[ Well, there were a few people who she didn't exchange names with. It's not impossible.
Alright, near-stranger sees Ben put her to sleep. Ben, who probably still intimidates other people who aren't her. Then decides to follow. It makes sense. She'd probably have done the same. ]
[ She hones in on his signature in the Force as she draws closer, separating it from herself with some conscious effort. It's strange. Once, he felt like an invader, something intrusive and shadowy in the corners of her mind. Now she's so used to him that he's practically a part of it. It's no wonder she'd so smoothly fallen prey to his twisted way of thinking.
It's not his fault. Not really. But they both have to work to make sure it doesn't happen again.
She heads out of the facility and approaches him with confident strides, a smile on her face as she greets him. ]
[Kylo is standing in a patch of shade, leaning against the wall in an effort to protect his pale skin from the heat of the sun. He feels the vague tug of Rey searching for him and closes his eyes to fend off the sensation.
He's been in such close proximity to so many people the past few days that it takes quite a lot of energy not to resist.
She's smiling when she arrives, and he feels something uncomfortable settle in his stomach.]
You look better.
[Its the first thing that comes to mind -- an easy observation.]
[ There's a hint of teasing amusement in her voice. It's a bold mood to adopt and she knows it. They hadn't exactly handled the messiest parts of their conversation the night before. There's a lot still to dig at. But she feels better about it all. More at peace, knowing that they're at least on the same page. ]
[Well, not really what he meant, displayed by an uncomfortable shifting of his weight and an awkward swallow. Her mood isn't quite as infectious as she might hope.]
Better than--before that.
[When she was struggling to resist the drugs slipped into her food. It hadn't been a pleasant memory to look back on, once he had realized what was happening.]
[ His mood is, though, as it turns out. The levity sapped away by the unfortunate implications of his clarification, Rey's smile dwindles and finally dies as she turns away from him and stares out instead over the ocean. ]
Oh.
[ There's no masking her disappointment. She'd thought there was no way he could be referring to that because, well, they both wanted each other, didn't they? It should simple things up. ]
It feels a little hazy at the end. [ Fortunately the escalation of her reaction to his touch had been steep enough that she didn't think she'd lost anything, exactly. But the memories had that wobbly surreal quality that the wedding had, and she'd lost parts of it, so maybe. ] I'm sorry if I did something that you didn't want.
[That kind of comes out before he has a chance to think about the implications of it, and when he realizes the implications, he has to pause before continuing his statement. Oh boy. Challenges.]
--but you were drugged. Your judgement was impaired.
[ Cool relief washes over her. But that means she has to parse out what he means but is struggling to articulate. She looks up at him again, searching his face. Digging through this statement of fact for what he's actually implying.
Obviously that was a problem. She'd asked him to knock her out for exactly that reason — alright, not that reason. More the concern that she wouldn't remember than that she'd do something she didn't want to do. But obviously he was more focused on the latter. Which meant —
Oh, this idiot.
She pushes away from the wall and turns to face him more fully. He'd said it was nothing he didn't want. Using that to drown out the doubts she feels, she reaches out to grab him by the front of his tunic and pull him down enough so that she can get on her toes and kiss him again. It's going to assert what she feels she needs to say much more clearly than any effort to actually articulate it. ]
Initially, he presses further to the wall out of instinct, like he is expecting retribution for his comments -- but then she grabs his tunic, and he clearly remembers what had followed that motion the last time. So when her lips press to his, he is more ready for it than he's been in the past.
He has to bend some, even with her on her toes, and so his hands come off the wall in preparation to brace himself so that he doesn't end up falling on top of her, but it turns out not to be necessary. As a result, his hands just sort of -- hover there.
Kylo Ren relaxes some once he accepts that the kiss is Happening, and that whatever heavy stuff they had talked about previously hadn't actually locked him out of contact with her. And that is when his hands finally fall to her waist.]
[ Kylo "Hover Hands" Ren leaves her in the lurch for a moment there, more hesitant than he'd been the night previous. But when his hands come to rest on her waist, she realizes she can't blame him for that. She'd let it get to that point without warning him that she'd been drugged when she knew it full and well, and it had clearly left him uneasy about how he should handle her advances when there was no clear way to tell.
