm, his intelligence, for his brazen nature, his curiosity, his propensity to growl lightly when you awoke too early in the morning, for the cautious yet intriguing conversations you shared, for the purr he had as he slept, something you never told him you witnessed when he fell asleep at the helm of your ship…

You realized, when Maul had been gone for two weeks, that you wanted to try again not because there was pity, or fear, but because you knew he had the ability to change. 

~

Maul finds himself walking back to your ship two weeks after the incident in the cantina. Two weeks of throbbing numbness, of a deep pit in his core nothing could fill, not the hours of training, not endless meditation, nothing. At first it had been only frustrating and angering, but now he’s desperate.

Maul needs whatever it was that tethered you to him reinstated. He needs to feel you again.

Two weeks gave Maul plenty of time to reflect on his actions. He knew what he did at the cantina was brash, uncalled for, and entirely stupid. He recognized the way it hurt you, even then, but didn’t fully comprehend until he was supposedly free from you but couldn’t get you off his mind.

Ever since leaving you, or more accurately you left him, Maul’s thoughts were plagued by you. Constantly, he found himself thinking of your face, your moon-eyed gaze in his head, how you were so incredibly short and that he found that something he could (and did) take advantage of, but how it endeared him as well. You were his opposite, soft, small in more ways than one, gentle, meek…

You occupied his mind, the memories that played back making him need you even more, like when you smiled, or when he watched your eyes light up at the story he told of the stars, or when he and you vowed never to speak of how you both accidentally gave the Twi’lek children caf instead of chocolate milk, how he woke in the morning to find you asleep at his side, curled against him with nothing but peace flowing from you.

Maul thought of how he and you opposed each other, how you’d clash with him, the way your Force mixed with his like oil and water most days, but he also thought of the times the wall lifted. Most obviously Maul saw your memories, he knew your pain and history of running to nowhere from a danger that constantly threatened you. He felt through the memories the bond gave him your deeply hidden sorrow of desiring a home that you believed you could never get.

Maul, for the first time in his life, was able to directly experience another, and it perturbed him as it did captivate him. He knew your hurt as much as you knew his, and how closer could you get to another person than that?

He didn’t think there was any other way.

Maybe… this tie was for a purpose. Why else would it be?

Maul can’t comprehend the full meaning, much to his dismay, but as he drags himself back to you, all he can think of is how no one else in the universe understands him like you do. There’s no one else but you.

Two weeks later, and he’s back at your ship.

~

Neither of you said any words when you opened the ramp door to see Maul, slightly disheveled, at your ship. No words were spoken when you felt absolute and utter joy, and when you ran down the ramp to greet Maul, and when you delighted in how he lifted you in his arms and hugged you like he meant it.

No words were spoken when the Force caused an uproar around you, trembling the grass below you and rattling the metal of your ship, as it pulsed between the two of you and finally, you could feel him again, and he could feel you. He says your name in his mind, you say his, the bond establishes itself all over again, like a heavy rope is tied around both of you, this time knotted tight and unmoving.

“I want to change. I want you.” He says when he still hasn’t let you go, and you don’t care that he’s sweaty, because you want all of him too. You nod into the black fabric of his robes, gasping against him when his energy surges and engulfs you. Yours does the same to him, because Maul’s footing falters, nearly sending both of you to the ground. But you’re clutching him so tightly it wouldn’t have bothered you if even the sky fell upon you both.

“I want your change. I want you.” You reply into the charcoal skin of his neck, sighing as his Adam’s apple bounces when he swallows. Your nose presses against his jugular, the alternating pulses of his twin hearts sending ripples through your body. 

Change, Maul, is good. I know.

You’re capable of it. I don’t—

It’ll be hard, but I’m here. I— Thank you.

I want you. I want you.

And Maul’s lips plant down on yours and he kisses you like he’s a man reborn without sin. His lips move against yours, fevered and hot, the wet warmth of his mouth swallowing yours, his balmy tongue sucking at your mouth. You shudder and gasp, taken aback by his presence, his wild lips on yours, melting against him in the way that ice cream does on a sunny day.

