["For the next time" draws his attention to her, as he imagines it is supposed to, though he doesn't quite piece out why. In this, they speak two different languages (the language of Kylo being "a repressed dude who doesn't know how to vocalize emotion"). So he nods awkwardly in response to what Rey has offered him, reaching for one of her hands once she lets it drop from her hair.]
They want us to be seen. It would be a waste of time.
[He can vocalize the conclusion they've both come to, though, as uncomfortable as it makes him. The energy would be better spent on figuring out how to handle that reality -- a reality where he doesn't murder someone for laying eyes on Rey, imagining themselves in his place.
[ Waste of time feels like a stab into the soft tissue of her abdomen. Striking down her idea without one to take it place frightens her, throws her, leaves her feeling abruptly discarded, but she knows that can't be true because his hand is still holding hers. No. It's just his pessimism chafing against her optimism again. Not a personal attack, but a different way of approaching the issue. ]
It'll be worth wasting if there's a chance.
[ To her, anyway. Feeling on the ropes as she does, she feels the need to qualify that with a justification of why, ] If it means not having to rush off right away.
[ She wants to linger in his embrace and enjoy the time to themselves. As long as he is tensely anticipating the arrival of someone else to crash that bliss, she's not going to get it. She'll find privacy, or barter for some, if it can get her that chance to bask for more than a handful of minutes.
More to the point, his opposition to anyone else seeing has her feeling like she's really just ... begging for there to be a next time at all, one where he isn't too frayed and fearful to allow her to touch him. ]
[That clicks into place almost audibly, and he nods again for her. Yes, that's easy enough to agree with. He isn't running away from her after all, just the idea that someone else might spot them both in a vulnerable moment. And then he would have to kill them and -- well, he's gotten the message that Rey doesn't really appreciate his methods of conflict resolution.
But no matter her faith in him, that would never change. The longer he could avoid it and keep it at bay, the longer he'd be able to hold onto her. That's the plan he's formed for himself.
So privacy works in their favor. If they could find it, it would be worth it. Maybe it wasn't a waste of time. Communal showers were hardly private, but they had come when it wasn't busy. That was almost like privacy.]
The cold of the shower spray finally hits her as she transitions, awkwardly, to rinsing the shampoo out of her hair. Shivering, she wrings it dry as best she can without particular grace or gentleness. The chill sinks into her bones, spreading through her, terrible even once she's out of the cold spray. The air clings to it, helps it seep in.
Because, of course, it's not just the shower. It's the way that he's separating from her while she still needs to feel connected to him. The way she folds her arms around herself to stave off the cold makes room, somehow, for a sudden and unwelcome fragility to settle around her like a cloak.
The ache in her body has woken up too, now. It feels like being torn and raw on the inside. ]
Come with me to get something to eat.
[ Pushed out rudely like this, it almost sounds like a command. But it's the only solution she finds that isn't begging him to say something decent about her and assure her that he's not eager to leave her, which she already knows. She's trying to balance her understanding of the fact that he expresses better through action with the fact that right now, his actions read quite easily like he can't be rid of her fast enough. That doesn't give him the credit he deserves, though. ]
[He frowns briefly -- no, she means after they've gotten themselves decent, surely. They just spent time agreeing that they need privacy. So the look doesn't stick. He isn't really hungry, but he recognizes a command when he hears one, and that's easy to acquiesce to.]
Alright.
[He gently reaches to move her aside, just enough to shower the rest of the suds off of him before he turns the water off. But as he reaches for a towel to wrap around her, he pauses with her swaddled in his arms.]
[ It's frustrating, in a way, to have to talk herself down like this. That so much doubt and uncertainty pervades their connection now, which grew more from other people's misunderstanding of Ben than any weakness in their own feelings for one another, She has become keenly aware of his inability to express things, and dances around her own interpretation instead of trusting in the Force.
