Obdurate Heart – XXVI

If I moved any slower, we'd be back on chapter twenty four by now.

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple…that's creativity."

- Charles Mingus

"…Does…the wound still bother you?" Obi Wan asked casually, eyes down on the pear-shaped fruit he was idly fondling in his hands.

Maul half-consciously looked down at said wound and shook his head, taking a large drink of water. "It's healing well enough."

"Well I would still feel better with another look from the medic."

"So that's what you're bothering me about." Maul rolled his eyes and set his cup down with a mutter.

"It's precautionary." Obi Wan defended. "And after your episode earlier, I'm not taking chances."

"I don't want another damn incompetent medical droids prodding m—"

"You're getting one anyway." Obi Wan cut him off hastily, looking at him sternly and fearlessly. Maul growled but fell into silent defeat. "I can't imagine why you hate them so. Aren't you a bit beyond the pride of keeping to yourself?"

"No." Maul disagreed. "I do not enjoy others touching my body, is that so difficult to understand?"

Obi Wan hesitated for a long moment, his teeth resting lazily against his fruit in thought. "…No, actually. I suppose not. But when it is meaning to help you, I would think you'd at least relent to your own benefit."

"I do not want help." He returned simply. "Nor have I ever required it."

"Oh really?" Obi Wan huffed. "I suppose you could have gotten over that wound without medical attention. Or fought off that assassin in your sleep."

"Perhaps we'll never know."

"You're awfully full of yourself."

"High praise indeed."

"Do you realize how many of our conversations end in insults?" Obi Wan observed with a half chuckle, taking a bite.

"Approximately as many as those that begin with them." Maul nodded.

Obi Wan swallowed and stared blankly at the white innards of his fruit. "Well I've for one had enough…If you believe that we're no longer enemies, I suppose we shouldn't act like it."

"Call it a truce, then." Maul agreed, already closer when Obi Wan looked up and putting a hand on his shoulder as he went to kiss and nibble at the side of the Jedi's neck.

Obi Wan shifted a little and looked around, able to feel the gaze of guards who could not possibly see them. "Stop that. I'm trying to eat."

"You're welcome to keep trying." Maul replied carelessly.

"Stop." Obi Wan repeated, leaning his head away.

"Don't pretend to be modest."

"This isn't appropriate."

"You're tense, I can make you forget…"

Obi Wan gripped Maul's chin in his hand and pushed him back with a scoff. "You would only give me one more thing to remember. And that is exactly what I don't need."

Begrudgingly denied, Maul went back to eating, looking around the room slowly as though somehow expecting something to have changed. "You were not so prone to complaints before. Do I bore you now?"

"I am still trying to bring myself to my senses." Obi Wan admitted freely, rubbing his brow. "You may be a great many things, Maul, but boring is not one of them."

"Then what else am I?"

"I thought we agreed not to insult one another." He replied sarcastically.

Maul replied with something, but as there was food in his mouth, it came out rather incomprehensible.

"What?" Obi Wan laughed.

"I said, 'Oh'."

"I see, and I suppose no one has ever taught you manners."

"Not a one." Maul retorted cheekily.

Obi Wan chewed for a second and tossed his fruit aside, rubbing his chin. "…Do you remember your life before you were apprenticed?"

Maul paused, growing still as though trying to decide whether or not he should say anything at all. "…No. I don't." he answered nonchalantly after a moment, continuing to eat.

"So then I suppose your master was the only one you knew." Obi Wan mused aloud, finding this an odd revelation. If Maul had been raised only by such an evil force, how was it that he could retain anything but that evil? But then again, who was to say that he didn't?

"And manners were not on the top of his priority list, sorry to say." He jested dully, annoyed by Obi Wan's prying. "Still trying to get a name out of me, Jedi? I'd thought you'd given up on that by now."

"No," Obi Wan shook his head. "I am not asking about him. I am asking about…you."

"You know all you need to know of me." Maul insisted defensively.

"I hardly know a thing about you."

"There is hardly a thing to know."

"There's got to be something more to you than being a Sith apprentice." Obi Wan blinked and looked down in thought for a moment. "What's your favorite color?"

Maul stared blankly, mouth hanging open slightly in preparation for some sort of response that never came. After an awkward silence, he seemed to snap out of his trance. "I…What?" he demanded in confusion.

"Well that's something, isn't it?" Obi Wan rested his hands between his legs at the edge of his chair, tilting his head in calculation. "I mean besides your affiliation."

"I don't…" Maul snorted, seeming to waver between laughter and a scowl.

"You aren't color blind, are you?"

"What is in a color?" Maul brushed the question away.

"Come now," Obi Wan felt a grin tugging at his features. "You're to tell me that you've never even stopped to note the color in things?"

"Favoring a color is idiotic—you've got to see them all, don't you? I don't have one." He decided.

"Then choose one." Obi Wan suggested. Maul gave him a deadly look. "For my sake."

