Can’t Stop Falling (in Love)

By Seishuku Skuld (skuldchan@gmail.com)

Series: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Pairing: Maul/Obi-Wan

Warnings: Cracktacular lemony slash and blatant violation the laws of physics

Date: March 2005

This fic is dedicated to/blamed on Mel-ru and Destra for telling me that, yes, I am on crack and no, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Well, not all the time in any case.

*~*~*~*~*

Obi-Wan gripped the protrusion of the melting pit tightly, hanging on to dear life. Maul stood above him, bashing the remaining end of his lightsaber against the rim, sending white hot sparks flying into the dark shaft below. Maul was gloating.

::I win.:: Maul said, sending a very Sithly mental grin along with his words.

::Sure, sure,:: Obi-Wan sent back, still clinging on and hoping that if indeed his strength did fail him, Maul would catch him. ::Can I get out of here now? I'm getting tired.::

::I want to gloat more,:: Maul replied, swinging his lightsaber again and sending another shower of sparks into Obi-Wan's face.

Obi-Wan broadcasted a mental sigh. Maul really liked the sound of his lightsaber, and once he got it out he'd just never stop. Obi-Wan normally was not quite the jealous type, but he had to admit, Maul had at least ten times more style than he did with a lightsaber, and boy did he take every chance he got to make sure Obi-Wan knew it. Obi-Wan was certain it was some sort of compensation for being bottom most of the time (not to mention the height difference between the two of them), so he was willing to let his lover have his perks as long as he didn't go postal. ‘Cause he'd hate to lose the mind-blowing sex.

::Fucker!:: Obi-Wan thought as his lover sent another explosion of sparks and he barely closed his left eye in time, narrowly avoiding losing it to a spark flying in his direction. Definitely compensating. ::Okay, that's it.:: Obi-Wan usually liked to play Maul's kinky little games, because it kept him content and a content Maul meant he'd reap the rewards of sex afterwards. And hey, he was kind of a looker too, so Obi-Wan didn’t have much to complain about. But enough was enough, and Obi-Wan preferred hanging from the bars installed above Maul's bedroom doorway than over a perilous pit. There was a limit, and Obi-Wan had just reached it. ::That's it,:: he sent out, as Maul looked down on him in confusion, no longer sensing his lover as a willing participant in the play, ::your turn to hang over the fucking pit.::

Reaching out to the Force, Obi-Wan leapt out of the pit and dropped as soon as his feet hit solid ground, extending a leg and to sweep Maul's feet from under him. Maul recovered too late from his bewilderment as he sailed over the edge and into the pit. Obi-Wan jumped back onto his feet, flexed his fingers still stiff from clinging to the pit, and peered over the edge, expecting to see Maul growling at him. 'Cause that was pretty hot.

::You bastard!:: came Maul's voice from inside the pit, and Obi-Wan realized, startled, that Maul wasn't hanging on at the edge but was instead sailing further and further down the center of the shaft, where he was too far to grab onto any handholds, and gravity was doing a pretty job at spiriting him downwards and fast.

Obi-Wan paused momentarily, not entire sure what to do. He was damn sure neither of them had the foresight to bring any of the rope they'd used on each other earlier that morning. “Well, fuck me,” thought Obi-Wan, sure that by the time Maul got halfway to bottom "oops" just wasn’t going to cut it. Giving a last glance at his surroundings, Obi-Wan took a deep breath and dived in. ::I'm coming!::

*~*~*~*~*

"Well, now what?" Obi-Wan asked. After he managed to stabilize his guts, this free fall thing wasn't too bad. He and Maul had reached terminal velocity just a couple of minutes ago, and it felt like he was just floating.

"I was hoping you'd jumped in with a rescue plan," Maul said, folding his arms, obviously not amused. Obi-Wan could just feel the waves of anger rolling off him, and the last thing he wanted on his hands was a pissed off Sith Lord.

"I figured it might be too late by the time I thought of something," Obi-Wan said, "so I figured I'd jump in, meet up with you, and well, you know the saying, two heads are better than one."

If he still had his saber, Obi-Wan was sure Maul would've taken a swing at him. Instead, Maul just gave him a dirty look and twisted around to peer down into the darkness. "How far down does this pit go?"

Obi-Wan shrugged. "I don't know. Hopefully we'll get a bit of a warning before we hit bottom."

"Like boiling steam or the smell of sulfur?"

"Something like that."

"I hope it hits us quickly and we don't have to watch it coming slowly."

Obi-Wan raised and eyebrow. "I thought you Sith were all into that slow torturous death thing."

"Not for ourselves," Maul replied, still obviously pissed at the situation, not that Obi-Wan could really blame him. The bright side to the whole thing was that at least they wouldn't die alone.

