Who would have standards that low - evidently not Talak. Having the other man so suddenly, very seriously, right up in his personal space was a new experience. He hadn't spent a lot of time with the other man and suddenly they were within like half a metre of each other on a planet with a pandemic. Part of his felt like that was a bad call but he was mostly focused on Talak. Watching the way he reacted without saying a word, scanning him with his gaze and with the Force.
A nerve was touched.
He hadn't ever felt the urge to date his apprentices either but the way Talak said it, along with some of the other cues he was beginning to pick up from the rest of the conversation made it clear it wasn't due to some rule against it. No, Talak resented the idea that he had dated his student, certainly, but the anger of that sudden caliber? Talak held something deep inside of him that fed that.
What exactly fed that well of emotion... Max did not know and he didn't need to know. It was the other man's business and none of his. It didn't come up very often and Talak seemed to be confronting it right now.
Good on him.
So he just raised an eyebrow to Talak before following after him and the Sith - he wasn't about to just let this all play out. Especially not when it seemed that Talak wanted to play the role of the martyr. He stayed about ten feet away with a small frown firmly in place.
"Killing a problem doesn't solve a problem - it just makes it a problem you carry with you for the rest of your life." he spoke quietly to both Talak and the Sith woman, "Marks your soul like a tally but no matter how many tallies you count there is always a way to step back from the marker."
He carefully didn't place his hands on his hips, on his weapon.
"We can still come back - we're not too far gone. We get to come back and I know that." he shrugged slightly, "And I think you know it too. But the change scares you."
@Phoenix @Dread @Charndley