He'd done fine, though. Exactly what he should have done. One of her hands strays to touch the side of his face, her thumb tracing the steep curve of his jaw. The air is warm with morning sunshine and the ambient ocean sounds soothe her. They're not cramped in some suffocating room in Drakstaden, fleeing the rain and themselves. They're in a paradise. Out in the open.
It's good. This is going to be good. Her lips part briefly, deepening the kiss for a moment before she draws back. She doesn't let it get as heated as it had the night before. ]
[There's something...comforting(?) about the way she curls her hand around his jaw, a softness he hadn't known he'd enjoy in any meaningful way. But there's no expectation of this gesture, despite its intimacy. She'll never know how much he'll come to appreciate that.
She pulls back, but his hands stay where they are, his grip growing a bit more confident and possessive when he thinks that she might keep pulling back. Instead, she validates his choice -- which wasn't so much a choice as a fulfillment of her request.
He does that very well. Taking orders. Usually.]
I know.
[There's something in his tone that suggests he wouldn't have ever imagined differently -- that he's confused why she would feel the need to clarify.]
[ The solid grip he keeps on her is sturdy and reassuring. She feels protected, wanted, in a way that she scarcely has before.
Before running into him, she'd been fine on her own. Fine here defined as coarsely drawing herself to climax in a bathroom stall in order to stagger her way through the remainder of her evening shying away from touching anyone and snapping at anyone who stood still long enough because her clothes felt like a prison.
So no, she hadn't needed him. But he'd made it better. Taken care of her. That's what she has been looking for.
The confusion she can feel in him, the big silence hanging off the end of his sentence waiting for significance, makes her realize that he's misapplied her admission. This was what she'd tried to kiss him to sidestep — clarification. Words. ]
Not that. I mean that I don't have to be drugged to want you, Ben. And ... [ A heat creeps up her neck. But she's gotten used to just putting this out there in the past few days. ] I wanted to remember it.
[She just throws that out there and he doesn't really know what to do with that ball but fumble it brilliantly.
Its a combination of sheer force of will and hesitation that keeps his hands where they are. Where heat creeps up her neck, his skin gains a rosy tint all at the base of his neck, at the high points of his cheek bones, and the tip of his nose.
She wanted to remember it. Was that normal? That applied a lot of sudden pressure to the entire thing -- that thing he'd been considering in private for long stretches of time before putting it out of his mind.
Was that why she'd come to him so quickly? He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. When did she get so forward? Does she not realize--?]
...good.
[How does he tell her, a man several years her senior, that he'd never really been this close to anyone before? That the night they both nearly drowned one another, he'd been running on pure adrenaline and instinct, and there was a ninety percent chance he was going to biff the whole thing anyway?
The answer: he doesn't, because he's way too self conscious for that. Instead, out of instinct, he reaches for the dark where he knows his confidence lies. After all, he's already confessed -- there was nothing left to do but lean into it, even if it was only a bit. And on the other side of that wall that he reaches through, he finds the hunger that he'd been forced to bury from the night before.
So rather than verbally attempt to reciprocate, he takes a leaf out of her book and moves one hand from her waist up to her hair, which he proceeds to comb through his large fingers. Whether or not she wants him right this second, he wants to take away the ambiguity that he's shoved in between them for the past few months.
He pulls back enough to force her to tilt her head upward so that he can resume the kiss she had halted.]
[ She draws a sharp, soft breath at the way her scalp stings when he tugs on her hair, and as a result, her lips are parted already when his mouth finds hers. It just toes the line of domineering — and it's a toss-up as to whether that's simply because he doesn't know how else to operate or because he actually wants it to be.
The intent doesn't seem to matter much to her. A pleasant warmth floods her, an answer to the almost-pain of his grip as she cranes her neck for him, and she works her arms up around his shoulders to pull him closer. This is everything her journey of self-examination has affirmed: there's a possessiveness about his desire for her, something unrestrained. As much as he'd like to hold it at bay, it wins. Every time. And the result is this ferocity.
It chases away whatever lingering uncertainties she might have had about this, about him, about whether he even wants her. Obviously he does.
Responding in kind, she tugs her teeth against his lower lip, all eagerness and aggression but no caution. She feels a little like she's scrambling, too eager for the approval of doing this right to slow down and make sure she is.
And like, logistically she has ideas of What Comes Next — many ideas, actually, thanks ROSIE and Poe and Lucas — but this is around the time that she's realizing all she has is instinct and spunk to get her there. Not only to get her there in the first place, in fact, but to figure out when to get there. And if he wants to go there; like what if this isn't an 'alright let's do it right here outside the facility' kiss but instead more like a 'good understand that I want that too at some ambiguous future date' kiss? She doesn't know.
