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[Maul's expression didn't change. He watched Ezra's face carefully as he spoke, wishing he'd done this face-to-face so he could sense his intentions through the Force. He'd put a lot of trust in the young Jedi and felt it had been shaken due to what Anakin had told him. He felt he'd been duped or lied to. For what reason Ezra would have had for doing so, he couldn't fathom, but he'd grown up with a man who'd lied to him frequently for no reason at all. Maul distrusted everyone to be just as deceitful and sneaky as his master had been.

But....Ezra had never shown a duplicitous nature before. He'd been patient with Maul even when he was difficult and stubborn. He had no motive to do so. And if he was doing this, he'd be the worst sort of hypocrite that someone who claimed to be part of the Jedi Order could be. Maul finally nodded, a brisk short one.]

I believe you.

[Then he went into the explanation as to why he'd started this conversation to begin with.]

He told me recently he didn't want an apology, but more importantly, he felt like no one asked him what he wanted in this situation. I assumed someone would have talked to him about my motivations for trying to apologize, which is why I was persistent in trying to talk to him. I wouldn't have been nearly so much had I known otherwise.

[There had been a great failure of communication all the way around. It would have sounded like something of a farce had it not been so serious.]

[Ezra's shoulders slump and he scrubs at his face.]

Thank you for believing me.

[He sighs.]

The truth is-

I didn't set you up to fail intentionally. But Anakin is - for me - he's so hard to talk to.

I told him you wouldn't fight the bond being cut, but I didn't go into detail about why. I was so focused on trying to get him to accept the method I'd found to cut the bond, that it would work at all, and then he was talking about cutting other parts of himself out too, and I sort of panicked about that-

Trying to explain that you were actually sorry fell by the wayside. I'm not sure if he would have listened to me, anyway.

Probably not. Like, he seems to think everything I try to do for him is all about getting on Obi-wan's good side.

[Maul gave a long sigh that terminated in a sound more like a groan. He laced his fingers together behind his neck and looked upwards for a few moments before focusing back on the screen with Ezra on it again. He was speaking slowly and it was clear he was trying to get his point across without it just coming off as angry ranting.]

Skywalker is hard for everyone to talk to. I'm amazed you still have the patience to try with him at all. He's the unhappiest person I have ever met in my entire life, myself included, and sometimes I think he wants to be unhappy instead of trying to change.

Edited 2023-01-30 06:30 (UTC)

[Reluctantly-]

I can't say I haven't thought the exact same things about him.

[Whatever Maul expected Ezra to say, he certainly wasn't expecting Ezra to actually agree with him. He blinked in surprise. It was a bit refreshing to know Ezra wasn't a saint, merely a Jedi who also still felt emotions.]

There is a limitation I believe everyone reaches with other people. You don't always have be a manipulative monster to get to that point with someone. While I hate Skywalker, I also know others care about him for whatever reason. I think he's going to isolate himself soon unless he learns to bend a little rather than always break.

Edited 2023-01-31 02:34 (UTC)

I don't think he's made up with Luke, at all. Things between him and Obi-wan have been...tense.

I do care about him. I don't want to stop trying-

[How many mornings has Ezra woken up and one of his first thoughts has been - He hasn't tried to kill me yet.

Or

He hadn't killed Obi-wan yet. Those futures don't have to exist here.

Ezra truly believes that they don't have to, not here, not in Trench. Yet neither has he seen commitment from Anakin, to not make those choices, here, either. So those possibilities hang like a danging executioner's sword.

Intellectually, Ezra is aware that's probably not a healthy environment for anyone to live in.

Eventually, Ezra says, weakly-]

It's difficult to live with someone who'd probably rather you simply disappear.

Luke will always love his father. He's too good of a person not to. But I don't think he likes him very much right now. I don't blame him As for Obi-Wan.... [As always, the subject of the man Maul felt he would forever be a little in love with made him pause.] .....Well, he needs at least one person who won't give up on him, even if that might be in Kenobi's best interest.

[Maul just stared at Ezra. He hadn't been aware things were quite so tense between everyone in the house, just assuming that all the Jedi there were getting along.]

I'm surprised you're still living with him at all.

[The patience it would have taken to live with a person who despised his guts was something Maul never had possessed in his entire life.]

[Ezra doesn't think Anakin's feelings of antipathy rise to the level of hate. Somewhere between utter indifference and resentment, is where he'd peg it. Still, it's not fun with live with.

He shrugs uncomfortably. He's sure if he were a better Jedi, it wouldn't be so hard.]

Well, tense on Anakin's side, at least.

I...don't want to leave Obi-wan alone.

[His voice drops even lower.]

He's had plenty of that for a lifetime.

[Maul could understand that line of thinking.]

I know that. All too well.

[He remembered finding Obi-Wan after he'd come back experiencing Order 66 and Anakin's betrayal. He'd never seen his old foe so broken. He'd experienced so much pain and had been forced to go on living. That wasn't an easy thing.]

Why do you think I check up on him from time to time?

[He knew Ezra would have been observant enough to notice Maul's changed feelings towards Obi-Wan over the past year, how they'd become more like some weird frenemy status than anything else these days.]

[Ezra smiles faintly. He's not completely clear on the shape of Maul's feelings for Obi-wan; it's not his business anyway. But he's certain there's some form of affection there.]

I know.

[He clears his throat.]

So. Honestly, my recommendation about Anakin at this point is...disengage. As unnatural as that may feel to you.

[Aside from Anakin who hadn't believed Maul was capable of feeling that kind of love, and Reaper who would just as soon prefer Obi-Wan didn't exist, no one in Trench was fully aware of the scope of Maul's true feelings for Obi-Wan besides the man himself. Maul was content to keep it that way, uneasy to let anyone else possibly find out how much he loved the old Jedi.

He scowled as the subject came back around to Anakin, both at the suggestion and the mention of the idiot Jedi at all.]

You're right. That's not something I'm used to doing.

I know it sucks, but unless Anakin has a radical change of heart, I really do think he's going to take any interaction between you negatively, at this point.

[Maul snorted contemptuously.]

I doubt he has a heart. The last time I saw him go through a radical change it took my master torturing his son to death with Force Lightning for him to realize what he needed to do.

[Luke had trusted Maul enough to show him that memory once.]

He claims all my attempts to change are not real but he's no better. He sees no reason to change his selfish ways.

[Blandly-]

He says very similar things about you.

[He's not impressed with either of them talking about how the other is incapable of caring, or learning.]

[There was a pause and then a slight grinding sound as Maul's teeth grit together before he was able to say anything else. That had hit a nerve.]

He's biased against me. Perhaps rightfully so, I've not been keen to forgive some of the people here who have killed me, but at least I recognized there were things wrong with me and have been trying. His problem is that he doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong with him at all that needs to be worked on.

There's no point to win here, Maul. It's not a contest of 'who's worse', that you can draw me into participating in.

I simply find that you sound so alike at times...interesting.

Something to think about, maybe?

Or maybe not.

[Maul wasn't at all interested in comparing notes between the way he and Anakin were similar.]

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