Kylo (IT'S NOT A PHASE, DAD) Ren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
killthepast) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2018-02-14 10:27 pm
killthepast) wrote in riverviewlogs2018-02-14 10:27 pm
serving multiple gunshot wound realness [closed]
who: Kylo Ren and Various
what: Catch-all for February/March things while Kylo recovers from getting shot up in a street by some COMMON CRIMINALS (it was Poe and John). Mostly for threads that have already been planned, but feel free to poke me somewhere if you'd like me to put up a starter for you.
when: February & March
where: Mostly a skeevy motel
warnings: References to violence and torture
what: Catch-all for February/March things while Kylo recovers from getting shot up in a street by some COMMON CRIMINALS (it was Poe and John). Mostly for threads that have already been planned, but feel free to poke me somewhere if you'd like me to put up a starter for you.
when: February & March
where: Mostly a skeevy motel
warnings: References to violence and torture
no subject
Him visiting her at the hospital, waking up to seeing his form right there. His hand reaching out to hers, delivering a gift that was so simple but so significant.
Those memories and others flashed in her mind as he continued to speak. How she hurt him. How he opened up to her. They had traded things with one another. Traded memories, traded moments, shared them and kept them locked away. That seemed like an entire lifetime ago.]
You never told me that. I wanted to save the others as they were going to Crait, but that moment you decided to offer me a choice. It didn't look like you were going to let me save them!
[Rey notes the wince from him, her eyes looking for a wound, the source of his comfort. She can't find it, not when he steps closer that he's well within her reach.
No, she can't reach out to him, she will not look like she is begging or desperate for his touch.]
You don't think I did the same? I opened up myself to you, I shared things with you, and I felt peace when I was with you. You are the only one I've kissed, and I went to war for you--Ben! I tried to defend you to Poe, to Finn, to Leia! That maybe there was something more to you.
You. Not Han Solo's son, not the nephew of Luke Skywalker, not the Leader of the Knights of Ren--but YOU! We all got into a fight and I have been punishing myself over it!
[The tears started to flow freely down her face, leaving streaks on her cheeks. She had tried to defend him, to show he was more than what they thought, and it cost her weeks of self-imposed isolation.]
When has anything in my life have been easy, Ben? Would it be easier to call you a monster? Would it be easier to hate you? Yes, it would be! [She yells, her anger boiling over, all the feelings she's kept bottled in, tried to contain were coming out. It would be easier to hate him, but even after her last sentence, Rey reigns herself back in. She couldn't hate him. She just...couldn't. The heartache was easy to read on her face.]
It would be much easier to do that than to think about the times we've kissed, or the time we spent together in your bed. [She starts again in a harsh whisper.] You mean something to me, Ben, and I thought I meant something to you too.
[The words fly out of her mouth before she had time to think. She was only reacting to his emotions and it was...freeing in a way. It was one thing to tell Cisco that she had feelings for Ben, but another to say it to the man before her.
Was Ben truly done with the First Order? Or was this....was he just saying stupid shit because he could? But if he was done with this...then good. At least he'd be spared from the bloodshed. It won't stop her from helping the Resistance. It won't stop her from keeping her friends safe.]
Fine. I'll die doing what's right and you....will do what you want, regardless of who it hurts.
no subject
But she's done much the same to him. She expected him to join her with the Resistance, when he'd never any intention to. She thought some long-lost version Ben Solo would return, if he turned away from the Dark. He'd wanted her to be with him; she'd wanted him to be with the Resistance. ]
I killed Snoke. For you. [ It wasn't a power grab. He didn't go into the throne room expecting to come out the Supreme Leader. He'd done it because his loyalty had shifted to Rey. And everything after she left was just a mad scramble to find his feet, a child's tantrum acted out with terrifying weapons of war. ] And you got into an argument with your friends. [ Her falling out with Finn and Poe doesn't quite resonate with him, if only because he really can't grasp the significance of it to Rey. Truly, Ren is unaware of how cruel his words might be, an unintentional dismissal of all that she's been going through here since that falling out.
And perhaps that's the problem here: they didn't take the time to really know each other. Instead, they grasped to each other from across the galaxy, like lifelines, because they'd never known another kindred spirit before.
