inappropriately timed force bond moments (both nsfw and humor approaches)
dream-sharing
emotional bleed/transference (from rey, involving other parties)
inappropriate force bond voyeurism on rey/poe or rey/finn
mid-conversation force bond interruption
The Rise of Skywalker- Cross-galaxy chase of the Resistance
anything related to ben solo, but especially:
snoke confessionals with family or friends of family
returning to the light
smuggler life style
jedi knight ben
resistance-fighter ben
The Rise of Skywalker- Force Ghost communications w/ Rey
anything related to supreme leader kylo ren, but especially:
fall via coup
resistance fighter reconditioning (gen or nsfw)
force ghost visits from anakin/luke/rey/leia/snoke
defeat by the resistance, and subsequent aftermath
The Rise of Skywalker- Mole Discovery w/ Hux
canto bight:
shady weapons deals
picking up prisoners
recruitment
obligatory dinner party
general casino shenanigans
beach party
basically any reason you can think of to use canto bight as a setting piece
A note on romance: I will ship all of the new trilogy characters with Kylo Ren (except Snoke/Family). But I have no interest in exploring domestic-style takes on them. Thank you for understanding.
[Yeah, that's weird. Again, there's that pity. Of course she doesn't know what its like to be free. To actually be capable of making choices instead of being under someone's command all the time.
How did he end up in this position, appealing to Snoke's apprentice's humanity that clearly does not exist?]
Last I checked, slaves don't get to choose their masters. But you're right -- what do I know? I'm the son of a senator. I should be sitting pretty on a committee somewhere being handfed meiloorun. Or, since you and your buddy Snoke tore all of that down, maybe I should be the head of an army myself. Yeah?
[He gestures upward, for the purpose of accenting his point.]
-- or, maybe I would be, if legacy actually meant anything. That's the beauty of choice -- Kira, right? Your name is Kira.
[Is he asking because he genuinely wasn't sure, or to make her mad? Hard to tell.]
[ impulse takes over before training can stop it. she reaches one hand out and the air constricts around his throat again.
no. he had seen something else there in her mind, hadn't he? something that deserved to be locked away, deep enough that no one would ever find it. that girl ... that child. she had to be gone. and he had seen her. ]
Yes. It is.
[ an important reminder not to engage him in this any more. it is a messy business, breaking down a mind, but she will do it. snoke believes that she can do it and (he doesn't know how strong this man-child is in the force, but—) she must.
she will deliver ben solo to him, she will turn him. if she could do this, she had no reason to fear. she will have delivered the supreme leader everything he wanted. the defector. the very resistance. her station — the only thing she's ever had to protect — will be secure. ]
Don't worry. You'll see soon firsthand.
[ she doesn't take her time this time. she shunts herself into his mind. good. let something break. let it all break and then when he tries to pick up the pieces, she will be the one to show him how. perhaps he will serve her, instead of snoke. and she will be the master. ]
[Ok, so that might have been a mistake. He chokes, and she drives forward into his mind again. And it hurts, more than it had hurt before. He was running out of energy to fight back -- and he wasn't even sure how to fight back. Everything was pure instinct, but the instinct begins to fail him when he cannot breathe.
His writhing increases. There is a sense that he might be screaming, if he could breathe, and he could almost feel a physical hook finding his doubt in his family. She drags it to the surface, and tears start to cloud his eyes again.
He remembered the day his mother had contacted him, to tell him about Darth Vader. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so betrayed by secrecy, but it wasn't hard to understand why when he had seen how the senate had reacted to the information. She had never sensed that sort of power within him -- the potential might have been there, for him to be a great Force wielder, if he had ever cared to engage with it.
But he hadn't. He'd turned his uncle away, and ran from it. Stars only knew where he was now -- maybe if he hadn't been so selfish, his father would still be alive.
--there it is. That righteous fury again that has him clenching his fists, eyes slowly sliding open into a glare that bores back into Kira.