The Force around you sings something holy, like every voice of every angel rises in crescendo and it’s all so much, that you don’t process the tears streaming down your face until Maul’s hands reach up and wipe them away. This time his fingers on your cheeks are tender.

You and Maul pull away from each, both left ruined and panting by the kiss that could decimate entire planets with its intensity. Your eyes search his, those honeyed pits of liquid gold, entirely captivated by their Midas touch. You reach up to cup his cheek, marveling at the smoothness of his skin. How you’ve missed his vibrant red and inky black…

“It’s all for you.” He removes his hands from your face only to rip his cloak and robes from his body, shrugging the heavy fabrics to the ground. There, shirtless and gleaming, you finally get to see his gorgeous tattoos in person, see the expanse of red and black pulled over sculpted muscles, to see the scar of the wound that nearly took him. The word ugly floats from him, but you ignore it, and instead your hands glide from his face to his shoulders, then down his chest, then to his middle, where your thumbs brush the raised edges of the scar.

“I see and feel only Maul.” You say and he steps so close to you that he’s flush against you, guiding your hands to wrap around him, where you get to feel the bumps and valleys of his toned back. Maul’s hands feel your hips, your waist, then up to your collarbones and neck. He speaks your name, rolls it on his tongue like candy.

“I want only you.” He purrs, and you tilt your head back to bare your neck to him and Maul leans in to place heavy kisses on your throat, sucking lightly with each one. Each kiss has the air around you growing hot, your trembling under the growing heat of the Force. Maul feels it too, from the way his body heaves with breath, to how his arousal makes itself known in his pants.

“My room.” You breathe, both physically and sending those two words with conviction across your bond, to which Maul grins against the skin of your neck, letting his lips linger before he pulls away. He meets your hazy gaze with one just as glossy.

This isn’t the way either of you planned to start with change, but neither of you are objecting, not with how the intensity of the bond soars when you kiss again, all passion and searing, not with how Maul lifts you and carries you to your bedroom, to your bed, where he shows you all his softer parts, both physically and mentally.

True change can begin the morning after over a cup of caf, when you’re too pleasantly sore between the legs to walk.

And it does, because Maul asks if you’ll allow him to tell you about Naboo, then about the man in the shadows, then his mother, and then him.

~

Change doesn’t come painlessly or without it’s hiccups, but months later time has healed most of the surface wounds, forgiveness has as well.

One night, you and Maul lie awake in bed, facing each other, legs entangled beneath the sheets. You draw invisible patterns on each other’s skin with both your fingers and the ghostly tendrils of the Force that pulses in the air around you. Each touch fills the room with a pleasant, tingly aura, as if it’s all a constant static.

“Maul.” You begin, brushing your hand over his pec, then to his broad shoulder, reveling in the warmth of his skin. He hums, mirroring the tender touch, albeit with a heavier hand, on your hip, fingers splaying across the swell of your pelvic bone. His eyes follow the curve, and you watch as his hand does as well.

“I’ve been reflecting about us.” You say softly, voice so low a whisper it catches in your throat and you have to swallow to continue speaking, “About what we are. What this is.”

Purposely, your words are vague because you know, and Maul knows, what you’re talking about. The Force had brought you both together, and now, as you lie naked and bare and vulnerable to one another, there is no way that you could be apart. Even in the dark, Maul’s eyes seem to glow when he meets your gaze.

“We are something. There’s just no name for it.” He replies, gravelly voice just as low as yours, rumbling the air like boulders rolling down a mountainside. This time you hum in response, drifting your hand from his shoulder and up his neck to cup his squared jaw in your palm. Your thumb rubs against his chin, and Maul leans into your touch. The Force around you purrs, and you revel in the warmth of Maul’s seeping into yours like ink staining cloth.

“… Have I told you I’m sorry?” Maul asks, his voice reserved in a way, quiet too. You know what he’s referring to; the months of hurt, of anger, and maybe more specifically the moment at the cantina when he threatened your life. You hum, technically he hasn’t said the words aloud, but he’s done other things to make it up to you. 

