[He felt her turmoil too — but there wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t feel that himself. Its just a normal part of living, particularly living as Force Sensitive. The height of their sensitivity surely only makes it worse.
But this, he recognizes, is an exercise in futility. They aren’t hearing one another, and Kylo Ren doesn’t have the energy for deep emotional examination. Acknowledging she was happy means that it wasn’t a lie, which means that something (or multiple somethings) of what she is saying must be true and genuine.
He opens his mouth to say something else, but the thought stops forming midway. He is frayed from lack of sleep, and the spark of his anger has burnt him out.]
[ Her lips twitch as though to incline towards a smile that he has called upon those fond memories, but her chest aches with longing for that happiness now. Wouldn't it be easy to reclaim? To fold herself in his arms and indulge in that momentary peace again. To lay down arms and find comfort in each other instead of this endless war back and forth. ]
When it was just us. [ When they were together and the world was gone and she could forget about it. Those cannot be the only moments, though. That can't be her only happiness. Clinging too hard to them had been what really began to change her. ] When I could pretend you weren't still keeping me at arm's length.
[ But then she'd see the rest of his behavior, the times he refused to act like she mattered to him, and she'd have to lie to herself that just knowing was enough. Or she'd see the disappointment in her friends, and she'd have to lie to herself that she still felt connected to them. He is keeping her at arm's length. And it's not just them. She understood now what Keith had meant the last time they'd been on Headquarters. ]
(I am not interested in doing better for other people.)
[That needs to be made clear. He doesn't deny the claim that he was keeping her at arm's length. This entire conversation has made that impossible to deny. He kept everyone at arm's length, but Rey had gotten closer than anyone else. Maybe that was a mistake -- but it happened.
And denying it -- there was no use in it. He could not co-exist with his father in the universe that way, and removing him had only made it worse. So how was he meant to confront it with Rey?]
(You want me to care for them, as you do. I will not.)
[Not murdering Keith for her sake was hard enough.]
[ She doesn't flinch — she's simply heard this argument from him too many times to react to it now. ]
Me.
[ It's about sparing her pain and letting her be the person she wants to be — hopeful and naive and compassionate. Because being anything else felt like it was killing her. Calling it a poison had wounded him, true, but she could think of no better word for the slow sap to her hope. But she can't make him see that it's worthwhile to confront his fear in the name of preventing her real pain — he has to be the one to decide she's worth that. ]
(If it was just you--then it wouldn't matter. But it is never 'just you'.)
[He wants to reach out in that moment -- to touch her, to shake her, he isn't sure. His hands stay at his sides, but the bond doesn't obscure his intent while he tries to decide. Whatever impression she had left on him hasn't gone away.
And then, finally, he tries to reach for her through the bond in silence. Just to see if something is still there, or if its all gone.]
[ In the midst of the storm of his conflict and confusion, Rey's thoughts and feelings are finally clear. Hope and certainty stand at the forefront — for herself, and for him. It's going to get better. It has to get better.
She can feel the way he longs to reach for her, a mirror of the ache she feels, and it assures her further that despite everything muddling the presentation, they're both coming from the same place, the same deep well of longing and affection. Connected, even when they struggle like this to understand one another.
Though she feels him reach for her, she doesn't try to shut anything out. There's a brazen, foolish openness to it — the same sort of all-in gamble she's begging him to make on her. He can take what he wants. She's done trying to measure it out and make it palatable in hopes that he won't find something that gives him an excuse to leave; she has to trust that he won't. More to the point, he has left, and she has survived it. She is closer to Poe and Loki and Hayame and Keith for letting him.
So laid bare for him there, if he doesn't flinch away from it, is the depth of her affection for him. He left, and it's still there. A bright, burning light which tells the story of how hard this is for her — if she didn't care so damn much it might be easier than this. But she does, and it's nearly impossible not to just crumble into his arms.
She won't, though, this time. ]
No. Just me. [ She holds this line. She won't let him distract it by making it about her friends. ] I want to feel like myself again. I want to have hope. I don't want to have to lie about how important you are to me, and I don't want to watch how easily you pretend that I'm nothing to you, all in the name of fear.
(You know the truth. What does what we tell the others matter? If they don't know, it cannot be used against us.)
[Like Thrawn had tried to use it against them. If he hadn't been transferred so soon after that, he doesn't even want to think about where that might have lead. But it was a very real threat that both of them had seen.
