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“What do you think of Rylee?” Devon had asked him one day, while he led her through a set of stretches.
“I don’t.” He had responded, lying only slightly. He tried not to think of the Lawson boy, Devon seemed happy enough to think about him for the both of them.
“Now I know that's a lie.” Devon challenged, Maul eyed her stretch.
“Go lower,” he said. “Or do you want to strain a muscle and lose a fight in the most appalling fashion. I would leave you to die if a strained muscle is what resulted in your failure.” Devon wrinkled her nose at him. He replied with a stony seriousness.
Devon leaned lower.
Maul doesn’t think he is the type to particularly like anyone immediately. He’s hardly the type to like anyone given any amount of time. It is a strange thing to ‘like’ someone, allowing oneself to feel a weak uneasy fondness. He allows himself to appreciate others’ skills, to be intrigued by talents or personalities but fondness? It is not a plight he encounters often.
That being said, Rylee Lawson is charming, in a strange sort of fascinating way. There’s an unease to his fascination as well. Rylee has lived such a different life than Maul could possibly comprehend and it makes it…difficult to gauge what the boy will do. Unpredictability is not ideal. Certainly not in Maul’s line of work.
Even Vario, mendacious as he is, and twice as boot licking, has a sort of comforting familiarity. Maul knows how to deal with scum, and criminals and traitors alike. Rylee Lawson, is none of these things.
Rylee Lawson, who only a week after his fathers death, had approached the ‘group’ with a home cooked meal and a proposition of a “moment for memorial.”
Devon had leapt upon that idea with a fervor that Maul sadly could not dissuade. Rylee, although having the guise of awkward discomfort, had sat on the ships deck, next to Devon and Maul and force-damned Vario, and directed them to take a moment of silence to reflect on loved ones lost. Preposterous! Why would Maul want a peaceable silence for such a thing!? And before his meal as well!?
After this… Silence, Rylee began by telling an insipid story about his father that Maul couldn't help but be intrigued by. The boy was no raconteur, too unsteady in himself, but he had a certain dangerous magnetism. Maul took sparse comfort in the fact that Devon was just as clinically intrigued. That she had told him once, that Rylee’s life seemed like some sort of children's tale. That she wanted Rylee to teach her botekin. She had spent much of her life hiding, Maul thinks. With worries far larger than whatever concerned one Rylee Lawson up until this point.
Still, this stuttering storyteller;
“Right after my mom and dad divorced, things were really weird and awkward?” Rylee swallowed. “My dad, uh I think he thought it was his fault? And he felt guilty that he’d ‘messed up my homelife?’ and so he spent every day with me for that whole week. Which was sweet but also, like a lot?” He’d laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. “I finally got mad at him. Or, not mad but confused I guess? He’d never spent that much time with me. I mean really, it was every waking hour. Every meal together, the same activities, all of it. He backed off…” Rylee sighed then, and Maul wanted to understand suddenly, a fierce sort of jealousy at how shapeless this story was to him. Like an abstract, a different language entirely.
“I loved my dad. And he loved me. I wish, I wish he and I had more time together, because he could have kept spending every second of the day with me like that and I still don’t think it would be enough.” Devon is rubbing his shoulder, eyes bright and sympathetic.
“I’m so sorry Rylee.” She says, so full of empathy and below that he can feel the temper of rage. Her kindness truly feeds that rage she has curated, deep in the pit of her chest. That is intriguing to him as well.
“Are there any stories you all want to share? Any regrets? Things are… better with company. Not great but better…”
Did Rylee want emotional torment!? Did he want a weakness he could extort later? Is this how weak cowards dealt their hands? Flimsey sentiment!? It reminded Maul horribly of Sidious, this genteel way of grabbing onto emotion, connection, and tarnishing it.
Maul scoops up his plate– that Rylee had made– and strode from the room, resolutely. He had neither the time nor the patience to play these mind games. He had planned to train Devon more this evening but Rylee had upheaved those plans as well.
Devon cared for this boy. He was in the way. Much like Master Daki had been, except Rylee had neither the use nor the wisdom of the late master.
When Maul had finished his meal, mood sour due to the fact that he would not be training Devon this evening–that his plans had been overrun by a teenager of all things–he began to fiddle with his leg.
He wasn’t the most skilled mechanic, but he knew how to handle his own legs most of the time. Robotic legs were surprisingly delicate, even worse than the real things sometimes. Instead of a muscle pull you’d break a cord and then you couldn’t walk at all! The force couldn’t reinforce metal nearly as well as a flesh and blood body.
It had taken Maul awhile to realize his legs needed almost constant tending to, just to ensure everything was in working order.
A sharp knock disrupted his work. Maul hissed behind his teeth, although the childish urge to just do so unrestrained by enamel was present. Being around teenagers was a horrid influence. Maul was an adult. “Enter.” He allowed cheritably, setting one of his tools down at the worktable.
Rylee Lawson entered his room and Maul straightened in his chair. The boy's eyes flickered to his legs, and then to his face guiltily as if Maul was not aware that he had robotic legs. Rylee was probably surprised by the extent of his…injury. Kenobi left him with the most pleasant gifts.