"Well," Obi-Wan began, "the bright side is that--"

"I know, I know," interrupted Maul darkly. "That's very comforting, thank you." His low voice didn't usually lend itself to sarcasm, but this was one of the instances in which he pulled it off perfectly.

Obi-Wan decided that if he didn't want to die prematurely, he'd better keep quiet. An awkward silence fell and for a few seconds there was no sound save for the air whooshing past their ears. There was no light coming from the seemingly endless pit of darkness below them, and no smell of sulfur yet. Maybe if they were lucky, the melting wasn't turned on, and they'd hit the bottom cushioned by the Force, bounce around a bit, and then start the long ascent back up half of Naboo's crust. Yeah, that seemed like a pretty good plan, and he was just about to impart this particular spark of inspiration when Maul spoke.

"So..." he started, trailing off when Obi-Wan gave him a questioning look.

"Yeah?" Obi-Wan asked, wondering if Maul had simultaneously come to the same revelation. as they were wont to do.

"...wanna fuck?"

"What?! Are you crazy?"

Maul looked him in the eye steadily. "You did say you wanted to go in the middle of sex."

Obi-Wan paused to consider this. Yup, he definitely remembered saying that as recently as last week. And well, what did he have to lose at this point in time? Absolutely nothing. Obi-Wan grinned and shrugged. "Sure."

"I get top," Maul said.

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to protest, but decided to against it. All of this was his fault, so he might as well give up top privileges. After all, he'd never specified whether he wanted to be top or bottom when he checked out, and Maul was good either way, so he figured he didn't particularly mind. "Sure," Obi-Wan said. He really hoped he was about to get the fucking of his life.

Before Obi-Wan had even finished, Maul reached out and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulling Obi-Wan to him with crushing force, tearing his tunic in the process. Obi-Wan maneuvered out of his clothing, pulling his arms out of his sleeves and letting the fabric fall away above him. Maul yanked his belt out from his waist and let that go too, and before Obi-Wan could blink twice he was also divested of his pants and underwear. At least he wouldn’t be needing those anytime soon.

The air rushing past him tickled his back, cool eddies playing about his exposed neck, the back of his ears, and not to mention between his legs. With a small smile Obi-Wan wrapped his arms around Maul and kissed him hard. He preferred to climax before they both hit the bottom, and at the moment Maul was way too clothed for that. So Obi-Wan punctuated his kiss with a loud tearing of cloth, and by the time they were both aroused they were both also very naked.

“You didn’t let the lube go too, did you?” Obi-Wan asked breathlessly breaking the kiss, his mind belatedly reminding him of a few things. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, but if he was going to have one last go at it before he bit the dust, he figured he’d better have an easy ride, but he wasn’t about to insist on it.

“I’m not as forgetful as you are,” Maul replied with a grin. He stuck a lubed finger inside Obi-Wan and purred appreciatively as Obi-Wan arched into him with a moan, hands scrabbling for purchase on his lover’s dark skin.

“Screw the prep,” Obi-Wan said, hands kneading Maul’s ass, “just get to it.”

“I’m taking my time,” Maul murmured before sinking his teeth to Obi-Wan’s neck. Obi-Wan hissed in pleasure and in pain (mostly the former) and wrapped his legs tight around Maul’s waist, his body needing to be taken. He was giving his lover all the signals, and yet Maul was still taking his dear, sweet time.

“What if we hit the bottom in a couple of seconds?” Obi-Wan asked, desperately trying to keep the fear at bay, to keep it from overtaking his desire.

“Then we’re very unlucky people,” Maul replied reasonably, seemingly unbothered by the fact that in a few seconds, minutes, or hours, they might be splattered every direction in a hundred foot radius. It would be quick and painless, and that was all he appeared to care about.

“Just take me, please,” Obi-Wan whimpered, and finally Maul acquiesced, deciding that if he pushed the sex back any further, Obi-Wan was likely to explode in a ball of nerves even before they reached the bottom. Gripping Obi-Wan’s waist so he wouldn’t slip out from beneath him, Maul entered him roughly in one motion, fingers leaving bruise marks on Obi-Wan’s hips. Obi-Wan let out a shuddering breath as Maul handled him, knocking all the air out of lungs. He remembered a few moments later to breathe, and he drew a breath just as Maul slammed into him again, rattling his frame and shaking the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping. Obi-Wan tightened his embrace around Maul’s shoulders, burying himself in the crook of Maul’s neck, fighting to breathe in Maul’s scent as they plummeted ever downward together.