He frowns some, when she talks about how important he is to her. Even seeing it in the Force -- it makes him uncomfortable, to hear someone talk about him like that. Anxious bile rises in his throat.]
(If you do not feel like yourself, then...)
[Why did you bother? Were they just doomed to ruin one another?]
[ Maybe she's a naive idiot for thinking that circling this particular point means she's wearing him down, making headway, but it feels like she is. He isn't spitting venom and accusing her of lying to him anymore. So she keeps her voice soft, steady, firm. ]
You're worth it.
[ That's the most important part to get out. Otherwise, he might go back to spitting at her. Otherwise, he might lose sight of the fact that all she's asking is that he consider her worth it too. ]
But no one is trying to use it against us.
[ Keith and Loki, they already knew about the connection. They figured it out in Hanabira. But she'd told him that already. There was no use kicking a dead bantha. And it's too complicated to get into the point of their feelings for one another. She still doesn't fully possess the awareness necessary to talk about those things, even if it was that point which got her here. What would she have done without Hayame? ]
You're protecting us from a threat that doesn't exist. A threat that we could handle, if it came. I don't care if Thrawn and the Empire and the whole galaxy knows what you mean to me — if they tried to take you from me, I would stop them.
[ There's something feral and possessive to this final point she arrives at. Fiercely protective, but also a claim in its own way, made by a scavenger who's used to having to fight to keep what little she has. In a way, it demonstrates what she hasn't been able to articulate clearly — what she's looking for from him.
He's backing away from that possibility in fear of how those people could use her to hurt him. She has instead prepared to take up arms to make them pay for it. As long as that fear is winning out, she's not convinced of the truth he purports in these moments. Obviously he values her — more than he values anyone but himself — but not that highly. Not like she values him. ]
I'm not going to lessen my feelings to hide from them.
[If she is expecting him to make concessions, then she needs to work on her naiveté. Sure, it was hubris that put them in that situation to begin with, but that didn't mean that someone else wouldn't or couldn't try to do the same thing.
This time, he reaches for her across the bond, careless whether or not if it had weakened enough so that his hands might pass through her.]
(What if you couldn't stop them?)
[Keith didn't frighten him, but -- what if Loki had wanted to use it against them? Neither of them would be able to stand up against him. Rey couldn't know what it was like to have someone knowing every move they would make before they made it, being unable to hide from someone. What they had, the mutual respect of their boundaries -- it wasn't the same.]
[ Perhaps if only for the reckless commitment to the act, she is solid under his touch. He doesn't hesitate or second guess, tries despite the possibility of failure and disappointment, and that either puts him in sync with Rey sufficiently or the Force answers them, for she may as well be there with him.
The hairs on the back of her neck prickle with the contact. Not just the usual way, when they touch across space like this, blindly groping for one another, for some salve for their loneliness, and not just for the way it summons up memories of the dark of their room in Drakstaden with his hands on her and almost nothing between them — but for the very fact that it feels like coming home, to touch him. Like the universe wants to settle into place, and holding themselves apart has kept it off its axis.
She inhales sharply, rocked by the suddenness of it. She reaches for him, too, one hand settling at the base of his ribcage, the other in the center of his chest grabbing a fistful of his tunic. Her touch is gentle, though it's unclear whether it's meant to stay him or reciprocate. Both, probably.
Disappointment that he has gotten wrapped up in more hypotheticals to justify his paranoia never finds purchase before he corrects it. He knows. How? Who? That was not Luke's crime, or his parents'. No one had used and manipulated him like—
Her expression falters, falls. He doesn't talk about this. ]
Snoke.
[ It's not a question. She remembers the disfigured face in his mind, clad all in gold, jeering at him. She does not need to ask if that is who he means. She knows. Occasionally she wondered why he had risen to feel such murderous intent for his master, what had changed, but the information simply wasn't there. He'd just returned here clear in his purpose.
Now, the picture grows clearer. She gathers her resolve. ]
Then we'll stop them. [ Blind hope may not work for him, but it has been all Rey has survived on for this long. Maybe, just maybe, holding onto him like this she can infuse him with it. Offer him her own certainty, where his is too weak. ] Together we could. We will.
