sololoquy | open post

Why don't you start working on where we're going to go when we get out of here?

[ because the weapon alone isn't a plan. the vakdir are everywhere. they need to know where to go and how to address the warrant separate from the mere escape. but maybe he doesn't want to think that far because it means cooperating even after they're free.

wistful regret stirs in her. this should come naturally. it has before. but they aren't perfectly attuned and in sync the way they should be; the force is out of balance as long as they are like this. it feels like a storm brewing. ]

What makes you think I know where to go?

[This time, some heat rises in his words. He's irritated, he wants to be away, and he feels useless. All very bad Kylo Ren moods.]

They are going to chase us no matter what. Our escape lies in Ophelia's departure, assuming they have not left already. Otherwise, we will be running for a long time.

[His drumming fingers clench to fists.]

If we can find a way into their headquarters, we may be able to purge our likeness from their network.

Or we can find a way into their headquarters and get killed.

[ not his brightest idea. rey begins reassembling the weapon. she doesn't want them to use it. she's already trying to parse a route out that doesn't involve it. this has to be a last resort.

actually. ]

We should save it. Set it off in their headquarters.

How does that get us out of here and in there?

[He isn't necessarily against the idea, but it is quite the leap from point A to point B. Her tactics at least work for him to come out of his weird fixation and instead actually focus on her, instead of disassociating.]

That was the whole purpose in discovering what it was.

Well it won't get us out of here either.

[ or at least, not in an acceptable way. certainly not one that would leave them unharmed. she knows that's not necessarily persuasive to his morals, but at least his self defense. ]

We wouldn't survive it.

[Kylo Ren exhales heavily out of his nose, staring at the door while he attempts to parse another plan. Going to the headquarters would ensure that they would be captured again if they had nothing to defend themselves with, and an explosion was not exactly self defense.]

We may not survive setting it off in their headquarters either. Assuming they do not kill us on sight.

[ Bitterly, miserably, she pins him with a look. ]

Then I guess you're stuck with me until the weather clears up.

[ They won't talk about the fact that they would rather be anywhere else but with each other. For a time, she shared everything with him. It had only hurt them both in the long run. Still, the self-denial of holding herself away from him is worse than wasting away under the Jakku sun. It's not just heat bleaching her bones while she sweats out the last of the water she'd drank a day before. The Jakku sun never cared what happened to her either way.

This sun is angry at her for daring to step outside at all.

The Force had drawn them together. She spares a thought to whether this is bad luck or something else. That's the kind of thinking that got her into this in the first place, though, so she tries not to entertain destiny and higher powers for too long. The Force would work how it willed. He'd either make sense of it or ...

She doesn't have an 'or what' yet. That's her problem. She isn't ready to imagine the version of this where he doesn't come around—sooner or later. She can be patient. She just can't be patient and near him. ]

I suppose you are right.

[It is a less confident sound than he would like, a quiet murmur that he can’t quite get out all the way. He did not need to tell her his feelings on that notion. Already, a painful knot was tying itself in his chest and worming its way up his throat. All he can think of is their early time in this waterlogged hole, the way her breath had sounded in his ear —

His fists tighten reflexively as he turns his back to her, only to find that he has no real retreat in the small space. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere to sit and steel himself.]

Or perhaps we will simply drown here.

I wouldn't let that happen.

[ It's automatic. Neither of them is about to open a door, she hopes, to let it rush in. And they'd fight their way out, if it looked like the water was coming in on its own. But that's the hero in her. It's a certainty that she recognizes Kylo doesn't necessarily possess in how determined he is to bask in his misery and feel sorry for himself. ]

You wouldn't either.

[ She supplies that firmly. It's almost an olive branch, except for the fact that it's stubborn and patronizing in the way it suggests that she knows him better. He'd even save her, if it came down to it. Rey knows that like she knows the way his breath sounds when he's sleeping. No matter how angry he is with her, how hurt, he wouldn't let her drown.

And he's too afraid of pain and death to invite it on himself. That had been half their problems.

The simplest conversation summons up too much. She leaves the device on the floor and gets to her feet, a disgruntled sound slipping out of her. ] I'm going to sleep.

[ It's barely more than a one-room house they've shut themselves in. A bathroom, a narrow kitchenette, and an alcove behind a curtain with a bunk made for one grown person to sleep comfortably. Rey's not going to keep pounding her head against the wall he's chosen to put up between them. She makes her way over to it and snatches the curtain aside instead. ]

[Kylo Ren has no response for her rebuttal. Every word he wants to say in reply dies on his lips. The truth is simply too much for him to fight.

He says nothing at first. He barely moves except to turn his head slightly and watch her crawl for the bed. He does not even quite realize he is staring, with how knotted his chest still is.

Once she is comfortable, he seems to find his voice.]

How?

[How could she sleep at a time like this? The bond has shrunken some with the wall he has put up, but he can still feel the way his proximity makes her feel. Its different than the way he feels — but they’re cousins of each other for a certainty.

He would not be able to sleep. Not in the same room—not after what they had gone through.]

Poorly, if I had to guess.