You won't win. It rings, clear as a bell, across the bridge of their minds. Even if she succeeded in her task and broke his spirit (he could feel something in his chest and in his mind slowly cracking to pieces), they would never convince him to do their dirty work for them.]
[ ah yes, vader. the sith's greatest failure. and ben, the same to his family. he'd fled. he'd turned away from his mother's cause, from righteous vengeance over his father's death. he too was a disappointment. he—
what is this?
he calls out to her across the connection. co-opts it again, in another way. but this feels ... no, this is something else. creases line her forehead she digs her heels in, spreads her stance, as if his resistance had some physical weight to it.
she grits her teeth and pushes again. the hook of his father. his grief. the pain of losing him. ]
You're not free. [ the suffering springs anew as she summons it to the surface. ] You've never been free of this hate.
[He makes a feral sound and leans forward, pushing into that wall he's somehow managed to erect. He can see and feel how she struggles against him. It feels like he is bleeding somehwere -- his wrists, maybe. Out of his lungs, his heart, he can't tell. All he knows is that his fury is stronger than her's, if he just lets himself feel it.
So he does. They took his father from him -- they wouldn't take his mother too.]
You're right. I won't.
[Yes, her intent is clear to him now. She wants him to crumble in her hands, so she can deliver a prize to the Supreme Leader that isn't competition for her own place at his side.]
This isn't what you want.
[He digs in return, and tries to find what she does want instead. If she was going to keep playing this game with him, then he was going to make use of it. He's too deep into his need to turn it against her that the oily sensation that slides down his spine doesn't register.]
[ anger spikes in her chest. how dare he? assuming that he understands her, that he has any room to speak about what she wants. this rank amateur had vastly overstepped himself, and he would regret it. ]
I want ... you ... to kneel.
[ not literally, of course. even locked in that rack, he had proven plenty of trouble to her. she wouldn't be letting him loose until she was absolutely sure.
but he can see a different story. there was a longing, introduced by the memory she'd seen of his mother. the shape of an open question, still forming. could she have had that? was it too late? and implicit therein, that longing, never satisfied by her work under snoke. to love. to be loved. to be anything but alone.
she shuts it down hard. shunts him back with a block of her own, which distracts her from trying to probe his thoughts and dismantle them. she cannot both protect herself and destroy him. she has to choose. ]
[She wants him to kneel. He knew that -- kneeling would mean a victory for Snoke, and for the First Order if they managed to break him. And stars, does it hurt. It feels like his nerves are on fire, that all of his skin itches and he can't scratch it away, and trying to push forward with all of that happening is --
He catches a glimpse before it falls away to darkness. Her longing was -- foreign, to him. He'd always been loved. That was the cornerstone of his life. No matter what happened to his family, they loved him. And that doing the right thing wasn't always easy, or pleasant.
But the surety that he was loved strengthens when that wall goes up, and the digging slows just enough for him to breathe. Its impossible to know how long he can stand up to this torture, but there is one thing that rings clear in all her other thoughts.]
Don't do this. You don't have to do this.
[Its a plea born of exhaustion. Now that she's stopped pressing quite so hard, that oil on his spine has begun to dry, and it makes him uncomfortable. He doesn't want to do it again, not sure that he could even if she dropped the wall.]
I know. [ she rasps out the words. the faux gentleness in her approach has gone away with her patience, with her distance from this matter. he has ripped it from her as surely as she has stolen his freedom from him. ] Because of the Supreme Leader, I don't have to do anything I don't want to.
[ except follow his orders, whispers a traitorous voice in her mind. it is that voice which stops her from closing her grip around his windpipe again. she's surprised by the falter. by the fact that it seems almost as if she physically cannot do it.
she shakes away the thought like a distraction, though it's clear in her face that it perturbs her on a deeper level. ]
I want to.
[ this is a lie. and it makes her bones and her ears ring to recognize it as such. ]
You're stronger than him. You don't need to follow him. So--why are you?