“I’ve forgiven you months ago.” You reply simply, snuggling closer to him, feeling the warmth of his aura blankets yours, and you open it to him. He hums in response, and takes the invitation, all gratefulness and relief.

There are so many other words that you could say, things that you should say, but when Maul’s other hand glides across the sheets to lace his fingers with yours, you decide now is not the time. Not when you have him caressing you so tenderly, not when you are both weaved together like a tapestry made of you and his vibrant crimson and black, not when Maul leans in to close the slight gap between your bodies and lay kisses onto your breasts, not when he catches your sighs in a deep, passionate kiss, all tongue and teeth, but also all the heat of him.

Now isn’t the time, you decide as Maul shifts and unlinks from you only to roll with a soft grunt on top of you, his bare body smooth, heavy, and lustful. Your eyes flutter shut when Maul catches your lips with his, anchoring himself above you and with a deliciously slow, distracting roll of his hips, dissolves all the thought from your mind.

Not now, you think one final time before wrapping your arms around Maul’s neck and pulling him into your inviting, ready body.

~

Maul and you don’t even think of marriage. In a way, it has already happened.

Though the informal honeymoon period is quite nice. Maul surprises you with a trip to Scarif, one that involves a beautiful hotel suite and plenty of time at one of the tropical planet’s expansive private beaches. How he managed it all, you never ask (the answer is probably less than legal), but the gesture is one that warmed your soul so much you smiled until it almost hurt and kissed him until both of your lips felt raw.

A few days into your stay on the resort world, you lie on a towel beneath a towering tree that shades you with its enormous leaves. The salty, warm breeze and light crashing of rolling waves soothes you immensely, a relief from the bustle and crowdedness that usually clogs your Force senses. Maul feels it too, he reclines against the tree, hands behind his head.

He’s shirtless, which is something that he doesn’t actually do much of. You know why, your eyes flit down to the mangled, cobweb-esque scar, but it still makes your heart pang to know he hides his crimson skin, strong muscles, and those gorgeous midnight tattoos.

“It reminds me of failure.” Maul speaks and you jump slightly, hearing his voice both come out of his mouth and in your head. You must have been projecting your thoughts, but you don’t focus on that now. Instead, you frown slightly at the bitter, self-deprecating comment Maul made, because there’s no reason he should think that. Never should he look ashamed like he does, not with what happened to him.

“It tells me of survival.” You retort firmly, shuffling on your knees closer to Maul who only looks at you, looks like he’s watching every moment replay in his mind. You catch a glimpse of a blue lightsaber igniting, and shake it from your head. Offering Maul a comforting smile, you settle between his thighs, placing one hand on his scar, the other on his cheek.

“This is determination, strength. Perseverance. The will to live.” You say as the subtle ache settles on your side, knowing Maul feels it to. Again, thoughts of the lightsaber, then of the Jedi. You push the bearded man’s face from your mind, and remember happier times; like when you and Maul first kissed, when you baked jogan fruit cupcakes with him, when he made you laugh so hard you peed, and when you both laid together under the open sky the night before, taking in each other’s bodies dipped in silvery moonlight.

It works, because the lightsaber sheathes and the bearded Jedi has vanished.

“Mm… I still can’t believe you pissed yourself because of a knock knock joke.” Maul quips and you gasp indignantly, face igniting with a fiery blush. He grins, the boyish smirk that you love to hate, so you smack him on his chest, pushing him slightly against the tree.

“Shut up!” 

And the rest of the trip was spent filled with laughter and love, without any pain or shame to hold Maul, or you, down.

~

Years pass, Maul and you having settled on some nameless, distant Outer Rim planet on a patch of land big enough to farm more than enough for the two of you. A routine of sorts has been established, in late spring you both lay the seeds for your crops, tend them throughout the summer, and harvest them in the fall. Then, you would travel to the nearby village to sell some of your surplus while Maul would go off-world and sell on other planets.