Maul uttered a growling sigh and looked up towards the ceiling. "Green. Is that enough?"

"Why green?"

"Because you asked me to choose a color you—"

"Yes, but why did you choose green?" Obi Wan demanded impatiently.

"Are you this maddening with everyone?" Maul hesitated for a long moment, rubbing a hand over his face. "It is possibly the color I see the least of, so it may as well be that."

"Alright then, so, there, that's something else." Obi Wan nodded, folding his arms across his chest. "Something about you that neither of us knew."

Maul grumbled in irritation, but smirked. "Then I suppose you have one, since you find it so important."

"My favorite color?" Obi Wan shook his head as he took a drink from his cup. "I don't have one."

"Well that's just—" Maul started in a snarl, raising up a little before he saw that Obi Wan was grinning to himself. "…Ridiculous Jedi…" he muttered under his breath, though it was perhaps a little tainted with a suppressed thread of affection.

"You were the one who told me I shouldn't be so serious." Obi Wan pointed out. "Have you changed your mind?"

"Perhaps I merely underestimated how annoying a Jedi's sense of humor tends to be."

"You would be annoyed no matter what way I acted." Obi Wan defended primly.

"That depends…" Maul growled back in a sultry manner.

Obi Wan looked down at his cup for a long moment before he shook his head, choosing to ignore that comment as he stood up. "I'd best be going. I have a medical appointment to schedule." He raised an eyebrow at Maul almost tauntingly.

Maul grumbled and watched as Obi Wan gathered some scattered remains onto the tray. "Hm. If you're good to me, I may refrain from destroying them."

"How generous of you." Obi Wan mumbled back as he picked up the tray. He stopped and looked over questioningly as Maul's hand snaked up his wrist.

Maul's tone lowered darkly, his eyes piercing. "…Will you be back?"

Obi Wan blinked. "I…I won't be coming back tonight, no." he swallowed and gently pulled away from the touch. "What I mean is that I don't have a…reason to. There wouldn't be a reason, that is."

"What if you had trouble sleeping?" Maul grinned cruelly, and Obi Wan was simultaneously tempted to both jump back and lean forward. "Would that be an implausible excuse?"

"I am not here on pleasure."

"There's no reason you couldn't be."

"I'll be back tomorrow." Obi Wan said at last, surprising and disturbing himself with how much assurance he allowed into his tone.

"For what, I wonder." Maul chuckled and lounged back, watching him go.

"Goodnight to you." The Jedi responded rather awkwardly, taking his leave quickly after.

By the time Obi Wan was standing outside of the chamber, he was already lost in thought. He only distantly regarded a guard taking the tray from him before he was off, headed back towards his own quarters. This situation with Maul was becoming increasingly complicated. Obi Wan wasn't even sure exactly how such a thing was possible, but it truly was. He still felt revolted at the idea of there even being a relationship, so why did that do so little to deter him? He had wondered at many possibilities, the most popular of which that he had indeed suffered some kind of madness. Another was that he had somehow fallen under the spell of the Sith, but that one inspired more fear than he liked to dwell upon. Meditation was becoming harder and harder to do. Every time he closed his eyes in an attempt to banish all images, images were the very thing that claimed him. And he couldn't very well seek Qui Gon's council. Or…anyone, really. Anyone save for Maul, and he felt that with every word uttered between them, his insanity was deepening.

Nevertheless, he felt himself sinking into a most uncomfortable position with Darth Maul. He was forming an attachment, as deplorable as something of that nature was. The Jedi did not form attachments, and he would not break that code if he could help it. The problem was that he was no longer sure he could help it… This is ridiculous. Obi Wan shook his head, thinking to himself. He is using me. That can be the only explanation. I know that, and yet, I continue to allow it to progress. But Obi Wan didn't know how he was being used, at least not for what reason. Was Maul trying to trick him into doing something, or was he simply trying to lure him into a dark place for his own satisfaction? Or perhaps he was bored and looking for attention, some simple company to entertain him before he was locked away for good. And of course, after that, there was only one option. Maul was genuinely interested in Obi Wan. It was the most pure of all listed motives, and yet it was the one that offended Obi Wan the most.

He concealed a long sigh, his shoulders stiff from tension and his frustrations completely unrelieved. All in all, it wasn't the complications of his position that worried him. Not at all. Looking at this in a complicated sense, it was easy to understand the conflict he felt. It was the concept of simplicity that frightened him. Because put simply, Obi Wan had broken rules. Obi Wan had defied the order he had devoted his life to. And all for a man whose motives were unclear and undisputedly vile? If things were put simply, Obi Wan could confess what he had done and be taken to trial, he could be removed from this situation and Maul's lure. He could watch the heartbreak in his master's eyes, and accept the title of a traitor…

Obi Wan shook his head and closed his eyes, slipping back into the makeshift reverie he had conjured to protect himself from the transgressions he had made. Things were complicated. They simply had to be.