[He might not be able to probe her anymore, but if he'd learned anything as a smuggler, it was facial tells. Something is needling at her, and he can take a good guess with the knowledge he already as.
But he also feels his ability to resist her strength fraying his edges. His pleas are born of impatience, fear, and exhaustion.]
Stop lying to yourself! Slavery is not what you want--!
[Something in him pushes outward, and it feels like a punch to his gut that winds him, makes him nauseous, and puts him on the edge of consciousness.]
[ stronger? than snoke? the very idea seems laughable. and yet it does make her wonder. she holds some value to him as an apprentice, an enforcer. maybe it is that she has some power he — no.
he is the supreme leader. that he delegates his tasks does not mean he cannot complete them. this is leadership and how it works. she forces that away, writing it off as ben's efforts to confuse her. ]
You think so highly of yourself.
[ she can see him now. her eyes are clear. he's ragged, at the end of his leash. he has broken the connection, but it has taken everything he has to force her out, and she can weather the pain of it unflinchingly. this does not measure anywhere near the worst pain she has faced. had snoke looked in her mind and seen these things, she would be in pain. this is ... annoyance. inconvenience. ]
You think you can walk in here and turn me? [ she draws closer. the physical will do for this. she grabs his chin in one hand, turning it to face her. he's barely conscious. pathetic. ] You think your life is worth that, to me?
The feeling of her jerking his head to the side calls more consciousness to him, but not enough to earn him the willpower to sit up properly in the chair. Her words are slow to register, and a few slow blinks pass between them before he answers.
He takes the time to meet her eyes, but he can't find that feeling he'd felt when she'd forced her way into his mind. Not anymore.]
My life? No.
[Organa was the name that held all the weight. Even if that was his mother, that wasn't his name. As far as the galaxy was concerned, Leia didn't have much of a son anymore. And until now, that had suited him. It kept them from being used against one another -- or so he thought.
[ she sounds almost sad, saying it. there's honesty there. maybe snoke had counted on this. surely he would have anticipated — he knew everything. the deepest parts of her soul had been bared to him so many times that she didn't think there was anything she could do that he hadn't accounted for.
but there is an admission there. a budge. she can scarcely imagine it, but she can imagine it. there's fear of the uncertainty there. being under snoke's control means safety. shelter. an army at her back. beyond his reach ...
the disrepute of snoke's enforcer was still better than the anonymity of just another orphan, another nobody, another slave. ]
[There's some humor in his voice, but its short lived. The situation, for him, is actually quite dire. Whether or not she actually decides to release him, he has to imagine there is a target on his back if Snoke wants him.
You don't understand what you're talking about. Nowhere in the galaxy is beyond Snoke's reach.
[ and she believes that. he had rooted her out of a junkyard on jakku, had her brought here to the scummiest place in scumsville to purchase her like a purebred fathier. if either of them thought he couldn't do it again, they'd be playing themselves.
stars, is she actually entertaining the thought? she releases her grip and takes a step back. ]
[He flinches a little when she lets go of him, expecting the worst -- only to find that it didn't come.
Ok. Good. He could do this.]
There are plenty of things Snoke can't reach, or he wouldn't have sent you here.
[He seems a little wary to even bring it up. She'd done a decent job of scaring him, but there is sincerity in his voice. He'd been running free for years, the son of Leia Organa. And yet, it happened to be a bit of bad luck that tipped Kira off that he was there in the first place.
If nowhere in the galaxy was beyond his reach, what took him so long?]
[ she lowers her gaze, turning away from him. she doesn't want to look at him as she makes this admission. it will only serve to shame her further. ]
There's nowhere I can go to get beyond his reach. He is as much a part of me as your mother is a part of you.
[ perhaps that is the best way to describe it. snoke had made her, formed her, cultivated this darkness in her, and now he lurked in those corners. even now, if he wanted to, he could feel this conversation. lean into it. understand what she did. why had he not interrupted? what did he hope would happen? ]
[If that were the case, then he was well and truly Fucked. She turns around, and he takes the opportunity to try and relax, letting his head clunk against the metal. His eyes drift shut to try and ward off the throbbing pain in his skull.]
