sololoquy | open post

[ Well she didn't think that but now that he's acting defensive about it ... Kira's not great with people, but she has basic inferential skills. She took a step, and there the conclusions were. She looks back after the waitress like she's trying to figure out what made him be like this is it this is the time for me to be flirting.

The answer, of course, is: she's Hapan. And beautiful. ]

I don't think I will.

[ It 100% doesn't help matters that she's gawking openly at the waitress with a look of offense on her face. This is digging them a deeper hole of the waitress' 'why is this dude making eyes while he's here with his girlfriend' attitude. ]

No, of course you won't. That's why I have to do all the talking -- because you don't know how to make friends.

[Ok, maybe that's a little harsh, but his ego is clearly bruised and he is trying to make up for it. But all that bluster doesn't eliminate his conscious, and he deflates almost as soon as he says it.

Awkwardly, he draws a circle around the ring of his cup.]

--that was...probably cruel of me. Sorry.

[Is that better or worse than asking a girl to smile? Asking for a friend.]

[ It is.

It's harsh and it's cruel, but it's both of those things because it's true. For that reason, when hurt dares to flicker through Rey's expression, she pushes it down violently. The Dark Side rises up, answering her pain and anger, a feedback loop that brings her new frustration for her inability to lash out in any meaningful way to expel what's pent up in her chest.

She considers killing him and moving on, but it's a two-fold problem. Using the Force here would ruin everything, and there's nothing satisfying her in the notion of Ben Solo's death. That, after all, had been the entire issue. ]

I'm going back to the ship.

[ She gets up. Yep. That's the solution. Leaving his presence immediately. If she's on his ship, he can't abandon her here. She'll just sit there and stare at the wall because she can't read the book well enough to get through it on her own. Maybe she'll make herself cry.

She turns to flag down the waitress for her food to go. ]

Kira...

[He sighs out her name with some obvious guilt — and yes, he knows her name. He shouldn’t feel guilt, really — this was the same girl who dragged him aboard her ship, tortured him, and kept him hostage. But he can’t help it; there’s something about her sheltered self that makes him feel like he’s kicked a dog.]

I can help you fix that problem if you just—listen to me.

[A beat.]

I’m making it worse. Yeah. Ok. I’ll just — wait here, I guess.

[At least give her the space she wants. She can’t leave without him, and he needs to eat.]

[ She doesn't know what's more insulting. That he thinks he can fix her, or that he wants to in the first place. As if she were some helpless lamb and not the most capable killer in the galaxy.

Kira can't stand to watch him anymore, so she dips out then to actively go get the waitress. They have a short conversation that sends the waitress into the kitchens, but she comes back with a lil doggie bag for Kira, who points meaningfully to Ben and then peaces out of the café in earnest.

She doesn't stop on her way back to the hangar. ]

[Its embarrassing when the hostess comes back with his meal. He doesn’t even look at her — somehow he knows what she is thinking, and he’s done this to himself. So when he finishes his meal, he pays for both and leaves with a cup of fresh caf. He’d rather it be something alcoholic, but — well, better that it wasn’t.

The nagging thought from the waitress bugs him until he leaves the café.

The repairs had to be nearly done. So eventually he arrives back at the hanger, glancing around for her. She isnt in his immediate line of sight but somehow it isn’t too hard to find her.]

[ When Ben returns to the ship, Kira is tucked away in his bunk. She has the book he gave her hugged to her chest, her lightsaber hilt stuffed under the thin pillow, and the open container of her food left bare of all but crumbs on the floor just beside.

She is curled up on her side in the fetal position, her back to the door. Asleep. Like this she looks deceptively harmless. ]

[Ben slips into his room, surprised to find Kira fast asleep — more surprised, perhaps, to find her all curled up like that. He cannot help but feel like he is seeing something he shouldn’t be seeing. Yet, he cannot ignore the draw he feels. She looks as if she might be cold.

Well, he very well isnt going to try and move her. So, after some careful maneuvering of his junk, he unearths a heavy weighted blanket. It might wake her, if she is a light sleeper, but it is all he has that isnt already on the bed.

And for a long second he just sort of hovers there, weighing the choice before him. Damn his bleeding heart. He isn’t cut out for this. So, he takes the chance and rests the blanket over her, intent on turning back around and exitting the room...provided she doesn’t wake and choke him to death.]

