#PBP I HATE THAT YOU MADE ME SHIP THIS SO HARD

[blackkatmagic]

It's just turned monday here and I know I'll forget about it in the morning so... For some reasons (insert furious handwaving) Maul was married off to Jaster to cement an alliance with the Mandalorians. Maul is pissed off but can't afford to be sent back so he's just. Silent and glowering. This is torture for Jaster, who has SO MANY QUESTIONS about the force and can't get a word out of Maul. Jaster learns to echolocate facts about the force by confidently saying things and measuring how wrong they are by how much Maul grinds his teeth. (Maybe he'll hit upon the thing that will make his new husband finally open his mouth and correct him)

Maul is going to make himself a widower in short order.

Murderous, faintly sleep-deprived, entirely fed up with absolutely everything, Maul slouches in his chair, one foot braced on the seat, and glares across the table at his new husband, contemplating whether he can refine his technique enough to actually murder someone with his eyes. Even if he can't, the excess of gold he’s wearing has to be good for something. Jaster won't be able to spout his stupid theories if he’s choking on five kilograms of jewelry.

“Don’t be silly, Arla,” Jaster says, in that particular confident tone that truly drives Maul to the edge of homicide. “Force-users have a long history of translocating themselves across vast distances.” There's a pause, and Maul ignores the dark eyes on him, watchful and amused, and instead contemplates how hard he’d have to throw the delicate curls of gold currently wound around his horns for them to kill a man.

Then, with the conviction of a man who’s never been mauled by a Zabrak for his sheer idiocy, Jaster says, “And besides, everyone knows of their ability to change their shape on a molecular level.”

A vein in Maul's temple probably throbs. He definitelygrinds his teeth, trying desperately to remember that Savage and Feral are both currently under Mother Talzin’s thumb, both sold into their own marriages to bring her power as she plays all sides. Serving the Sith Lord before his untimely demise wasn’t precisely better, but—

At least the safety of his brothers didn’t rest on Maul's ability to tolerate sheer stupidity.

Jaster doesn’t show any signs of recognizing that his lack of intelligence is causing Maul physical pain. He simply sinks back in his chair, swirling his wine in his glass, and smiles at Maul like he’s won something. “No shapeshifting, then?” he asks, amused.

Maul narrows his eyes, tips his head back to look down his nose at Jaster. Thinks, determinedly and a little bit mulishly, of Feral married to the clone army’s Marshal Commander, of Savage wed to a Jedi and forced to play husband to the new Master of the Order. Kit Fisto isn't Obi-Wan Kenobi, but Maul has no faith in a Jedi’s willingness to guard his younger brothers from Talzin. Clearly it falls to Maul to uphold this bargain, at least well enough to establish a safe place for Savage and Feral to flee to when they’re inevitably betrayed.

“Still no words for me, husband?” Jaster asks, still smiling. Maul might think him attractive if he weren’t so frustrating. “You were willing to exchange words at the wedding, but I've rarely been blessed with your opinions since.”

“Jaster,” Arla says, rolling her eyes from further down the table. Deliberately, like she’s making a point, she reaches out, tips more wine out of the pitcher and into her cup, and then downs it. “Please. Some of us are trying to eat here.”

“I'm hardly stopping you,” Jaster protests, entirely innocent. Maul twists one of the rings on his fingers and contemplates how much force he’d need to embed it in the wall above Jaster's head, as a warning. “I was just saying, Maul can finally confirm what I've known for years, which is that as the Force is the manifestation of a vast creature of entropy—”

Maul is going to break a tooth, he’s grinding them so hard. He digs his fingers into the arm of his chair, the black cloth of his formal wear, and fixes the image of Feral in that last moment before parting in his mind. Feral, thin and weak from punishment at the Nightsisters’ hands, being tradedto Commander Cody, passed into the ranks of the vast army made with stolen DNA and set against the Republic. Feral will suffer if Maul breaks this alliance. Talzin made that very clear, and Maul has little enough family as it is. He isn't about to lose his brothers. Not for this.

Jango, slumped down on Arla's other side and looking as though he greatly regrets agreeing to this dinner, groans and buries his face in his hands. “Old man, if you can't even flirt normally—”

“It’s not flirting, it’s science,” Jaster says. “I have a theory. Maul, would you care to help me prove it right?”

Since Maul would much rather attempt to drown Jaster in his soup, he bites his tongue and glares.

Jaster beams. “The Force,” he says, and Maul braces for impact, “is the expression of a vast hive mind beyond the known galaxy—”

It’s worse than Maul thought. He’s going to physically implode if he has to listen to this for one second longer—

“The Force,” Jaster says again, still watching Maul, “is an energy field created by living things.”

Not quite correct, but certainly more so than hive minds, and Maul only rolls his eyes a little. “If you're quite done,” he says darkly, because he knows what Jaster is doing, but that doesn’t exactly make it easier to bear.

Jaster chuckles, leaning across the table to pour Maul more wine. “For now,” he promises. “Though if you're open to a debate on the origins of the Jedi as a cohesive order—ow!”

One of the small, bright red fruits pegs Jaster squarely in the side of the head and bounces off. Not, surprisingly, thrown by Maul, and he blinks, casting a look sideways down the table, to where Jaster's majordomo is veryinterested in the last few spoonfuls of liquid remaining in his bowl. There is, notably, a bowl of the fruits right in front of him.

“Treachery,” Jaster complains, straightening with an offended expression. “Jango—”

“If it had been me, I would have thrown my whole plate at you,” Jango says, raising his hands. “Blame Arla.”

“If it had been me, it would have been a knife,” Arla says, clearly already a little tipsy, and single-mindedly trying to get herself right to drunk.

Well. Maul can appreciate the assistance of an ally, when the circumstances are right. He opens his mouth to take credit—

“Did you know,” Jaster says, perfectly certain, “that each lightsaber’s color represents the phase of the moon under which it was mined, and the resonance of them—”

Maul is going to murder him, delicate political alliances be damned. Feral will understand. With a low growl, he shoves himself up, lunges across the table, and grabs Jaster by the collar of his shirt, hauling them in until they're eye to eye.

“You,” he bites out, “are the most imbecilic manI have ever had the vast misfortune to meet. That is not how lightsabers work.”

“Oh?” Jaster asks with interest, leaning in even as Maul's eyes narrow. He smirks, his hand curling over Maul's, lacing their fingers, and then he deliberately, like a dare, raises Maul's hand to his lips. “Tell me more?”

Maul picks up his soup bowl and coolly upends it over his head. Truly, such a request deserves no other possible response.

[On AO3]