So she does the only reasonable thing she can do and just
stomps down all those negative thoughts that are like hey Rey what if you exercised your logic brain and instead focuses on just doing what feels good. And right now, wrapping her arms around him and devouring his mouth like a starved animal feels good. ]
[Its a little public -- definitely too public for Kylo Ren's liking and comfort, but the world has melted away in light of what he's chasing. His back is to the facility wall, but before long he realizes that it doesn't belong there -- he is too tall to be bracing himself there for what he's doing right now.
So when they have to break to breathe, Kylo Ren grabs for her waist again and pivots, pressing her into the wall and holding her there for a long moment while he searches her eyes and her expression. And here is where the hesitation comes. Looking down at her, lightly flushed from the lack of air, doubt worms its way into his gut. He also wants to do this right -- but they are out in the open.
Is he being too rough with her? He doesn't think so -- he's certain that she could handle getting thrown around a little. But is that what she wants? She'd always seemed so eager for soft affirmations, but that was never him. He isn't even sure where to start.
But more importantly, they are right next to a door, and if someone walks through it and interrupts them, Kylo couldn't promise that he wouldn't murder them. Instantly.
So he tries words. They come out quiet, forced, and awkward. Like he is tangentially aware that he's about to ruin the momentum.]
[ Poe's voice pierces the haze of hunger to remind her that sometimes the moment's just gone and you can't get it back. Which is weird, actually? Because Poe didn't say that to her out loud. That was a text message. She shoves his warnings away. They're not losing the moment. They're suspending the moment.
And it's a really good moment. She leans back against the wall, breath coming out in hard pants, eyes slightly out of focus as she takes a moment to grapple with what he's saying and loosen her grip on him. Like, she'd been getting ready to climb him like a tree again. It was right there, about to happen, but—
He wants to go somewhere. Okay. Okay, so it's definitely an 'alright let's do it right here outside the facility' kiss except for like all of that. Mainly the parts about right here and outside. Her lips are slightly bruised, her hair mussed. Even if they find a better place now, anyone who sees them is going to have a strong idea of what they're doing. But they don't need to worry about that anymore.
She tries to replay his concerns. His room. Not safe. One problem at a time, and that's one she can handle. ]
Mine is.
[ Even if Curtis was there, he was understanding. He'd disappear for …
How long was this supposed to take? Like her masturbation habits tell her three minutes but her hormones are saying 'let's ruin each other for three days straight.' ]
Or the construction areas. There's a sign up to keep people out of the holo-deck.
[ Literally neither option sounds that romantic but her next suggestion was going to be the jungle so this is what we're left with. ]
[He says it like he’s rushing to get it out, like they’re conspiring together for some kind of espionage bullshit instead if just trying to find some place where Kylo won’t kill someone who wasn’t just in the wrong place at the wrong time. His hands slide down and off of her, bracing against the wall impatiently while he rests her forehead against his own. Anything to keep some kind of contact (but not too much. Not yet.)]
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He also saw me put you to sleep.
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Alright, near-stranger sees Ben put her to sleep. Ben, who probably still intimidates other people who aren't her. Then decides to follow. It makes sense. She'd probably have done the same. ]
And he made you leave?
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He would not leave unless I did.
It was not my preferred solution.
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[ She's tried to be low-key and not get her hopes up in that direction but here they are. They're up. ]
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Yes.
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Where are you?
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[Lynn is. Scary. What she can apparently do is scary.]
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[That feels ominous, somehow.]
-> action
It's not his fault. Not really. But they both have to work to make sure it doesn't happen again.
She heads out of the facility and approaches him with confident strides, a smile on her face as she greets him. ]
Hey.
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He's been in such close proximity to so many people the past few days that it takes quite a lot of energy not to resist.
She's smiling when she arrives, and he feels something uncomfortable settle in his stomach.]
You look better.
[Its the first thing that comes to mind -- an easy observation.]
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[ There's a hint of teasing amusement in her voice. It's a bold mood to adopt and she knows it. They hadn't exactly handled the messiest parts of their conversation the night before. There's a lot still to dig at. But she feels better about it all. More at peace, knowing that they're at least on the same page. ]
I sure hope so.