[ Her dreams aren't pleasant. They never are. But in these dreams, Snoke has wormed his way into her subconscious, and he pries open her fears as a way to better understand what crime she has committed against him. There's something needy and clinging and desperate rooted there, and as he prods at it, her arms twitch tighter around the book, clutching it to her chest.

It has her on the defensive, subconsciously, but also eager to grasp for anything that might wake her. When the blanket settles on her, Kira snaps awake. Her first instinct is to presume a threat, so she reaches out to grasp his arm, grip like a vice and eyes wide and dark with —

Fear. Not hate or anger. Her heart hammers in her chest, her jaw tight. The book has fallen away from her chest as her other hand goes for her lightsaber, but she falls short of igniting it, though her grip on the gleaming hilt is tight enough that her knuckles have gone white.

Information filters in slow. He is not trying to kill her in her sleep, probably. A blanket would be an awful way to do it. As restless as she feels under its weight, she does not think he is smothering her. But that leaves her with something she can't make sense of — gentleness, in the wake of callous cruelty that had refused to see her as anything but a creature.

She should be glad of that. She is a monster. She doesn't want to feel as human as he makes her.

It's all very confusing, and so she's left breathing hard, tense without letting up, but also not attacking him outright. ]

[She snatches his arm and his hand snaps over her's in reflex, but he can almost feel her fear pulse when he does it, and thus it causes it not to yank her off. His own heart mirrors some of that fear, like he knows where this is going and desperately wants to avoid it. He doesn't want to die--

So, he finds himself gripping her hand in return. Both because he is scared, because he can somehow feel her own fear, and to try and reassure both of them that -- its fine. Whatever this is, its fine. She's not going to kill him, and he's not going to kill her.

They're fine.]

--sorry.

[Its all he can think to say. It feels stupid and foreign. To apologize wasn't really in his blood on either side of his family. But its the only thing that comes to mind.]

[ Despite his apology, her breath comes out hard for a few more seconds. It takes that long for the adrenaline to start to process, to drain out of her blood, to get her focused on him again and anchor herself in where she really is. She heaves in and out slower and slower until finally she's not seeing red anymore.

Slowly, her grip loosens.

His hand is warm. His arm is warm. And this blanket he has heaped on top of her, that's warm too, if heavy. She doesn't want to let go. Doesn't want to push him away, but doesn't want to pull him closer either. She's paralyzed, caught ever in this middle space. ]

What are you doing?

[ It's a stupid question, maybe, but she figures it can't possibly be the obvious. He doesn't see her as a person. ]

[Ben relaxes once her grip loosens, though he does not immediately let go of her. There is some concern in his eyes, though its impossible to tell whether it is concern for her or concern for his life.

Then she asks the clarifying question, and his eyes drop to his hand over her's. A swallow causes his adam's apple to bob before he looks up to her eyes again.]

You looked cold. [Pause.] And then you grabbed me so--

[He shrugs and then gently goes to untangle himself.]

I wasn't trying to startle you.

[ No. It was something worse. He was trying to fix her again.

Snoke has shaped her to his liking, and though she grappled with that at first, Rey had ultimately come to accept it. His liking, as it turned out, had made her stronger. More capable and more dangerous, so that the galaxy could not do to her again what it had done on Jakku.

That is not what Ben Solo is looking for.

Slowly, to great inner conflict, she releases her hold on him. She does not want to disarm, but neither does she want to keep touching him. ]

We're not friends. [ She'll just put that plainly. ] Stop expecting that to change.

[He exhales impatiently out of his nose when she tries to drop that realness on him. About the same time she releases him, he jerks his arm back in annoyance and backs off of her.]

You kidnapped and tortured me. Of course we aren't friends. But I have to sleep in the same ship as you.

[If she were anyone else, he might have told her the truth -- that sometimes doing nice things even for terrible people made him feel better about himself. But she would no doubt use that information to hurt him.

And she's right, in part. He is probably wasting his time. But she's got the blanket, and she can do what she wants. She'll get grilled on her nightmares once they are in the air.

He wanders back to the cockpit, smearing his face in his palms. What is wrong with him?]

