deercountry | Catch-all for Maul; Love is not the opposite of hate.

Entry tags:

Catch-all for Maul; Love is not the opposite of hate.

Who:

survivalthroughhate and you!
What: open & closed threads
When: Catch-all for February and March
Where: All over Trench

Content Warnings: Event warning for March, graphic description of broken nails

All starters in the comments, threads are marked open and closed! Will be adding more as the months goes on!

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[ a slow nod. he hadn't expected otherwise and he knew maul's feelings were . . . sort of coerced under the state he was in. ]

I didn't expect anything else.

[Maul looks down at his tea, using just a bit of the Force to swirl the liquid around into a small vortex as he speaks.]

Reaper's not so sure. He knows of the complicated history between the two of us, how intense my feelings have always been, even when it was just pure hatred. He's afraid I'll stray eventually. Or this place will force my mind to think otherwise as it sometimes does.

[The latter is something he knows he has no control over, and as proven by the past couple of years, Maul knows he's very susceptible to the mind games and brainwashing that the Pthumerians are capable of thrusting upon the Sleeper population at will.]

[ fear of losing your attachment. it makes sense to obi-wan. he certainly doesn't fault reaper for it. ]

It is a logical fear, I suppose.

That came up during us yelling at one another. The idea of fear.

[They'd both used what they knew of the other against them when they'd been trying their best to hurt one another.]

He made me take a good, long hard look at myself and realize how the reason I stay in the dark is because I am afraid of what comes next. That going down a better path scares me and that is why I continue to go in circles instead of moving forward.

[He wouldn't tell anyone just this. But Obi-Wan is special, the same way Usagi and Varian are in the way they've helped to put him down the path of redemption. Maul finally stops staring down at his tea and looks back up at the Jedi.]

To that end I have something important to ask you.

[ quietly. ]

Go on.

I've come to trust you a great deal over the time we've been here together. Enough to ask something of you that is very serious. You need not answer me right away and I won't be offended if you say no.

[Maul asks in that same soft, low voice he always uses.]

Will you undergo a bonding pact with me?

[ okay. definitely not what obi-wan was expecting. ]

A bond?

I trust you. Maybe I shouldn't, not after all I have done to you. But I do. You....keep me honest and on the right path....at least when I choose to listen. I can be vulnerable with you and I can't with everyone here. And if there was a bond like that, you could pull me back when I start going too far.

[Accountability isn't really one of Maul's strengths but he feels having Obi-Wan bonded with him will help a lot with that.]

So you want me to behave like a leash?

[ his tone is not accusatory, more probing. he can see the validity of it, but obi-wan isn't sure that's all it is. ]

No, that's not it, I-- [He grows quiet, a frustrated look crossing his face. He's not good with expressing what goes on in his head and his lack of eloquence only exacerbates the problem..] --I was thinking of balance. The same kind there is in the Force. I used to shy away from the light, be afraid of what was in it. Not anymore. I feel like if I was bonded with you, that balance might be easier for me to feel. We've been connected in our lives for a long time, you and I, and maybe the reasoning the Force had for such a thing was for us both to learn from one another.

[ this is a difficult decision and it shows on his face. not because he hates maul, but it's about the distance being crossed. he's not afraid of his own feelings and what may change.

but the possibilities do leave him wary.

and yet. if he behaved in such a manner, what kind of jedi would he be?

softly: ]

And what do you think I should learn from you?

[He can't quite read the look on Obi-Wan's face and doesn't know if he's going to be turned down cold or not. But he'll persist on talking over the subject until it is decided one way or another.]

Perhaps a little bit of selfishness? [Maul suggests.] You take time to help everyone else and will run yourself ragged doing so but you never take time to do the same for yourself. You cannot save everyone and that eats away at you inside. Learn to focus a little on yourself more and see what could happen.

[ obi-wan huffs lightly, taking a sip. ]

I don't have a savior complex.

Oh? Is that so?

[Maul says, emphasizing the last word as he raised up his eyebrow ridges.]

I should go ask five people who know you very well in this town and see what their answers are when I ask them if you have one or not.

That sounds like a lot of effort to expend.

[ he sighs. ]

I don't know, Maul. I'm not saying no and I see the benefits for you. But it is a bond. And bonds . . . matter to me.

I understand. And I wouldn't ask unless it was important to me as well. My master and I.... [He looks down at his tea once again.] ....We never had a Force bond the way I have heard Jedi and their apprentices do. I would have liked one but he was adamant about never letting one occur naturally between us. Isolation to turn me into a better weapon, I suppose. [It was also why Maul suspected his master never knew he'd survived. How could he when he had no connection whatsoever to his apprentice?]

Being adrift in the Force like that-- [He looks back up at Obi-Wan.] --I don't think a Jedi can really know what it is like to be all alone that way. Your entire way of life is centered around communal living and always surrounding yourself with others in the Force.

No. We are never alone.

[ he knows why he's digging his heels a little. bonds were sacred. that was impressed upon him long ago. but they do not simply bond with only jedi. that would make them insular and close-knit. it would incapacitate them. obi-wan's bonds are with the force, with his crystal. with the clones and the people he meets.

so why not this. he deliberately pauses. ]

All right. What sort of bond would it be?

I don't know. I didn't think I'd get this far with you. [He's just sort of assumed Obi-Wan would have turned him down cold flat outright.] If what I've read is correct, there are four kinds. But I think romantic is out for obvious reasons.

[Reaper might have been able to come to an understanding about Maul's feelings with time but there was no way in hell he was going to take Maul forming a romantic bond with Obi-Wan well at all. And Maul didn't blame him for it.]

Which leaves the other three kinds: familial, platonic, and hostile. Does one over the others speak more to you?

[ wryly. ]

Platonic seems like the best fit. I think we're wrung out the hostile one for some time now.

So you say.

[Maul is sure there is always going to be a portion of him that hates Obi-Wan just a little bit, but then, he figures he's allowed to given the man chopped him in half. But it is just a small bit of himself now instead of overruling everything else in his mind the way it had done for so many years.]

Very well then. I'll gather up all the supplies and come back here tomorrow evening.

[ a curt nod. ]

I will see you then.

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Catch-all for Maul; Love is not the opposite of hate.

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