But his intent is clear and straightforward in going for the towel, caging her in his arms, and that soothes her. It's not just the closeness, but the care and attention that she hadn't thought to ask for. That nurturing is what had first drawn her to him like this. She rests her hands on his chest. ]
Then we'll have to stay here. [ Despite his earlier complaint. ] Just for a while. It's that or sneak back to the rooms in our towels. I can send a message to Curtis to see if he's around, maybe ask him to make himself scarce if he is. [ Ben's the uncomfortable one here, really. The functional nakedness of a shower doesn't bother her much, removed from the intimacy of his eyes on her for the first time, or the anticipation of some direct engagement. So she thinks to posit: ] Which would you prefer?
[That answer is immediate, before she even asks what his preference is. He doesn't need a stranger suspicious about what they're intentions in the room are, let alone having to walk all the way back there with only a towel for coverage. He holds her a little tighter when he says it, to stave off the angry, defensive beast that threatens to surface when he again thinks of other people laying eyes upon them.]
We will stay here.
[Gooseflesh and potential company non-withstanding. It was safer. Better insurance.
Somewhere in between that, he rests his head on top of her's to try and find that peace she somehow settles into so easily. He's exceedingly bad at it.]
[ She murmurs this against his sternum as she enfolds herself in the circle of his arms, huddling up against him to chase off some of the chill that sinks in. His concerns nag at her, as if his feelings were her own. A chaotic jumble of doubts and neuroses. She turns those words to a kiss, soft and warm and soothing against his chest. ]
Don't worry about them. [ She tells him, as if it were so easy. ] Be with me.
[ For now, at least, the outside world need not exist. In part, she clings to this advice because she wants it to be responsible for his distance. For the way he can offer her only the physical overtures of affection and none of the soft affirmations that she has done well. That he is satisfied. That he will not leave her. Maybe if he focuses on her, she will get them.
It's a fool's errand, of course, and the larger part of her knows it.
She should at least, though, offer him something more concrete to distract his focus. He had solicited her following the first go-around to see if she agreed with his decision to delay this in Drakstaden, to slow them down. So she asks him now— ]
Do you wish we weren't here, so we could have waited longer?
[He opens his eyes when she says that. It picks at something, the nagging he felt before returning to Hathaway. The presence in his mind that no longer felt like a weight. Yes. He supposed he did think too loudly. It was not as if he could help it--
She interrupts his train of thought with another bit of advice. He knows what she means, but -- it isn't like he's resisting the idea of being with her. Its just hard not to focus on his own circling paranoia.
Fortunately, she picks up on the fact that he needs a distraction. The question feels loaded, but...he thinks about it, just as loudly.
He hadn't regretted that choice in Drakstaden until it became apparent that he was going to need to act on something while he was here in the facility. Then suddenly, not having that experience felt like it put him at a disadvantage, even though he had been certain it was the right call at the time.
And he couldn't be sure what sort of effects that rushing into it now would have on them, long term.]
...no.
[But the way she asks her question -- its an easier answer than he initially thinks. No. Of course he didn't want to wait longer, it was just. Smarter. Safer.]
[ The trouble with soliciting any sort of emotional response from Ben is that she might as well try to wring water from sand. He never offers reasoning or explanation for his answers. He just leaves them there, and expects the rest to fill in. But at least one thing is clear: he doesn't regret it. That's something.
It does nag at her a little. It stinks of not having a real choice, as she'd said the night before. He has to sleep with someone, it might as well be her. Rushing into it like this had been her way of trying to seize control of that. She'd planned, before seeing him, to take her time. To find someone who was kind, who she would enjoy herself with. Finn and Poe had made compelling cases. But she'd still hesitated, dallied.
Not until it was necessary. Not until the time came, or until it was closer at least.
With Ben, it was not so. It was immediate. Because she wanted him. Because she cared for him. Not because of this place and the contracts they'd signed in coming. ]
Good.