Never in your life had you envisioned yourself a fruit farmer, much less Maul, but the ease and domesticity that came with your quiet yet active lifestyle is too good to pass up. The peace also was an added bonus, the space from others and the lush, temperate greens of the terrain for most of the year made old wounds heal.

Maul didn’t suffer phantom pains as often, in fact he was rarely inhibited by his wound anymore. He also relearned so much, allowed himself to love and grow now that he was out from under the oppressive shadow of the man that once enslaved him. No longer is Maul tied to that anguish, not anymore. It all eased Maul’s temper as well, made him less wrathful. Of course, his fiery, brazen self will never be truly dampened, he will always be a blistering kiln, but now it is not out of rage, but of passion. Confidence. Maul oozes with new purpose.

And of course, by the will of the Force, it all extends to you as well. You hadn’t had that familiar ache in your side in months, hadn’t been witness to nightmare-memories in even longer. You even found it in yourself to heal from your own past, you no longer fear Seekers coming for you, have stopped looking over your shoulder. It’s not that you’ve sworn aware danger, there always will be when you’re Force sensitive, but you’ve grown and become less fearful. 

You’re not a runner anymore. You stand your ground because now you have it, a farm and home, and you do it all because you deserve that most basic right. You deserve a home, happiness, love— everything that you have been denied or denied for yourself. Nothing will take your home from you and make you run, not while you breathe, not while Maul is beside you.

It’s time to stop moving, to slow down.

Later, an opportunity arises to solidify that idea.

~

“I could watch her.” You blurt out the words faster than you can really process them, but Teeubo’s, your Twi’lek neighbor, relieved expression makes you bite back any retraction that your brain could come up with. The smile she wears dazzles in the aura around her too, filling the room with kindness. She shifts her baby daughter in her arms, stepping closer to you.

“Thank you so much, numa.” She replies and before you know it, tiny little Liira, is placed in your arms you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding out. At first, the baby squirms in your hesitant grasp, but once you relax your tense muscles, forcing yourself to calm your aura, Liira’s tiny lekku twitches, and she coos happily. Teeubo leans to kiss her daughter’s forehead, pulling back with a softness in her lilac eyes that only a mother could have. It makes something inside your chest pull, and, distantly, you sense Maul is curious.

“Again, thank you. I should be back soon.” She says and you dip your head in response, smiling softly. Teeubo grabs her bag to head to the market to finish the errand she had forgotten, offering you a goodbye via the tip of her long, left lek dipping inwards towards her chest.

“May the Force be with you.” You call after the purple-skinned Twi’lek, just before the door to her house shuts, leaving you suddenly and abruptly alone with a baby. You stare down at Liira, who’s dozing in your arms, unsure of exactly… what to do. It’s been years since you’ve last babysat, and even longer since it’s been such a young child.

Yet nothing feels wrong. Liira sleeps in your arms, swaddled in her soft, thin linen blanket, her tiny cheek pressed against your chest. There’s something so… simple about it, holding a baby and watching it sleep, that makes your heart swell. You smile, walking as carefully as you can to the rocking chair in the corner, settling down in the seat.

Liira doesn’t stir, only grunts softly like any three month old would, when you start to push the chair with your feet to a steady rhythm. The weight of the baby against your breast feels natural, almost, like you could do this with one of your own. You imagine a red-skinned baby in your arms, with honey-colored eyes—

The abruptness of that last thought makes you gasp, and Liira startles awake, her big green eyes snapping open. Before you can prevent it, her little violet face scrunches and she starts to wail, ear piercing and hiccupping. You bite your lip, brows furrowing, and the only thing you can think to do is hum the lullaby that your mother once did for you.

How you still remember the low, lilting tones after all these years, you don’t know. But they come naturally, easily, and you watch in growing fascination as Liira settles in your arms again. Her tiny arms cross over her chest and her big, sleepy eyes blink once before closing in slumber.