“Yes?” He drawled when Rylee didn’t say anything. The sooner this boy left his abode the better. Maul was not too pleased with him and it would be difficult to dispose of him subtly and without blame when Rylee’s last sighting was heading towards his room. He would be a viable (and probable) prime suspect. Devon would surely refuse to work with him if it were that obvious.
“Ah, right, sorry.” Rylee laughed sheepish. Sycophantic and weak. Even his posture was slightly slouched, he wasn’t a short boy and he would probably grow, yet he held himself like he was afraid of taking up even a modicum of space. Apologetic for his own existence. It was so very peeving. “Can I, uh come in?”
“I did say enter did I not?”
“Yes…” He murmured nodding, voice drifting. “Yes you did.” Rylee stepped forward, and then took another few steps until he was much closer to Maul. He rocked back and forth on his feet just a bit, strangely flighty as if he wasn’t the one accosting Maul with his presence in Maul's own room. It wasn’t as if Maul was invading his space.
And then there was what Maul can only describe as a shift:
Rylee straightened up, pulled his shoulders back, and stood to his full height.The nervous energy he was exuding diminished, until one might mistake him as confidant. When he locked eyes with Maul, Maul was surprised to see his gaze was steady, and in that gaze Maul realized Rylee had very, very brown eyes. They made him look earnest and that made Maul uneasy.
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” Rylee begins, in one of the most shocking starts to a sentence ever said to Maul on his own ship. “This is your ship, and I know talking about things can be difficult. I realize now maybe you thought I was trying to pressure everyone into sharing? It was selfish of me to assume everyone would want to process things that way, or with each other.”
“You came here to… apologize.”
“Yes.” Rylee says. Certain. It’s baffling. Maul doesn’t understand him. He gently prods the force but all he can sense is that astounding sincerity. “I… It’s been hard dealing with the fact that my dad… and I know you lost people that day, and so did Devon. I thought I was helping. But I made you uncomfortable so I’m apologizing.”
“I wasn’t uncomfortable.” It comes out too sharp, the ‘c’ in particular is almost spit, it sounds like a reprimand.
“Okay.” Says Rylee. Raises his hands in an easy gesture of surrender. “We hardly know each other, so I would get it if you were. Uncomfortable, I mean.”
“I am not angry with you. If that is your fear.” Blatant lies, but it’s not as if Rylee has the force to know better.
“I mean that’s good to hear.” A little laugh, awkward again, with a tinge of relief. “You’re pretty scary with your… uh- anyways- I’m sorry for your loss? And I’m sorry I tried to make you talk about it. Even if you aren’t upset about that, it was kind of tactless.”
Maul stares at him. And Rylee shifts uncomfortably under his gaze. Slowly he stands, Rylee stays where he is although the nervous clench and unclench of his hands reveal the boy to not be as glib as he is attempting to portray himself as.
He steps closer until he looms slightly above Rylee Lawson, looks down at him, closely and scrutinizingly, and then carefully, as if testing something, he lays a hand on Rylee’s shoulder.
Rylee only blinks. He doesn’t tense, he doesn’t seem guarded, nor does he step back (the fool) he only blinks, the smallest bit of surprise, and zero wariness. It’s like handling a baby. The levels of naivety are horrific, Maul feels almost concerned.
“I… accept your apology.” The boy grins a little up at him. He’s warm and untensed beneath Maul's hand. Maul shifts his grip slightly, so his hand inches slightly closer to the boy's neck. Rylee does not notice. He wonders at what point would Rylee realize something is wrong? Would he still be just as relaxed up until Maul’s hand was grasped around his neck? Would he be relaxed until Maul clenched his fist around his fragile human trachea? Maul releases him and draws back, wondering.
“Thanks, Maul.” Says Rylee. Stunningly informal but… Gratitude, an apology… How strange. Maul doesn’t understand him at all. But he doesn’t seem to be a threat; This much has made it clear that he is naive. He is not scheming surely, all Maul needs to do is call him over, and the boy will allow him to wrap his hands around his neck, till he ceases to breath. Lips blue, eyes guileless and glassy brown. He doesn’t need to dispose of Rylee Lawson just yet.
“Think nothing of it.” Maul says, distantly. And Rylee moves to leave Maul in peace, finally– when he pauses, yet again at the door.
“I don’t want to overstep again–”
“This seems to be a recurring issue–”
“But… If you’re hiding something from Devon? You should probably tell her before she finds out.” It’s said lightly, and Rylee's brows are drawn up more so in concern than any sort of threat… but it feels like a threat. Did Rylee see what happened with Daki? What does Rylee know? Does he know anything at all? There is implication, heavy and accusatory in his words.
“Is that a threat?” He replies, whisper soft. Rylee is turned away from him now, but he turns his head slightly, so Maul can see a single eye, the way he bites his lip.
“No, just unwarranted advice.” There’s a silence and when neither of them elaborate Rylee takes that as permission and leaves.
There’s… a feeling in his chest. It doesn’t feel heavy or bad, rather there’s something energizing about it. Not the frantic manic energy that he is well acquainted with but something almost… impressed. A diluted version of how he would feel when Kenobi, despite all odds, would accomplish something. A sort of…excitment.
A fool might label it a strange sort of twisted pride.
What does Maul think of Rylee indeed