[ She rests her head against his chest then. ]
Me too, obviously. All those things I said, I meant it. [ Her cheeks feel warm against his cool, wet skin. ] It was ... [ She corrects herself, as she had before when he was inside of her — ] You were good.
[She might feel him swallow when she says it, his chin still resting on her head. Her praise feeds that starving creature within him. He almost feels the need to admit that he's...never really done this before. Any of this. But she knows that. She has to know that, and he doesn't want to have to vocalize it. So he sidesteps it.
Instead, he holds her a little closer, possessively, as if he's expecting someone to come and try to ruin what he's managed to find here. He can tell she is waiting for something, after giving him that praise -- but agreeing with her, he realizes, feels...lame. He doesn't have the language for "a cop out", but that's definitely what it feels like. Unpleasant. Disingenuous.
He is at least one of those two adjectives, but less so the other.]
I would not have come close to...any of that [That] without you.
[That's mumbled, because it admits that he'd come here without really thinking the consequences through. It means admitting that he probably would have perished, trying to open up to anyone else like that.
He wants to say something else, but again struggles to get there.]
[ A smile twitches at her mouth, and finally the tension in her chest finishes unraveling. It's not perfect, it's not clear and direct and sweepingly romantic, it's not the kind of cheesy professions that someone like Lucas would provide. It's better. Because it's real, and it's Ben. Trying.
This is what it is because she matters to him, enough to help him reach parts of himself that he had long since tried to kill off. She understands that about him. In the same way that he matters to her, offers her the companionship and understanding that she has so longed for. ]
I'm glad you let me.
[ She draws back a little to look up at him. It's what she's been trying to tell him since Hanabira, isn't it? I only wanted to be close to you. And she is, now. For better or worse. And he's willing to admit that they are close, to let it be real in the light of day. ]
I know this is hard for you. It's hard for me too. Before you, I'd never even felt this way about anyone.
[Kylo looks up at the same moment she does, feeling it through the Force, and meeting her eyes evenly. He looks every bit of exhausted as he feels, but he's present and there for her to lay all of that down in front of him.
And he can't help but reach up and pet over her hair. He doesn't quite smile, but there is a sense of mild amusement buried somewhere under all of that tired demeanor.]
This isn't hard for you.
[He knows that. Maybe she means it differently, but -- affection, that came easy to her. She'd be lying if she tried to deny it. He'd spent two years watching her invite other people in -- sure, it was never an excessive amount of people, but it was more than Kylo Ren could ever claim.
Compassion, nurturing, all of those things he refused to feel, they all came naturally to Rey. He just happened to be fortunate enough that she decided to share them with him, even after...everything.]
Maybe it was, once.
[Yes, he can see that, looking into her eyes then. He remembers what he had seen when he had first met her, how far off she was -- not unlike himself, and that had been what drew him in the first place. But where he withdrew further, she had reached out and found someone else waiting on the other side.
On the other side of him was only that horrible golden robe. But not anymore.]
[ It's the easiest affection has ever come for him, this statement. As though it's something he admires about her, plainly stated, and Rey is left wide-eyed and shy in the face of it. From his perspective, perhaps, it makes sense. The struggles she has are dissimilar in every way from his. Where he holds himself back, resists compassion, she seeks it out too violently.
She had so nearly driven him and Keith both away with it.
So he's right, perhaps. The difficult for Rey lies in the fact that her compassion comes too easily, her ache for approval too close to the surface to hide. She's not lonely anymore, but she's instead grappling with a constant fear of losing that and going back to the way things were. He, instead, tries to hold himself back so there's never anything to lose. The same rationale, presented differently. ]
That doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I still don't know what I'm doing.
[At least, when it came to him -- it was easier knowing that they were both clueless and trying to figure out this whole thing. He gets the idea that what is going on between himself and Rey wasn't something that was supposed to happen in this place, even if he could imagine no other way.
The facility wanted them to lack connection, to just get down to business with nothing encouraging them to do so except food poison.]