[ The rejoinder lacks bite. It has the shape of something more snappish, but the edges are not sharp enough. It's as tired as she is.

Summoning more than that, though, asks too much of her. He knows how she sleeps. Intimately. He knows that when she was lonely on Jakku, she imagined an island that she can't retreat to anymore, because she has seen that island in all its underwhelming glory and it has disappointed her. He knows that she could not sleep properly in Hanabira while they were feuding, either. That she had slept better the night he'd appeared beside her than any other because it had been a balm and a knife in her ribs all at the same time.

And he must know that she has not been sleeping well since they separated, on the nights she has been curled away from Poe for fear of revealing how she aches for touch in the absence of Ben's. It's written all over her terse demeanor. She shuts her eyes a moment. Lets that feeling of pure isolation untether her. Then she huffs out a breath through her nose, irritated. ]

I obviously can't talk to you. And I can't do anything to get us out of here. But I can at least rest so that when we get out, I'm not too fatigued to be of any use. That's how. [ She needs forward momentum. Progress towards the next goal. It's the only way she stays sane, waiting as she does. ]

[The logic appeals. There’s something that calms in the air when he digests it. Or maybe its the acknowledgement that she sleeps poorly without him that makes the knot in his chest unclench slightly. There is no falsehood there — he would know. And like it or not, his thoughts would doubtless invade her dreams.

Good.

He turns then to stalk toward the singular bed, momentarily glancing around before settling in the corner on the other side of where she had grabbed at the curtain. Slowly, he slides and lets himself sink to the floor, his knees spread apart and his arms resting on either one. She is perfrctly in his line of sight, as is the door.]

Pleasant dreams, then.

[ Kindness, at its most perfunctory, stabs as precisely as cruelty. He doesn't mean to make it a weapon, but the blow lands all the same. The pale politeness exists in the shadow of the empty space where real intimacy used to exist, still belongs. Bickering feels better, somehow.

She doesn't probe at it. There's nothing good there. Instead, she wrestles with sleep. Rey spends a not insignificant time tossing and turning, trying to find peace. But on one side, her comfortable side, she faces his presence, and on the other side, her shoulder pinches. She pulls the curtain shut to obscure him from her view, but it's only when she accepts that she won't be able to ignore his presence anyway, thanks to the bond, that she finally falls asleep, facing towards that curtain, towards him.

Her sleep is fitful, plagued by dreams that don't take a full shape. dark specters and endless rain haunt them, most of which are hers, but their tumultuous nature is all owed to his nerves. In her vulnerable state, her mind lies open to him. That trust is the only real counter to the insult of his wish for pleasant dreams anyway. But bleeding around the edges is that same old loneliness that she thought she had escaped with him.

Turns out they'd just hidden from it a while. It came back to claim them, eventually. ]

[Somewhere between before and now, Kylo Ren had squirmed over to the side of the bed, pinning the curtain to it with his back. Even he isn't entirely sure when he'd moved, only that once he had become aware of himself again, he was there beside her. Had he fallen asleep? It did not feel as if he had -- only that something had compelled him there, against his own desires. Against his judgement.

But he knows that he aches when he comes back to the presence of his own mind. All of his bones feel heavy, his chest and stomach twisted in knots of what he recognizes as loneliness -- much of which is owed to Rey, but amplified by his own miserable self.

It's a bittersweet feeling. He does not smile for it, but it does coax his head to languidly rest against the mattress. It's not real contact -- and he isn't really searching for the connection that comes with it. It's an idle sort of melancholy that he doesn't engage with so much as exist in a constant state of.

It is a blanket. He finds comfort and familiarity in it, where Rey finds distress. But it means he does not spend time fighting for his own space.]

[ When she wakes up, Rey's hand lies out in front of her, fingers stretched to the edge of the mattress. The edge of her pinky presses against the solid bulk beyond the curtain, which is warm and familiar. Her eyes blink open slowly, awareness coming in pieces until she gathers enough of her wits to jump slightly, recoiling and sitting up.

Shame descends immediately. Shoulders hunched, she wipes her mouth with her hand where sleep has caused spit to run down the side of her face. It covers her efforts to compose herself, hides it from even her own mind.

This is precisely the trouble of Ben Solo. In a life defined by absence, his presence is something she aches for, even when she knows it would not be enough. Rey breathes slowly through her nose to stay calm as it hits her: What if Kylo Ren is right, again? He had been on Hanabira, after all. His pessimism was not without a track record.

What if they don't meet up with Hathaway? What if they have already left? What if the two of them are stuck here in Drakstaden, alone, with no one else familiar to them? Would she try to make a life with other local natives who know nothing of her life and where she came from? Or would she let herself get sucked back into his orbit?

She can hear him breathing out there. On the other side of the curtain. Rey settles against the wall and quietly says without malice, ] This is what you wanted. [ They're alone now. Truly. No complications or competing allegiances to take her from him. ]

[Kylo Ren grunts on the other side of the curtain: an acknowledgement and protest given at the same time. At first, it seems like that is the only reply he will give. And then, the shadow on the other side of the curtain moves slightly as he turns his head to the side to reply:]

Not quite.