When was the last time you tried?
[He exhales out of his nose, realizing that was probably the wrong thing to say before he can stop himself.]
[ her repetition is dry and dismissive. she does not have to do anything. not because he asks it, certainly. only one person has that kind of power over her. she wipes sweat off the back of her neck. she's feeling the fatigue of this session now too, though not nearly as badly as he is. ]
Is this your strategy? Trying to talk your way out of this? That's pathetic.
[Ben clears his throat, trying to sound less exhausted than he is. He fails. Fortunately, he's a difficult man to insult. That's what having no self-esteem does to a person.]
Actually, I'm just--talking. In my experience, its a little difficult to just talk yourself out of binders.
[She mentions his 'abilities', and he starts laughing nervously. He can't help it -- its just so ridiculous. And yet also undeniable, given what he had just done.
the sound startles her because at first she's like oh of course he's crying. i'd be crying too. but no. she turns to look at him, eyes widening slightly. who is this asshole? she purses her lips, dissatisfied with that response on pretty much every possible level. ]
[ and it doesn't need to happen all at once. she considers him now, his fatigue. it would be easy to go in now and force him to turn, but … it would be a better show to take her time with this. these are the justifications she leans on, but she is not entirely obtuse to the fact that there's something else there. his arguments are not entirely without appeal. ]
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[Yeah, that's weird. Again, there's that pity. Of course she doesn't know what its like to be free. To actually be capable of making choices instead of being under someone's command all the time.
How did he end up in this position, appealing to Snoke's apprentice's humanity that clearly does not exist?]
Last I checked, slaves don't get to choose their masters. But you're right -- what do I know? I'm the son of a senator. I should be sitting pretty on a committee somewhere being handfed meiloorun. Or, since you and your buddy Snoke tore all of that down, maybe I should be the head of an army myself. Yeah?
[He gestures upward, for the purpose of accenting his point.]
-- or, maybe I would be, if legacy actually meant anything. That's the beauty of choice -- Kira, right? Your name is Kira.
[Is he asking because he genuinely wasn't sure, or to make her mad? Hard to tell.]
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no. he had seen something else there in her mind, hadn't he? something that deserved to be locked away, deep enough that no one would ever find it. that girl ... that child. she had to be gone. and he had seen her. ]
Yes. It is.
[ an important reminder not to engage him in this any more. it is a messy business, breaking down a mind, but she will do it. snoke believes that she can do it and (he doesn't know how strong this man-child is in the force, but—) she must.
she will deliver ben solo to him, she will turn him. if she could do this, she had no reason to fear. she will have delivered the supreme leader everything he wanted. the defector. the very resistance. her station — the only thing she's ever had to protect — will be secure. ]
Don't worry. You'll see soon firsthand.
[ she doesn't take her time this time. she shunts herself into his mind. good. let something break. let it all break and then when he tries to pick up the pieces, she will be the one to show him how. perhaps he will serve her, instead of snoke. and she will be the master. ]
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His writhing increases. There is a sense that he might be screaming, if he could breathe, and he could almost feel a physical hook finding his doubt in his family. She drags it to the surface, and tears start to cloud his eyes again.
He remembered the day his mother had contacted him, to tell him about Darth Vader. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so betrayed by secrecy, but it wasn't hard to understand why when he had seen how the senate had reacted to the information. She had never sensed that sort of power within him -- the potential might have been there, for him to be a great Force wielder, if he had ever cared to engage with it.
But he hadn't. He'd turned his uncle away, and ran from it. Stars only knew where he was now -- maybe if he hadn't been so selfish, his father would still be alive.
--there it is. That righteous fury again that has him clenching his fists, eyes slowly sliding open into a glare that bores back into Kira.
You won't win. It rings, clear as a bell, across the bridge of their minds. Even if she succeeded in her task and broke his spirit (he could feel something in his chest and in his mind slowly cracking to pieces), they would never convince him to do their dirty work for them.]