[ Even she knows how naive this sounds, and how it will sound to him though. After a beat, she sobers up further. No blind hope. A middle ground. So — ] But even if I failed, it'd be worth it. Because it was my choice. [ And given where she'd come from, her freedom to decide for herself is everything. Her identity, her sense of self, was all she'd ever really had. ] I'd rather fight and lose than allow someone to control my choices through fear.
[Kylo Ren goes quiet after that and does not let go of her. There is something of a stiffness that is adopted to him when she invokes Snoke's name. He'd always felt like he'd perhaps gotten away from his watchful gaze, and yet it still somehow showed up in every little action he wouldn't have approved of.
There is a lot of internal digestion going on here. There are probably people in the internet cafe looking at him oddly now, enough that it pulls at his awareness of the bond -- but Rey is holding him there too now.
Loki's words echo back to him again: Your fear is a poor master, and it allows everyone but yourself to control you. Is that what you want? Was that what this was? No -- and yes. In the past, it had been a promise. But many of the influencing factors simply weren't present, so was it just control from another realm?
He is caught in a loop of his own thoughts. When Loki had gifted him with that information, it hadn't been easy to digest -- and he hadn't really absorbed it, he realizes. But now that its staring him in the face again...
...well, he'd been right all along, hadn't he?
Slowly, he lets go of Rey as the epiphany hits him. There's no real argument left to make once he accepts that bit of information. He was being controlled through fear, and had been for many years now. It didn't make his need for vengeance burn any less -- but it made the need for protection seem...childish.
He glances back to her, lost for words. Does he apologize? No, there is nothing to apologize for. All of his feelings were valid, even if he understands now that perhaps he needed to try and work through them some.
Nod? Wait for the bond to fade and let her draw her own conclusions?]
[ She can see something settling into place. And it's not anger, or vengeful resolve, or hurt, or any of that. Not like before when he'd slid so easily into that grudging place.
Despite that, he lets her go. Her hands fall away from him in turn, however reluctantly. Despite the fact that she can sense something resolving itself in him, she picks up on his new sense of uncertainty too. Like maybe he's withdrawing because he still has something he needs to work out. ]
Ben?
[ A flutter of fear rises in her chest. Like maybe he's worked it out and he's simply withdrawing. But she'd been allowing fear to control her choices too — fear of him leaving. So she accepts the possibility and lets it roll off. She can't control his actions; only her own. ]
[The sound of his name draws his attention back to her eyes, where he proceeds to hold them until the sound starts to filter back into the space between them. Before he can offer a proper reply, he's staring at someone swaddled in a Hathaway uniform waving in front of his face to try and get his attention.
He knows where she is -- he should go to her, he thinks.
But--no. In the same way that she needed some distance for her, he needs to remind himself that he needs to find strength in himself again.
So after gathering what he'd brought, he goes to return to his room to further mull the whole thing over.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[He felt her turmoil too — but there wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t feel that himself. Its just a normal part of living, particularly living as Force Sensitive. The height of their sensitivity surely only makes it worse.
But this, he recognizes, is an exercise in futility. They aren’t hearing one another, and Kylo Ren doesn’t have the energy for deep emotional examination. Acknowledging she was happy means that it wasn’t a lie, which means that something (or multiple somethings) of what she is saying must be true and genuine.
He opens his mouth to say something else, but the thought stops forming midway. He is frayed from lack of sleep, and the spark of his anger has burnt him out.]
no subject
[ Her lips twitch as though to incline towards a smile that he has called upon those fond memories, but her chest aches with longing for that happiness now. Wouldn't it be easy to reclaim? To fold herself in his arms and indulge in that momentary peace again. To lay down arms and find comfort in each other instead of this endless war back and forth. ]
When it was just us. [ When they were together and the world was gone and she could forget about it. Those cannot be the only moments, though. That can't be her only happiness. Clinging too hard to them had been what really began to change her. ] When I could pretend you weren't still keeping me at arm's length.
[ But then she'd see the rest of his behavior, the times he refused to act like she mattered to him, and she'd have to lie to herself that just knowing was enough. Or she'd see the disappointment in her friends, and she'd have to lie to herself that she still felt connected to them. He is keeping her at arm's length. And it's not just them. She understood now what Keith had meant the last time they'd been on Headquarters. ]
We can do better.
no subject
[That needs to be made clear. He doesn't deny the claim that he was keeping her at arm's length. This entire conversation has made that impossible to deny. He kept everyone at arm's length, but Rey had gotten closer than anyone else. Maybe that was a mistake -- but it happened.