[But close, for a certainty. He might have gotten them where he wanted them to be, but he could still feel Rey's pain on the other end of the bond. The way she had just recoiled from him. The peril they faced on the other side of the door.]

But I mind it less than many alternatives.

[ Separating out the relief from the resentment gives her trouble. Even though it shouldn't, it still feels good to be enough. At least one person in this world values her enough to want to keep her company, and only her company. The little girl whose parents had left her on Jakku clings to that greedily. But he would alienate her from everyone else to get it, and the more that sinks in, the more deliberate his previous successes feel.

He is blocking her way off the bed. And speaking to him through the curtain feels somehow easier, so she doesn't move to disturb him. They have nowhere to go anyway. Her stomach is growling, but she seldom notices that. It is as familiar as breathing. ]

I was staying with Poe. [ He had never asked, and because it was no longer his business, she had never told him. Now she feels some spiteful reprieve in its necessity to the rest of her argument: ] He'll notice that I'm gone. He'll care. He won't let Hathaway leave without us.

[ Because Poe is a hero. A good person, like Ben tries to resist being. ]

[Though his facade of sleepy calm does not seem to break, there is a ripple of defensive annoyance on the other side of the bond. He does not like the way she talks of him, as if he is somehow better and preferable company.]

What Hathaway does is not up to Poe Dameron. Or you. Or me.

[Though he enunciates his consonants somewhat tartly, his voice remains steady.]

I know you prefer Dameron's company. Does that satisfy you?

Does it satisfy me that you're missing the point? No.

[ Her preferences had no bearing on the fact that Poe would not leave her here. And preferring his company was not why she had stayed with him—it was to give Kylo his space because he wouldn't, or couldn't, give her what she needed. She's sour to have it turned back on her.

Ben could be like that. Ben could be that kind of person. Instead, he wants her all to himself, and he cares about no one else. As long as they're stuck here, she'll never see a change in that. He'd never put himself on the line for a stranger, and anyone who might have been his friend is ...

Well, if Hathaway is really gone, at least. She tries to push that possibility from her mind. Trust in the Force. ] Forget it.

What exactly is your point, then? That people care about you, so I should trust that they will come for you?

[Equally careless, he does not so much as twitch this time. He seals himself up behind that cold wall of bitterness that he is so practiced at doing]

Or to remind me that no one will come for me?

Don't.

[ Sharp and stinging, Rey seethes at his contradictions. She rips the curtain aside, right out from under his weight, and shoves him aside so she can get past him. This isn't a conversation to have secondhand anymore. At least she'd possessed the good sense to keep her pants on when she slept around him this time. It's easier, having touched Gram, to recognize that Kylo Ren's steady slide back into his old habits is inevitable. Just a matter of time before they have it out like this again.

She rounds on him, huffing. ]

I'm giving us hope that we aren't trapped here. A way out. [ He doesn't get to be angry that no one would come for him when she had. She would again. She's here now. And he's alienated everyone else on purpose. He can't want the benefits of being known and loved without being willing to offer the same, without being willing to make himself vulnerable to anyone, while disdaining the concept to her. ]

[Kylo grunts softly when she shoves him after ripping the curtain away, but he does not move to get up when she stands over him, instead tilting his chin upward to look at her with half lidded eyes.]

False hope.

[He corrects her, as they both are fully aware of the circumstances they are in. He is being too harsh, he knows -- but he does not care too much, in this instance. If they are going to be stuck like this, in a small space and possibly living on this planet forever.]

I don't want or need false hope, Rey.

[ Snarling, Rey spits back— ] It wasn't just for you.

[ But he would take that from her too. Force her to join him in miserable resignation, or at least come to terms with being trapped with him. Never mind that she would only be settling for his company, if there is no way out of here. If. She tries not to think about it in certain terms, even as he abuses the frail sliver of hope she has made for herself in Poe Dameron.

Tears burn in her eyes, and though she's not ashamed of the sentiments themselves, she's frustrated with herself for giving him the chance to wound her in that way. Again. ]

When has false hope done you any favors?

[His head tilts to the side, and he cannot help the exhaustion that seeps into his limbs. It isn't simply born of Rey's reaction to his harsh truths, but also the fact that he had not slept as of yet.

Her anger is a warm flame on the other end of the bond. Were circumstances different, he might have basked in it. But instead, its light sears his eyes.]

It's just us. Again. Whether we live or we die.

If that's true — if — then you'll never get what you want.

[ It will never be possible for him. ]

I can't choose you over them if they're not here. So you'd better hope they don't leave us behind.

[ It's a potentially cruel, potentially risky button to press. But it's the truth as she sees it, so Rey grabs onto it now that he has backed her into a corner and stolen the only thing she had left from her. Taken the very weakness he had consoled her for, the moment that had made her treasure his compassion and understanding of her, and wielded it against her. He would make her regret everything she'd ever shared with him if he could.

She didn't want to let him dig that far, sabotage himself that completely. But the problem has always been that she is more invested in his betterment than he is. ]

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