[ Whether other people think so or not. Whether this facility is designed or intended for that or not. She pulls back to look up at him, searching for understanding that she wants to find there.
It's been some time since she's done what she did in that hut on Ahch-to, laid it all out before him. They've been so hung up in the push and pull of how to open up to one another at all. But he's right — it comes more easily to her than to him. She finds the vocabulary easily now, in this moment. ]
I keep messing up. With you, with Keith, with Poe. It's easier to connect to people than it is to stay connected. [ There's something strangled in her voice, and she blinks quickly. Any actual watery quality in her eyes is blurred out, lost in the lingering damp from the shower. ] I don't want to be left again.
Has it occurred to you that you cannot connect to the entire galaxy?
[It seems obvious to him, but of course it is -- he connected to no one, at any time, except for her. He has the presence of mind to recognize that, even if he doesn't understand why she feels this need to connect.
They were both lonely. But one was enough for him. She couldn't get enough of it. Was she hoping there was enough to fill the void, when even one person left? He can't begin to guess.
All he can do is look at her and struggle to find some way to comfort her. But he shares her fears, in some minuscule way. Only one person needs to leave him for him to be miserable.]
I only left because...
[How does he put this into words without actually admitting he was afraid? He can't, really -- but he doesn't want to admit it. So he doesn't use that exact phrasing.]
--I wanted to protect myself from it. From what you are trying to avoid.
[ There's no masking the ping of surprise that flickers in the bond, that widens her eyes. Not from him. She tries to move on from it quickly instead, not wanting to let it scare him off. But she can't help it. She has spent so much time wheedling honest discussion out of him, prodding at him to share in exactly this way, that she it stunned to hear him do it willingly.
And so honestly, about something so fraught.
She nods her understanding, a softness in her features. She knew that, of course. In a way. Most of what Kylo Ren does is to protect himself from some fear or another — she has deduced this about him handily even without the aid of the bond. He is a creature built of fear. Any time he surfaces, smothering Ben Solo, it is because that fear has won.
It's hard to blame him for that. But it's also not something she has to put up with. She's worth more than his fear. She has embraced that truth now. ]
But you came back.
[ That's what counts. That's what she chooses to concentrate on, just like with Finn. They had both left her, succumbed to a bone-deep fear, and they had both returned. Like she had wasted her life wishing her parents would. ]
[Something about that feels like a slap, even though the logical part of his illogical brain says otherwise. She wasn't unhappy that he hadn't stuck to his guns. He feels it as a weakness, but as Rey had already advised him -- it wasn't. That was the Dark Side talking.
As much as the Dark was apart of him, it didn't control him. He was determined to keep that line drawn.]
For you. Yes.
[That's a line worth drawing. If it had been anyone else, he would not have come back.]
[ She kisses him. It's a girlish thing, all gratitude and understanding and savoring this moment of closeness. It would be better spent in a bed, where their wobbly legs did not have to support them, and the cold aftermath of the shower didn't prickle their skin, forcing her to stave off a constant shiver. In that way, she almost misses Drakstaden and the comfort of a space that was truly theirs.
But this is good too.
It's a soft kiss, lingering but not a solicitation. Just … content. Rejoicing in the way she feels appreciated and valued in that moment. His coming back had meant accepting her as she is, not as the thing he had incidentally twisted her into.That's a powerful thing.
When she draws back from the kiss, she slides her heel back and stops, surprised by something. She turns her head to look down and disentangles from him to pick up what is a
clear rubber mat that had been at some point pushed aside. It's probably a Jackson Pollock painting under blacklight, and she should probably wash her hands after touching it even at the edge (she won't), but here it is. A mat that would have likely done them many favors if they had just taken their time to go at it.
Her hip joints are screaming their protest. All of that effort for nothing.