And denying it -- there was no use in it. He could not co-exist with his father in the universe that way, and removing him had only made it worse. So how was he meant to confront it with Rey?]
( You want me to care for them, as you do. I will not. )
[Not murdering Keith for her sake was hard enough.]
no subject
[ She doesn't flinch — she's simply heard this argument from him too many times to react to it now. ]
Me.
[ It's about sparing her pain and letting her be the person she wants to be — hopeful and naive and compassionate. Because being anything else felt like it was killing her. Calling it a poison had wounded him, true, but she could think of no better word for the slow sap to her hope. But she can't make him see that it's worthwhile to confront his fear in the name of preventing her real pain — he has to be the one to decide she's worth that. ]
no subject
[He wants to reach out in that moment -- to touch her, to shake her, he isn't sure. His hands stay at his sides, but the bond doesn't obscure his intent while he tries to decide. Whatever impression she had left on him hasn't gone away.
And then, finally, he tries to reach for her through the bond in silence. Just to see if something is still there, or if its all gone.]
no subject
She can feel the way he longs to reach for her, a mirror of the ache she feels, and it assures her further that despite everything muddling the presentation, they're both coming from the same place, the same deep well of longing and affection. Connected, even when they struggle like this to understand one another.
Though she feels him reach for her, she doesn't try to shut anything out. There's a brazen, foolish openness to it — the same sort of all-in gamble she's begging him to make on her. He can take what he wants. She's done trying to measure it out and make it palatable in hopes that he won't find something that gives him an excuse to leave; she has to trust that he won't. More to the point, he has left, and she has survived it. She is closer to Poe and Loki and Hayame and Keith for letting him.
So laid bare for him there, if he doesn't flinch away from it, is the depth of her affection for him. He left, and it's still there. A bright, burning light which tells the story of how hard this is for her — if she didn't care so damn much it might be easier than this. But she does, and it's nearly impossible not to just crumble into his arms.
She won't, though, this time. ]
No. Just me. [ She holds this line. She won't let him distract it by making it about her friends. ] I want to feel like myself again. I want to have hope. I don't want to have to lie about how important you are to me, and I don't want to watch how easily you pretend that I'm nothing to you, all in the name of fear.
no subject
[Like Thrawn had tried to use it against them. If he hadn't been transferred so soon after that, he doesn't even want to think about where that might have lead. But it was a very real threat that both of them had seen.
He frowns some, when she talks about how important he is to her. Even seeing it in the Force -- it makes him uncomfortable, to hear someone talk about him like that. Anxious bile rises in his throat.]
( If you do not feel like yourself, then... )
[Why did you bother? Were they just doomed to ruin one another?]
no subject
[ Maybe she's a naive idiot for thinking that circling this particular point means she's wearing him down, making headway, but it feels like she is. He isn't spitting venom and accusing her of lying to him anymore. So she keeps her voice soft, steady, firm. ]
You're worth it.
[ That's the most important part to get out. Otherwise, he might go back to spitting at her. Otherwise, he might lose sight of the fact that all she's asking is that he consider her worth it too. ]
But no one is trying to use it against us.
[ Keith and Loki, they already knew about the connection. They figured it out in Hanabira. But she'd told him that already. There was no use kicking a dead bantha. And it's too complicated to get into the point of their feelings for one another. She still doesn't fully possess the awareness necessary to talk about those things, even if it was that point which got her here. What would she have done without Hayame? ]
You're protecting us from a threat that doesn't exist. A threat that we could handle, if it came. I don't care if Thrawn and the Empire and the whole galaxy knows what you mean to me — if they tried to take you from me, I would stop them.
[ There's something feral and possessive to this final point she arrives at. Fiercely protective, but also a claim in its own way, made by a scavenger who's used to having to fight to keep what little she has. In a way, it demonstrates what she hasn't been able to articulate clearly — what she's looking for from him.
He's backing away from that possibility in fear of how those people could use her to hurt him. She has instead prepared to take up arms to make them pay for it. As long as that fear is winning out, she's not convinced of the truth he purports in these moments. Obviously he values her — more than he values anyone but himself — but not that highly. Not like she values him. ]
I'm not going to lessen my feelings to hide from them.
no subject
[If she is expecting him to make concessions, then she needs to work on her naiveté. Sure, it was hubris that put them in that situation to begin with, but that didn't mean that someone else wouldn't or couldn't try to do the same thing.