“Breathe through me,” Maul said. Obi-Wan shot him a quizzical look but Maul silenced any questions by placing his mouth over Obi-Wan’s and placing aside any doubts about what he had meant. Obi-Wan relaxed visibly as Maul’s tongue plied his lips apart, exploring his mouth while they drew their breaths together, the rising and falling of their chests – Obi-Wan’s white and smooth, Maul’s covered in jagged trails of red and black – perfectly synched with the movement of their bodies. Maul was warm even though the air they fell through was cold, leaving his bare, untouched skin covered in goosebumps. There was a mild sheen of sweat developing between them, where their chests were touching and heaving against one another, and had it not been for Maul’s hands at his waist, and his legs hooked tightly behind Maul’s back, they might have lost each other in their rapid descent.

Obi-Wan kept his eyes open, not quite sure whether his stomach was leaping into his throat because he had never seen Maul so engrossed in the act of sex, or whether it was because the walls of the shaft were still falling away at an alarming rate. As long as he hit the bottom with Maul so they could make one big splat, everything would be okay. There were worse ways to end up dead, and this certainly fell short of the list.

The desperation in their coupling was palpable as they reached for the Force together, letting it augment and fill the space between them, connecting them through all the places they couldn’t join. It calmed Obi-Wan to some degree and to Maul it made more passionate, igniting fires within him that Obi-Wan had no idea existed. Maul grunted as he breathed through Obi-Wan, forcing them closer together with each thrust, gaining in strength and tempo with every foot they fell.

Obi-Wan threw his head back as he came, covering both their stomachs as he cried out, no longer alarmed as the smooth plasteel walls of the shaft gave way into rough, brown rock, that quickly giving way to empty darkness.

“Oh shit,” he breathed as out of the corner of his eye the surface of a black, turbulent lake rose up to meet him. At least it water, and not something solid.

::Definitely could be worse,:: Maul said to him, already at work wrapping them both in layers of the Force. Obi-Wan joined tendrils of his Light Side energies in weaving the shield and clung to Maul tightly hoping that they’d survive the impact.

::Did I ever tell you I love you and you’re the best sex I’ve ever had in my life?:: Obi-Wan said through their link, his mind counting the seconds before they hit the water.

::Every time you come,:: Maul replied.

::Smug bastard.::

And then he hit the water with a jarring crash, and all the breath came rushing out of him. He was certain he had broken bones in several places, if not having been squished to the consistency of oatmeal already. That was when he noticed a beeping as the water slowed his descent, wrapping lazy, liquid arms about him and slowing him to a stop. The beeping grew louder and more insistent, and belatedly Obi-Wan panicked, noticing that somehow he had gotten separated from Maul, and had no air, and all that filled his mind was that he had to find his lover, breathe, and stop that noise.

Obi-Wan sat up with a jolt and blinked, realizing that the infernal beeping was coming from his alarm clock and that he was sitting in his bed with his sheets pooled about his waist, not floating in one hundred feet of deep water. He groaned and wiped the sweat of his nightmare from his forehead, rolling on top the warm body sleeping next to him, and gave the alarm clock a loud smack. He missed the snooze button with his fingers, but he found it with the Force, and that got the job done and gave him an excuse to press his body all over Maul's.

Maul groaned and rolled over, one horn turning to dig into Obi-Wan's side.

"Ow!" protested Obi-Wan indignantly, flopping unceremoniously back onto his side of the bed. "What was that for?"

"I don't like being dogpiled on in the morning," Maul said, wrapping the pillow around his face to shut out the morning sunlight drifting in lazily through the cracks in the blinds. "Or I just don't like mornings period. You deserved it anyway."

"Still sore about what happened last week, huh?"

"Had a nightmare about it again, last night."

Obi-Wan eyed the sheets meaningfully. "I don't think nightmare's the right word."

"Well," Maul turned over onto his side and let go of the pillow, "it did end in a nice spot."

"I know," Obi-Wan grinned, realizing he wasn't the only one who had enjoyed the dream, "I dreamt of that too." They'd be doing that a lot lately -- sharing dreams. Neither of them seemed to mind this new development, it meant they knew exactly what they wanted from each other in the morning. It made Maul easier to deal with in the single-digit hours.

"Why don't we finish that up?" Maul suggested, not really needing the excuse to stay in bed, but taking it anyway.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Obi-Wan grinned, using the Force to close the blinds and darken the room. They didn't open again until far into the afternoon.

~*end*~

Author’s Note: Believe it not, Star Wars: TPM was my first fandom way back in the day. I am a slash/yaoi fangirl now because Maul/Obi-Wan was my first slash pairing. To say that they started it all is an understatement. As I’ve been playing KotOR2 in the past couple of weeks, I’ve come to realize how much I miss the good old days of the Maul/Obi fandom, and how I regret that I never wrote for them. While the fandom has moved on and I have moved on, I will always look back on Maul/Obi with fondness, because they were my first. ^_^ It’s been six years since I first discovered them in a small corner of the Internet, and I hope this does them justice. They’ll always have a special place in my little fangirly heart.