[ She leans up against the wall beside him. ]
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Better than--before that.
[When she was struggling to resist the drugs slipped into her food. It hadn't been a pleasant memory to look back on, once he had realized what was happening.]
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Oh.
[ There's no masking her disappointment. She'd thought there was no way he could be referring to that because, well, they both wanted each other, didn't they? It should simple things up. ]
It feels a little hazy at the end. [ Fortunately the escalation of her reaction to his touch had been steep enough that she didn't think she'd lost anything, exactly. But the memories had that wobbly surreal quality that the wedding had, and she'd lost parts of it, so maybe. ] I'm sorry if I did something that you didn't want.
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You didn't.
[That kind of comes out before he has a chance to think about the implications of it, and when he realizes the implications, he has to pause before continuing his statement. Oh boy. Challenges.]
--but you were drugged. Your judgement was impaired.
[That's--probably fine to point out???]
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Obviously that was a problem. She'd asked him to knock her out for exactly that reason — alright, not that reason. More the concern that she wouldn't remember than that she'd do something she didn't want to do. But obviously he was more focused on the latter. Which meant —
Oh, this idiot.
She pushes away from the wall and turns to face him more fully. He'd said it was nothing he didn't want. Using that to drown out the doubts she feels, she reaches out to grab him by the front of his tunic and pull him down enough so that she can get on her toes and kiss him again. It's going to assert what she feels she needs to say much more clearly than any effort to actually articulate it. ]
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Initially, he presses further to the wall out of instinct, like he is expecting retribution for his comments -- but then she grabs his tunic, and he clearly remembers what had followed that motion the last time. So when her lips press to his, he is more ready for it than he's been in the past.
He has to bend some, even with her on her toes, and so his hands come off the wall in preparation to brace himself so that he doesn't end up falling on top of her, but it turns out not to be necessary. As a result, his hands just sort of -- hover there.
Kylo Ren relaxes some once he accepts that the kiss is Happening, and that whatever heavy stuff they had talked about previously hadn't actually locked him out of contact with her. And that is when his hands finally fall to her waist.]
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He'd done fine, though. Exactly what he should have done. One of her hands strays to touch the side of his face, her thumb tracing the steep curve of his jaw. The air is warm with morning sunshine and the ambient ocean sounds soothe her. They're not cramped in some suffocating room in Drakstaden, fleeing the rain and themselves. They're in a paradise. Out in the open.
It's good. This is going to be good. Her lips part briefly, deepening the kiss for a moment before she draws back. She doesn't let it get as heated as it had the night before. ]
I would have made the same choice.
[ She looks up at him, searching his face. ]
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She pulls back, but his hands stay where they are, his grip growing a bit more confident and possessive when he thinks that she might keep pulling back. Instead, she validates his choice -- which wasn't so much a choice as a fulfillment of her request.
He does that very well. Taking orders. Usually.]
I know.
[There's something in his tone that suggests he wouldn't have ever imagined differently -- that he's confused why she would feel the need to clarify.]
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Before running into him, she'd been fine on her own. Fine here defined as coarsely drawing herself to climax in a bathroom stall in order to stagger her way through the remainder of her evening shying away from touching anyone and snapping at anyone who stood still long enough because her clothes felt like a prison.
So no, she hadn't needed him. But he'd made it better. Taken care of her. That's what she has been looking for.
The confusion she can feel in him, the big silence hanging off the end of his sentence waiting for significance, makes her realize that he's misapplied her admission. This was what she'd tried to kiss him to sidestep — clarification. Words. ]
Not that. I mean that I don't have to be drugged to want you, Ben. And ... [ A heat creeps up her neck. But she's gotten used to just putting this out there in the past few days. ] I wanted to remember it.
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Its a combination of sheer force of will and hesitation that keeps his hands where they are. Where heat creeps up her neck, his skin gains a rosy tint all at the base of his neck, at the high points of his cheek bones, and the tip of his nose.
She wanted to remember it. Was that normal? That applied a lot of sudden pressure to the entire thing -- that thing he'd been considering in private for long stretches of time before putting it out of his mind.
Was that why she'd come to him so quickly? He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. When did she get so forward? Does she not realize--?]
...good.
[How does he tell her, a man several years her senior, that he'd never really been this close to anyone before? That the night they both nearly drowned one another, he'd been running on pure adrenaline and instinct, and there was a ninety percent chance he was going to biff the whole thing anyway?