For her part, Rey just laughs. None of that seems to matter much right now. It's, if anything, emblematic of their hunger for one another that they hadn't stopped to notice that it had simply been pushed aside and forgotten. ]
[The kiss is returned, but not in the same hungry way he'd chased everything before that. Its much more awkward, but its for her benefit more than his own -- and that is a strange concept to him. So while they kiss, he digests that.
Its fine, actually. He's almost at a loss when she pulls back. But then she hits the mat, and Rey's laugh brings a flicker of amusement across his face. Its much a quieter display than her own, but no less genuine. But Kylo Ren also senses that if he doesn't start to move him, then they will be there all day.
And for as much as Rey wants to stay at this distance forever, he can only handle so much contact in one day. He also wants to lay down before his legs completely give out from under him. He doesn't even want to think about how he is going to feel tomorrow morning.
He reaches out briefly to make sure they hadn't obtained company while they were lingering before stepping out of the stall and extending his hand to Rey with the intention of leading her out. If their clothes weren't try, he'd just wear them wet back to his room. He could probably hide form his roommate for long enough to let the rest of the moisture escape, or something.]
[ She folds her towel around herself fully and properly, keeping it up with a novel tuck made familiar to her in that room in Drakstaden, and then takes his hand. What once felt like reaching across a valley, fighting across some impossible barrier, has become pedestrian now. She holds his hand with the kind of ordinary comfort that anyone might, not two enemies on opposite sides of a war.
That great divide will return, she's sure. She doesn't need to worry about it while it's not here. She'd rather stay present in the moment, enjoying what she is given. Perhaps that's the same starved child logic that had led her to ingest the aphrodisiacs during the feast that knight previous, but it has served her well for most of her life. Keep the good things while they're good and don't count on them being there tomorrow.
The dryer is still running when they get to it, but the timer is low, so Rey opens it up anyway and starts disentangling his clothes from hers. She relocates her useless and torn breast binding in the process and casts it aside on top of the machine. While she gets dressed some part of her brain is like repair it, repair it but the other part of her brain is like in the Headquarters you could have just walked into a shop and gotten another, it's probably fine. She'll leave it there, forgotten, when they leave.
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They want us to be seen. It would be a waste of time.
[He can vocalize the conclusion they've both come to, though, as uncomfortable as it makes him. The energy would be better spent on figuring out how to handle that reality -- a reality where he doesn't murder someone for laying eyes on Rey, imagining themselves in his place.
Because why else would anyone watch?]
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It'll be worth wasting if there's a chance.
[ To her, anyway. Feeling on the ropes as she does, she feels the need to qualify that with a justification of why, ] If it means not having to rush off right away.
[ She wants to linger in his embrace and enjoy the time to themselves. As long as he is tensely anticipating the arrival of someone else to crash that bliss, she's not going to get it. She'll find privacy, or barter for some, if it can get her that chance to bask for more than a handful of minutes.
More to the point, his opposition to anyone else seeing has her feeling like she's really just ... begging for there to be a next time at all, one where he isn't too frayed and fearful to allow her to touch him. ]
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But no matter her faith in him, that would never change. The longer he could avoid it and keep it at bay, the longer he'd be able to hold onto her. That's the plan he's formed for himself.
So privacy works in their favor. If they could find it, it would be worth it. Maybe it wasn't a waste of time. Communal showers were hardly private, but they had come when it wasn't busy. That was almost like privacy.]
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The cold of the shower spray finally hits her as she transitions, awkwardly, to rinsing the shampoo out of her hair. Shivering, she wrings it dry as best she can without particular grace or gentleness. The chill sinks into her bones, spreading through her, terrible even once she's out of the cold spray. The air clings to it, helps it seep in.
Because, of course, it's not just the shower. It's the way that he's separating from her while she still needs to feel connected to him. The way she folds her arms around herself to stave off the cold makes room, somehow, for a sudden and unwelcome fragility to settle around her like a cloak.
The ache in her body has woken up too, now. It feels like being torn and raw on the inside. ]
Come with me to get something to eat.
