hello apples! for the first sentence thing: "where are you, captain?"
Where are you, captain?
He mutters it over and over again, scouring the tunnels for his captain, his One. Where has he gone? He was not meant to leave. Not his One.
His One said he would stay, called him spider and gave him food, gave him touch, a hand on his cheek, fingers on his horns, no pain. There is no pain when One touches him, calloused brown fingers firm but not unkind, tracing his marks and the dark veins on his skin.
One called him broken, unbalanced, dangerous, and touched him gently still.
Maul calls out for him, again and again. Where are you, captain? Where did you go? Why did you leave me? Why do you not speak? Why do you hide from me?
His captain said he would not leave Maul, would not leave his spider. But he is gone. Maul is alone again.
Maul has always been alone.
One is gone.
Perhaps One is not real.
Another figment of his broken mind. No round chin tilted in challenge. No brown skin hidden by white plastoid. No rumbling chest and lilted voice. No fathomless brown eyes to bore into his own.
But Maul can feel him still, he is sure of it. And when he sleeps, he falls into nightmares not his own, he is sure of it. But he does not find One; the young man has One's face but yellow hair that does not smell of darkening dye.
He calls out to Maul in the shadows of their minds, asks Maul where he has gone, croons that Maul is safe with him. But he is a stranger. He is not One.
When Maul wakes from these nightmares of another broken mind, he resumes his search.
Where are you, Captain?