The answer: he doesn't, because he's way too self conscious for that. Instead, out of instinct, he reaches for the dark where he knows his confidence lies. After all, he's already confessed -- there was nothing left to do but lean into it, even if it was only a bit. And on the other side of that wall that he reaches through, he finds the hunger that he'd been forced to bury from the night before.
So rather than verbally attempt to reciprocate, he takes a leaf out of her book and moves one hand from her waist up to her hair, which he proceeds to comb through his large fingers. Whether or not she wants him right this second, he wants to take away the ambiguity that he's shoved in between them for the past few months.
He pulls back enough to force her to tilt her head upward so that he can resume the kiss she had halted.]
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The intent doesn't seem to matter much to her. A pleasant warmth floods her, an answer to the almost-pain of his grip as she cranes her neck for him, and she works her arms up around his shoulders to pull him closer. This is everything her journey of self-examination has affirmed: there's a possessiveness about his desire for her, something unrestrained. As much as he'd like to hold it at bay, it wins. Every time. And the result is this ferocity.
It chases away whatever lingering uncertainties she might have had about this, about him, about whether he even wants her. Obviously he does.
Responding in kind, she tugs her teeth against his lower lip, all eagerness and aggression but no caution. She feels a little like she's scrambling, too eager for the approval of doing this right to slow down and make sure she is.
And like, logistically she has ideas of What Comes Next — many ideas, actually, thanks ROSIE and Poe and Lucas — but this is around the time that she's realizing all she has is instinct and spunk to get her there. Not only to get her there in the first place, in fact, but to figure out when to get there. And if he wants to go there; like what if this isn't an 'alright let's do it right here outside the facility' kiss but instead more like a 'good understand that I want that too at some ambiguous future date' kiss? She doesn't know.
So she does the only reasonable thing she can do and just
stomps down all those negative thoughts that are like hey Rey what if you exercised your logic brain and instead focuses on just doing what feels good. And right now, wrapping her arms around him and devouring his mouth like a starved animal feels good. ]
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So when they have to break to breathe, Kylo Ren grabs for her waist again and pivots, pressing her into the wall and holding her there for a long moment while he searches her eyes and her expression. And here is where the hesitation comes. Looking down at her, lightly flushed from the lack of air, doubt worms its way into his gut. He also wants to do this right -- but they are out in the open.
Is he being too rough with her? He doesn't think so -- he's certain that she could handle getting thrown around a little. But is that what she wants? She'd always seemed so eager for soft affirmations, but that was never him. He isn't even sure where to start.
But more importantly, they are right next to a door, and if someone walks through it and interrupts them, Kylo couldn't promise that he wouldn't murder them. Instantly.
So he tries words. They come out quiet, forced, and awkward. Like he is tangentially aware that he's about to ruin the momentum.]
--my room isn't...safe.
[He still doesn't trust Lynn.]
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And it's a really good moment. She leans back against the wall, breath coming out in hard pants, eyes slightly out of focus as she takes a moment to grapple with what he's saying and loosen her grip on him. Like, she'd been getting ready to climb him like a tree again. It was right there, about to happen, but—
He wants to go somewhere. Okay. Okay, so it's definitely an 'alright let's do it right here outside the facility' kiss except for like all of that. Mainly the parts about right here and outside. Her lips are slightly bruised, her hair mussed. Even if they find a better place now, anyone who sees them is going to have a strong idea of what they're doing. But they don't need to worry about that anymore.
She tries to replay his concerns. His room. Not safe. One problem at a time, and that's one she can handle. ]
Mine is.
[ Even if Curtis was there, he was understanding. He'd disappear for …
How long was this supposed to take? Like her masturbation habits tell her three minutes but her hormones are saying 'let's ruin each other for three days straight.' ]
Or the construction areas. There's a sign up to keep people out of the holo-deck.
[ Literally neither option sounds that romantic but her next suggestion was going to be the jungle so this is what we're left with. ]
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[He says it like he’s rushing to get it out, like they’re conspiring together for some kind of espionage bullshit instead if just trying to find some place where Kylo won’t kill someone who wasn’t just in the wrong place at the wrong time. His hands slide down and off of her, bracing against the wall impatiently while he rests her forehead against his own. Anything to keep some kind of contact (but not too much. Not yet.)]
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wraps this? ??