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what is this?
he calls out to her across the connection. co-opts it again, in another way. but this feels ... no, this is something else. creases line her forehead she digs her heels in, spreads her stance, as if his resistance had some physical weight to it.
she grits her teeth and pushes again. the hook of his father. his grief. the pain of losing him. ]
You're not free. [ the suffering springs anew as she summons it to the surface. ] You've never been free of this hate.
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So he does. They took his father from him -- they wouldn't take his mother too.]
You're right. I won't.
[Yes, her intent is clear to him now. She wants him to crumble in her hands, so she can deliver a prize to the Supreme Leader that isn't competition for her own place at his side.]
This isn't what you want.
[He digs in return, and tries to find what she does want instead. If she was going to keep playing this game with him, then he was going to make use of it. He's too deep into his need to turn it against her that the oily sensation that slides down his spine doesn't register.]
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I want ... you ... to kneel.
[ not literally, of course. even locked in that rack, he had proven plenty of trouble to her. she wouldn't be letting him loose until she was absolutely sure.
but he can see a different story. there was a longing, introduced by the memory she'd seen of his mother. the shape of an open question, still forming. could she have had that? was it too late? and implicit therein, that longing, never satisfied by her work under snoke. to love. to be loved. to be anything but alone.
she shuts it down hard. shunts him back with a block of her own, which distracts her from trying to probe his thoughts and dismantle them. she cannot both protect herself and destroy him. she has to choose. ]
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He catches a glimpse before it falls away to darkness. Her longing was -- foreign, to him. He'd always been loved. That was the cornerstone of his life. No matter what happened to his family, they loved him. And that doing the right thing wasn't always easy, or pleasant.
But the surety that he was loved strengthens when that wall goes up, and the digging slows just enough for him to breathe. Its impossible to know how long he can stand up to this torture, but there is one thing that rings clear in all her other thoughts.]
Don't do this. You don't have to do this.
[Its a plea born of exhaustion. Now that she's stopped pressing quite so hard, that oil on his spine has begun to dry, and it makes him uncomfortable. He doesn't want to do it again, not sure that he could even if she dropped the wall.]
Please.
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[ except follow his orders, whispers a traitorous voice in her mind. it is that voice which stops her from closing her grip around his windpipe again. she's surprised by the falter. by the fact that it seems almost as if she physically cannot do it.
she shakes away the thought like a distraction, though it's clear in her face that it perturbs her on a deeper level. ]
I want to.
[ this is a lie. and it makes her bones and her ears ring to recognize it as such. ]
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[He might not be able to probe her anymore, but if he'd learned anything as a smuggler, it was facial tells. Something is needling at her, and he can take a good guess with the knowledge he already as.
But he also feels his ability to resist her strength fraying his edges. His pleas are born of impatience, fear, and exhaustion.]
Stop lying to yourself! Slavery is not what you want--!
[Something in him pushes outward, and it feels like a punch to his gut that winds him, makes him nauseous, and puts him on the edge of consciousness.]
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he is the supreme leader. that he delegates his tasks does not mean he cannot complete them. this is leadership and how it works. she forces that away, writing it off as ben's efforts to confuse her. ]
You think so highly of yourself.
[ she can see him now. her eyes are clear. he's ragged, at the end of his leash. he has broken the connection, but it has taken everything he has to force her out, and she can weather the pain of it unflinchingly. this does not measure anywhere near the worst pain she has faced. had snoke looked in her mind and seen these things, she would be in pain. this is ... annoyance. inconvenience. ]
You think you can walk in here and turn me? [ she draws closer. the physical will do for this. she grabs his chin in one hand, turning it to face her. he's barely conscious. pathetic. ] You think your life is worth that, to me?
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The feeling of her jerking his head to the side calls more consciousness to him, but not enough to earn him the willpower to sit up properly in the chair. Her words are slow to register, and a few slow blinks pass between them before he answers.