[ She scoffs at his use of 'torture.' Of course he chooses to overlook that she would not have had to use those methods of interrogation had he shared the information willingly. He was a criminal, resisting the authority of the First Order. There was nothing for Rey to feel guilty for; he was the one hiding rebels.

More to the point, it seems awfully overdramatic to fixate on it. He was fine, as it happened. Unharmed in the long run, and now she was helping him stay alive. Choosing to let him live. He ought to be grateful, if anything.

Judging by the beeline he makes out of the bunk, he doesn't see it that way. She pulls the blanket up around her, distracted by the consideration of it. If he isn't trying to be her friend, she's simply not sure how to interpret it. It goes beyond civility, as if it were an effort to make up for his earlier callousness.

Well, she hasn't forgiven him.

She heads out after him, sounding almost pained in her confusion as she asks what she really wants to know, ] What do you want from me?

[He's got his feet up in the co-pilot's chair, and is staring out at the Hapans finishing up their work on his ship. He looks to have calmed some from his outburst in his bedroom, but it doesn't stop him from looking at her with the most naked look of confusion that he can muster.]

What?

[What does he want from her? What kind of question even is that??]

[ The trouble is that she takes him as genuine when he's not. She'd believed his lie about the base too; she can't trust the Force to identify his deceptions. Her mind is clouded, where Ben Solo is concerned. Kira frowns, regarding his puzzlement with some suspicion as a result. Ultimately she can do nothing but take him at his word, but it irritates her.

Explaining it to him means drudging up all her discomfort and externalizing it. Vulnerability has never looked good on her. It makes her feel like that weak, orphaned thing that had been left behind on Jakku. A girl she'd meant to kill. ]

You know what I am. Just now you made it clear you have not forgotten it. But you act like you expect me to be something else, or worse, you try to fix me. [ There's something thick in her voice as she says that, though she speaks too quickly, keeps her stride, lest real emotion break through. Finally she lands on what she hopes context makes clear is the worst crime, ] And I can feel the way you stare.

I do not need to make friends. I do not need your charity. [ The word tastes sour on her tongue. ] And you do not actually want to give me either, so I can only conclude you must want something from me.

"Fix you"?

[He repeats it, and slowly his one brain cell puts all the information together. She's not used to kindness -- and granted, he isn't exactly behaving like a reasonable person either. A reasonable person would have tried to kill her already. A reasonable person wouldn't have fed her, covered her with a blanket after having his mind picked apart.

But...he hadn't forgotten what had happened after that. How she'd chosen to keep him from further harm, how she cared for him in that odd way of her's. He feels uncomfortable even calling attention to it in his mind.

It's kind of fucked up. He's kind of fucked up for wanting that.]

You might not need any of that. But I'm not -- [He struggles to vocalize his emotions just as much as she does as it turns out] -- I don't know, ok? I just. Wanted to.

[What a lame answer. He looks away when he says it, willing any color out of his cheeks and staring stubbornly ahead of himself -- like he is angry with her.]

[ That answer isn't good enough for Kira, as it turns out. She can sense his stubbornness, his evasion, his discomfort, but none of it provides her with an answers, and she's too curious and fixated to settle for less. He has upheaved her life, put her on the run — only through her own choices, admittedly, but she's not going to be self-reflective enough to accept that blame when she can put it squarely on him for karking things up instead.

She surges forward and grabs him by the chin and forces his face to turn towards hers, demanding eye contact, demanding anything more than his imitation of remaining placid and unaffected. ]

Why? Why did you want to?

[ But she doesn't like what she sees there. Instantly, in fact, she regrets touching his face and getting in it at the same time and she releases his chin and recoils like he's a recently fired ion drive. There's a jolt of fear there because all of this is getting pretty directly at one thing: intimacy and human connection.

It shouldn't be that surprising. He sees her as human, even if he also sees the monster and the weapon that she has been shaped into. In many ways that is what fascinates her about him. But it also makes her furious and uncomfortable and she cannot help but poke that rancor. She regrets it. Often. Always. ]

[Something flutters in his chest and frops heavily in his stomach when she grabs him, turns him, and drags him into her face. He goes entirely stiff out of fear — not fear of being injured as will become apparent in the way that he does not stop her. He also doesn’t really relax when he sinks back into the pilot’s seat. Ben is forced to clear his throat and shift back into the most unaffected pose he can manage. The effort mostly fails; his fingertips are quaking slightly.