[ Pushed out rudely like this, it almost sounds like a command. But it's the only solution she finds that isn't begging him to say something decent about her and assure her that he's not eager to leave her, which she already knows. She's trying to balance her understanding of the fact that he expresses better through action with the fact that right now, his actions read quite easily like he can't be rid of her fast enough. That doesn't give him the credit he deserves, though. ]
no subject
Alright.
[He gently reaches to move her aside, just enough to shower the rest of the suds off of him before he turns the water off. But as he reaches for a towel to wrap around her, he pauses with her swaddled in his arms.]
...our clothes are not going to be dry.
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But his intent is clear and straightforward in going for the towel, caging her in his arms, and that soothes her. It's not just the closeness, but the care and attention that she hadn't thought to ask for. That nurturing is what had first drawn her to him like this. She rests her hands on his chest. ]
Then we'll have to stay here. [ Despite his earlier complaint. ] Just for a while. It's that or sneak back to the rooms in our towels. I can send a message to Curtis to see if he's around, maybe ask him to make himself scarce if he is. [ Ben's the uncomfortable one here, really. The functional nakedness of a shower doesn't bother her much, removed from the intimacy of his eyes on her for the first time, or the anticipation of some direct engagement. So she thinks to posit: ] Which would you prefer?
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[That answer is immediate, before she even asks what his preference is. He doesn't need a stranger suspicious about what they're intentions in the room are, let alone having to walk all the way back there with only a towel for coverage. He holds her a little tighter when he says it, to stave off the angry, defensive beast that threatens to surface when he again thinks of other people laying eyes upon them.]
We will stay here.
[Gooseflesh and potential company non-withstanding. It was safer. Better insurance.
Somewhere in between that, he rests his head on top of her's to try and find that peace she somehow settles into so easily. He's exceedingly bad at it.]
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[ She murmurs this against his sternum as she enfolds herself in the circle of his arms, huddling up against him to chase off some of the chill that sinks in. His concerns nag at her, as if his feelings were her own. A chaotic jumble of doubts and neuroses. She turns those words to a kiss, soft and warm and soothing against his chest. ]
Don't worry about them. [ She tells him, as if it were so easy. ] Be with me.
[ For now, at least, the outside world need not exist. In part, she clings to this advice because she wants it to be responsible for his distance. For the way he can offer her only the physical overtures of affection and none of the soft affirmations that she has done well. That he is satisfied. That he will not leave her. Maybe if he focuses on her, she will get them.
It's a fool's errand, of course, and the larger part of her knows it.
She should at least, though, offer him something more concrete to distract his focus. He had solicited her following the first go-around to see if she agreed with his decision to delay this in Drakstaden, to slow them down. So she asks him now— ]
Do you wish we weren't here, so we could have waited longer?
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She interrupts his train of thought with another bit of advice. He knows what she means, but -- it isn't like he's resisting the idea of being with her. Its just hard not to focus on his own circling paranoia.
Fortunately, she picks up on the fact that he needs a distraction. The question feels loaded, but...he thinks about it, just as loudly.
He hadn't regretted that choice in Drakstaden until it became apparent that he was going to need to act on something while he was here in the facility. Then suddenly, not having that experience felt like it put him at a disadvantage, even though he had been certain it was the right call at the time.
And he couldn't be sure what sort of effects that rushing into it now would have on them, long term.]
...no.
[But the way she asks her question -- its an easier answer than he initially thinks. No. Of course he didn't want to wait longer, it was just. Smarter. Safer.]
If I wanted to wait longer, than...I would have.
[Probably.]
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It does nag at her a little. It stinks of not having a real choice, as she'd said the night before. He has to sleep with someone, it might as well be her. Rushing into it like this had been her way of trying to seize control of that. She'd planned, before seeing him, to take her time. To find someone who was kind, who she would enjoy herself with. Finn and Poe had made compelling cases. But she'd still hesitated, dallied.
