Work Text:
It couldn’t have been later than five standard in the morning when Savage was suddenly roused by violent clanging sounds coming from the next room over. Vaguely aware that it could be enemies- either a Republic or Separatist cruiser that finally caught up with their ship and no doubt wanted to arrest his brother, Savage decided to jump out of bed and check it out.
The ‘jumping’ part was more difficult than he’d anticipated, though. As much as his mind wanted to wake, his body wasn’t cooperating and he ended up just tossing and turning around in his bed nest a few times, falling asleep for some seconds and repeatedly being awakened by the clanging of metal against metal in what must have been the galley across the hall.
When the sounds increased in volume and grew more frantic, Savage was finally annoyed and worried enough to actually get up. He slowly lifted himself from the bed nest, (choosing to ignore the cracking of his aging knees and ankles) and halfheartedly threw some clothes on and walked out into the hall.
Though when he started approaching the source of the sounds, Savage noticed it stopped completely, and the ship was silent. That was worrying. He called out from his doorway.
“Brother?” There was no reply. Savage fussed with the shirt that was caught around his horns and called out again after a pause.
“Brother, are you alright?”
“Y-yes.” Came Maul’s voice, muffled by the doorway opposite Savage’s quarters.
“What are you doing in there, brother?” Savage said, perplexed. Why exactly would Maul lock himself in the galley and do what sounds like banging pots together for hours in the early of the morning?
“Do you need help?” Savage said when Maul remained silent.
“Of course not!” Maul suddenly shouted, though without conviction. “I’m merely… preparing. Something.”
“You’re… cooking?” Well that was a new one, Savage thought. He wasn’t sure if Maul even knew how to cook, despite trying to get him to learn all those Dathomiri recipes. He would definitely need help, if those sounds earlier were anything to go by. Savage stepped up to the door.
“Brother you do know the maintenance droid can cook for you, right? Do you want me to get it?” Savage activated the door half a second too late to hear Maul say,
“No– wait!”
And then the door whooshed open.
For one weird moment, Savage wondered when they had installed red wallpaper in the galley. And then he realized with horror what he was looking at.
Maul stood stiffly in the middle of the source of the ruckus, a bunch of upturned pans and pots and cooking instruments, scattered on every surface and all smeared with blood and viscera. He looked like he was standing in the eye of an offal hurricane that flew through the galley. It took Savage a few seconds to register that Maul was also clothed in a strange skirt-like piece of fabric tied around his waist, which was also stained red with liquid and unidentified lumps. Maul blinked at Savage.
“I made food.” The younger brother said plainly, and sheepishly gestured to the counter before him.
And Savage had been far too distracted by everything to notice the giant lump of… something that was sitting on the counter in front of Maul. It was some kind of carcass, that he knew… but it was so mangled beyond recognition he couldn’t decide what species it was. It was just kind of… sitting there. Open. And wet. And vaguely person-sized. It looked like whatever it used to be got into a knife-fight with Maul and lost spectacularly.
Maul grabbed a dirty plate and unceremoniously plopped a lump of the mangled carcass onto it, and held it up in offering to Savage.
“It’s for you.” Maul said.
Savage decided that day that Maul wasn’t allowed in the galley anymore, and definitely was not allowed to cook again under any circumstances. Savage also decided it was totally sweet of Maul to try, even if the results turned out to be just a torn up corpse on a plate.
Savage ended up sitting with Maul in the dirty galley that day, reluctantly (but happily) eating bits of raw flesh off the lukewarm carcass while Maul looked on in satisfaction. It was a small price to pay to see Maul content, Savage reckoned, and he couldn’t help but smile at that.