He can’t be attracted to Snoke’s assassin. It just — he couldn’t be. There was no known galaxy where that was acceptable.]

Because you — didn’t kill me. Haven’t killed me. I like having you around.

[Maybe she won’t notice him slip that last one in there. He could handle the rejection — it wasn’t like he hadn’t handled it before. But he still doesn’t want to hear it. And really, this was totally ridiculous. She was afraid of being too close to him. It shouldn’t have mirrored that way.]

[ It's maybe one of the stupidest things she's ever heard. 'You didn't kill me, so I like having you around.' But on some basic level, she gets it. Most of her time has been spent looking over her shoulder and wondering who's out to kill her; the fact that she had woken to Ben attending her instead had been the unnerving trigger to all of this demand for substantiation in the first place.

Still. She stands there, flushed and panicked for a moment, not sure what to do with that. I like having you around. It's so simple and straightforward and identifies what she, too, has felt since — well, since she had tortured him, by his account. She grapples with it anyway. It is less odd, she thinks, in that direction. She is used to being feared. Not … wanted.

But it's a warm sentiment, and it settles in her chest even as it turns her stomach.

It is not so easy for her, though. She has wrested it from him, but she cannot come forward with I feel connected to you. It sounds asinine even in her head. But she had been drawn to him, asked him to read to her rather than spend her time alone and vigilant, because she too liked being around him. And that demands recognition of some kind. ]

I see.

[ Fuckin nailed it. ]

Our paths are tied together now. [ She says this slowly. ] If your intent is to persuade me to stay, you need not waste the effort. [ She has literally nowhere else she can go, at this point. He has avoided Snoke this long; he's her best bet at escaping punishment for, well, fraternizing with him. A self-perpetuating problem. Kira is in big trouble. ]

I think you give me too much credit. Keep that up.

[It is an effort to waylay the tension he suddenly feels twisting horribly in his stomach. “I see” isn’t much of an answer, nor is almost anything she said after that. It doesn’t really feel reciprocated, even in the confirmation that she has no plans to leave him.

It feels childish and selfish to want something...more. Also, psychotic. This was Snoke’s apprentice. His father must have been turning in his grave.]

A-anyway, we should. Probably keep moving. Just in case.

[Hapes had nothing for either of them.]

[ She nods, quieter now that she has her answer. The angsty defensiveness has faded, given way to a sense of understanding, which would bring her peace if it weren't rife with so much conflict. He feels as she does, an inexplicable pull, but that pull has also been responsible for turning her away from Snoke. Snoke, who had given her everything, who had promised her power and importance and purpose.

The Supreme Leader had been right, it turns out. It feels silly to have thrown it away for this: I like having you around. Yet she can't quit chasing it. ]

When the ship's ready. [ It'll be a while longer, probably. They'd planned on overnighting on Hapes. ] ... I can move to the floor, if you'd also like to sleep.

[ She looks uncomfortable after having just made a big deal about things like basic human decency. Now here she is showing her ass by offering him his own bunk. ]

...right. I knew that.

[Ben slowly removes his hands from the controls, doing his best not to look sheepish. It was his instinct to run away from his problems — and he had been about to try and flee the awkwardness of this interaction by shooting the Falcon into space while it was still refueling. Stupid.

Well, he couldn’t possibly fuck this up anymore. He is at least convinced of that, until she speaks.

He glances up at her, and can’t hold back his charmed smile. As it turns out, Kira is quite bad at hiding how much she is intrigued by being treated like a human being. That is adorable and he loves it.]

I can sleep in the chair. I’ve done it before.

[A little voice asks him WHAT THE HELL HE IS DOING and his smile fades some. She doesn’t like it when he is smirking at her. He has figured that out at least — so he tries to will it away entirely before he gets called on it.]

[ His smile is disgusting and he should feel bad. No, really, the twitch of her lips looks almost like she might be sick looking at it. She doesn't know what else to do. She's not used to people smiling at her, and it's not the first time he's done it. Especially on the heels of a declaration like that, she flounders over it.

It weakens, but he doesn't have the good sense to wipe it away entirely, and so Kira sputters for a short moment, trying to figure out what to do about that. The answer is nothing. Nothing. ]

It's your ship. [ She looks away in a huff. ] I'm not soft. I've slept on worse.

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