Not until it was necessary. Not until the time came, or until it was closer at least.
With Ben, it was not so. It was immediate. Because she wanted him. Because she cared for him. Not because of this place and the contracts they'd signed in coming. ]
Good.
[ She rests her head against his chest then. ]
Me too, obviously. All those things I said, I meant it. [ Her cheeks feel warm against his cool, wet skin. ] It was ... [ She corrects herself, as she had before when he was inside of her — ] You were good.
no subject
Instead, he holds her a little closer, possessively, as if he's expecting someone to come and try to ruin what he's managed to find here. He can tell she is waiting for something, after giving him that praise -- but agreeing with her, he realizes, feels...lame. He doesn't have the language for "a cop out", but that's definitely what it feels like. Unpleasant. Disingenuous.
He is at least one of those two adjectives, but less so the other.]
I would not have come close to...any of that [That] without you.
[That's mumbled, because it admits that he'd come here without really thinking the consequences through. It means admitting that he probably would have perished, trying to open up to anyone else like that.
He wants to say something else, but again struggles to get there.]
You brought me there.
no subject
This is what it is because she matters to him, enough to help him reach parts of himself that he had long since tried to kill off. She understands that about him. In the same way that he matters to her, offers her the companionship and understanding that she has so longed for. ]
I'm glad you let me.
[ She draws back a little to look up at him. It's what she's been trying to tell him since Hanabira, isn't it? I only wanted to be close to you. And she is, now. For better or worse. And he's willing to admit that they are close, to let it be real in the light of day. ]
I know this is hard for you. It's hard for me too. Before you, I'd never even felt this way about anyone.
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And he can't help but reach up and pet over her hair. He doesn't quite smile, but there is a sense of mild amusement buried somewhere under all of that tired demeanor.]
This isn't hard for you.
[He knows that. Maybe she means it differently, but -- affection, that came easy to her. She'd be lying if she tried to deny it. He'd spent two years watching her invite other people in -- sure, it was never an excessive amount of people, but it was more than Kylo Ren could ever claim.
Compassion, nurturing, all of those things he refused to feel, they all came naturally to Rey. He just happened to be fortunate enough that she decided to share them with him, even after...everything.]
Maybe it was, once.
[Yes, he can see that, looking into her eyes then. He remembers what he had seen when he had first met her, how far off she was -- not unlike himself, and that had been what drew him in the first place. But where he withdrew further, she had reached out and found someone else waiting on the other side.
On the other side of him was only that horrible golden robe. But not anymore.]
no subject
She had so nearly driven him and Keith both away with it.
So he's right, perhaps. The difficult for Rey lies in the fact that her compassion comes too easily, her ache for approval too close to the surface to hide. She's not lonely anymore, but she's instead grappling with a constant fear of losing that and going back to the way things were. He, instead, tries to hold himself back so there's never anything to lose. The same rationale, presented differently. ]
That doesn't mean I'm not afraid. I still don't know what I'm doing.
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[At least, when it came to him -- it was easier knowing that they were both clueless and trying to figure out this whole thing. He gets the idea that what is going on between himself and Rey wasn't something that was supposed to happen in this place, even if he could imagine no other way.
The facility wanted them to lack connection, to just get down to business with nothing encouraging them to do so except food poison.]
no subject
[ Whether other people think so or not. Whether this facility is designed or intended for that or not. She pulls back to look up at him, searching for understanding that she wants to find there.
It's been some time since she's done what she did in that hut on Ahch-to, laid it all out before him. They've been so hung up in the push and pull of how to open up to one another at all. But he's right — it comes more easily to her than to him. She finds the vocabulary easily now, in this moment. ]
I keep messing up. With you, with Keith, with Poe. It's easier to connect to people than it is to stay connected. [ There's something strangled in her voice, and she blinks quickly. Any actual watery quality in her eyes is blurred out, lost in the lingering damp from the shower. ] I don't want to be left again.