This time, he reaches for her across the bond, careless whether or not if it had weakened enough so that his hands might pass through her.]
( What if you couldn't stop them? )
[Keith didn't frighten him, but -- what if Loki had wanted to use it against them? Neither of them would be able to stand up against him. Rey couldn't know what it was like to have someone knowing every move they would make before they made it, being unable to hide from someone. What they had, the mutual respect of their boundaries -- it wasn't the same.]
( You do not know what it is like. But I do. )
no subject
The hairs on the back of her neck prickle with the contact. Not just the usual way, when they touch across space like this, blindly groping for one another, for some salve for their loneliness, and not just for the way it summons up memories of the dark of their room in Drakstaden with his hands on her and almost nothing between them — but for the very fact that it feels like coming home, to touch him. Like the universe wants to settle into place, and holding themselves apart has kept it off its axis.
She inhales sharply, rocked by the suddenness of it. She reaches for him, too, one hand settling at the base of his ribcage, the other in the center of his chest grabbing a fistful of his tunic. Her touch is gentle, though it's unclear whether it's meant to stay him or reciprocate. Both, probably.
Disappointment that he has gotten wrapped up in more hypotheticals to justify his paranoia never finds purchase before he corrects it. He knows. How? Who? That was not Luke's crime, or his parents'. No one had used and manipulated him like—
Her expression falters, falls. He doesn't talk about this. ]
Snoke.
[ It's not a question. She remembers the disfigured face in his mind, clad all in gold, jeering at him. She does not need to ask if that is who he means. She knows. Occasionally she wondered why he had risen to feel such murderous intent for his master, what had changed, but the information simply wasn't there. He'd just returned here clear in his purpose.
Now, the picture grows clearer. She gathers her resolve. ]
Then we'll stop them. [ Blind hope may not work for him, but it has been all Rey has survived on for this long. Maybe, just maybe, holding onto him like this she can infuse him with it. Offer him her own certainty, where his is too weak. ] Together we could. We will.
[ Even she knows how naive this sounds, and how it will sound to him though. After a beat, she sobers up further. No blind hope. A middle ground. So — ] But even if I failed, it'd be worth it. Because it was my choice. [ And given where she'd come from, her freedom to decide for herself is everything. Her identity, her sense of self, was all she'd ever really had. ] I'd rather fight and lose than allow someone to control my choices through fear.
no subject
There is a lot of internal digestion going on here. There are probably people in the internet cafe looking at him oddly now, enough that it pulls at his awareness of the bond -- but Rey is holding him there too now.
Loki's words echo back to him again: Your fear is a poor master, and it allows everyone but yourself to control you. Is that what you want? Was that what this was? No -- and yes. In the past, it had been a promise. But many of the influencing factors simply weren't present, so was it just control from another realm?
He is caught in a loop of his own thoughts. When Loki had gifted him with that information, it hadn't been easy to digest -- and he hadn't really absorbed it, he realizes. But now that its staring him in the face again...
...well, he'd been right all along, hadn't he?
Slowly, he lets go of Rey as the epiphany hits him. There's no real argument left to make once he accepts that bit of information. He was being controlled through fear, and had been for many years now. It didn't make his need for vengeance burn any less -- but it made the need for protection seem...childish.
He glances back to her, lost for words. Does he apologize? No, there is nothing to apologize for. All of his feelings were valid, even if he understands now that perhaps he needed to try and work through them some.
Nod? Wait for the bond to fade and let her draw her own conclusions?]
no subject
Despite that, he lets her go. Her hands fall away from him in turn, however reluctantly. Despite the fact that she can sense something resolving itself in him, she picks up on his new sense of uncertainty too. Like maybe he's withdrawing because he still has something he needs to work out. ]
Ben?
[ A flutter of fear rises in her chest. Like maybe he's worked it out and he's simply withdrawing. But she'd been allowing fear to control her choices too — fear of him leaving. So she accepts the possibility and lets it roll off. She can't control his actions; only her own. ]
no subject
He knows where she is -- he should go to her, he thinks.
But--no. In the same way that she needed some distance for her, he needs to remind himself that he needs to find strength in himself again.
So after gathering what he'd brought, he goes to return to his room to further mull the whole thing over.]