It hurts to see her cry, just as it did back then. It drains some of the anger in him, and his expression softens, as does his voice. A sorrowful frown twists at his lips. ]
Do you really think you mean nothing to me? [ 'I love you,' he almost says. Love, or loved, he's not sure which right now. Instead: ] You closed the door on me.
[ Did she not see his face, as he held the phantom of his father's dice in his hands? The regret and sorrow in his eyes?
Her last words put him back on the defensive. No, he will not be guilted by moral grandstanding. The Resistance isn't what's 'right' to him, and he won't give himself to it. And he won't give himself to her if that's how it's going to be. He's seen already how unhappy it can be, when an idealist, fervently devoted to a cause, tries to make room for love and family, too. Rifts. Resentment. Neglect. Because nobody will ever matter more than that cause. Not a partner, and not a child.
He's lived that already. ]
So be it. [ There's an awkward pause, a silence that he wants to fill with something else. The dueling impulses to make it right, or to scream at her and finally burn all bridges... Instead, he swallows and says: ] I'm staying here. [ This moon, he means. It's another impulsive decision, made right on the spot, because when does he ever really plan things out. ] I won't be going back.
no subject
She thought in going to the Supremacy, that Ben would walk away from Snoke. Rey's vision of Ben turning away from the evil creature was something she was clinging to. She knew there was light in him, knew there was good. Maybe he wouldn't join the Resistance, but as long as he tore away from the dark, then they could figure something else out. But that's the trouble with expectations. The pressure to bend to them, and the pain that came from them.]
I fought with my friends for you. I wanted both. I didn't want to choose.
[Now she's broken Poe's trust with her, possibly Finn's too. The first two friends she made in her life--friends who didn't just use her for a ship, or to steal portions from. People she cared about. People she would protect again and again. Their friendship to her was precious, and now it was crackling, threatening to break all because she defended Ben. Wanted to show he was more than what both men thought him to be.
Yes, it was cruel for Ben to simply discard her fight with her friends. She thought he would understood how valuable any connection was. How she clung tightly to those connections as she had with her connection to him. She thought...well, that was the trouble wasn't it? Clearly, she doesn't know Ben as well as she thought she had. Between the expectations and lacking of truly knowing him, she had set herself up for failure.
Even though she tried, she wanted to get to know him. She wanted to know more about him.]
I fought with them and have barely spoken to them since then. For you. [Cutting herself off, thinking it was for the best while she dealt with the emotion backlash of it. They both made sacrifices in this, and both were trying to get the other to understand.
The sorrowful look on his face makes her heart ache and causes more tears to flow. Yes, she remembers how he looked when he held the dice in his hands. It would be so easy to try and reach out to him, to try and place a hand on his cheek and try to comfort him as she had done in his bed. He meant something to her, and she...she meant something to him too.
They both feel something for each other--or felt, it's hard to tell now, and she can't bring herself to answer his question.]
I had to get them to safety. [The words ring hollow, but they were her truth. She couldn't chance his men taking the rest of the Resistance in chains. To have any of them be executed.]
It's....your decision. [The silence that flows in is hard to swallow. Rey doesn't know if Ben staying here is a good or bad thing. Perhaps good, if he was no longer part of the First Order, or if this is something he'll change his mind on...but she is torn to what to do. To try and figure something out, to comfort him and seek refuge in the one place where she felt peace...and maybe love, or put more distance between them.
Could she fully walk away from him? No...no she couldn't.]
I closed the door, but I haven't locked it.
[There was still a chance that...their fragile friendship could still live. Or there could be something more between them. ]
no subject
And for all that he feels for Rey, he doesn't find it in him to believe that her argument with her friends is in any way equivalent to him cutting down his Master for her. He'd betrayed the First Order, in a move that could very well end in his death, should his deception ever be discovered.
The more they talk, the more it becomes clear. Like Leia, she will always cling to them, her family in the Resistance. He will always come second. As if he hadn't had enough of that in his life. No, he's only now faced with a chance to learn who he even is without the legacy of his parents, or the Jedi, or the First Order looming over him. That needs to be his priority now, not vying for attention in an unwinnable competition.
He stares at Rey for a long moment, mulling over her words. At least she doesn't question his decision again, try to guilt him into stepping back into the fray. ]
Tell me why I should open it again.