“Good night, sweet one.” You murmur to close the lullaby, kissing Liira gently on her lekku before rising from the rocking chair and bringing her to the bassinet farther in the home. Everything is gentle as you ready Liira for bed, swaddling her, setting her on the bassinet’s cushion, arranging her plushies around her. She sleeps the entire time, and it makes you marvel at how simple it all feels.

Liira captivates you like one of the many, unique nebula star systems boast, she grasps your attention, your yearning like nothing else ever had. Again, as you rock the bassinet lightly to ensure Liira sleeps fully, your mind drifts to that red-skinned, honey-eyed baby. Your baby, yours and Maul’s baby. Perhaps they’d have your eyes instead, or maybe inherit your human skin and hair. 

You think of a Devaronian family you once babysat for years ago, and remember that they had seven rambunctious, wonderful children. Smiling to yourself at the memory of the mother, an exasperated but happy woman, you can’t help but think you could one-up her with eight.

Your core warms, and you wish Teeubo would return sooner than later.

~

Unbeknownst to you, Maul caught the vision you had of a baby and it shook him to his core. You desired a child with him? Him?

Already it’s by some fantastical miracle that the Force blessed him enough to give him you, someone who’s the least worthy of a Force bond, but it’s almost a comedic impossibility that you’d want to give him anything further, much less a… child. He’s a killer, a tyrant, and someone who’s tampered for so long with the Dark side that he spent years as a Sith.

Maul is no saint, has never been, and yet he is tethered to you on a level most can only dream of, his very soul tied to yours, a fate far better suited for some Force-sensitive user who’s sworn themselves to peace, or even a Jedi. Maul doesn’t believe that he’s deserving of you, and yet you want more. Another… someone.

Maul spends the afternoon away fighting every demon he has in the secrecy of his mind. He blocks you from sensing it, not wanting you to worry let alone know, and he struggles with grappling with the idea that if he becomes a father, the child will one day learn of everything he’s done, every crime, every sin, every life he’s snuffed. The child will be born to learn of it’s father’s bloody hands.

The thought pains him, scares him even, but what terrifies Maul even more is his own parent, his mother, and of… he avoids thinking of his name. He is dead to him.

But if there was one thing Maul learned of parenting from Talzin it was how not too. He learned only what parents shouldn’t do, the terror and trauma they could inflict with their lack of care, indifference, and abuse. Maul does not want to do that to a child.

Towards the end of his internal strife, Maul is struck with the sudden realization that he’s been freed of those shackles and chains for years now. He hasn’t seen his former Master in years, his mother in even longer. He’s grown past them, perhaps even outlived them, and has survived. He has survived them.

Maul reconciles his past. He reconciles his former Master and his mother. Maul reconciles himself.

He ends his meditation to become aware that hours have passed and the sun has dipped low in the sky, the evening turning to night. In the golden and crimson hues of the later hours, he rises from the floor, groans at the subtle ache in his bones, and ponders one last thing before he awaits your arrival.

As he thought of a baby, it churned a curious feeling inside him, one that bubbled deep in his core and spread only warmth when he thought of how the baby would be his. He’d be the one to put it in your womb, to start its growth in your belly until it was swollen and ripe and…

Maul shivers back a pleasured snarl as he feels his cock twitch in his pants.

The thought of you, his darling wife, all glowy and round in the belly with a baby (or two, his mind supplies) overdue in your womb, and two heavy, swollen breasts filled to the brim with life-giving milk in preparation for the babies he’d put in there makes him growl. His cock is half erect, and Maul palms it from over his pants.

And the plushness that would accompany the growth of the baby inside you, how your hips would ready themselves for birth, maybe even you’d become even softer, with more space for him to kiss and lick and bite and cum on.

Oh. Oh, he’d like that.

Maul’s arousal only grows when you return home, eyes teary but bright, and tell him:

“I want a baby.”

He ravishes you that night, all wild, all animal, all love.

~

You thank the Force, the stars, and the Maker all at once that Maul shared your enthusiasm for having children. If not only from his toothy smirk and wanting eyes when you returned home, but from the prominent boner he sported as well.