He takes the time to meet her eyes, but he can't find that feeling he'd felt when she'd forced her way into his mind. Not anymore.]
My life? No.
[Organa was the name that held all the weight. Even if that was his mother, that wasn't his name. As far as the galaxy was concerned, Leia didn't have much of a son anymore. And until now, that had suited him. It kept them from being used against one another -- or so he thought.
She's got it wrong though. This isn't about him.]
But I'd like to think your's is.
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[ she sounds almost sad, saying it. there's honesty there. maybe snoke had counted on this. surely he would have anticipated — he knew everything. the deepest parts of her soul had been bared to him so many times that she didn't think there was anything she could do that he hadn't accounted for.
but there is an admission there. a budge. she can scarcely imagine it, but she can imagine it. there's fear of the uncertainty there. being under snoke's control means safety. shelter. an army at her back. beyond his reach ...
the disrepute of snoke's enforcer was still better than the anonymity of just another orphan, another nobody, another slave. ]
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[There's some humor in his voice, but its short lived. The situation, for him, is actually quite dire. Whether or not she actually decides to release him, he has to imagine there is a target on his back if Snoke wants him.
To bring Leia? Or for something more sinister?]
But it'd be a start.
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[ and she believes that. he had rooted her out of a junkyard on jakku, had her brought here to the scummiest place in scumsville to purchase her like a purebred fathier. if either of them thought he couldn't do it again, they'd be playing themselves.
stars, is she actually entertaining the thought? she releases her grip and takes a step back. ]
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Ok. Good. He could do this.]
There are plenty of things Snoke can't reach, or he wouldn't have sent you here.
[He seems a little wary to even bring it up. She'd done a decent job of scaring him, but there is sincerity in his voice. He'd been running free for years, the son of Leia Organa. And yet, it happened to be a bit of bad luck that tipped Kira off that he was there in the first place.
If nowhere in the galaxy was beyond his reach, what took him so long?]
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[ she lowers her gaze, turning away from him. she doesn't want to look at him as she makes this admission. it will only serve to shame her further. ]
There's nowhere I can go to get beyond his reach. He is as much a part of me as your mother is a part of you.
[ perhaps that is the best way to describe it. snoke had made her, formed her, cultivated this darkness in her, and now he lurked in those corners. even now, if he wanted to, he could feel this conversation. lean into it. understand what she did. why had he not interrupted? what did he hope would happen? ]
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When was the last time you tried?
[He exhales out of his nose, realizing that was probably the wrong thing to say before he can stop himself.]
You--don't have to answer that, obviously.
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[ her repetition is dry and dismissive. she does not have to do anything. not because he asks it, certainly. only one person has that kind of power over her. she wipes sweat off the back of her neck. she's feeling the fatigue of this session now too, though not nearly as badly as he is. ]
Is this your strategy? Trying to talk your way out of this? That's pathetic.
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Actually, I'm just--talking. In my experience, its a little difficult to just talk yourself out of binders.
[And this was more than binders.]
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[ she says it so off-handedly. he must know, by now. doing what he had done. ]
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His laughter dies awkwardly.]
You're probably right about that.
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the sound startles her because at first she's like oh of course he's crying. i'd be crying too. but no. she turns to look at him, eyes widening slightly. who is this asshole? she purses her lips, dissatisfied with that response on pretty much every possible level. ]
When you turn, I'll show you.
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[The Dark side -- right, he knows enough about all of that. He just can't believe she's still trying to push that on him. Boundaries, Kira.
But--]
I only half know what you're even talking about.
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[ and it doesn't need to happen all at once. she considers him now, his fatigue. it would be easy to go in now and force him to turn, but … it would be a better show to take her time with this. these are the justifications she leans on, but she is not entirely obtuse to the fact that there's something else there. his arguments are not entirely without appeal. ]
In time. Get some rest. You're going to need it.
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[That's the most desperate he's sounded yet. He's going to wake up with cramps!!!]
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