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[It seems obvious to him, but of course it is -- he connected to no one, at any time, except for her. He has the presence of mind to recognize that, even if he doesn't understand why she feels this need to connect.
They were both lonely. But one was enough for him. She couldn't get enough of it. Was she hoping there was enough to fill the void, when even one person left? He can't begin to guess.
All he can do is look at her and struggle to find some way to comfort her. But he shares her fears, in some minuscule way. Only one person needs to leave him for him to be miserable.]
I only left because...
[How does he put this into words without actually admitting he was afraid? He can't, really -- but he doesn't want to admit it. So he doesn't use that exact phrasing.]
--I wanted to protect myself from it. From what you are trying to avoid.
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And so honestly, about something so fraught.
She nods her understanding, a softness in her features. She knew that, of course. In a way. Most of what Kylo Ren does is to protect himself from some fear or another — she has deduced this about him handily even without the aid of the bond. He is a creature built of fear. Any time he surfaces, smothering Ben Solo, it is because that fear has won.
It's hard to blame him for that. But it's also not something she has to put up with. She's worth more than his fear. She has embraced that truth now. ]
But you came back.
[ That's what counts. That's what she chooses to concentrate on, just like with Finn. They had both left her, succumbed to a bone-deep fear, and they had both returned. Like she had wasted her life wishing her parents would. ]
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As much as the Dark was apart of him, it didn't control him. He was determined to keep that line drawn.]
For you. Yes.
[That's a line worth drawing. If it had been anyone else, he would not have come back.]
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But this is good too.
It's a soft kiss, lingering but not a solicitation. Just … content. Rejoicing in the way she feels appreciated and valued in that moment. His coming back had meant accepting her as she is, not as the thing he had incidentally twisted her into.That's a powerful thing.
When she draws back from the kiss, she slides her heel back and stops, surprised by something. She turns her head to look down and disentangles from him to pick up what is a
clear rubber mat that had been at some point pushed aside. It's probably a Jackson Pollock painting under blacklight, and she should probably wash her hands after touching it even at the edge (she won't), but here it is. A mat that would have likely done them many favors if they had just taken their time to go at it.
Her hip joints are screaming their protest. All of that effort for nothing.
For her part, Rey just laughs. None of that seems to matter much right now. It's, if anything, emblematic of their hunger for one another that they hadn't stopped to notice that it had simply been pushed aside and forgotten. ]
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Its fine, actually. He's almost at a loss when she pulls back. But then she hits the mat, and Rey's laugh brings a flicker of amusement across his face. Its much a quieter display than her own, but no less genuine. But Kylo Ren also senses that if he doesn't start to move him, then they will be there all day.
And for as much as Rey wants to stay at this distance forever, he can only handle so much contact in one day. He also wants to lay down before his legs completely give out from under him. He doesn't even want to think about how he is going to feel tomorrow morning.
He reaches out briefly to make sure they hadn't obtained company while they were lingering before stepping out of the stall and extending his hand to Rey with the intention of leading her out. If their clothes weren't try, he'd just wear them wet back to his room. He could probably hide form his roommate for long enough to let the rest of the moisture escape, or something.]
wraps this? ??
That great divide will return, she's sure. She doesn't need to worry about it while it's not here. She'd rather stay present in the moment, enjoying what she is given. Perhaps that's the same starved child logic that had led her to ingest the aphrodisiacs during the feast that knight previous, but it has served her well for most of her life. Keep the good things while they're good and don't count on them being there tomorrow.
The dryer is still running when they get to it, but the timer is low, so Rey opens it up anyway and starts disentangling his clothes from hers. She relocates her useless and torn breast binding in the process and casts it aside on top of the machine. While she gets dressed some part of her brain is like repair it, repair it but the other part of her brain is like in the Headquarters you could have just walked into a shop and gotten another, it's probably fine. She'll leave it there, forgotten, when they leave.
Enjoying the good things, and all. ]