He kept you up all night, utterly wrecking you over and over again, fucking you senseless. Maul spilled into you, leaving you wet and sticky and with a pussy full of cum, so many times you were certain there was no way you wouldn’t be pregnant by morning.

… The morning of which Maul took you again and again, only stopping when you were cock dumb and quivering, contentedly asking him to stop so you could eat and go to the bathroom. He was barely able to process what you said, but then after you relieved yourself, fruits and sweets were simply added to the lovemaking.

Maul kept it up all day, then the night, and then the following morning until both of you passed out.

As it would turn out, that was the first rut cycle Maul had in decades.

And, true to its nature, it worked.

~

Months later, you’re tired and aching, holding a swaddled baby in your arms. A boy, your son, as vibrant a red as his father, all wrinkly the way newborns always are, sleeps peacefully. The crown of his head is ringed with tiny bumps beneath his soft skin, where a halo of horns, like his father, will one day grow in. His round cheek presses against your bare chest, the Force making the connection tingle with hidden warmth.

Maul is by your side, having been throughout the entire childbirth, kneeling next to the bed like a man at an altar, his brazen nature set aside to marvel at the newborn bundle in your arms. His golden eyes are misty, and you know yours are too, and he leans in to kiss the forehead of his son, pressing his nose against him.

You watch him linger, watch as his lips gently rest against your baby’s crown, as Maul’s nostrils flare when he breathes in, deeply, slowly. It’s after the warm, fanning exhale and at the second inhale you realize Maul is committing his son’s scent to memory, locking it away in his mind with the aid of his Zabrak biology. It makes your heart swell, and you have to blink back tears.

“He’s perfect.” Maul rumbles, eyes closed, his Cupid’s bow still pressed against your baby’s head. You can only agree, a tired smile spreading across your face, and you kiss the baby’s head too, and then Maul’s cheek. Your husband grins, looking up at you and it’s when he reaches a hand up to cup your cheek, did you realize that you were crying.

“Thank you.” You gasp, bottom lip trembling, leaning your cheek into Maul’s hand, letting tears fall where Maul swipes them away with his thumb. He shakes his head, contemplative, and when his eyes meet yours, they’re misty but playful.

“No, thank you, my love, my darling, my sweetest girl, mother of my son.” Maul says as he rises, and as he does he kisses your arm, your shoulder, then your lips again. You giggle, carefully removing one hand from your baby, to squeeze Maul’s bicep, pulling him to you.

“Oh, hush!” You say through giggles, especially when Maul dips his head to kiss your neck, making you gasp in mock objection when he nips your skin. Clearly, your shared excitement must have been far too loud, because your son squirms against your chest, his red face scrunching like he’s angry. Immediately, you and Maul go silent, watching as the baby’s mouth opens, expecting a wail.

Instead, he simply yawns, tiny arms and legs pulling close to his little body as he settles back against your chest with a soft grunt. Maul and you share a glance, amused and relieved. You peck your son on the head again, lips quirking up when he sighs loudly.

“I apologize, little one, were your mother and I too noisy?” Maul whispers, cupping the baby’s head with his palm. It makes you marvel again at just how small your newborn is, Maul’s fingers appearing as though they could dwarf his tiny little head. Maul sits on the bed next to you, careful as to not disturb his dozing son. Speaking of which…

“You told me names you liked once.” You murmur, pressing your cheek against his shoulder, and Maul hums in reply, both of your stares fixed on the baby, how he nuzzles against your bosom, observing his eyes squeezed shut, his round cheeks, his button nose, his clenched little fists… 

“He should be Ravage.” Maul says quietly, and you nod.

“My little Ravage.”

~

Ravage. There, peaceful and warm, as he sleeps in his mother’s arms, protected by her and his father, who’d give him the galaxy and everything more. He’s made of nothing but love, and it can be felt. It swirls in the air, cradles all three occupants in the room. A tender sentiment arises and is agreed upon by everyone:

The galaxy is kind.