take this from me b4 i start to hate it🙏
word count: 1429
cws: detailed descriptions of gore, mutilation/body horror(?), ptsd (all related to tpm events)
summary: Maul has a bad night, Lavan is trying to make it easier :^)
Falling.
Falling and falling, the wind in his ears, the way he can't feel his stomach sinking, can't feel anything below the ribcage, he reaches out, tried to grab something, anything, his fingers grip hard metal, dig into it, claws snap off, and he doesn't feel anything, no pain, no fear, no urgency to stay alive, nothing.
Nothing. There is nothing and everything.
He is alive, and he is already dead.
He doesn't remember the impact, slamming into the bottom of the garbage chute. He must have lost consciousness. When he comes to, he turns his head, and sees black blood that has seeped onto the ground, his own lifeless, limp lower body.
His first and only thought is that nothing that lives and breathes is meant to see it's own guts.
He doesn't know what to do. What is there he can do? Crawl? Is he even supposed to try to stay alive? Is he even alive still? If so, does it matter?
And he crawls.
Blood pours from open wounds where his nails used to sit. What's left of his stomach becomes damp with blood as it drags on the jagged ground, skin tearing, dirt soaking into it.
And he crawls.
Is he still breathing? Is he still alive? Is he still alive? Is he still alive?
Is he still crawling?
Everything is so dark. There is nothing. He is supposed to be in agony, and there's nothing, supposed to be terrified and afraid for his life, and there is nothing, supposed to be kicking and fighting and willing to stay alive, and there's nothing, just the sound of half of him dragging along the garbage chute's corridor, the sound of ragged breathing, and the image of his own hands sinking into filthy ground, pulling, emerging, grasping, pulling.
Everything is so dark.
Oh, may whatever God is listening have mercy on him, it's starting to hurt.
It is so dark, and it hurts.
It's then when his eyes snap open, when he sits up and feels the cold night air hit sweaty skin, goosebumps blooming on his lower arms as he gasps for air for a few seconds. Lavan woke before even he did, like always, the man is already propped up on an elbow and looking at him with concern from behind the hair that had fallen into his face.
"C'mon," he mutters, half asleep still, but knowing what to do nonetheless. Like always.
He helps Maul up and out onto the small porch in front of their rented room, and Maul lets him, sitting down shakily onto the old, creaking wooden steps. Lavan doesn't join him yet, instead, he returns to the small room, and enters the even smaller refresher connected to it.
There's no light inside, so he half-blindly feels his way around for a cup, and begins pouring water from the sink. How many times has this happened, just in the last month- five? Ten? The fact that he cannot keep count should probably indicate that the number is leaning towards the latter of the two. He has stopped thinking of the episodes as an inconvenience long ago, if he ever even did think of them like that. It was becoming a routine. He'd know even before Maul, flinch awake as soon as his breathing quickened or he began tossing and turning more than usual, jolting awake moments after Lavan. He'd help him onto fresh air or under a cold shower, talk at him for a bit, wait for him to stop gritting his teeth and for his breathing to settle, and then gently suggest going back to sleep. Rinse and repeat every few weeks.
Except it's been slowly becoming every few days now, though Lavan suspected that their current situation has hastened the declining of Maul's sanity, not that he ever had much to begin with. It's been their third week in hiding- Lavan himself didn't quite know what they went into hiding for, but he trusted Maul enough to do it, just as Maul trusted him when he suggested to disappear on Tattooine instead of Dathomir this time around. They bounced around small inns and the backrooms of cantinas, either trying to get lost in the crowd, or in the middle of nowhere. Their current location- sweet old married couple's home in the middle of the desert with a vacant room- was the latter. His episodes were more likely in quiet places. Lavan suspected that Maul was not used to peace, that perhaps it was the absence of current dangers that made his psyche repeat old dangers instead, over and over.
The cup filled up, and Lavan stumbled out onto the porch.
Maul sat there with a vacant stare, arms wrapped around his middle, shivering, panting, like a prey animal whose chase had just ended. He flinched as Lavan sat next to him, not looking in his direction.
"You here?" Lavan asked, waving a hand in front of the man's face.
His answer was a slow nod.
"Good. Drink," he said, grabbing an arm and pushing the cup into it.
He didn't let go of it, though, because Maul's hands shook so wildly that he doubted he could hold onto it.
"Oh, darling," is all he sighed, dipping his hand into the water, dragging the back of it over the skin under Maul's jaw.
It was lukewarm at best, but it still felt like ice as it rolled over hot sweat, and it was enough to finally snap Maul out of his blank staring.
It was unpleasant, but it was something. Something was good. Much better than nothing.
He tilts his head forward and takes a deep, shaking breath, Lavan beginning to wet the back of his neck as he does. The muscles in his shoulder begin to loosen, and he swallows, trying to steady his shaking and panting. He hates this, this pathetic state and the vulnerability that comes with it, the way he falls apart so easily from something that wasn't even real. Like a child that had a nightmare about a monster in it's closet.
"It's good, it's okay, you're okay," Lavan says quietly, damp hands running along Maul's sweaty back. "Want me to kick you in the shin? You know, remind you that you have legs?" he jokes weakly.
Maul gives him a half-hearted, fleeting smile, poking him in his side with his elbow. Lavan is the only thing he doesn't know how to feel about amongst all of this, there's a bizarre concoction of thankfulness and shame and hate swirling in the pit of his chest, but he doesn't say a word. It's a constant battle with no victor, between the need for help and the inherent shame of asking for it, the feeling of being patronized and the fury it evokes, the honest gratitude of knowing that it is loyalty and love instead of pity. It's too much to make sense of, so he simply swallows it, and thinks about nothing but the slender, cold hand stroking his back.
"You do not have to stay and coddle me," he says, the weakness of his own voice making him cringe. "Go. Rest."
"I'm not tired," Lavan lies. "I'd just lay there awake. At least there's company out here."
They repeat this little dance every single time- Maul tells him that he needn't bother himself with this, Lavan tells him that it isn't a bother to begin with, then says something to frame the situation as if Maul is actually doing him a favor. It's true, in some way- never for whatever reason he gives him at the moment, but because at least at times like these, he knows he is needed. Maul needs him, and Lavan needs to be needed, and so he depends on him just as much. It's how it is, and how it always will be. They know no other way to love.
Lavan is still running his hand along Maul's spine by the time his hands settle enough to drink whatever water is left in the cup, by the time he stops shaking and panting and gritting his teeth. Still, they stay like that for a few more minutes, watching as the twin suns dress the horizon in a golden glow.
"Come, lay awake with me, then," Maul says after a while, and Lavan agrees.
And so they lay awake together until the suns are beaming through their curtains, bathing the room in honey, until Lavan hears his love's breathing settle into a calm monotone rhythm, and joins him in dreamless sleep.
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